The Seven Least-Controversial Disclosures on WikiLeaks

~ ~ 1 Comment

Bardfilm has been swept up in the recent WikiLeaks debate, and he claims to have found several “revelations” that aren’t really that revelatory.

The Seven Least-Controversial Disclosures on WikiLeaks:

1. Hal, as he claimed he would do, banished Plump Jack Falstaff.

2. Macbeth murdered Duncan. And Sleep.

3. Brutus was one of the conspirators against Julius Caesar, dealing a serious blow to Caesar’s own highly controversial “lean and hungry” conspirator profiling program.

4. Richard III was, at one point at least, desperate for equine transportation of some sort.

5. A rose, by any other name, actually would smell as sweet.

6. Desdemona was faithful to Othello.

7. The works attributed to Shakespeare, the man from Stratford-on-Avon, were written by . . . Shakespeare, the man from Stratford-on-Avon.

Our thanks for this guest post to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Thanks, too, from kj to Shakespeare Geek, who edited some of the above to give them greater clarity and greater hilarity.


Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare.

What Shakespeare Did You Read In High School?

~ duane ~ 39 Comments

I always assume that Romeo & Juliet is still the most popular, but I have nothing to back that up except my own experience which is now pretty old :). I also have no true appreciation of the breadth of plays that some teachers choose.

So, enlighten me. Whether you teach high school, you’re in high school, or, like me, high school is a distant memory, what plays did you read? The more you remember, the better. I’m trying to develop a spectrum from most commonly read all the way down to never read, so it’s equally important that we learn which plays *arent* being taught. If you’re a teacher, a little extra info on frequency (“I’ve taught Hamlet every year for 20 years but this is the first year we’re doing All’s Well That Ends Well”) would help as well.

I remember reading: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Othello and Taming of the Shrew. I think I can also include Richard II, the Henry plays, and Troilus and Cressida – but truthfully, I can’t remember whether I read those in high school or early in college. Maybe Midsummer?

Who else? If you’re a teacher and know teachers in other schools, please take a moment to forward this post. The more information, the better!
  

Shakespeare Married Here

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

At least four different Stratford-on-Avon churches claim to be the place where William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, but now we may finally know for sure. All Saints Church in Billesley has been awarded a grant to research the subject and try to determine the answer once and for all.
Although actually if we read a little more, I think that the writer of this article may have stretched it a bit:

No parish registers survive from that time to prove the theory one way or the other. There is, however, stronger evidence to suggest that Shakespeare’s granddaughter was married at Billesley.

Unless they’ve got some historical “Granddaughters always got married in the same church their grandfather got married in, don’t you know that?” argument, I think this is more a case of the church getting a boatload of money to become a better tourist attraction. There still won’t be any proof about which of the churches has the best claim, this one will just be able to make that claim in more ways because they’ve got more money.

Shakespeare Never Went To College

~ duane ~ 3 Comments

Hamlet did, though. I’m not sure what Laertes was going back to France for, but it could have been school. And then there’s the three “scholars” in Love’s Labour’s Lost.
My question is this – how frequently did Shakespeare create characters who were students, and do we think that his depiction of those characters (or his failure to do so) had anything to do with his own experience or lack thereof?
This is indeed a variation on the “If Shakespeare never went to Venice how did he describe Venice so accurately?” question. I thought it might be a little change of pace.

Geeklet Pun

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

So my girls are at dance class last night and I’m driving around doing errands with my son, who is 4. (Sorry I always feel the need to mention that but you never know when somebody’s reading for the first time ;)). Anyway, I’m waiting at a red light to take a left, when I see an ambulance coming in my rear view mirror. “Daddy has to get out of the way of the ambulance,” I say.
“Where is the ambulance going?” he asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, “Maybe somebody is hurt.”
“Is it coming to me?” he asks.
“No,” I say, “You’re not hurt. It’s not coming to you.”
“Not to me,” he says. “Hey, to me or not to me!”
“That is the question,” I finish.
“No Daddy,” he corrects me, “I didn’t say to *be* or not to *be*, I’m saying to *me* or not to *me*. It only *sounds* like Shakespeare.”
I don’t want my children to grow up too fast, of course, but man I can’t wait until they actually get to study this stuff for real. I’m dying to see how it turns out.