Anthony Burgess, Nothing Like the Sun

Rob Spence (Edge Hill University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1964

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Nothing Like the Sun

(1964) was occasioned by the quatercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth. It is not, however, as so many items produced at the time were, a matter of mere hagiography. Rather, it is an imaginative attempt at historical reconstruction, focusing on Shakespeare’s relationship with the “Dark Lady” of the sonnets, and dwelling on the often unsavoury aspects of London life at the end of the sixteenth century. The narrative is presented as the rambling final lecture before departure of a drunken English academic in a Malaysian college, Mr Burgess. This device allows Burgess-the-author the freedom to invent plausible but unsubstantiated details, such as Shakespeare’s contraction of syphilis as a result of his relationship with the dark lady, and his cuckolding by his…

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2549 words

Citation: Spence, Rob. "Nothing Like the Sun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 November 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3182, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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