Uncle Bill Shakespeare...Alive and Well!
- Thread starter Meanderer
- Start date
JonSR77
Senior Member
William Shatner got his start at a Canadian Shakespeare company. He was known for his roles in the comedies. Shortly after, he started appearing in major comedies on Broadway.
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Q: Did Shakespeare visit Egypt or did he know where Egypt was located on the map when he wrote Antony and Cleopatra?
A: "We know virtually nothing about most of Shakespeare’s life, but it seems highly unlikely that he ever left the UK. Few people did back then except sailors, and Shakespeare was a working actor."
"But one of the most amusing things about Shakespeare is that the geography in his plays makes literally no sense. He talks about the “Bohemian coast”, or sailing between two landlocked cities (Verona and Milan). And for some reason he thought that Vienna was in Italy."
"However for Shakespeare, accuracy was not the main idea (you see this in lots of other aspects of his writing). He just wanted places to sound exotic and foreign, and he didn’t really care too much for any level of accuracy beyond that."
Colin Riegels, History geek
A: "We know virtually nothing about most of Shakespeare’s life, but it seems highly unlikely that he ever left the UK. Few people did back then except sailors, and Shakespeare was a working actor."
"But one of the most amusing things about Shakespeare is that the geography in his plays makes literally no sense. He talks about the “Bohemian coast”, or sailing between two landlocked cities (Verona and Milan). And for some reason he thought that Vienna was in Italy."
"However for Shakespeare, accuracy was not the main idea (you see this in lots of other aspects of his writing). He just wanted places to sound exotic and foreign, and he didn’t really care too much for any level of accuracy beyond that."
Colin Riegels, History geek
JonSR77
Senior Member
I took this course, from The Teaching Company on Shakespeare...
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/shakespeare-comedies-histories-and-tragedies
I would think that one could find it in many libraries, through interlibrary loan or just a used copy incredibly cheap on Amazon...
+++
Shakespeare is one of those topics that really has been subjected to extensive public rumor and gossip.
If you take this course, the professor clearly points out, that Shakespeare's life is EXTREMELY well documented, through endless letters and original source material.
It absolutely is not true that there is controversy about whether he wrote all the plays. He wrote all the plays. I think there are detailed letters of him describing the writing work. Endless documentation.
You quote some source that Shakespeare thought Vienna was in Italy? There is absolutely no possible way, he could have made that error. None. He was a man of letters, highly educated (even if mostly self-educated) for a man in his day. He certainly knew what country all the major cities of Europe were in.
He is widely misunderstood, because he wrote with depth. And some people don't want to entertain ideas at depth.
No, he was not anti-Semitic. That character was created to show the ignorance of people who engage in anti-Semitism.
Also, you know, this man was a genius. He was smarter than us. And not by a small amount. So, our own ability to come close to understanding him is going to be limited. Because we are judging from a place that is not even close to who he was.
There are great men (and women) in history. He was one.
People, including historians just love, love, love to throw mud on great figures and try to force them down to our level.
Sometimes, they are not on our level, but many steps beyond.
https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/shakespeare-comedies-histories-and-tragedies
I would think that one could find it in many libraries, through interlibrary loan or just a used copy incredibly cheap on Amazon...
+++
Shakespeare is one of those topics that really has been subjected to extensive public rumor and gossip.
If you take this course, the professor clearly points out, that Shakespeare's life is EXTREMELY well documented, through endless letters and original source material.
It absolutely is not true that there is controversy about whether he wrote all the plays. He wrote all the plays. I think there are detailed letters of him describing the writing work. Endless documentation.
You quote some source that Shakespeare thought Vienna was in Italy? There is absolutely no possible way, he could have made that error. None. He was a man of letters, highly educated (even if mostly self-educated) for a man in his day. He certainly knew what country all the major cities of Europe were in.
He is widely misunderstood, because he wrote with depth. And some people don't want to entertain ideas at depth.
No, he was not anti-Semitic. That character was created to show the ignorance of people who engage in anti-Semitism.
Also, you know, this man was a genius. He was smarter than us. And not by a small amount. So, our own ability to come close to understanding him is going to be limited. Because we are judging from a place that is not even close to who he was.
There are great men (and women) in history. He was one.
People, including historians just love, love, love to throw mud on great figures and try to force them down to our level.
Sometimes, they are not on our level, but many steps beyond.
Meanderer
Supreme Member
I'm glad the course paid off for you! I will have to investigate it. Thank you.
Em in Ohio
Senior Member
- Location
- OH HI OH
But would YOU name YOUR TWINS after characters from "A Midsummer Night's Dream?" (My relatives - sometimes....!)
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Prince Charles visits RSC Costume Workshop redevelopment in Stratford
(2020)
"THE PRINCE of Wales got a first hand look at the on-going project to transform the RSC’s costume workshop when he visited Stratford today."
