Shakespeare makes life better.
I don’t know who Kate Tempest is, but I hope with a name like that this is not the only Shakespearean thing she’s done or will do. I’m glad I found this, because on this of all days in particular, I take tremendous joy and comfort in the phrase “my Shakespeare”. Enjoy:
My kids are on school vacation this week and yesterday (April 22) we took the day off and went in town to do Boston things like go on a Duck Tour and have lunch in the North End (complete with cannoli from Mike’s Pastry).
During the duck tour we passed by the Boston Public Library and I was reminded that they have quite a Shakespeare collection (which I have visited). I had a fleeting moment to think that we should walk over when the tour is over and see if we can’t see it again, but the timing didn’t work, we were parked too far away, blah blah blah. I also had no idea if it’s normally open to the public.
Then I discover today that they’re opening their collection to the public for Shakespeare’s 400th. My first thought is, “Aw come on, and I was that close and missed it?!” Turns out they’re opening the collection starting in October.
So now we’ve all got plenty of time to plan a trip! It’s a 10 minute drive from where I work. I wonder if I could make it on my lunch hour?
I mention in another post that my brother in law shared with me his newly acquired Shakespeare knowledge, that our beloved bard drank “contaminated water” and died 30 days later. Of all the stories I’ve heard, I’ve never heard that one. Unless he was mixing contaminated water with his alcohol.
Since this is the big anniversary of his death, it’s nice that others are doing the work to recap the details are Shakespeare’s death. Basically we know that he was out drinking a few days before, and carried home. Was this a normal occurrence? Plenty of people get carried home drunk and they don’t die. Was Shakespeare already sick and would have been dead anyway, and the drinking thing is just a coincidence where he happens to have been seen by witnesses? We’ll never really know.
I did not see the television special that my brother in law was referring to, and I wouldn’t really be surprised to discover that contaminated water was generally a problem for everybody in a world of black plague. But would it have sickened and killed him almost immediately? I would assume that if it was that common to drop dead that easily from contaminated water, surely the historians of the last 400 years might have thought of that as well. And like I said, I’ve never heard that theory. It’s far more common to hear people suggest that he had syphilis.
A little something different for Shakespeare Day! I’ve had a copy of Presenting Shakespeare for a little while, but wasn’t really sure the best way to review it. It’s a hardcover book full of nothing but posters from Shakespeare productions. So how do you talk about it? I tried taking pictures (since I did not have any from the publisher) but that didn’t work very well.
So you get a rare video review! Enjoy.
It’s a very cool book to appreciate the more visual side of Shakespearean interpretation. Admittedly that’s not me – I’m all about the words words words 🙂
My oldest had to write a sonnet for her homework. The rules set down were, in order, that it should be: