The Sphinx of Stratford

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 548, 23 December 1949, Page 11

The Sphinx of Stratford

SOMEWHERE far away in that airy Limbo, reserved for Radio Talks that have gone astray yet do not quite deserve damnation, will ultimately rest John Gundry’s talk on "Shakespeare the Scholar." Radio Limbo is a well-popu-lated place and there is a large .New Zealand colony. Now the main quarrel with Mr. Gundry is the old one that he read his talk instead of speaking it. Apart from that, his material on the schoolboy Shakespeare was quite interesting and his treatment thoughtful and sincere, His is only the latest effort in the game of filling up the gaps in our knowledge\of Shakespeare by conjecture from his works and his times; and illsuccess is not likely to daunt the ingenjous inquirer. Shakespeare is a témptling enigma and since the professional record-grubber has found so little, the amateur mind-reader has an open field. Whether John Gundry’s Shakespeare resembles the real Will, who can say? But we probably learnt from the talk more about Mr. Gundry than we did about Shakespeare. Would it be true, I wonder, that Mr. Gundry has a preference for country life over town, is not a modernist in education, prefers the beauty of peace and quiet to more violent pleasures, believes a man’s philosophy of life should be basically religious and reveres religion and patriotism?. In Shakespeare’s mind a man easily finds the re-

flection of himself.

K.J.

S.