SHAKESPEARE’S
DON QUIXOTE
a novel in
dialogue
by
Robin Chapman
Shakespeare and
Cervantes attend a fringe production
of Cardenio starring Don Quixote
and Sancho Panza.
"A work as Quixotic in style as its title implies, and as multiple in
its play with meanings and connections, past and present. It is set in the
theatre of Robin Chapman's mind, which proves a magical arena. This recovery
of Shakespeare's lost play, Cardenio, is both topical and made to
yield a treasure trove of information, textual, biographical and critical.
Always in the spirit of high comedy. A real instance of subtle learning worn
with a deceptive lightness of touch."
Jean
Gooder
"Learned,
structurally ingenious, evocative and pleasurable."
Karl
Miller
"The
novel successfully creates the bustling action of early modern drama. Don
Quixote and his squire furnish the perfect subplot. What distinguishes
Chapman's work is its interrogation of adaptation itself. Compelling."
The Times Literary Supplement
SHAKESPEARE’S DON
QUIXOTE recreates what might have been: a lost play presented at
On St Valentine’s
day of that year King James’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth Stuart, married a
German prince, the Elector Palatine. Shakespeare’s company – the King’s Men –
provided fourteen plays for this magnificent state event. One was called Cardenio;
registered for publication forty years later as by Mr Fletcher and, as an
apparent afterthought, Shakespeare. The original script has never been found
but an enigmatic 18th century version, retitled Double Falsehood, may contain echoes
of their work together.
Cardenio’s story occurs in
Don Quixote, Cervantes’s instant, universal best-seller. The
vexed teenage protagonist, along with three other young lovers, encounters
the would-be knight errant and his sceptical squire.
If John Fletcher,
as dramaturge-designate with the King’s Men, did draw Shakespeare’s attention
to the story’s dramatic potential – he regularly raided Cervantes’s works for
plots – it seems inconceivable that their collaboration would not have
featured Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
Shakespeare would have found them irresistible.
Acting upon this
hypothesis Robin Chapman’s novel plays out today in a theatre of the mind.
Among the audience the reader will find the attentive spirits of Shakespeare,
Fletcher and Cervantes. Inevitably they soon become involved with each other
and in the performance.