What Blest Genius?: The Jubilee That Made Shakespeare

by Andrew McConnell Stott

Overview

Winner of the 2019 Marfield Prize for Outstanding Writing About the Arts

The remarkable, ridiculous, rain-soaked story of Shakespeare’s Jubilee: the event that established William Shakespeare as the greatest writer of all time.

In September 1769, three thousand people descended on Stratford-upon-Avon to celebrate the artistic legacy of the town’s most famous son, William Shakespeare. Attendees included the rich and powerful, the fashionable and the curious, eligible ladies and fortune hunters, and a horde of journalists and profiteers. For three days, they paraded through garlanded streets, listened to songs and oratorios, and enjoyed masked balls. It was a unique cultural moment—a coronation elevating Shakespeare to the throne of genius.

Except it was a disaster. The poorly planned Jubilee imposed an army of Londoners on a backwater hamlet peopled by hostile and superstitious locals, unable and unwilling to meet their demands. Even nature refused to behave. Rain fell in sheets, flooding tents and dampening fireworks, and threatening to wash the whole town away.

Told from the dual perspectives of David Garrick, who masterminded the Jubilee, and James Boswell, who attended it, What Blest Genius? is rich with humor, gossip, and theatrical intrigue. Recounting the absurd and chaotic glory of those three days in September, Andrew McConnell Stott illuminates the circumstances in which William Shakespeare became a transcendent global icon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393248661
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/02/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Andrew McConnell Stott is the author of four books. The recipient of the Royal Society of Literature/Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction, he is professor of English at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

Stott's book delivers a vivacious portrait of the Stratford-upon-Avon Jubilee of 1769, organized by the actor and manager David Garrick, whose goal was to make a lot of noise for himself and in the process marmorealize Shakespeare…Stott quotes Boswell's enthusiasm for Garrick's acting by saying that he made "particles of vivacity" dance within him "by a sort of contagion." The same compliment is owed to Stott for the manner in which he tells this eccentric story.

The New York Times Book Review - Dominic Dromgoole

01/28/2019

Stott (The Poet and the Vampyre) entertainingly chronicles the 1769 Shakespeare Jubilee in Stratford-upon-Avon, which he asserts cemented Shakespeare’s status as the “weightiest of cultural authorities.” The book describes the Jubilee as the brainchild of Stratford-upon-Avon’s civic leaders, who hoped to thereby raise their town’s profile. To do so, they enlisted the aid of renowned actor David Garrick, who had built his career around Shakespeare, whom he revered. While the Jubilee itself was largely a disaster, plagued by heavy rains, flooding, price gouging, and tacky displays, Garrick emerged unscathed. The ode he wrote to Shakespeare was the hit of the festival, and Stratford-Upon-Avon became a popular tourist destination. However, it’s James Boswell, famous as Samuel Johnson’s biographer, who emerges as the book’s true star. Boswell, a good friend of Garrick’s, shameless self-promoter, and fervent Shakespeare lover, attended the Jubilee, recorded and published his impressions, and managed to enjoy himself despite the event’s many failings. Whether or not the Jubilee was the watershed moment in Shakespeare veneration Stott claims, he provides a lively, page-turning narrative, and proves that shamelessly overhyped media events are not just modern phenomena. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"It was to be the spectacle that would transform the Bard from cultural icon to secular saint of English literature, and make actor (and self-promoter) David Garrick’s name inseparable from that of William Shakespeare’s…With humor and meticulously researched detail, Andrew McConnell Stott takes us on the circuitous and muddy road from idea to realization of the first Shakespeare Jubilee. His gentle prose makes us feel like we are being let in on inside secrets, preparing us for a comical and surprising denouement."

Andrea Mays

"A glorious, hilarious romp through the events of the three-day literary extravaganza of 1769 that made Shakespeare a household name and put Stratford-upon-Avon on the tourist trail. Zestful and witty, while positively bursting with anecdotes, insights and tales of theatrical and sexual derring-do. Once I’d started reading, I couldn’t put it down."

