Fry Bloom
Northrop Fry and Harold Bloom don't know Shakespeare.

Geoffrey Hamilton

August 23, 2003

Two of contemporary Shakespeare scholarship's most eminent names are also two of the most ignorant defenders of Shakespeare orthodoxy. Northrop Frye and Harold Bloom are required reading when it comes to Shakespeare studies, yet as they base much of their surmising on the so-called life of Shakespeare of Stratford upon Avon, they do much to devalue their life's work. Each of these critics reflects their comments off of this "life" as though there is no doubt, but they are well aware of the doubts and have refused to look into the matter. In both cases they have, by their words and actions, refused to even examine the evidence directly and, so, have brought discredit onto themselves.

Frye introduces his "On Shakespeare" by stating, "I'm not going into the so-called controversies about whether the plays were written by someone else or not--they're not serious issues." Then he belies his certainty with off-the-shelf defensiveness saying that Shakespeare, like most writers of his time, did not impress himself on his age, so that is why we know so little about him. Despite this claim, a few pages later he mentions in passing how 'Shakespeare's' play Richard II was used to stir up the masses in the Essex Rebellion and how the Queen is quoted as believing this play to be a representation of her. Most impressive it would say. But unlike most writers of the time who were tortured and imprisoned for other minor offenses and their books burned (like Nashe, Jonson, Marlowe and Kyd), this most treasonous play doesn't even get the honour of an query into the author's name. Whoever the author was he was ignored while everyone else connected to the play's performance, from two high ranking earls, to lowly beggars, were named and/or killed. Here could have been proof of Shakspere of Stratford's authorship, but once again evidence is not forthcoming. Frye is so unaware of his willing ignorance that he does not realize that the Queen never did name his man from Stratford in her comment. Neither does anyone mention him as a writer during his life time, or for years after his death. Interestingly, only the writer of Richard II impressed the age to the degree whereas, in her comments, we have the Queen of England's impression of a contemporary dramatic work. But still she gave no name. She did, though, go on to say that the writer was ungrateful to her merely by writing this old play - meaning she expected gratitude but also implying that she knew him. Frye is unaware of this or unwilling to notice it because we should then have a claim that the Queen knew his Shakspere personally, which he knows she did not. Someone else then is Shakespeare.

Frye is not interested in the controversy, yet he is interested in making comments like: 'Shakespeare need not have had a first hand knowledge of what he wrote about, and that he still had the instincts of a born courtier and that he didn't write about what he knew because his biography indicates he knew only the theatre and that is the best education there is.'

Frye decides to reason a complete circle that, as we don't have any evidence for his education or of his authorship, his association with the theatre must indicate the theatre contains all relevant experience -- the only evidence for this contention being the Shakespeare canon itself. I won't try to say you can't read Frye's admonition to circular reasoning any other way because human misinterpretation knows no limitations, but I will say that Frye demonstrates no first-hand knowledge of the historical record of either Shakspere of Stratford or of Edward de Vere, the actual author who used the pseudonym Shake-speare.

Frye in his "Anatomy of Criticism" incriminates himself even more than Bloom by spelling out how biography will always be a part of criticism and, further, that elements of biography are essential. Frye even misuses Shakespeare to make his point, unaware of the irony.

Harold Bloom in his "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human" demonstrates marginally more knowledge of Shakspere and Edward de Vere and incidentally argued against de Vere, ad homenon, in Harper's Magazine a few years ago. However, it makes little difference to Bloom's use of the orthodox myths.

While Bloom moves away from conventional Shakepeare myths (Frye's) he does so only marginally - for example, by dating Hamlet to 1588 and putting it back in the poet's, Shakespeare's, hands - and in other such tinkerings. Bloom, as he indicated in the Harper's piece, is not going to actually look at the historical evidence for or against Shakspere of Stratford. He uses the myths off-the-shelf because his only interest is the experience of Shakespeare's poetry.

As he puts it, "Bardolatry, the worship of Shakespeare, ought to be even more of a secular religion than it already is." Further it appears myth and a pseudo-catholic mystery are at the heart of what he wants to worship. How else can this quotation of Bloom's be explained? "How he was possible, I cannot know, and after two decades of teaching little else, I find the enigma insoluble." Bloom is a man who had every opportunity and motive to critically examine the historical record, but, as he has indicated in his book and in his Harper's article, he has never in his life, nor will he ever, reduce himself to examine the evidence.

When you witness Bloom's chronology of the plays and his resultant reasoning you see just one of the ways that he has gone horribly wrong. The result is not only a scholar who bases everything on a mistake, but one who willing does so for quasi-religious purposes.

Frye and Bloom could be ignored in the authorship debate except for the fact that their influential premises create a false and misleading context for the study of Shakespeare. If they had done the honourable thing in this debate they would have refrained from stating as fact something they know nothing about by choice.


As a postscript, it is interesting to note that Bloom calls Shakespeare the "magester ludi" and points to a passage from A Winter's Tale, "The art itself is nature" saying this is a "wonderfully ambiguous declaration" which he eventually accepted as representative of the poet. Frye agrees saying, "Art must be its own object....(and) cannot be ultimately descriptive of something." I personally believe Shakespeare is the best game player of his kind - most likely because he saw the need for games in the natural world and that games supply the most fundamental motivation in life to continue existing. Bloom recognizes Shakespeare's consistent nihilism, his playfulness and his gusto. Bloom could benefit from adding these facts up and conclude that Shakespeare did not just believe but knew that nature needs games.

GRH

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