Will Kemp or Will Shakespeare: That is the Question

I apologize that the title is corny-ridiculously corny. And I need to give proper credit to Shakespeare, because my inspiration for the title was his famous line in Hamlet "to be or not to be, that is the question".

Well, now that that's over with....

I was amazed by the descriptions of Whitehall in chapter 1 of Shapiro's book A Year in the Life of Shakespeare. The amount of detail Shapiro is able to present-about the many different rooms and the paintings on the walls-especially the portrait of Edward the 6th, which influenced Shakespeare's work.

Shapiro contrasts the majestic qualities of Whitehall with Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford Upon Avon. Shapiro's description of Stratford as a "drab backwater, devoid of high culture" astonished me (25). All I could think of when I read about Stratford was my visit to the town in high school. My recollections of being hustled through Shakespeare's house because we got lost in the meuseum (which you walk through first) are filled with noise, chaos, tourists, and lots of different cultures. In fact, in our brief visit to Shakespeare's house, we met a group of French students. It's amazing to me the changes that took place between Shakespeare's Stratford Upon Avon, and my visit in 2008. I'm not surprised that there were changes, in that large time span I certainly hope a town would progress. It just makes me wonder if Stratford Upon Avon would have turned into a tourist attraction had Shakespeare not been as successful. What would have happened to Stratford Upon Avon without Shakespeare? Would the town have ceased to exist, or would it simply be another English town today? We'll never know.

One of the topics that most interested me in Shapiro's book was the argument between Will Kemp and Shakespeare. In particular, I found it amusing how sure Will Kemp was (when they first started working together) that he would become the most famous of the pair. Shapiro writes

Shakespeare was emerging as an important playwright and poet. But at
that time their reputations were easily overshadowed by Kemp's. There
could have been no doubt in Kemp's mind in 1594 when he and Shakespeare
became fellow sharers, or even in 1599 when his fame was at its height, who
would be remembered as the greatest name in Elizabethan theater. (38)

What struck me most about this particular paragraph was how wrong Kemp was. My high school read various Shakespeare works, and I have read more in college, but Kemp's name wasn't mentioned until this semester. It seems that Kemp's belief that he would be the most famous Elizabethan actor and or name was very incorrect. Shapiro, in the closing of the first chapter of his book, states that without Shakespeare, we wouldn't know Kemp's name: "If not for Shakespeare, Kemp's legacy and verbal style would be long forgotten." (42)