A Couple of (Nerdy) Interesting Days

The last couple of days I've been able to do something that I've wanted to do for quite a while. Beware: It's nerdy.

So let's back up a little ...

As many of you know, I've been working on a memoir about my multi-year pursuit of Mary Shelley, a chase that began in 1997, flared, faded, flared again, and the last five years (!) I've been writing/revising a draft of my account of those experiences, an account I'm calling Frankenstein Sundae: My Ten-Year Pursuit of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.

I serialized a (very) rough draft on this site and have been revising it ever since.

Okay.

Mary's father was William Godwin--philosopher, novelist, and would-be playwright. He wrote four plays, two of which were performed (to generally lukewarm response). I was able to read those, years ago, via microform.

But the other two plays were never published--not until 2010 when all four plays appeared in ... The Plays of William Godwin, a scholarly edition from Pickering & Chatto. Take a look on Amazon (I just did): The going price for the volume ... about $159.

So ... I put it off--deciding I'd rather, you know, eat.

Then I got a nice Amazon gift card for Christmas; I found a (slightly) cheaper (used) volume on Amazon, pulled the trigger, got the book.

And the past couple of days I've read St Dunstan (1790), a play that, until 2010, had existed only in manuscript form at the Bodleian Library (Oxford Univ.).

Godwin wrote it in iambic pentameter (at which he's not all that bad), and the play deals with a severe church v. state conflict in long-ago England.

I enjoyed reading it--a lot. There are so many nasty things going on: an evil religious leader, a brother who loves the king's wife and will betray him as a result, a public whose mind changes with the wind, devious counselors, etc. A fiercely loyal queen.

I would not, however, want to see a production. Long speeches on every page. Little sense of dramatic movement. Not the slightest comic relief.

But Godwin goes after some of his career-long targets: superstition, disloyalty, the public's inability to be serious about anything for very long ...

Fun, fun, fun.

Later this week I will read the other one I've not ever read: Abbas, King of Persia (1801), a play that until now had also existed only in mss. form at the Bodleian.

And then my (short) journey through the plays of Godwin will be over ... a mixture of pleasure, satisfaction, relief!