"Prince Charles, who is president of the RSC, visited the Waterside workshop, opposite the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which is being restored and redeveloped at a cost of nearly £9million – some 70 years after it first opened."
"The revamp will see the historic grade II listed buildings conserved and extended. A new entrance will also be created using the former doors built for the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1887."
(READ MORE)
(2020)
"THE PRINCE of Wales got a first hand look at the on-going project to transform the RSC’s costume workshop when he visited Stratford today."
"Prince Charles, who is president of the RSC, visited the Waterside workshop, opposite the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which is being restored and redeveloped at a cost of nearly £9million – some 70 years after it first opened."
"The revamp will see the historic grade II listed buildings conserved and extended. A new entrance will also be created using the former doors built for the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1887."
(READ MORE)
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Royal Shakespeare Company’s redeveloped costume workshop to open to public
The team relocated for two years while the restoration and construction took place.
The new Royal Shakespeare Company costume workshop
(June 9, 2021)
"The newly redeveloped costume workshop of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is to open to the public for the first time."
"The restored Grade II listed buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon now sit alongside newly created spaces capable of housing the 30-strong team – the largest in-house costume-making department of any British theatre."
"The workshop lies opposite the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres on the site of the 1887 Memorial Theatre Scene Dock, which is now the new entrance to the building." (READ MORE)
The team relocated for two years while the restoration and construction took place.
The new Royal Shakespeare Company costume workshop
(June 9, 2021)
"The newly redeveloped costume workshop of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is to open to the public for the first time."
"The restored Grade II listed buildings in Stratford-upon-Avon now sit alongside newly created spaces capable of housing the 30-strong team – the largest in-house costume-making department of any British theatre."
"The workshop lies opposite the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres on the site of the 1887 Memorial Theatre Scene Dock, which is now the new entrance to the building." (READ MORE)
horseless carriage
Well-known Member
Patient: "Doctor, am I going to be alright?"
Doctor: "I'm not too sure, Mercury is in Uranus now"
Patient: "But I don't know much about astronomy and space"
Doctor: “Neither do I, but I do know that my thermometer just snapped inside you.
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Shakespeare found alive and well in Auckland (2016)
[By Murray Dewhurst in Auckland, New Zealand]
"When I first heard that work on a ‘pop-up’ Globe had commenced in a carpark behind the Town Hall, I was totally skeptical – what a mad idea! So I went down for a look. I was surprised that after only a few days of work progress was well underway. The site was crawling with workers in orange high viz vests busily constructing what looked like a giant Meccano set. Described as ‘cutting-edge technology combined with 400 year old design’ the structure is almost entirely built from scaffolding. The site is sloped, so huge concrete slabs were being lowered into place to hold the whole thing down and stop it sliding down the hill. Finally it was clothed in corrugated iron."
Read More
[By Murray Dewhurst in Auckland, New Zealand]
"When I first heard that work on a ‘pop-up’ Globe had commenced in a carpark behind the Town Hall, I was totally skeptical – what a mad idea! So I went down for a look. I was surprised that after only a few days of work progress was well underway. The site was crawling with workers in orange high viz vests busily constructing what looked like a giant Meccano set. Described as ‘cutting-edge technology combined with 400 year old design’ the structure is almost entirely built from scaffolding. The site is sloped, so huge concrete slabs were being lowered into place to hold the whole thing down and stop it sliding down the hill. Finally it was clothed in corrugated iron."
Read More
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Shakespeare and the American Revolution
Matthew Darly. “Poor Old England Endeavoring to Reclaim His Wicked American Children.” Etching [London]: M. Darly 39 Strand, 1777 Apr. Library of Congress.
“Be taxt, or not be taxt, that is the question.” By the time the first battles of the American Revolution took place on April 19, 1775 in Massachusetts, Shakespeare had been imported from England on stage and page to the New World. His plays were performed on the east coast from Massachusetts to Virginia, where the first documented theater building opened in 1718. Though not yet taught in school, Shakespeare was widely read, most often in editions printed in England."
"As patriots and loyalists took sides, Shakespeare provided a common language through which they could express their differences. It was a war fought with ink and paper as well as with bullets and guns. “Be taxt, or not be taxt, that is the question,” wrote a patriot in 1770; while a loyalist Tory expressed uncertainty about whether to sign on to a boycott of British goods in 1774: “To sign, or not to sign? That is the question”—both sides channeled Hamlet."
READ MORE
Matthew Darly. “Poor Old England Endeavoring to Reclaim His Wicked American Children.” Etching [London]: M. Darly 39 Strand, 1777 Apr. Library of Congress.
“Be taxt, or not be taxt, that is the question.” By the time the first battles of the American Revolution took place on April 19, 1775 in Massachusetts, Shakespeare had been imported from England on stage and page to the New World. His plays were performed on the east coast from Massachusetts to Virginia, where the first documented theater building opened in 1718. Though not yet taught in school, Shakespeare was widely read, most often in editions printed in England."
