There are many “questions” about Shakespeare’s life and work.  There’s of course the big Authorship question, but also a whole bunch about his married life, that other woman, whether he was even heterosexual, who was Mr. W.H.…and then there’s questions within the work itself:  was Hamlet mad?  Did Gertrude know?  Sullied or solid? 🙂 Some questions annoy people, and we take the position that it’s not really a question at all.  Others, though, tend to merit lively discussion. Which are your favorite questions?  You’re at a party and you hear people discussing Shakespeare – which topic do you studiously avoid, and which do you jump in with an “Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing…” As is probably obvious to my regular readers, I’m always interested in questions about the work more than the man.  While it’s interesting to me (mostly as a married man) whether Shakespeare was happily married or shotgunned into it, I just don’t think we’ll ever know.  For the record, I realize that “questions about the work” could be considered simply “preference of interpretation” and thus there is no right answer.  What I’m talking about is Shakespeare’s original intent.  If we went back in time 400 years and watched these plays performed (assuming we could understand a bloody word of it!) would we see someone playing Hamlet as mad, or just putting on an antic disposition?

I haven’t done one of these in awhile.  It seems like a good a time as any, seeing the lovefest going on over in the recent threads on iambic pentameter in the sonnets, and the “man v. work” debate. Who are you, and what’s Shakespeare to you?  Author, actor, director, teacher?  Just random lover of the Bard?  Here’s your chance to introduce yourself to our readers.  After all, you folks are often the ones coming up with the really good content, I just open up the threads.  Seems only fitting that everybody get introduced. Plugging stuff (i.e. links) are welcome, do not feel like you’re being spammy.  My one rule : I expect an actual human written introduction that explains the link and preferably a little bit about yourself.  If I catch any spambots spotting this opportunity to just drop in random anonymous links, then those I will kill. And yes if you’ve introduced yourself before feel free to do it again, I get new readers all the time. 🙂

Just reminding folks that Marie over at Sourcebooks Shakespeare was kind enough to donate *2* book+CD packages for me to giveaway here on Shakespeare Geek.  Read my reviews here and here.  I’ll hit the highlights:  Focused primarily on Shakespeare in performance, these books provide a very well formatted and edited version of each play, accompanied by liberal notes including not just the standard glossary, but editorial comments about why certain decisions were made, anecdotes about famous interpretations of the scene in question, and screen shots from movies and stage of famous portrayals.  And then there’s the accompanying audio, “hyperlinked” (as best you can in a paper book!) to tracks on the accompanying audio CD.  So when you get to the heath, you get to hear for yourself a few different versions of how it has been interpreted.  Of course, that’s the King Lear example – Marie’s actually offered to let my winners pick which play they want from the Sourcebooks catalog, which includes most of the major works. Quick reminder of the rules! 1) Follow @ShakespeareGeek on Twitter.  I’ll need to be able to message you in case you win.  In case it wasn’t obvious, you have to be willing to provide a mailing address so we can actually send the book. 2) As the saying goes, "retweet” this specific link, swapping in the name of the book you’d prefer if you win.  You don’t have to call it “my favorite play” or anything, I just need to keep track of who is voting for which books.  Please use the link I’ve provided, do not just link to the main blog post, it may not be picked up by my filters. 3) That’s it!  I’ll keep track of contest entries and then choose 2 randomly from those received by midnight (EST), April 22.  That meaning the midnight at the close of 4/22, before 4/23, lest there be any confusion. 4) Winners will be notified by Twitter direct message (DM) so please make sure you keep that channel open and check it regularly, at least until contest winners are announced on the blog. PLEASE DO NOT FORGET STEP TWO!  I get new Twitter followers every day, and I have no idea which of them want to be entered into the contest unless they follow it up with the request retweet.  You do not want me to just enter every new followed into the contest, that will drastically cut down the chances of winning for people who do actually want the books, so please RT the message so I can keep track.  Thanks!!

Anybody remember the “Ernest” movies starring Jim Varney, who gained his fame as the “Hey Vern!” guy of a bunch of commercials? Turns out he was a Shakespearean actor as well.  Who knew?  Check out the 1984 video for a shot of him doing the “too too sullied flesh” speech from Hamlet.  Not too bad!