What was Shakespeare's relationship to London? How did the man from Stratford come to thrive in the city? In what ways did city life craft his career and enliven his plays? Who were Shakespeare's contemporaries, and how did their fellowship in the city influence the way his plays represent identity, class, and political power? Two recent monographs from David M. Bergeron and Duncan Salkeld revisit Shakespeare's relationship to London. By contextualizing Shakespeare's biography and works within distinct but interconnected cultural forces along the Thames, both Bergeron and Salkeld consider Shakespeare's life and career through London's social, political, and artistic ethos.
In Shakespeare's London: 1613, David M. Bergeron examines how the Jacobean court enlivened and often financed London's public entertainments. Like other recent monographs in early modern cultural studies, Shakespeare's London profiles a single year, 1613 (see, for example, James Shapiro, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599 [2005]; Helen Wilcox, 1611: Authority, Gender and the Word in Early Modern England [2014]; and James P. P. Horn, 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy [2018]; among others). Scholars familiar with the momentous death of Prince Henry Stuart, Princess Elizabeth Stuart's marriage to the German prince Fredrick, and the scandalous Overbury Affair will not be surprised to see the year 1613 receive the biographical treatment. 1613 was also the year when Shakespeare became an owner of the indoor and more upscale Blackfriars after the Globe burned to the ground. Nevertheless, through the cultural history of 1613, Bergeron offers two profiles. The first is William Shakespeare. The second is Ludovic Stewart, second Duke of Lennox, who was considerably involved as patron and sometimes performer in masques and tilts. While rank and access to political power distinguish these two figures, their contributions to London's entertainments indelibly ties them together in the historical record.
The primary events considered by Bergeron are, first, the sudden death of Prince Henry Stuart in the fall of 1612. The physical prowess of the prince, his bond with his family, and his support of the arts become points of inspiration for the artists appointed to commemorate his descent into poor health and eventual death. Themes of mourning would turn to joy with the wedding celebrations for Princess Elizabeth, whose union with the German prince, Fredrick, spurred an outpouring of courtly entertainments that sought to renew a sense of hope in the wake of Henry Stuart's demise. After the lavish wedding entertainments, the summer featured Shakespeare and Fletcher's collaboration on All's True, or Henry VIII. Within the context of 1613, Bergeron views the playwrights’ retrospective on the Tudor monarchs as a text driven by anticipation of the Stuarts’ arrival in England (and the de facto joining of Scotland and England). However, the depiction of Henry VIII's divorce from Katherine of Aragon and remarriage to Anne Boleyn coincidentally anticipates the final major event of 1613 and Bergeron's study: the case of Frances Howard's divorce from Robert, second Earl of Essex, and remarriage to the King's favorite, Robert Carr, in the Overbury Affair.
Throughout this cultural history, Bergeron features theatrical pieces created to be in dialogue with the court's political upheaval. Snippets of masques, tilts, and pageants appear and reappear across the four chapters as the writers employed by the court shift their work to new audiences. Moreover, while Bergeron will occasionally delve into the literature itself, the book is primarily interested in situating well-known texts (such as The Tempest) within a network of lesser-studied works by Shakespeare's contemporaries. This portrait of the city reveals a deeply porous and collaborative art scene intent not just on the creation of court entertainment, but a creative network enmeshed with the losses and machinations of political power at its highest levels.
Where Shakespeare's London: 1613 focuses on the poet and playwright alongside court life, Duncan Salkeld's Shakespeare and London approaches the writer's life and influence from the perspective of the city's most marginalized inhabitants. Here, London's sex workers, vagrants, as well as the criminalized and imprisoned populate the city and influence the dramatic and writerly scene—a scene in which Shakespeare was but one player. Salkeld's monograph is part of Oxford's extensive series that seeks to approach different aspects of early modern cultural history through the perspective of Shakespeare and his works. Each text in this ongoing and celebrated series is about Shakespeare and a cultural topic. For Salkeld, focusing on the city of London alongside Shakespeare is a way to decenter the preeminence of Shakespeare in the critical imagination and instead highlight the many other writers, creators, and influential people who lived and worked when Shakespeare did.
In the first chapter, Salkeld problematizes the notion that London was Shakespeare's. Salkeld underscores how Shakespeare, born in the countryside, was in fact an outsider who eventually found economic and artistic success in the city. Shakespeare was just one writer among many. Consequently, Salkeld introduces fellow writers like Thomas Nashe, Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, George Peele, Christopher Marlowe, and the many other dramatists and poets who were Shakespeare's contemporaries. These writers are highlighted not only for their collaborations with Shakespeare but also for their independent work and contributions to the artistic spirit of early modern London. The city is more than a backdrop for the production of literature. Rather, through an analysis of different neighborhoods in London (for example, Clerkenwell or Southwark), Salkeld shows the energy of city life rising and crafting the dramatic works performed in the city and its suburbs, animating the stories they tell.
The influence of London on the literature it made possible is not, however, an exclusively literary scene. Instead, as Salkeld's chapters on “People,” “Art/Authority,” and “Diversity” show, writing and artistic works were produced in and among the London underworld's negotiation with the city government as it sought to control marginalized and impoverished communities. Salkeld does not shy away from acknowledging Shakespeare's connections to some of the most perverse figures of the period, including the actor and rapist, Christopher Beeston, and the writer and assailant George Wilkins, both of whom were collaborators. Nor does this text ignore the abuses inflicted by government officials such as alderman, beadles, magistrates, and constables. Salkeld demonstrates that there was significant violence and even cruelty in the very circles in which Shakespeare lived and worked. Shakespeare's dramatic works, for example, Measure for Measure and Taming of the Shrew, are not only reflective of this culture but also implicated in its systems of power.
Both of these works will be particularly useful to students and scholars looking for a detailed yet wide-ranging overview of Shakespeare's networks, both literary and political. Although Bergeron and Salkeld describe very different Londons—one from the court, one from the alleyways—both Londons are undoubtedly Shakespeare's.