"As patriots and loyalists took sides, Shakespeare provided a common language through which they could express their differences. It was a war fought with ink and paper as well as with bullets and guns. “Be taxt, or not be taxt, that is the question,” wrote a patriot in 1770; while a loyalist Tory expressed uncertainty about whether to sign on to a boycott of British goods in 1774: “To sign, or not to sign? That is the question”—both sides channeled Hamlet."
READ MORE
Meanderer
Supreme Member
Meanderer
Supreme Member
See what caught Prince Charles’s attention when he visited the Folger Shakespeare Library
November 6, 2016
"The Prince Charles day was fun. We had chosen a group of books, and we had them all lined up along tables in the Old Reading Room....We had the First Folio, and a copy of the arrival and entertainments for Marie de Médicis [the French queen mother, and Charles I’s mother-in-law], when she came to visit Charles I and Henrietta Maria. That belonged to Cardinal Mazarin. We also had an herbal and some other things."
"They came in. and I remember that they wore red poppies, because it was November, and, of course, in England, they still commemorate the soldiers who died in wars by wearing poppies."
(l-r) Gail Kern Paster, Prince Charles, Camilla, Georgianna Ziegler. 2005.
"And then we got to the herbal. It is a copy of Fuchs’s herbal from 1542, which was owned and marked up by Henry Dingley in England during Shakespeare’s time. I knew that Charles would like this, because he’s very much into gardening and has created an organic garden at Highgrove. He just stood there and started looking through it, saying things like, “Oh, we have those planted in So-and-So!” He was recognizing plants that he knew."
"They were very nice and gracious, and looking back, it was sort of low-key. It was a big splash, but at the time, people were not tweeting or taking as many photos. It was a very pleasant visit."
This story is from an interview with Georgianna Ziegler, Louis B. Thalheimer Associate Librarian and Head of Reference Emerita, some of which appears in the Summer/Fall 2016 issue of Folger Magazine. The magazine is complimentary for members of the Folger.
November 6, 2016
"The Prince Charles day was fun. We had chosen a group of books, and we had them all lined up along tables in the Old Reading Room....We had the First Folio, and a copy of the arrival and entertainments for Marie de Médicis [the French queen mother, and Charles I’s mother-in-law], when she came to visit Charles I and Henrietta Maria. That belonged to Cardinal Mazarin. We also had an herbal and some other things."
"They came in. and I remember that they wore red poppies, because it was November, and, of course, in England, they still commemorate the soldiers who died in wars by wearing poppies."
(l-r) Gail Kern Paster, Prince Charles, Camilla, Georgianna Ziegler. 2005.
"And then we got to the herbal. It is a copy of Fuchs’s herbal from 1542, which was owned and marked up by Henry Dingley in England during Shakespeare’s time. I knew that Charles would like this, because he’s very much into gardening and has created an organic garden at Highgrove. He just stood there and started looking through it, saying things like, “Oh, we have those planted in So-and-So!” He was recognizing plants that he knew."
"They were very nice and gracious, and looking back, it was sort of low-key. It was a big splash, but at the time, people were not tweeting or taking as many photos. It was a very pleasant visit."
This story is from an interview with Georgianna Ziegler, Louis B. Thalheimer Associate Librarian and Head of Reference Emerita, some of which appears in the Summer/Fall 2016 issue of Folger Magazine. The magazine is complimentary for members of the Folger.
Meanderer
Supreme Member
W. Heath Robinson: Shakespeare Illustrated by “Britain’s Rube Goldberg”
"Although beloved in his native country of England, William Heath Robinson is little known in the world beyond. Not for much longer: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!”—the winds of change are blustery! In October 2016 the Heath Robinson Museum opened in Pinner, in northwest London, and in March, Wonder and Whimsy: the Illustrations of W. Heath Robinson opened at the Delaware Art Museum, bringing the work of this artist to American audiences for the first time."
"The Delaware exhibition includes a selection of original drawings from two editions of Shakespeare’s plays, Twelfth Night1 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream." (Read More)
“Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet…” From “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Folger Shakespeare Library
"Although beloved in his native country of England, William Heath Robinson is little known in the world beyond. Not for much longer: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!”—the winds of change are blustery! In October 2016 the Heath Robinson Museum opened in Pinner, in northwest London, and in March, Wonder and Whimsy: the Illustrations of W. Heath Robinson opened at the Delaware Art Museum, bringing the work of this artist to American audiences for the first time."
"The Delaware exhibition includes a selection of original drawings from two editions of Shakespeare’s plays, Twelfth Night1 and A Midsummer Night’s Dream." (Read More)
“Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet…” From “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Folger Shakespeare Library
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