The word ‘genteel’ seems appropriate to the point of clichéd when talking about Cheltenham. A town of Regency terraces and horse racing, antique shops and tea rooms. Hardly the ideal place to test the waters of feminist scholarship, one might think. But come October the town is shaken up - just a little - as the famous Literature Festival rolls into town. For nine days the pristine Imperial Gardens bristle with leading figures from the worlds of art, broadcasting and politics. Where for fifty weeks of the year the ladies of the town pilot designer prams twixt the petunias and elderly couples peruse the pages of the Gloucestershire Echo, one comes across Terry Eagleton deconstructing Derrida, Naomi Klein contemplating disaster capitalism, and Jo Brand declaring that “anything is good if it’s made of chocolate”. In short, the vibrancy and atmosphere of the festival and the gentility of its setting seem somewhat incongruous. Think Glastonbury meets Gardeners’ Question Time. There is even an appearance from Michael Jackson, who turns out to be bad, dangerous, invincible and… former commanding officer of the British army. Ah well.
This year the theme is ‘What does change mean to us?’ and investigations into attitudes towards women are high on the agenda. Feminist novelists Michèle Roberts and Sarah Dunant lurch from joyous laughter to tears of nostalgia in a touching discussion on Roberts’s autobiography. Oona King and Tony Benn debate proportional representation and the impact of the suffragettes on the labour movement. Virginia Nicholson looks at how modern Britain was forged by single women of the 1920s - at the time labelled “a disaster to the human race” by the Daily Mail.
Stripy tights and silver pumps are the order of the day as Germaine Greer strides onto stage in the ornate Edwardian auditorium of the Town Hall. The windows are covered with long velvet awnings and a warm light from under the balconies provides an intimate atmosphere. She talks for an hour on her latest book, Shakespeare’s Wife. “Every time I hear a man at a dinner party tell his wife to ‘shut up dear’, I want to take him outside and shoot him” she begins. Well-natured laughter ripples through the audience. Her introduction soon gives way to the arguments. Gesticulating passionately, she outlines a radical biography of Anne Hathaway; speculative, controversial, and persuasive. A broad sense of revelation follows every new piece of conjecture. Presumptions they may be, but Greer’s claims that Hathaway had a significant impact on
Shakespeare’s work seem no less valid than those of the scholars who see this mysterious character through the filter of the chauvinism with which the role of the wife can still perceived, thirty-seven years after The Female Eunuch hit the shelves. In the course of the hour, Greer piles on the questions. Was Hathaway really illiterate and uncultured? Did Shakespeare really write his plays away from home? Is the model of accomplished, emotionally intelligent womanhood portrayed in Portia, Cleopatra and Silvia really a work of pure imagination? Greer describes how Hathaway is perceived by academic consensus: “Shakespeare, an innocent youth, is skipping down the lanes of Stratford when out comes Anne Hathaway, a big, hairy, randy old woman who wraps her legs around him and gets herself pregnant.”
Of course Greer is following a feminist agenda with her reappraisal of this image – as she describes her process of research she uses phrases such as “I had to think of a way of explaining…”, “I wouldn’t mind betting that…” and, repeatedly, “What if?”. She owns up to a temptation to claim that it was Hathaway who wrote the plays (there being no evidence that rules it out), “but I’m not as brave as that”. Furthermore, she seems to project her own personality onto that of her subject, even claiming that Hathaway shared her enthusiasm for knitting. Nevertheless, Greer’s ideas are all supported by what is known about society in Stratford at the time; it is hard not to agree with her that this has to be a better approach than groundlessly disregarding Hathaway’s relationship with the Bard. She admits that her conclusions are but guesswork, adding that “some guesses are better than others”, those ‘others’ being “informed with a casual contempt”.
Her speech is met with resounding applause from the audience, Greer moves onto the questions and the lights are raised in the auditorium. Here we see hints of her tendency to play up her own image: “Who’d like to go first? I’d rather it not be a man”. Nevertheless, throughout the talk her infectious and genuine feeling for the plight of women shines through. Emotion fills her voice as she contemplates the sacrifices made for Shakespeare by his wife.
Anne Hathaway's cottage, Stratford-upon-Avon“What about the bed?” chirps up an elderly lady near the front, alluding to the main weapon in the armoury of the Hathaway-detractors, the fact that in his will, Shakespeare bequeathed to her only his second-best bed. Here the strength of Greer’s arguments come to the fore, as she explains that it was typical for a husband to leave his widow the ‘everyday’ bed, on which conceptions, births and deaths took place, rather than the more lavish but less emotionally significant guest bed.
The next question is from a man. “Run!” Greer barks at the usher with the microphone, “Before the mind-police kick us out!”. The questioner stands up, takes hold of the microphone and, in a self-satisfied voice, asks
“What about those women who tell their husbands to ‘shut up dear’?” There is a pause, and Greer bites her lip, the audience awaiting her response on tenterhooks. “It should be possible for spouses to communicate” she responds calmly, “This is why I can’t watch the Jeremy Kyle Show”, and points out that in Shakespeare’s drama women and men tend to communicate well, noting that this too could cast light on the marriage.As Greer leaves the platform at the end of the hour she is swamped by middle-aged women in cork sandals, the water pitcher is refilled for Douglas Hurd, and the hall is alive with conversation as the audience files out. Snippets such as “I had no idea”, “What I don’t like about her is…”, “But I thought she didn’t like him?” and “…those stripy tights...” indicate the strong impression she makes on the public.
She revels in controversy, provokes inspiration in some and loathing in others, oozes intelligence and is perfectly aware of this. But whatever you think of Germaine Greer, an hour in her electric presence leaves you unable to deny her energetic sense of purpose in questioning assumptions, unexamined truisms and the lazy acceptance of ungrounded dogma. Genteel she ain’t, but that just wouldn’t suit her.
Photos: Flickr, Amazon, Cheltenham Literary Festival
