The Tragedy of Arthur

Synopsis and text

Preface

The book opens with a Preface by the editors of Random House, introducing the text as the "first modern edition of The Tragedy of Arthur by William Shakespeare." It provides a brief summary of the Shakespearean canon and Apocrypha, claiming that The Tragedy of Arthur is "the first certain addition to Shakespeare's canon since the seventeenth century." They also thank Professor Roland Verre for his research confirming the play's authenticity, as well as Peter Bryce, David Crystal, Tom Clayton, and Ward Elliott for their efforts. Finally, the Preface thanks Arthur Phillips for writing an Introduction, as well as for editing and annotating the text of the play. However, Random House strongly recommends that readers read the play before the introduction, "allowing Shakespeare to speak for himself, at least at first", before perusing Phillips' "very personal Introduction" or "the many other commentaries sure to be available soon".

Introduction

The Introduction is written by Arthur Phillips, a fictionalized version of Arthur Phillips, who opens the Introduction by admitting that he "never much liked Shakespeare." Phillips qualifies his lack of interest in the Bard, and notes that The Tragedy of Arthur could plausibly be the work of Shakespeare, as it is "as good as most of his stuff, or as bad." Even though Phillips admits that he is not a memoirist, and his reputation may be damaged by this story, he insists that: "to understand this play, its history, and how it came to be here, a certain quantity of [his] autobiography is unavoidable."

From there, the rest of the Introduction serves as a memoir of the fictional Arthur Phillips, his twin sister, Dana, and their father, A.E.H. Phillips, a con artist and Shakespeare enthusiast who was in and out of prison for their entire childhood. The twins are raised in Minneapolis, and from an early age, their father tries to get them interested in Shakespeare – Arthur remains ambivalent, while Dana is immediately hooked. Arthur narrates their childhood, regularly interrupting himself to apologize for any lapses in memory or "falling prey to the distortions of memoir writing.". A.E.H. Phillips continues to be in and out of jail amidst various schemes, from petty coupon scams to forging signatures on fake Rembrandt paintings. Arthur and Dana's parents ultimately divorce, and their mother marries a man named Silvius diLorenzo, with whom she had had a brief relationship in college.

The Introduction is more about Arthur's father than anything else - A.E.H. Phillips "continually shoves his way to the foreground, wherever [Arthur turns] memory's camera." Arthur's relationship to his father is strained – he points out that his father, through Shakespeare, "took [his] best friend, Dana, away from" him. Arthur spends much of the Introduction trying to describe his father despite his limited presence in his son's life, both through tropes – "the Anglophilic, artsy, bohemian Jew" despite not being "interested in himself as a Jew at all, but by no means interested in anonymity" – as well as through personal anecdotes. He claims that his father was interested in the proliferation of mystery and "wonder", rather than cold hard facts, as he sought to redeem "the world's vanishing faith in wonder".

"I admit that this seems a long way from an Introduction to a newly discovered Shakespeare play; this essay is fast becoming an example of that most dismal genre, the memoir. All I can say is that the truth of the play requires understanding the truth of my life."

The Tragedy of Arthur (play)

The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain (more widely known as The Tragedy of Arthur) is a play, represented as having been written by William Shakespeare, uncovered in 2010 by Arthur Phillips. The first edition of it was published in 2011 by Random House. It tells the story of the legendary King Arthur, who is described in the Introduction to play's first edition by Phillips as "a charismatic, charming, egocentric, short-tempered, principled but chronically impulsive bastard." The play narrates his victories and failures as King of Britain.

Dramatis personae

Arthur, Prince of Wales, later King of Britain

Duke of Gloucester, Arthur's guardian, later adviser

Constantine, Earl of Cornwall, later King of Britain

Guenhera, his sister, later Queen of Britain

Duke of Somerset

Duke of Norfolk

Earl of Cumbria

Earl of Kent

Sir Stephen of Derby

Bishop of Caerleon

Lady Crier and other Ladies of the court

Guenhera's Nurse

Loth, King of Pictland

Mordred, Loth's son, Duke of Rothesay, later King of Pictland

Calvan, Mordred's brother, Prince of Orkneys

Coranus, King of Scotland

Alda, Queen of Scotland, sister-in-law to Loth, aunt to Mordred and Arthur

Duke of Hebrides, son to Conranus

Alexander, a messenger

Doctor

in addition to:

Colgerne, chief of the Saxons

Shepherdess

Plot

"Contractually bound" to provide a synopsis of the play, Phillips sketches out descriptions of the play's five acts in the Introduction, relating the details of them to details of his family history. Professor Roland Verre, who co-edited the play, offers a more effective summary preceding the text, in addition to many explanatory footnotes throughout.

