The Spacious Days
HE Reverend Charles Kingsley, even had he not tried to imitate Rabelais in certain passages of The Water Babies, has much to answer for, Not the least of his transgressions is that exciting but tendentious work, Westward Ho!" Chesterton’s view of this book is simple: "Even if it is mostly a lie, it is a good, thundering honest lie." There is perhaps no need to go as far as that. Its worst sin seems to be the over-coloured, overcompressed picture of the 1580’s which is fixed on the minds of infant readers -a vague feeling that the Elizabethans all knew each other and went about in a body, doing and saying the same things. Much of this persisted in a serial broadcast to schools which I came across the other day, entitled, "In the Days of Gloriana" by Isobel Andrews. In this tale, Francis Drake, having left the presence of his sovereign, is conducted ‘by a friend to the doors of the Mermaid Tavern. At this point I trembled, fearing that anachronistic encounters might be made within. It would not be above some purveyors of Tudor glamour to have the redoubtable captain attentive to Master William Shakespeare reciting passages from his new play-the first of which was produced three years at the least after the Armada and more years
after the voyage of circumnavigation. However, Isobel Andrews wisely abstained and showed considerable historical acumen, It wes with great difficulty that her Drake was persuaded within the Mermaid doors, declaring loudly his aversion to poetry and to all reading except the ‘Bible; so when Mrs. Andrews’s juvenile hearers are told in later life that Puritanism first took root
in the trading and seafaring classes, this information will have some meaning for them, But the practice I complain against is that of taking the leading men, places, topics and pursuits of the Elizabethan age and showing them all in intimate day-to-day relation: Drake and Grenville, for instance, as regular visitors to Court; the Mermaid Tavern, that haunt of the intelligentsia, as a rendezvous for everyone ever heard of in the whole reign. This sort of thing is very common and remarkably insidious; it may be not for years, if ever, that even the assiduous scholar will be able to get some picture of what the Elizabethan age was really like,
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19461108.2.40.2
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 385, 8 November 1946, Page 22
Word count
Tapeke kupu
391The Spacious Days New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 385, 8 November 1946, Page 22
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in