Shakespeare, the 'hard-headed businessman'
Hoarder, moneylender, tax dodger - it's not how we usually think of
William Shakespeare. But we should, according to a group of academics
who say the Bard was a ruthless businessman who grew wealthy dealing in
grain during a time of famine.
Researchers from Aberystwyth University in Wales argue that we can't
fully understand Shakespeare unless we study his often-overlooked
business savvy. "Shakespeare the grain-hoarder has been redacted from
history so that Shakespeare the creative genius could be born," the
researchers say in a paper due to be delivered at the Hay literary
festival in Wales in May.
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William Shakespeare |
Jayne Archer, a lecturer in medieval and Renaissance literature at
Aberystwyth, said that oversight is the product of "a willful ignorance
on behalf of critics and scholars who I think - perhaps through snobbery
- cannot countenance the idea of a creative genius also being motivated
by self-interest."
Archer and her colleagues Howard Thomas and Richard Marggraf Turley
combed through historical archives to uncover details of the
playwright's parallel life as a grain merchant and property owner in the
town of Stratford-upon-Avon whose practices sometimes brought him into
conflict with the law.
"Over a 15-year period he purchased and stored grain, malt and barley
for resale at inflated prices to his neighbours and local tradesmen,"
they wrote, adding that Shakespeare "pursued those who could not (or
would not) pay him in full for these staples and used the profits to
further his own money-lending activities."
He was pursued by the authorities for tax evasion, and in 1598 was
prosecuted for hoarding grain during a time of shortage.
The charge sheet against Shakespeare was not entirely unknown, though
it may come as shock to some literature lovers. But the authors argue
that modern readers and scholars are out of touch with the harsh
realities the writer and his contemporaries faced.
He lived and wrote in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, during
a period known as the "Little Ice Age," when unusual cold and heavy rain
caused poor harvests and food shortages.
"I think now we have a rather rarefied idea of writers and artists as
people who are disconnected from the everyday concerns of their
contemporaries," Archer said. "But for most writers for most of history,
hunger has been a major concern - and it has been as creatively
energizing as any other force."
She argues that knowledge of the era's food insecurity can cast new
light on Shakespeare's plays, including* Coriolanus*, which is set in an
ancient Rome wracked by famine. The food protests in the play can be
seen to echo the real-life 1607 uprising of peasants in the English
Midlands, where Shakespeare lived.
Shakespeare scholar Jonathan Bate told the Sunday Times newspaper
that Archer and her colleagues had done valuable work, saying their
research had "given new force to an old argument about the
contemporaneity of the
protests over grain-hoarding in Coriolanus." Archer said famine also
informs King Lear, in which an aging monarch's unjust distribution of
his land among his three daughters sparks war.
"In the play there is a very subtle depiction of how dividing up land
also involves impacts on the distribution of food," Archer said.
Archer said the idea of Shakespeare as a hardheaded businessman may
not fit with romantic notions of the sensitive artist, but we shouldn't
judge him too harshly.
Hoarding grain was his way of ensuring that his family and neighbours
would not go hungry if a harvest failed.
"Remembering Shakespeare as a man of hunger makes him much more
human, much more understandable, much more complex," she said.
"He would not have thought of himself first and foremost as a writer.
Possibly as an actor - but first and foremost as a good father, a good
husband and a good citizen to the people of Stratford." She said the
playwright's funeral monument in Stratford's Holy Trinity Church
reflected this.
The original monument erected after his death in 1616 showed
Shakespeare holding a sack of grain. In the 18th century, it was
replaced with a more "writerly" memorial depicting Shakespeare with a
tasseled cushion and a quill pen.
- ewallstreeter.com
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