Act I opens in sixth-century Britain, with Arthur, the product of rape between King Uter Pendragon and a noble's wife, in Gloucestershire, far from his father's wars against the Saxons. Arthur inherits the throne upon his father's death, but his right is challenged by Morded, heir to the crown of Pictland, who claims dominion over all of Britain. Morded's father, King Loth, refuses to honor his son's wishes through war, but Morded provokes one anyway.

In Act II, Arthur gains his first major military victory against the Saxons, Picts, and Scots. After the battle, Arthur sends his army, led by the Duke of Gloucester, in pursuit of Mordred, and Gloucester (disguised as Arthur) wins a great victory against the remaining Saxon forces. Arthur arrives to the battle late, and spares his enemies in exchange for the promise of peace, but retains Mordred's brother as ransom. When the Saxons betray this peace, Arthur kills all prisoners (including the hostage brother) in a rage, while Mordred becomes King of Pictland and vows revenge against Arthur.

Act III finds Gloucester arranging a marriage for Arthur with a French princess that would guarantee wealth, allies, and help him achieve his goal of a unified, peaceful, and prosperous Britain. Ignoring this arrange wedding, Arthur marries Guenhera, the sister of a friend, who had loved him since childhood. She miscarries twice, and Arthur's nobles complain that he no longer has the mettle for military matters, and has turned the court into a place of effeminate recreation and artistic endeavors (one of these nobles considers assassinating Arthur to stop this).

In Act IV, Guenhera is pregnant again, and has effectively seized control, as Arthur has become completely submissive to her. The Saxons attack yet again, and Arthur realizes that he does not have the means to defend his kingdom, and that, through his rash decisions, no longer has the French and Picts as allies. He negotiates for Pictish aid by naming Mordred his heir, and Mordred assists in the victory of the Saxons at Linmouth.

Authenticity

Despite Arthur Phillips' insistence otherwise, the play is verified as authentically Shakespearean by many experts. Linguist David Crystal muses that it is "probably a collaboration", and claims that it was written no later than 1595, and possibly dates from before 1593. Tests conducted by Peter Bryce at the chemistry lab at the University of Minnesota indicated the veracity of the paper as genuinely from the 1590s - something that Bryce insist could not be forged. The Shakespeare Clinic at Claremont College also confirmed through stylometry systems that Arthur "scores the closest match to core Shakespeare since the foundation of the Clinic". Scholarly consensus puts the play as contemporaneous with the Shakespeare of the early to mid-1590s, around the time of Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III.

While there is some skepticism (most notably from Arthur Phillips himself), it would have been remarkably difficult for A.E.H. Phillips to have constructed a forgery to fool all modern forensic evidence and Shakespeare scholars, especially given the quarto would necessarily have to predate much of the technology and research used to check its authenticity. Even though Phillips claims that the play is the work of his father, most Shakespeare scholars have discounted his theory. The only copy of the 1594 quarto of Titus Andronicus was discovered in an attic in Sweden in 1904, and so the bizarre means by which Arthur has been lost for centuries seem relatively plausible.

Background

Phillips has freely admitted that he is the author of the play, though upon its release, he did, from time to time, remain "in character" while promoting the book. He has articulated in interviews that he likes to "play along" and maintain the mystery of the truth behind the book and play. Phillips has also said that writing the play and Introduction was "the most fun [he's] ever had doing anything."

Phillips claims that before this project, he had only a passing familiarity with Shakespeare as a product of his education. Before embarking upon this endeavor, Phillips did extensive research, including thoroughly investing himself in Shakespeare's complete works. In this research, Phillips "fell in love with" Shakespeare's work, even though he maintains a resistance to what he calls "bardolatry" or "the constant search for proof that he was wiser, more powerful, more obviously the best than anyone else ever" (the same "Shakespeare cult" that the fictional Phillips complains about throughout the Introduction).

In writing, he claims that "The play came first, in every draft. Within the novel, the chronology goes: play discovered, play discussed. So, I needed a play to discuss, therefore I had to write the play first." He spent four years writing the novel. Phillips also claims that the novel's interest in memoir came from his belief that "memoir, done correctly, is not fiction." In writing The Tragedy of Arthur, he sought to call into question the way we think about fiction vs. non-fiction, as well as what makes something supposedly "real".

