In Search of Shakespeare
2004: David Wallace

This is a thoughtfully composed series of four episodes dealing with both the man and the artist, by the master of the “In Search of...” format, Michael Wood. It’s effective and occasionally moving, and Wood’s enthusiasm is, as always, infectious. The four episodes are:

1. A Time of Revolution
2. The Lost Years
3. The Duty of Poets
4. For All Time

At least some of the impulse behind this series is establishing something about the authorship question — were the plays we attribute to Shakespeare written actually by Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon, or by someone else? This question continues to be contested aggressively in every generation, with many partisans of Marlowe, or Bacon, or the Duke of Oxford, and it shows little sign of subsiding. Wood offers a number of enticing suggestions in support of the position that these actually belong to William Shakespeare himself. While it doesn’t really go very far to prove that position, and it’s highly possible that we will never have access to enough concrete material to do so, it nevertheless provides a plausible contextual setting that makes it seem entirely possible, contrary to the assumptions of the naysayers.

I confess that I am myself among those who believe that it’s entirely possible that a well-born lad from Stratford could rise to this level of achievement, but I’m also among those who don’t care as much about the biographical underpinnings as about the nature of the artistic product itself. Still, the question is rich and interesting.

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