A. L. Rowse
Alfred Leslie Rowse CH FBA FRSL FRHistS (4 December 1903 – 3 October 1997) was a British historian and writer, best known for his work on Elizabethan England and books relating to Cornwall.His work on Shakespeare included a claim to have identified the Dark Lady of the Sonnets as Emilia Lanier, which attracted much interest from scholars, but also many counterclaims.Despite his modest origins and his parents' limited education, he won a place at St Austell County Grammar School and then a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford, in 1921.He was encouraged in his pursuit of an academic career by a fellow Cornish man of letters, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, of Polperro, who recognised his ability from an early age.Rowse endured doubting comments about his paternity, thus he paid particular attention to his mother's association with a local farmer and butcher from Polgooth, near St Austell, Frederick William May (1872–1953).[3] Moreover, Trott was a German ultra-nationalist committed to recovering all of the lands lost under the Treaty of Versailles, which led him to a certain support for Nazi foreign policy, a position that Rowse could not accept.[4] Rowse wrote that his book was a study on the "predisposing conditions of creativeness, the psychological rewards of ambivalence, the doubled response to life, the sharping of perception, the tensions that led to achievement".He also criticised his former Labour Party colleagues–including George Lansbury, Kingsley Martin and Richard Crossman—for endorsing appeasement, writing "not one of the Left intellectuals could republish what they wrote in the Thirties without revealing what idiotic judgments they made about events.Rowse's early works focus on 16th-century England and his first full-length historical monograph, Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge (1937), was a biography of a 16th-century sailor.In 1973 he published Shakespeare the Man, in which he claimed to have solved the final problem – the identity of the 'Dark Lady': from a close reading of the sonnets and the diaries of Simon Forman, he asserted that she must have been Emilia Lanier, whose poems he would later collect.In the case of Shakespeare's sexuality, he emphasised the playwright's heterosexual inclinations by noting that he had impregnated an older woman by the time he was 18, and was consequently obliged to marry her.The diary excerpts published in 2003 reveal that "he was an overt even rather proud homosexual in a pre-Wolfenden age, fascinated by young policemen and sailors, obsessively speculating on the sexual proclivities of everyone he meets"."[9] Rowse's first book was On History, a Study of Present Tendencies published in 1927 as the seventh volume of Kegan Paul's Psyche Miniature General Series.His best-seller was his first volume of autobiography, A Cornish Childhood, first published by Jonathan Cape in 1942, which has gone on to sell nearly half a million copies worldwide.From the 1940s to the 1970s, he served as the General Editor for the popular "Teach Yourself History" and "Men and their Times" series, published by the English Universities Press.His biographies include studies of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Earl of Southampton, the major players in the sonnets, as well as later luminaries of English literature such as John Milton, Jonathan Swift and Matthew Arnold.In 1968 he was made a Bard of Gorseth Kernow, taking the bardic name Lef A Gernow ('Voice of Cornwall'), reflecting his high standing in the Cornish community.Christopher William Hill's radio play Accolades, rebroadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2007 as a tribute to its star, Ian Richardson, who had died the previous month, covers the period leading up to the publication of Shakespeare the Man in 1973 and publicity surrounding Rowse's unshakable confidence that he had discovered the identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets.
TrenarrenElizabethan historianCompanion of HonourSt Austell Grammar SchoolAlma materChrist Church, OxfordAll Souls College, OxfordMerton College, OxfordLondon School of EconomicsHuntington LibraryFRHistSElizabethanCornwallOxfordArthur Quiller-CouchfellowAll Souls CollegeMerton CollegeShakespeareDark Lady of the SonnetsEmilia LanierLabourcandidatePenryn and FalmouthSt Austellchina clayGrammar SchoolPolperroPolgoothEnglish literatureMaster of ArtsAdam von Trott zu SolzRichard OllardLabour PartyLiberalMaurice PetherickConservativeStafford Cripps"Popular Front"Richard AclandSub-WardenJohn SparrowThe Huntington LibraryBritish AcademyRichard GrenvilleHugh Trevor-RoperA. J. P. Taylorpolitical rightNational GovernmentappeasementNazi GermanySecond World WarGeorge LansburyKingsley MartinRichard CrossmanCornish rootsTrenarren HouseCharlestownWilliam ShakespearesonnetsChristopher MarloweDark Ladyclose readingSimon FormanLong familiesRomeo and JulietHenry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of SouthamptonheterosexualbisexualWolfendenKegan PaulT. S. EliotThe CriterionCharles HendersonClarendon PressAdam von TrottJuly Plot of 1944Hitlerhuman sexualityJohn MiltonJonathan SwiftMatthew ArnoldHRH The Prince of WalesThe AdelphiJohn Middleton MurryKatherine MansfieldUniversity of ExeterThe Royal Institution of CornwallHeywood HillFellow of the British AcademyRoyal Historical SocietyRoyal Society of LiteratureDLitt (Oxon)University of New BrunswickGorseth Kernowbardic nameAthenaeum ClubBenson MedalMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour1997 New Year HonoursBlack HeadCornwall's south coastTV drama documentariesradio playBBC Radio 4Ian RichardsonUnder Milk WoodJudith CookHouse of LordsQueen ElizabethKeynesSir Richard GrenvilleAll SoulsRaleghWars of the RosesTower of LondonWindsor CastleMiltonPuritanFroudeQuiller-CouchColensosRegicidesCapstick, TonyContemporary ReviewOllard, Richard