Christopher Matusiak, Associate Professor of English, has published an article in Shakespeare Quarterly, the leading academic journal in the field of Shakespeare studies. The article is entitled "Was Shakespeare 'not a company keeper'? William Beeston and MS Aubrey 8, fol. 45v."
Matusiak's essay makes an extremely significant contribution to the study of the biography of William Shakespeare. In a famous piece of manuscript evidence used by the late seventeenth-century antiquarian John Aubrey in composing a short biography of Shakespeare, the following note occurs: "the more to be admired quia he was not a company keeper, lived in Shoreditch, would n[o]t be debauched." Because this observation is written very closely on the page to Shakespeare's name, generations of scholars have assumed that it is meant to apply to Shakespeare, and as a result, this remark has served as the foundation for a wide range of biographical traditions that tend to depict Shakespeare as solitary, introspective, and not given to "debauchery."
But what if this description refers to a different person? Matusiak argues that in fact, the person who was "not a company keeper" was William Beeston, one of Aubrey's informants, whose family was deeply involved in the London theater throughout the seventeenth century. New archival evidence that traces the trajectory of Beeston's personal fortunes, according to Matusiak, indicates strongly that this description does indeed refer to Beeston, and not to Shakespeare. With this in view, Matusiak suggests that longstanding assumptions about the nature of Shakespeare's character are due for reconsideration and reassessment.
The article appears in the winter 2017 issue of Shakespeare Quarterly, which because of the journal's production schedule was published this year. The full citation follows: Christopher Matusiak, "Was Shakespeare 'not a company keeper'? William Beeston and MS Aubrey 8, fol. 45v," Shakespeare Quarterly 68 (2017): 351-73.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20180923211502745