In 1995 Unesco named April 23 World Book Day because of a morbid
literary coincidence. Both William Shakespeare and Miguel de
Cervantes died April 23, 1616, the same exact date but 10 days apart,
since England was on the Julian Calendar while Spain was on the
Gregorian. It's a fortunate coincidence (or near coincidence) because
collectively, they produced one of the greatest missing literary
works of all time, the play "Cardenio." And on World Book Day I
always find myself thinking about the books that don't exist more
than the ones that do.
We know almost nothing about "Cardenio." The King's Men, that
uniquely blessed theater company that held the privilege of staging
new Shakespeare material, performed the play before James I in May
and June of 1613, and no contemporary record other than the fact of
the performances has survived. Shakespeare most likely co-wrote the
piece with his favorite collaborator, John Fletcher, who often used
Spanish novels as a source for his drama. We assume the play was
based on Cervantes' novel "Don Quixote" because Cardenio is the name
of a major character from the book, and the material was timely;
Thomas Shelton released his celebrated translation of the "Quixote" in 1612.
While it may seem inconceivable to us that the smallest scraps of
Shakespeare's genius would fail to be preserved like holy relics,
oblivion was not an uncommon ending for plays of the early 17th
century. Shakespeare's "Pericles" exists only in a lousy quarto,
which is so badly transcribed scholars assume it was done by someone
jotting down the script from memory after having seen the show (the
early modern equivalent of the grainy pirated videos you can buy on
the subway). Like most dramatists of the period, Shakespeare didn't
care about his plays after their performances, made no effort to
publish them and received no money from their publication.
<http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124001426103530947.html>Link
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Posted By johannes to
<http://www.monochrom.at/english/2009/04/longing-for-great-lost-works-from.htm>monochrom
at 4/20/2009 02:54:00 PM
