Rowse on Shakespeare

A.L. Rowse remarked in his masterpiece, The England of Elizabeth, that "Human egoism is the greatest motive force in the world." In his claims for his biography of Shakespeare, Rowse has stretched the greatest motive force to its outermost limits. His work has, he announces, "shed light upon problems hitherto intractable, produced results which might seem incredible...." He has solved, "for the first time and definitely," the riddles of the sonnets, he has established "a firm chronology" for Shakespeare's life, he has brought about "an unhoped-for enrichment of the contemporary content and experience that went into a number of the plays."

Expansiveness is characteristic of Rowse, who seems to live in a world of the superlative and the absolute. But these extravagant claims tend to make a reader dismiss the book completely when the boasts are not fulfilled. And while the book is not the key to Shakespeare's life and works that Rowse would have us believe, it is hardly the worthless drivel that his harsher critics profess to see.

Rowse brings unique advantages to his study; he probably knows as much about Elizabethan times as any other man and he has collected an immense mass of material on Shakespeare's contemporaries and their England. The first three chapters, describing the country of Warwickshire, the town of Stratford and the education Shakespeare might have received, are as interesting as they are detailed, and it seems inconceivable that any further research could have made them much more extensive. Again, in describing the London of Shakespeare's time and the courtiers who befriended the young poet, Rowse is superb.

It is when he turns to literary criticism--and this takes up the bulk of the volume--that his historian's experience betrays him. It was Rowse's professed hope that by the use of proper "historical method" he could establish firm dates for the plays and poems, and then go on to unravel topical references in the material, as well as problems in Shakespeare's life.

But his historical background is harmful, as well as helpful, to his book. Rowse is accustomed to working with facts, and even when working with non-factual questions he is used to writing bluntly and without qualification. He makes no attempt to conceal his hatred of the Puritans, for instance. They are "fanatics," "frightful kill-joys," and "obnoxious," while one of their leaders, Robert Browne, is "un-attractive, ill-tempered, wife-beating." In reading his histories, one may simply take note of Rowse's strongly stated biases, and correct for them in matters of opinion. But when he brings to literary criticism the same assertiveness, and fails to provide the evidence on which he makes his assertions, he not only annoys his readers, but fails to convince them.

The professor simply never recognizes the existence of other views. In dating the plays, and in naming the sources from which Shakespeare worked, he simply makes assertions, and rarely bothers to prove them. In determining the date of Richard II, a subject on which there has been some difference of opinion, Rowse states simply "The play was written in 1595, for it draws on Samuel Daniel's poem, The Civil Wars between the Two Houses of Lancaster and York"--and that is all the evidence we receive.

The assumption of infallibility is unacceptable because occasional small errors in Rowse's text challenge us to question his larger statements: "Not being a man of action," he writes, "Hamlet's first thought on receiving the fatal injunction [the ghost's command to kill his uncle] is suicide:

that the Everlasting had not fixed His canon gainst self-slaughter!"

These two lines, of course, are spoken before Hamlet has received "the fatal injunction" and his first thoughts when he does receive it contain no reference to suicide. This error in turn casts doubt on the assumption that "Hamlet is not a man of action" and hurts Rowse's evaluation of the play.

But if Rowse's assertiveness and strong language are irritating at times, they make for superb writing at others. He is clearly in love with the "exciting ... inspiring" times, with the poet whose life he is describing, and with the "precious, irreplaceable," and "unparalleled" woman who ruled England during most of Shakespeare's life. Although this blunt, opinionated man does not seem to be the chosen explicator of the infinitely subtle Shakespeare, his book is a valuable, lucid addition to the biographics of the poet. It irritates as often as it enlightens, but it enlightens very often indeed.