Thursday, December 18, 2014

Shakespeare An Archer

William Lowes Rushton - Shakespeare An Archer (1897)

Open Library direct link
Open Library main page

You might think there's not much archery in Shakespeare - we don't go hunting in Arden Forest or spend time with the bowmen at Agincourt.  But Rushton (who also wrote on Shakespeare and the law) found enough to fill a book, admittedly small but still a book.  He starts by trying to identify a printed source he thinks Shakespeare might have used before going to examples.  He's not limiting himself to just Shakespeare but draws in other contemporary dramatists and I'll have to admit that sometimes he's twisting passages to make them sound like they're about archery. (Though I do like the erratum "For 'air withes' read 'our wishes'".)