The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.1092 Thursday, 25 May 2000.

From: Charles Frey <cfrey@u.washington.edu>

Date: Wednesday, 24 May 2000 11:42:25 -0700

Subject: Re: SHK 11.1086 Re: Commercial Announcement

It may be germane to respond to David Evett's posting on No Bed for Bacon with a reminder of the plagiarism from that book by Stoppard for his screenplay, "Shakespeare in Love." I quote from my earlier posting: There have been at least two references on SHAKSPER to the novel No Bed for Bacon, by Caryl Brahms (pseudonym for Doris Caroline Abrahams) and S. J. Simon (London: Michael Joseph, Ltd., 1941). It has been alleged that this novel is an unacknowledged source for the film "Shakespeare in Love." I found the novel in the University of Washington library, read it, and can report the following. It is set in London in 1594. Henslowe is short of money. In good times he is friends with Burbage, in bad times, enemies. There is a shortage of players and threat of plague. Shakespeare is introduced practicing various spellings of his name, and, throughout the novel, he gets ideas for now-famous lines by overhearing other persons. There is a rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet. Shakespeare is writing Twelfth Night for the Queen and Essex. Francis Drake would like to ship Essex to "Raleigh's new colony" (22), and Raleigh's cloak figures prominently. One Viola Compton is a maid of honor to the Queen, and Essex fancies her. Viola visits Shakespeare's theater, is attracted to Shakespeare, and tells Elizabeth that she, Viola, wants to go to Shakespeare disguised as a boy. Viola, pretending to be a boy actor, recites Shakespeare's lines at audition and "There was an expression of awe on Shakespeare's face" (94). Later he says to her, "you can speak a line. By God-you can speak a line" (172). Shakespeare is pressured on all sides to finish the writing of various plays. He gives Viola the part of Viola in Twelfth Night, and he soon discovers that she is Viola Compton. They seem to love each other, but no lovemaking is clearly evoked. Near the end, he tells Viola he wants to write a play for her, "a play that needs a woman and cannot be acted by some prancing boy" (223). On the last page, Viola, as she is leaving, tells Shakespeare: "You have never so much as written a single sonnet to me" (224), and the novel ends with these words: "He reached for another sheet. He thought. Soon he was writing again. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day." According to an article in Entertainment Weekly, Feb. 12, 1999, "Tom Stoppard says he flipped through the book 'when he first got the job' and found it 'of no use'." I do think the film clearly draws on the world and spirit of the book. Stoppard might helpfully admit that, but he has, in my judgment, every right to be proud of his (and Marc Norman's?) contributions to the plot and proud of his own witty and sometimes trenchant and moving writing.

Charles H. Frey