I've
mentioned Harold Bloom before. As the first serious literary critic I read of
my own volition (having studied some of the postmodern theorists in college),
I've found a lot of my early interpretations of Shakespeare heavily influenced
by him.
There's an
irony there: One of Bloom's primary theses is what he terms "the anxiety
of influence", a consciousness on the part of an author of where
inspiration comes from. In this case, my early critical voice was influenced by
Bloom, but, being young, I didn't sense--or care--that I was so emulative. It
didn't become a large 'anxiety' until I started to reread some of my earlier
work. Now I see that there is definitely something to his point.
I won't deny
that I'm still a little anxious about how much influence Shakespeare has had on
me as a writer. As I mentioned while discussing Writ in Blood, I'm nervous about how the story comes across as an
homage of the Bard. But the love of Shakespeare has pushed me past emulation
and toward appropriation, an internalization of his cadences and concepts. I'm
not particularly interested in retelling Shakespeare's stories, per se, but I am interested in
incorporating aspects of Shakespeare into other parts of my writing.
The biggest
issue with considering Shakespeare as my "spirit guide" to writing is
the fact that every writer, in some way or another, has to react to (or
against) Shakespeare. The great thing about the long shadows of the Western
Tradition (Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton,
Austen) is that I can trace back the stirrings, beginnings, and causes of the
echoes that have reverberated through millennia. It's almost like a genealogy,
a family tree of ancestor writers whose marks have birthed the literary world
in which I'm writing. The downside to these shadows is that it can sometimes
feel impossible to write around (or without) them.
There are
some minds, some ideas that are so potent that they change the world. Love them
or hate them, you can't escape their influence. Freud is one; Marx, another.
The "Dead White Men" of Western letters are that way, too, and no one
stands taller than William Shakespeare.
In a lot of
ways, every writer has to, eventually, face the fact that she is writing in a
post-Shakespearean world. I like to use the hashtag #shakespeareiseverywhere so
that I can keep organized all of the places where the Bard crops up. His
clichés (well, now they're clichés;
when he wrote them, they were fresh and powerful) abound. I see them in almost
every novel I read. I heard a couple of Shakespearean lines in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. There's a
bust of Shakespeare in the video game Batman:
Arkham Knight. Fantasy novels, containing worlds that never had the Bard,
drop phrases that were originally coined by that Sweet Swan of Avon.
It should
come, then, as no surprise that every writer--either by embracing Shakespeare
or rejecting him entirely--has to, in some way, confront the influence of Shakespeare. Picking up a pen--putting
words to page--is an implicit acknowledgment of following in the footsteps of
the greatest writer to have lived.
So why deny
it? He's part of my bloodstream, a secular sacramental wafer that I've
willingly consumed so frequently that I start to get withdrawals if I'm away
from him for too long.
This passion
for Shakespeare has also dictated how I've absorbed history. I teach English
(and Shakespeare) and World History, and despite the responsibility to cover
major world events from 1300 to the present, I feel my greatest attachment to
the parts of history that directly pertain to Shakespeare.
Hundred
Years' War? Only matters at the end, when 1
Henry VI comes along. I care less for the historical Joan d'Arc and more
for the Joan d'Pucelle of the play (which is hardly one of the great works that
Shakespeare put together). French and Prussian history mildly interests me, but
I'm definitely more intrigued by Renaissance Venice because of the merchant
who, though a fiction, lived there. Any Elizabethan or Jacobean history lands
squarely into my wheelhouse (expanded all the way up to the Restoration, since
Milton was writing at that time) because that history pertains to what
Shakespeare knew. My curiosity of the pre-Roman Britain is centered solely
around King Leir (and the play that Shakespeare would write, King Lear), though it's expanding toward
Cymbeline, too.
This is not a
permanent setting, but it is my default. I'm slowly becoming a better historian
with greater interest in the world outside of Shakespeare, but that process is
entirely due to the Bard. Without wanting to know his context and world, I
wouldn't likely extend myself to much outside of the sparse parameters of my
history curriculum.
Because of
that fascination with certain segments of English history, I have recently
finished writing a book in which the Jack the Ripper murders (obviously not Shakespearean) provide a starting
point for an Elizabethan-style fantasy world. The setting is strongly evocative
of the real-world London that Shakespeare would have known, and there are
anxieties I have about this book.
First of all,
England as the de facto setting for
fantasy literature is a trope that goes all the way back to Tolkien (though
some people argue that The Tempest is
the first actual fantasy story--a claim that I disregard). A medieval,
quasi-British location describes thousands of fantasy books, including Lloyd
Alexander's Prydain Chronicles,
aspects of C.S. Lewis' the Narnia
Chronicles, and even more contemporary, worthwhile work like Patrick
Rothfuss' the Kingkiller Chronicles. (Lots
of Chronicles. Maybe I should avoid that phrase when titling my book.) There's
nothing wrong with setting a fantasy book in a British-esque locale. George
R.R. Martin does so with his Song of Ice
and Fire series. Indeed, that series is a more graphic (violently and
sexually) retelling of the Wars of the Roses, and also is replete with plot
twists, verbal constructions, and important, deep thinking as a Shakespearean
play. (Shakespeare is still better.)
Another issue
is that I'm aware of a lack of diversity, especially in science-fiction and
fantasy writing. Aside from tired tropes like the Chosen One or the Quest,
which have a strong basis in British literature in the first place, it's an
indication of laziness about who lived where and what they did during the
medieval and Renaissance past. The idea, for example, that there were no Jews
in England comes about because of royal degrees, pogroms, and official laws.
But the idea that no Jews lived in
England is laughable. It's like the idea that there were no people of color in
medieval Europe: the idea is demonstrably false. But overcoming people's
expectations of a lack of diversity is difficult. Some people feel that
incorporating diversity is caving into political correctness (it's not, but
that's beside the point). Others feel that the fantastical that's based heavily
on history has to take all aspects of history into its fantasy. Martin is
obviously in this camp, since patriarchy and primogeniture provide the
motivation for almost all of the political machinations. The issue for me becomes
not "I don't want to do another English-based fantasy because I want
diversity, and England doesn't have it", but instead "I don't want another English-based fantasy because it
seems like we've worn that trick out."
All of this
comes through because of my obsession with Shakespeare. And I'm not alone.
Hundreds of books come out every year about Shakespeare--his life, times,
plays, receptions, performances--and countless others interact with him still.
I'm proud to
be a part of that tradition.