YOUNG SHAKESPEARE

The Bard as Elizabethan Yuppie, pragmatic, ""income-oriented,"" opportunistic, a young man on the make a--Shakespeare for the 80's, from Fraser (English/Univ. of Michigan). Focusing his attention on the first 30 years of the poet/playwright's life, Fraser touches on such matters as 16th-century education, village and urban life, marriage, the theater, politics, and religion. What he finds common in all are signs of a society in disruption. Fraser points out, for example, that while Shakespeare's father was fined for defacing the interior of the Stratford church (a probable sign of Protestant sensibilities), he died leaving a Catholic testament. It is this ""world turned upside down"" that, according to Fraser, shaped the young writer. Rather than accepting the commonly held view that Shakespeare was an apologist for the Tudor establishment, Fraser depicts him as uncommitted, espousing one advantageous point of view one moment, the opposite the next. ""Survival"" was the key to the life, the author insists. Fraser undermines the effectiveness of his controversial argument by writing in a style that confuses with elliptical constructions, self-conscious archaisms, and unattributed quotations. His work may well provoke controversy in traditionalist academic circles, but will likely puzzle and irritate those less well-versed in the Shakespearean canon.