Shakespeare, the social climber

Significant new evidence has been unearthed to shed light on a much speculated aspect of Shakespeare’s life – his status in society during his lifetime.

It has been previously speculated that around 1596, and on behalf of his father John, Shakespeare started inquiring about a coat of arms. Now Heather Wolfe, who is curator of manuscripts at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, has come across many previously unknown sketches of a coat of arms that are attributed to “Shakespeare the player.”

The document sheds light on Shakespeare’s desire to be recognised and his efforts to construct his life in a way that would help him achieve this end. “It makes it abundantly clear that while Shakespeare was obtaining the arms on behalf of his father, it was really for his own status,” she claims.

The document also helps settle a widely believed rumour that William Shakespeare of Stratford and William Shakespeare the playwright as we know him are not the same person. Alan H. Nelson, who contributes to Ms. Wolfe’s project Shakespeare Documented, says it “helps to confirm everything we know about the arc of Shakespeare’s career and the way he understood himself in the context of his society.”

Where are all the women writers?

VIDA is a research organisation that focuses on issues of gender equality and women’s writing in the world of contemporary literature and publishing.

Each year they release a 1,000 data point Count breaking down the representation of women in mainstream publications. In an effort to be more intersectional, the Count this year has been broadened to look at race, ethnicity, sexual identity and ability, alongside gender.

Some troubling statistics about women of colour have come out of the 2015 Count, with only 17 out of the 47 bylines the survey respondents represented coming from women of colour. During the previous year’s count there was only one such identifying woman.

When it comes to matters of sexual identity both The New Yorker and the Times Literary Supplement seem to be doing well, publishing women authors/reviewers in all sexual identity categories. The Atlantic falls short in this regard, with just one writer who identifies on the broad sexual spectrum compared to 19 bylines by heterosexual writers.

Alarmingly, nearly half of the 15 publications in VIDA’s Main Count did not publish any women writers who identified themselves as a person with disability.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, July 10th, 2016