Letters
Leading authority
Sir: I am bowled over by Peter Levi's generosity of spirit (Books, 18 August): he shows justice of mind, so rare a quality in a critic, or anybody. (One can always tell the third-rate by their reactions: they think they have nothing to learn from the leading authority on Shakespeare's life and times.)
The one simple question at issue is — Is there a NEED for The Contemporary Shakespeare?
There is every evidence that there is such a need. In the USA we were told by a senior executive responsible for purchasing books for Catholic High Schools across the country that, in his experience, he had known of many classes that would not take Shakespeare, because of the archaism of the language. I learned from television, with Dick Cavett that many classes are given a synopsis of the play, then their professor reads them Notes. Dreadful. Anything to help!
On his last TV appearance (with me in New York), Richard Burton was generous- ly enthusiastic; he said that in his film of The Taming of the Shrew they had had to cut out the comic passage about the dis- eases of Petruchio's horse, for nobody knew what it meant. He then read my rendering of it, making it perfectly intel- ligible.
At the English-Speaking Union Confer- ence at Oxford last month an Indian teacher spoke up and said that this was just what India needed. A young Belgian teacher volunteered that she would use this edition in her classes.
At the premiere of Romeo and Juliet in Virginia, for Shakespeare's birthday, a fellow came up and said that he had enjoyed it the more because he could understand it all.
This is just what we are aiming at answering a real NEED, as to which there is no doubt. It is open to everyone to use any edition of Shakespeare he likes there are so many quite good ones, dis- couragingly burdened with footnotes, cri- tical introductions, bibliographical para- phernalia, etc, that not a single new con- ventional edition of Shakespeare is neces- sary — waste of time, paper and money.
But there is every evidence of the need for The Contemporary Shakespeare, get- ting rid of superfluous difficulties, to help people in all countries.
A. L. Rowse
Trenarren House, St Austell, Cornwall
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