William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the most influential playwrights in history, and his plays have been performed and studied for centuries. From the timeless tragedy of Romeo and Juliet to the hilarious antics of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare’s plays continue to captivate audiences around the world. Whether you’re a fan of tragedy, comedy, or romance, there’s a Shakespeare play for everyone. So why not revisit these timeless classics and discover the magic of Shakespeare for yourself?
An argument can be made that were it not for David Garrick‘s Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769, none of us would be here today singing Mr. Shakespeare’s praises. Speaking of singing, much of the music from the celebration found its way into Garrick’s The Jubilee, staged later that year and running for 90 performances.
Have you ever heard it? Neither have I. Retrospect Opera, a small UK charity that makes professional recordings of important musical theatre works from Britain’s past, would like to change that.
Although the Jubilee is a seminal moment in Shakespeare’s reception history, and marked the consecration of Stratford-upon-Avon as a centre for literary pilgrimages, most of the music – which is consistently fresh and delightful – has never been recorded before. We want to create something that is at once scholarly, with appropriate supporting documentation, and musically and theatrically done to the highest level, capturing how much fun it all was.
They are currently fundraising and looking for backers to help see them over the finish line. Stephen Greenblatt and Jonathan Bate have already endorsed the project.
If you would like to donate to this project, you can use this link.
I know the search engine optimization (SEO) game is an ongoing battle for Google to stay one step ahead of everybody, but this is getting ridiculous. This story only has a little Shakespeare but I couldn’t pass it up.
I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I have a book channel of sorts at my day job. We have a book club that does the traditional “one book a month that we vote on” type of thing, but because of the amount I read, I have my own channel where I just brain dump book review after book review. Last year I think I read 70 books? Something like that.
Anyway, just this morning I’d finished writing up Perdido Street Station by Chia Miéville, and made a comment about the author’s vocabulary:
I read a review that said “the author writes like he swallowed a thesaurus” and had a laugh because that’s quite true. Some words are just so out of the ordinary that they leap out of the page and yell “Remember when this word was on a vocabulary quiz back in high school!” I haven’t heard “palimpsest” in years, but over the last couple of weeks of reading this one he used it probably 4 or 5 times.
Later that day I was talking to Bardfilm about interpretations of Ophelia (doesn’t everybody do that?) and I learned something, so I had reason to google “olivier’s ophelia” – as in Sir Laurence Olivier’s interpretation of a particular scene with Ophelia. Here’s what google gave back:
Note the third result returned, if you’re not getting it.
TELL ME THAT’S NOT WEIRD.
If it turns out that Google is actually ordering search results based on the fact that I searched “palimpsest” earlier that day (once, to confirm the dictionary definition), then I just give up trying to win the SEO game. That’s crazy.
Somebody else search “olivier’s ophelia” for me and tell me if palimpsest shows up, or it was just for me?
This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated. If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.
For No Shave November I immediately went into the text and searched for beard references to talk about. There’s a good one in the Seven Ages of Man speech in As You Like It:
And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth.
Something I never really thought about … what’s a pard?
Just about everybody says, “Oh, that means leopard.” Which I’d accept, except for the fact that, well, a pard is actually a thing. Sure, it’s really just the mythical parent creature of a leopard (which is supposed to be the offspring of a lion and a pard – get it? leo+pard?). But I still found it interesting that everybody was glossing over something potentially so obvious.
This pard has no beard.
The Wikipedia page linked above cites the Aberdeen Bestiary, which dates back to the 12th century.
Here’s where the journey gets interesting. Remember in the first Harry Potter book, where the kids hear the name Nicolas Flamel, and Hermione realizes that she saw a reference to him in a book in the restricted section?
I remember my first visit to the Folger Library, where I was introduced to a book called “The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes“. So naturally I thought, “Is pard in that book? I must find out!” (Unlike in the Hogwarts restricted section, the librarian actually encouraged my perusal of this particular book. But I would never have thought at the time to look for a pard.)
I love that I have resources now. It didn’t take long for our own resident wizard Bardfilm to produce the relevant pages:
“Leopardus the Leopard or Libbard, is a word devised by the later writes, compounded of Leo and Pardus, upon opinion that this Beast is generated betwixt a Pardal and Lion, and differs from Panthera in nothing but sex, and other say, that betwixt the Lions and the Pardals there is such a confused mixed generation as is betwixt Asses and Mares, or Stallions and Asses : as for example, when the Lion covereth the Paral, then is the Whelp called Leopardus, a Leopard or Libbard, but when the Parda covereth the Lioness, then it is called Panthera a Panther.”
What this does not tell us, at least as far as I’ve been able to read, is what kind of creature a pard or “pardal” was in the first place!
I haven’t given up the quest quite yet. I’ll let you know if there are any new discoveries!
This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated. If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.
I’ve been waiting years for my kids to reach the point in school where we can actually talk about Shakespeare because it’s their homework. My oldest is now reading The Tempest. So I get to have conversations like this:
Her: “We did get to read in class today. So, that was fun.”
Me: “And did you get a chance to actually stand up and maybe put a little something into it? Or was everybody just heads down blah blah blah’ing their way through it with no changing their delivery at all?”
Her: “I did my best. But, I have a question. There’s a word…abhor something? Abhorred?”
Me: “Abhorrent, maybe?”
Her: “No, I’m pretty sure it was abhorred. How many syllables is that?”
Me: “Sounds like two, but I’d have to look.”
Her: “That’s what I thought, because if it was three, then the line doesn’t come out right.”
…and it was at that point that I realized that while I’m just happy that she gets to read the words out loud, she went ahead and jumped to seeking out the iambic pentameter and trying to “respect the verse”. Can you stand it? So proud I could burst at times like that.
She then went on to tell me that she was annoyed by how some lines started with a capital letter, reminding me that we’ve still got so much to talk about 🙂
For the curious, here’s the speech:
PROSPERO
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison’d thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years; within which space she died
And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island–
Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp hag-born–not honour’d with
A human shape.
This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated. If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.
My daughter turned on the television this weekend and asked me, “What’s Sixteen Candles about?” because that’s what happened to be on. That particular movie’s gotten a lot of hate lately as being out of touch with that whole thing called “consent,” but I wasn’t prepared to start that conversation spontaneously on a Sunday afternoon.
“That’s an old comedy from the 80’s that didn’t age very well, people don’t like it very much anymore,” I said.
“But what’s it *about*?”
“Well, there’s this girl who is having a very tough day because her parents are so off in their own world doing their own thing that they forget her sixteenth birthday.”
“That’s not good.”
“Exactly. And of course she’s in love with the most handsome guy in school, but he doesn’t care, because he’s dating the most popular girl in school. Meanwhile, the nerd of the school is totally in love with her and following her around all over the place.”
“Oh!” she said, “Like Midsummer Night’s Dream!”
“…” I replied. “Not really like Midsummer Night’s Dream, no. But I’m probably going to get a blog post out of the fact that you said that.”
“Is it weird that the first thing I thought of was Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
“I love that that’s the first thing you thought of. That makes me very happy.”
The more I think about it I’m guessing she put Molly Ringwald into the Helena role? Wants the one guy, but he’s got no interest because he’s already got a girlfriend, meanwhile this other creep is stalking her? It’s not a bad match. I just never put Lysander and Demetrius into the “jock” and “nerd” categories before. I love that my kids see Shakespeare even in places where I don’t.
This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated. If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.
An argument can be made that were it not for David Garrick‘s Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769, none of us would be here today singing Mr. Shakespeare’s praises. Speaking of singing, much of the music from the celebration found its way into Garrick’s The Jubilee, staged later that year and running for 90 performances.