John Guy

"A meticulous, sharply observed, and often funny account of the great Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769, a celebration largely responsible—despite various mishaps—for the notion of semi-divine ‘bardic’ genius which still encumbers him today."

Charles Nicholl

"Written with all the verve and wit as befits the subject and the age, Andrew McConnell Stott’s What Blest Genius? dives headlong into one of the more bizarre events of the eighteenth century—the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Jubilee of 1769. With a cast including the actor David Garrick, the memoirist James Boswell, and the ghost of Shakespeare himself, Stott elucidates how and why this place and time staged the real genesis of the Shakespeare ‘industry’ and the nascence of a cultural icon—borne, comically enough, out of the chaos of the world’s first literary festival."

Ian Kelly

"Vivacious... Garrick’s Jubilee of 1769 runs the Fyre Festival of 2017 close for overambition, chaotic planning and near disaster... Stott quotes Boswell’s enthusiasm for Garrick’s acting by saying that he made ‘particles of vivacity’ dance within him ‘by a sort of contagion.’ The same compliment is owed to Stott for the manner in which he tells this eccentric story."

Dominic Dromgooles' Choice - New York Times Book Review

"Yes, Shakespeare’s genius is in the work. But in this sprightly volume, Andrew McConnell Stott argues that an eighteenth-century publicity stunt of a weekend—improvised, outsized, and in many ways absurd—put the playwright on the map. Stott's revel sparkles, even in the teeming rain."

Stacy Schiff

"Vivacious... Garrick’s Jubilee of 1769 runs the Fyre Festival of 2017 close for overambition, chaotic planning and near disaster... Stott quotes Boswell’s enthusiasm for Garrick’s acting by saying that he made ‘particles of vivacity’ dance within him ‘by a sort of contagion.’ The same compliment is owed to Stott for the manner in which he tells this eccentric story."

Editors' Choice - New York Times Book Review - Dominic Dromgoole

★ 2019-01-06

A marvelous account of the world's first literary festival.

Early on in this delightful book, Stott (English/Univ. of Southern California; The Poet and the Vampyre: The Curse of Byron and the Birth of Literature's Greatest Monsters, 2014, etc.) notes that after Shakespeare's death in 1616 "his plays quickly fell from the repertoire." When Charles II became king in 1660, public performances were encouraged, and works by Ben Jonson and others flourished. Shakespeare's plays—sometimes heavily revised—and his reputation made a comeback thanks to cheap editions of his works. In 1769, the great English actor David Garrick, "fast on his way to becoming the most famous man in Britain," decided to celebrate the Bard with a grand Jubilee in sleepy Stratford-upon-Avon. Stott chronicles in luscious detail the ups and downs of the event, from the extensive preparations to the key players involved, including Garrick's younger brother, George. James Boswell, soon to be author of a masterful biography of Samuel Johnson, called it a "festival of genius." Johnson "dismissed the Jubilee with scorn." The Stratford townspeople were apprehensive. Who would pay for it? Where would the anticipated 3,000 visitors stay? Tickets, signed by Garrick, portraits of Garrick and Shakespeare, and commemorative ribbons were issued. A statue of Shakespeare was erected in Stratford, and a massive, wooden rotunda to host balls, dinners, and stage events built. Unfortunately, the event was met with unceasing rain. Roofed chairs carried visitors through the mud, and a pageant was cancelled. Garrick's lengthy Ode to the "blest genius of the isle" was delivered by the ringmaster himself, with musical accompaniment followed by an elaborate fireworks display that fizzled in the cold rain. As Stott writes, Jubilee was "a defining moment in our cultural history, and one that goes to show how, through a confluence of intent, mishap, and grubby self-interest, the most glorious and enduring of myths was made."

A thoroughly enjoyable and engaging literary history.

Kirkus Reviews