Surely you’ve heard the misquote, “We are such stuff as dreams are made of.”  It’s actually “on”.  “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” says Prospero near the end of The Tempest, “And our little lives are rounded with a sleep.”

If Google is to be believed, the ratio is about 5 to 1 (200k or so misquotes to about a million instances of the actual quote).

I got to thinking, is this just a typo? What makes people think it’s one over the other?  Who reads it as “on” and thinks, “No, that’s not right, it should be of?” Does it mean the same thing and this is just a minor nit?

We are such stuff as dreams are made of.

Dreams, like the magical spirits Prospero conjures forth, are just little bits of nothingness. They don’t exist. They are an illusion. If we are the stuff that dreams are made of, then our lives too are little more than illusion that will one day end.

We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Dreams follow reality. You dream because you are conscious of what you experience. If we are the stuff that dreams are made on, then we are the source of limitless creative possibility.

Am I reading too much into this?

You may have noticed this week that Caitlin Griffin’s 2012 “Everbody Dies” poster has gone viral (again) this week. Caitlin’s been a reader/contributor to this blog for quite some time, so if you’re talking about that graphic please make sure to give her the proper credit and links!

Of course with that much Shakespeare content all in one place it’s got to stir up some conversation. I was curious about “The Fool just disappears”.  I thought he was hanged?  I went back to the text:

Lear. And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life!
Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,
Never, never, never, never, never!
Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir.
Do you see this? Look on her! look! her lips!
Look there, look there!

And then Lear dies.  It’s even in Sir Ian McKellen’s version of King Lear that came out on video a few years ago. Not the quote, the quote’s always there – I mean you witness Fool being hanged in that one.   (Found a link!)

But I asked Bardfilm and he pointed me to the Arden footnotes (and I mean that literally, he messaged me a picture of him pointing to the footnote) that says Lear is referring affectionately to Cordelia (who, obviously, was hanged). It seems odd that all of a sudden he’d pull out a pet name for his daughter that wasn’t used previously in the play, that also happens to be the name of a character. But, the footnotes argue, Lear is basically confusing the two characters at this point and thinks them to be the same person. (I imagine this to be much like when you visit a relative who suffers from Alzheimer’s and discover yourself being called by the name of someone long dead).

Until right now I’d just always assumed that the fool was hanged, possibly even right in front of him.  I don’t know when or where or how (it’s strangely awkward in the McKellen version, and really dark), but it just always seemed to me like one more sorrow to be heaped upon us.  After all, what exactly did the fool do to deserve hanging?  He’s not even a soldier who could or would have defended himself. It’s like hanging a child. I just always imagined Lear having to watch his fool die.

What do you all think? Isn’t Shakespeare typically better at tying up his loose ends? Would he have just forgotten to tell us the fate of that character? Or is this his way of finding a place to squeeze it in? Have you just always read it as referring to Cordelia?

We can talk about whose button it is later. 🙂

I have more ideas than I have opportunities to try them out, so if you ever see something here you want to try with your own kids, you go right ahead. Then report back how it went.

Tomorrow I have to entertain a bunch of 7yr olds on the subject of Shakespeare.  I’ve already got plenty of ideas (see my “scenes from a hat” post earlier today).  But here’s another one:

Shakespeare Survivor

1) Pick a tragedy. We’ll assume Hamlet.

2) Every student is given a name tag identifying them as a character from the play.

3) Everybody stands up.

4) Teacher walks through the play, “character introduction by character introduction,” so the students know who they are supposed to be.  Example:  One student has the nametag “King Hamlet.”  Teacher responds, “You are the previous king of Denmark.  When the play starts, you’re already dead.  Sit down.”

5) As each character dies, they are told the method of their demise (“You’re hiding behind the curtains and Hamlet stabs you.”)  It’s important to go back and inform the ghost of old king Hamlet how he died, so he doesn’t feel ripped off that he died so early :).

6) Any student left standing has survived!

I figure it wins on two levels.  Most of the kids get to die, and it’s always cool to die a gruesome death when you’re seven.  Those that don’t get a gruesome death at least get to come away with the “victory” that they survived the play.

If I have time I’m going to write up those cards and bring them with me.  Not sure yet if we’ll try to play that or the scenes from a hat game.  Problem with this game is that there’s like 22 students in the class and I don’t have a play that has that many characters, so I’d have to do it twice (Hamlet and Macbeth?) and then it starts to get too long and kids argue about who went twice and blah blah blah.

P.S. – Did I write up this game once?  I’m getting a weird dejavu over it, but I can’t find evidence that I wrote it up previously.  I could swear we talked about ….. I know what it was!  Shakespeare Death Bingo!  Ok, now I feel better that I’m not repeating myself.  Similar concept, different execution.