Is it possible that a rape trial inspired Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure? The article tells the story of Christopher Beeston, fellow Elizabethan actor who was accused of rape in 1602. Both men were members of the Lord Chamberlain’s men during the 1590’s, though Beeston changed over to the Earl of Worcester’s men in 1602.

The “evidence” seems to be little more than a similarity to Lucio (who admits to making a prostitute pregnant) and Angelo (who threatens to rape someone). To say it inspired the whole play might be a bit of a stretch, but it does appear to be a good example of the sort of thing that was going around in the daily news and gossip of Shakespeare’s time and how easily he would have snuck it into his own work.

I’d never heard the theory that Mary Sidney Herbert wrote the works of Shakespeare. I’ve always heard either Marlowe, de Vere, or maybe Bacon.

The article is a press release for an event in which the founder of the Mary Sidney Society, Robin Williams, will discuss her evidence for the theory.

Tag: shakespeare

It seems that this Ed fellow is doing a whole series. I just yesterday found his Midsummer’s, and now here’s Enjoying “Hamlet”.

I would never have imagined that you could say so much about Hamlet in a single page. Granted it is one mother large page. But he does cover everything you could imagine — scene by scene description, plot and character synopsis, and about a zillion historical sources for what went into the story, as well as people who took the ideas from Hamlet after Shakespeare and ran with them in even more directions.

It’s finding sites like this one that make me sigh and put away my own book project and fall back into “See? It’s all been done already…” mode.

Nothing against Ed – I’m incredibly impressed with this page. I just wish I could do it, too :).

Enjoying “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare

I particularly enjoy finds like this because they are remarkably close to what I hope to someday write. It’s a simple introductory guide to Midsummer’s that tries to make it very fun, and most importantly, very approachable. Within the first few lines the author even states one of my own mantras, namely “Bring your own experience into it in order to decide what it all means to you.”

Tags: shakespeare

Trolling through del.icio.us today I found this Richard II study guide. Since you don’t often find such material on one of the lesser known plays, I thought it worth a link.