Shakespeare and the Presidents : John Adams

April 23, 2012April 25, 2023 ~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Continuing my mashup of presidents and Shakespeare, let’s look at John Adams. Once again, this information all courtesy Folger’s Shakespeare in American Life series.

“Let me search for the clue which led great Shakespeare into the labyrinth of human nature. Let me examine how men think.”

Compared to Washington, John Adams appears to have been all about the Shakespeare. He and his wife Abigail frequently quoted Shakespeare in their letters to each other, and in 1786 Adams went to Shakespeare’s birthplace along with Thomas Jefferson (who we’ll look at in a separate post). Adams was disappointed, writing that

The house was “as small and mean as you can conceive,” wrote Adams in his diary. “There is nothing preserved of this great genius… which might inform us what education, what company, what accident turned his mind to letters and drama.”

Bummer. What did Jefferson think? Well, that’s another post. 🙂

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Visiting With Folger

April 23, 2012July 22, 2024 ~ duane ~ Leave a comment

[ These have apparently gotten out of order, darn it. This obviously should have come out before the Foolish Games post! -d ]

So after taking the appropriate amount of pictures outside, in we went.

Straight ahead is a theatre (empty, there is no show right now). I spy a guest book! I write Duane “Shakespeare Geek” Morin in it. Ha!

My wife, with the kids, wanders into the theatre. The security guard wanders in right behind them. He’s not scooting them out, however – he’s encouraging them to go down and take pictures, just not to get on the stage. We did get pictures, but since they all have my kids in them I can’t post them here.

He asks if we’re big fans of Shakespeare. I tell him that we’re here by invitation of Garland Scott (Director of External Relations) to tour the vault, he tells me how lucky I am. I agree. (For the record I did not say it like that, I just wrote it like that for link purposes – I said “We’re here to see Garland.”)

He shows us the gift shop, where we’re supposed to meet at 2pm. It’s early, so we wander around for a little while, looking for stuff to buy (or, rather, stuff to not buy as I am starting with the assumption that I’ll take one of everything, and then put stuff back one thing at a time :)).

Georgianna Ziegler, Head of Reference, wanders over, spies my shirt, and says “You must be my two o’clock!” Indeed I am. Introductions are made all around, and I sign in with security. Again, I write “ShakespeareGeek.com” as my Company. For posterity, don’t ya know.

At this point Garland was not with us, so Georgianna begins the tour solo but has to call for a backup. I learn later that this is one of the rules, for security.

We learn about Mr. and Mrs. Folger. I had no idea that Mr. Folger died before the library was complete, so he never got to see it. This has led to plenty of ghost stories about Folger walking the stacks, and Georgianna shares her own story of the ghost elevator opening itself at will. This fascinates my boy, who spends the rest of the tour asking whether we too would be going on the ghost elevator. I can’t tell if he’s excited about this or terrified.

I would have taken about a million more pictures, but this was a library after all and we were trying to be particularly quiet – which meant about 110% of my attention spent on praying that my boy didn’t get me kicked out. Luckily Georgianna let us continue, and I let the little geeklet live.

Shortly Garland joined us, and it was down into the vaults! I most definitely did get pictures down there (after asking permission), so stay tuned for a whole series of what I got to see!

My trip continues …

These Foolish Games (Inside Folger!)

April 23, 2012April 17, 2023 ~ duane ~ 4 Comments

So, picture it. Georgianna has begun our tour of the Folger Library, and we’re in this very cool dining hall decorated with stained glass representations of characters from the plays. She asks my son whether he can name a particular piece.

“That’s Hamlet,” my boy replies, pointing at one before I can even figure it out. “Because he’s talking to a skeleton.”

“Very good,” Georgianna replies. “Now can you find someone else from that play?”

Again, before I can take it all in (I think I spy Polonius, actually), the boy points to another window and says, “Over there! The Joker!”

I laugh. “No,” I tell him, “I think that’s the Fool from King Lear.”

“No, he’s right!” Georgianna tells us “See the skull that he’s stepping on? We’ve always taken that to mean that this is Yorick.”

Now, I’m quite sure that this full time employee of the center of the Shakespeare universe knows more about this stuff than I do. But it strikes me as odd. Not only is every other window a major character – Henry V, Cleopatra, Portia, Julius Caesar – but, as far as I can tell, each play is only represented once. Why then would Hamlet be represented not only by two windows, but with a minor character that never even appears in the play?

I must know! Surely somebody reading this has been in that room and knows the story of those windows. Clue me in!

My trip continues …

A Natural History of Shakespeare

April 23, 2012April 17, 2023 ~ duane ~ Leave a comment

During my browse through that “Alphabet of History” I also spotted the really cool Natural History of Shakespeare. This is not a book *about* Shakespeare, per se – this is a collection of quotes from Shakespeare’s work, organized by what bits of nature he mentioned:

A pretty neat way to flip through the works if you’re looking for something specific. I love this old public domain stuff, and which I had reference books like this on my shelf at times. I suppose they exist in various forms now, and I could go create a library of this stuff, but the 100yr old ones have a sort of simplicity to them that I really like. I think that we’ve gone a bit off the scholarly deep end in more modern editions. 100 years ago they’re written as if they’re saying, “Anyone at all might have an interest in this stuff.” Now they’re written like, “Ok, you’ll only want this if you’re already a Shakespeare scholar.”

The Good Booth

April 23, 2012April 17, 2023 ~ duane ~ Leave a comment

While in Washington D.C. we of course visited Ford’s Theatre (see post on the subject, possibly coming soon) so of course I spent most of the time talking about the Booths and their Shakespeare connection.

What I did not realize is that Edwin, the good one, is buried right here in Massachusetts. What do you think, does the picture of him look anything like the engraving on his tomb? I don’t see it. Then again the tomb version I’m sure was of him as an older man. Bonus history geek points if you already knew the ironic (?) story about Edwin saving the life of Lincoln’s son when he pulled him out of the way of an oncoming train.

If you ever get the chance, don’t miss Prince of Players – starring Richard Burton as Edwin himself. An absolutely fascinating movie that has a surprising amount of Shakespeare in it, and manages to tell the story of the man who shot Lincoln as nothing but a subplot. I loved it.