Themes

The book constantly blurs the lines between fiction and reality – the Arthur Phillips that narrates the Introduction is "the internationally bestselling author of Prague, The Egyptologist, Angelica, and The Song as You," as well as the author of a review of Milan Kundera's The Curtain for Harper's. However, the narrator is not the same person as the novelist, Arthur Phillips; for example, as the author has pointed out, his family "doesn't resemble" that of the character. This is a coy move on Phillips' part, as he never bears the burden of telling the whole truth – he constantly points out the unreliability of memoir as a form, acknowledging that it is "despite [his] best efforts, already misleading". The novel also references James Frey, who faced scandal when it was revealed that his drug-addiction "memoir" A Million Little Pieces was a work of fiction. (Frey is also quoted on Phillips' website as having enjoyed the book.)

The Tragedy of Arthur also brings into play questions of authorship akin to those raised by critical theorists Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault, in their essays "Death of the Author" and "What is an Author?". Foucault's question – "What does it matter who is speaking?" – and his concept of "The Author Function" is essential to the protagonist's investigation into – and evaluation of – the works his father produces.

The Tragedy of Arthur operates in the tradition of other works, such as Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, Lemony Snicket's writings, and Orson Welles' "documentary" F For Fake in how it distorts reader expectations as far as "fiction" and "truth." A.E.H. Phillips' schemes also include art forgery, and the novel references the van Meegeren Vermeer forgeries. In particular, it shares a structural similarity to Pale Fire, which is a novel in the form of a foreword to and commentary on a poem by the fictional John Shade by an academic colleague. Like Pale Fire, The Tragedy of Arthur is also a satire of academia, though Phillips' novel, of course, focuses its parody specifically on Shakespeare studies.

To wit, the novel is deeply invested in exploring Shakespeare scholarship and the "Shakespeare-Industrial Complex" - in particular the work of Harold Bloom, whose books The Anxiety of Influence and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human are explicitly referenced. The Introduction features countless references to Shakespeare plays, many of which, Phillips claims were unintentional, artifacts of "things that stuck in memory" from his research. The book also references the grand scope of Shakespeare's influence – the narrator claims that his writing is "a nursery of titles for other, better writers" going on to list Pale Fire, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Infinite Jest, The Sound and the Fury and many other texts. Furthermore, the novel is remarkably dismissive of the anti-Stratfordian (i.e., those who do not believe that a man named William Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed him) camp of Shakespeare scholarship. Phillips calls their theories "a gentle, harmless madness," and as plausible as the narrative of Roland Emmerich's Independence Day (Emmerich directed the 2011 anti-Stratfordian film Anonymous). He immersed himself in their argumentation in researching the book and "came to the conclusion that while [he] can appreciate their passion and their willingness to hold on against a sometimes-scornful majority, they are really, really just wrong. Their approach to factual documentation and to the reading of fiction, both, require a view of the universe that [he] just can’t accept." Even so, Phillips maintains that "the deification gets in the way of what [Shakespeare is] actually good at," and that his critique of "Bardolatry" in the novel is equally in earnest.

Critical reception

The Tragedy of Arthur was well-received, and was lauded as one of the best books of 2011 by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, Salon, The New Yorker, NPR, and others.[1]

Furthermore, the "authenticity" of the forged play has been praised by several notable Shakespearean scholars. Stephen Greenblatt, in his review for The New York Times, claimed that the play "is a surprisingly good fake… much of 'The Tragedy of Arthur' actually sounds as if it could have been written by the author not of 'Hamlet,' to be sure, but of 'The True Tragedy of Richard, Duke of York.' This is no trivial achievement; it is the work of a very gifted forger." Greenblatt claims that "It is a tribute to Arthur Phillips’s singular skill that his work leaves the reader not with resentment at having been tricked but rather with gratitude for the gift of feigned wonder." James S. Shapiro, author of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? called it a "brilliant piece of literary criticism masquerading as a novel," claiming that it was "the most ambitious book on Shakespeare [he has] come across in many years because it so deeply engages questions that matter."

Adaptations

The New York City-based theater troupe Guerilla Shakespeare Project produced a stage version of The Tragedy of Arthur in 2013 with Phillips' involvement. It opened to mixed reviews.