FLOGGING SHAKESPEARE: IMAGE “I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel” (5.1.50-55). In As You Like It there is a character Touchstone (which in Greek is Basanos), who is a brilliant poet, who was expelled from Court, and whose work is not understood. It seems clear that this represents the true author, the poet Amelia Bassano. Then there is an unlearned clown ‘William’ from Arden---who is clearly Shakespeare since his mother came from Arden—who the Basanos fills up with figures of rhetoric. Unsurprisingly the Basanos hates William and wants to kill him, or at least beat him with a bastinado (a 16th century term derived from the Spanish for a stick). This is why in our cover art we show her beating Mr Shakespeare with a paddle marked ‘FAKE’.
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 14:24:07 +0000
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