I am just painfully late on the whole “Shakespeare’s church is crumbling” story, and for that I apologize.  I’ve seen it, many times, but circumstances haven’t allowed me to give it the attention it deserves.  Quite honestly if I stop to think about it, it makes me sad.  It’s not like Shakespeare is buried in the Sistine Chapel or Westminster Abbey or something.  This is just a little church that happens to be a big part of history, and it’s falling apart. This USA Today story finally got my attention because it has a plan for doing something and not just saying “Oh woe are we, we need about a zillion dollars or the poor building is going to collapse around poor Shakespeare’s bones.”  Apparently the Friends of Shakespeare’s Churchthey’re trying out the slogan “adopt a gargoyle”.  I’m disappointed that the story does not explain what exactly that means.  Do I get a picture of my gargoyle?  A plaque with my name on it?  Something? Anybody have more information on the story?  Places to send money, and so on?  The Friends link above takes you to the central organization that’s doing all the money raising.  

Link for ShakespeareTeacher.com because I like the domain and hope to hear good things from him.  It doesn’t appear to be a blog devoted to Shakespeare, though, so it should be interesting to see how much relevant content we get.  

[ADMIN : Highly insanely crazy busy these days, so sorry for the lag.  Trying to get back into the swing of things with a bunch of short, linky posts so people know I’m not dead.] CreditSlips.com has a creative article up about Shakespeare on Bankruptcy.  I like the quote, “Every law professor believes that every other subject is a subset of his own. I agree: there is a bankruptcy angle to everything.”  Although I think it’s true for more than just law professors!  

Marginal Revolution offers a glimpse into Rosenbaum’s “Shakespeare Wars” with this post on how to appreciate Shakespeare.  More specifically he examines Rosenbaum’s list of the best Shakespeare performances, including Orson Welles Chimes at Midnight which I’d never even heard of. And it does not go unnoticed that Kenneth Brannagh is not even on the list.  

I don’t know about you all, but probably the most pitiful part in all of Hamlet comes when Ophelia enters to pass out the flowers to her family, and we get to see what’s happened to the poor girl:

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember. And there is pansies, that’s for thoughts,” said Ophelia to her brother Laertes. “There’s fennel for you, and columbines. There’s rue for you, and here’s some for me; we may call it herb of grace o’ Sundays. O, you must wear your rue with a difference. There’s a daisy. I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died.“

Anyway, the San Francisco Chronicle has a lengthy article detailing what each individual herb meant.    It’s quite a detailed article, explaining what each one means, how Shakespeare referenced it, and a guess at why Ophelia speaks of it.  But I’m not sure of all the leaps it makes.  For instance, rosemary is for remembrance, repelling witches, and chasing away bad dreams.  But for Ophelia, “distraught and depressed over her father’s death and Hamlet’s odd behavior, the mention..indicates…her brittle self-image and lack of confidence.”  What?  Huh?  I suppose maybe there’s some sort of “This is all a bad dream I’m having, and I want the rosemary to protect me from it”, but that’s a stretch. 

More About Ophelia…

• Ophelia’s Imaginary Flowers
• Why did Ophelia break up with Hamlet?
• Hamlet vs Ophelia (video)
• Violets?
• Ophelia Was Pushed!