Month: October 2009

http://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2009/10/20/shakespeare-goes-gardening-in-gnomeo-juliet/ [Thanks, Twitter!] If we go all the way back to April, 2006 we find our first mention of Gnome and Juliet, the Disney animated version of Romeo and Juliet, in the world of garden gnomes. Looks like it is actually happening, as you’ve got Eugene Levy on video talking about doing voice work for it.  Scheduled for release in 2011.  Cool! I just wish I could get somebody to listen to me and do The Tempest, instead of R and J again.  After all, I’ve already got a version with seals.   UPDATE : Since Levy does not mention it, here’s a link with more of a direct Disney connection.  It’s part of their Miramax studios.

I see this question all the time on Twitter.  If Shakespeare were alive today he’d be writing soap operas.  He’d be hanging out with Lady Gaga.  He’d have a blog.  And so on. Pretty much all of those come from folks with little more than the typical knowledge of “Shakespeare as great writer” much like you’d associate “Einstein” with “genius” without having a clue about what the latter contributed to science.  Ya know? So I’m curious.  Most of us here are fairly well versed in Mr. Shakespeare, all facets of his life.  What *do* we think he’d be doing?  Here’s a couple to get it rolling: * I highly doubt he would have had a shotgun marriage to Anne Hathaway. That alone could alter his whole life story. * He could work “virtually” anywhere, and wouldn’t have to leave his wife and kids in one town while he trekked off to live miles away for most of the year. * He’d have the potential for worldwide recognition, and as such could have potential audiences with a number of world leaders.  However, unlike his own time, he wouldn’t be constrained by fear of pissing off those leaders and ending up in jail.  He could be much more direct in his political commentary. * Assuming he made a success of himself I expect he’d spent a great deal of time suing people for copyright infringement.  Back in his day it was much harder to bust people for it, but we do know that Shakespeare was the litigious sort who wouldn’t let a debt go unanswered, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him attempt to go after the pirates. * While he’d be good at self promotion and no doubt have a fairly significant brand associated with his name, I wouldn’t expect to see him hanging out on Twitter for example. Why give it away?  He’s a business man, people pay him for what he writes.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1930971,00.html I said I’d come back to this story when I had a moment and could find a good link.  The Time article seems to get all the relevant details, including some examples of the important phrases found in Shakespeare’s work that are also to be found in Edward III. Don’t get me wrong, the computer geek in me thinks it’s an interesting story.  I just think the reporting on it is a little … overboard.  Look at the title – “How Plagiarism Software Found A New Shakespeare Play”.  Found?  New?  Now look at the very first paragraph of the article:

Yet the software may have settled a centuries-old mystery over the authorship of an unattributed play from the late 1500s called The Reign of Edward III. Literature scholars have long debated whether the play was written by Shakespeare — some bits are incredibly Bard-like, but others don’t resemble his style at all. The verdict, according to one expert: the play is likely a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Kyd, another popular playwright of his time.

So how do you find a new play that is centuries old, and long considered to maybe have been Shakespeare already?  And am I the only one that sees that big old likely right in the middle of the last sentence?  Much of the rest of the article (and the story overall) is directed at the general populace, less so than we geeks.  We know, for instance, and are not bothered by the fact that Shakespeare collaborated with other playwrights.  Yet the article phrases it like, “Why would Shakespeare need to collaborate?”, taking the classic position of Shakespeare as literary god who put perfect pen to page and never blotted lines. When we start saying that Shakespeare wrote 39 plays instead of 38, somebody let me know.  Heck, I still haven’t read Noble Kinsmen yet! 🙂

Also making an appearance in my “star for later” bucket is Casablanca Girl’s “Hamlet / Dr. Faustus” crossover.  At 1000 words or so it’s a pretty quick read. The premise is kind of neat.  Everybody’s quick to point out that Hamlet at Wittenburg is complete anachronism, as the university did not exist in Hamlet’s time (it did in Shakespeare’s).  So then was Shakespeare maybe copying directly from Marlowe?  Is the connection deliberate?

Always fun to talk about the mystery man that some feel was indeed Shakespeare himself in disguise (that is, Marlowe wrote as Shakespeare – stay with me, people.)  I’m not quite sure the larger point of this article at “La Stampa”, and I think this might even be part 6 of something larger, but it’s loaded with good Marlowe info that casual geeks may not have already known:

This is what the “School of Night”, which formed around Sir Walter Raleigh did. Here the greatest original minds of the day thought and discussed in secret the unthinkable and Raleigh, another self-made man of extravagant tastes, and the Queen’s favourite became Marlowe’s patron. Like Tamburlaine Raleigh was a man of humble origins who was setting out to conquer the “New” World in Virginia and was capable of barbarity in Ireland. Like Dr Faustus were the mathematical genius Thomas Heriot who created modern algebra and went to Virginia, the “Wizard Earl” of Northumberland, the greatest contemporary Alchemist/scientist Dr John Dee and the cosmologist Giordano Bruno; all friends of Marlowe in the School of Night. Indeed both Raleigh and Marlowe were accused of “atheism” though they were probably, like later Isaac Newton, Arians; denying the divinity of Christ.

I’m no Marlowe Geek so I can’t speak to how much of the article is the same old stuff, how much is just restating urban legend, and how much might actually be new.  But I found it a nice change of pace from all the “Computer proved Shakespeare didn’t work alone!” stories cluttering my newsfeeds this past week.  http://www.lastampa.it/_web/CMSTP/tmplrubriche/giornalisti/grubrica.asp?ID_blog=145&ID_articolo=128&ID_sezione=308&sezione=