I know I keep saying goodbye to Bo(ris Johnson), once
through the Medium of Jake Thackray’s masterpiece. That’s here: Pages: Goodbye to Bo through the
Medium of Jake Thackray’s masterpiece (not a book review)
(robertsheppard.blogspot.com)
Before that I said goodbye to Bo(ris), here,
with a poem:
https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-extra-last-poem-of-english-strain.html
And then, here, finally, finally finally, here here
here: Pages:
Robert Sheppard: A final final poem for British Standards!
But yesterday I thought I might have to say HELLO
again to him! The horror! The horror! The thought that this wreck of a human
being, nursing his hangover, desperately phoning out for
supporters, or to Deliveroo for an Alka-Selzer (as one wittily expressed it on
Twitter), thumbs-upping us in Trumpian triumphalism, was returning, was a
threat of more ego-driven drivel! Even those Union Jacks limply appropriated
(from where?) for the occasion in the empty office space (hired by the hour?)
express the desperation. The biggest threat, was not the political chaos that
would follow (maybe a second royal yacht in case of emergencies) but the threat
to ME! (Why can’t I be as big as egotist as him?) The threat that, far from
having passed on to a project to write through the Liverpool images of Tricia
Porter, or to write 10 poems one line at a time (today’s is ‘as they twirl
knowledge in a giddy drop’), or even to finish my ‘novel’ Elle, I would
have to return (like Bo himself) to that which I have renounced. Of course, I
haven’t been in the Caribbean (though I have been in the Belvedere, The
Handyman, and Ye Cracke… No, but I might have to return to the task of
transposing sonnets to keep up with Bo’s vaulting ambition (imagine him
vaulting!), even though I’ve rejected the decadent sonnets I was looking at
some months ago (that’s all in those posts linked to above), Arthur Symons and
all that.
No, I decided, I would have to face up to the Big One,
Shakespeare’s Sonnets. I’ve avoided them, because others have written through
them (Philip Terry, K. Selim Mohammed, Michael Egan, and many others), and because
they are curiously disarming in a way that Drayton’s are not (I bagged Drayton's here: https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2019/09/on-bad-idea-and-reference-to-earlier.html
: all done, all available). In preparation I read about 35 of them, and also
the pages in Jonathan Bate’s very fine book Soul of the Age that I’d
already marked, in my initial sonnet-researches eons ago. So, off I would go. I
looked at sonnet one. Oh, yes, the imploring voice, it sounded like Zahawi’s
quickly deleted email in favour of the blond bombshell Bo. Oh yes, ‘From
fairest creatures we’ do ‘desire increase’ – in inflation, interest rates, food
costs. Yes, I’m already starting. Bo’s bombastic egoism is perfectly echoed by
The Bard in his ’thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel’! ‘Pity the world…
to eat the world’s due!’ – it's all there, all there. Ready to go, if need be.
Then he pulled out, having 100 supporters (sez who?),
saying he could have won, if only they’d let him. Pete Best has turned up at
Abbey Road to record Revolver!
One of the reasons for picking Shakespeare for this
approach (and, remember, part of this post is to keep materials in mind in case
he does re-emerge, after he is exonerated by the Commons Committee, Bo is no
liar (he assures us)). One reason is that he himself, Bo, is writing a book
on Shakespeare. It has a title, The Riddle of Genius, and it is
available for preorder on Amazon, here: Shakespeare:
The Riddle of Genius: Amazon.co.uk: Johnson, Boris: 9780771050831: Books
It is due for publication in 2035, yes, 2035 (though
another Amazon source, Patricia tells me, has 2075!).
Not a word of it has been written, other than the
title and the synopsis, which I shall allow anyone with a smidgeon of literary sensibility
to vomit over now:
Four
hundred years after his death, William Shakespeare is more popular than ever.
Studied by schoolchildren everywhere, performed and interpreted in every
conceivable medium and setting, he remains an unparalleled global phenomenon.
With characteristic curiosity, verve, and wit, Boris Johnson sets out to
determine why and how. He immerses us in the swagger and terror of the
Elizabethan era, with its newfound craze for theater and its bold intellectual
flowering, under the threat of repression. He explores the timelessly
intriguing themes of the plays: the illicit sex and the power struggles; the
fratricide and matricide; the confused identities and hormonal teenagers; the
racism, jealousy, and political corruption. He explores the psychology of
Shakespeare's characters and celebrates the playwright's appreciation for women
and the roles he created for them, more fully realized than those Hollywood
churns out (had women but been allowed to play them in his day). And above all,
he revels in the language -- our language, which that master poet enriched with
at least 2,500 new-coined words and a litheness that is an ongoing delight to
us all. In this joyful, fascinating book, Johnson
reminds us why Shakespeare truly was a genius, a writer not just for his time,
but for all time.
If he dares, I am here, sonnets in hand, like
grenades, at the ready. (Unless, of course, I choose to do something quite other with
the Bard. After all, he’s ‘more popular than ever’!) Oh, and Jonathan Bate has words
of advice for Bo: ‘Don’t
waste everyone’s time with a sub-par biography based on secondhand research –
write a more personal book about what Shakespeare has taught you about the
important things in your life such as sex, ambition and betrayal. He has a lot
to say about those great themes.’
See for an account of Bo's work in progress and the controversy surrounding its composition: Boris
Johnson offered to pay for help writing Shakespeare biography, says scholar | Books
| The Guardian
BRITISH STANDARDS is now available: https://www.shearsman.com/store/Robert-Sheppard-British-Standards-p661920471
*
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email: robertsheppard39@gmail.com
website: www.robertsheppard.weebly.com
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