Next up in our series comes Thomas Jefferson (as always, brought to us by Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare in American Life series).

Jefferson sounds like my kind of guy:

Still, like John Adams, Jefferson usually treated Shakespeare’s plays as something to be read. In one letter, he recommended Shakespeare for reading in the evening, explaining that “Shakespeare must be singled out by one who wishes to learn the full powers of the English language.” When a friend asked him to recommend books to buy, Jefferson encouraged him to include some works of fiction, like Shakespeare’s plays, as a guide to virtue, arguing that “a lively and lasting sense of filial duty is more effectually impressed on the mind of a son or daughter by reading King Lear, than by all the dry volumes of ethics, and divinity that were ever written.”

Did everybody catch that “something to be read?”  I’m just sayin.

Seriously, though, I love how that passage nails what I’ve been trying to say for years — if you want to know what it means to be a human, look to what Shakespeare put on the stage.

I noted in a previous post that, when Adams and Jefferson went to visit Shakespeare’s birthplace, Adams was disappointed. What did Jefferson think?  He “noted the costs of going there, including the entry fees.”  Which lead to a later biographer imagining “Jefferson’s teeth obviously grating” as he jotted down the fees.

That’s interesting to me.  You mean to tell me that in 1786 they were already charging fees to visit the birthplace of Shakespeare, as a tourist attraction? I had no idea.  I suppose we can trace it directly back to the influence of David Garrick, a few decades before this, who made Shakespeare such an attraction?

This posting marathon, in celebration of Shakespeare Day, is brought to you by nothing but my time, my resources, and my love for the subject. While we’ll always be the original Shakespeare blog, it takes a significant amount of effort to make us the best in the digital universe.  If you’ve not yet seen how you can show your support, now’s a great opportunity.  If you’ve already done so, thanks very much!

Since I was vacationing in Washington D.C, Home of the Presidents, I thought it would be fun to go hunting for Shakespeare connections.

 As president, Washington lived in Philadelphia, the nation’s temporary capital. There he once hosted an amateur Shakespeare production, probably in the winter of 1790. William Duer, assistant to the treasury secretary, wrote that Duer “had the honor of appearing before him as one of the dramatis personae in the tragedy of Julius Caesar… in the garret of the Presidential mansion, wherein before the magnates of the land and the elite of the city, I performed the part of Brutus to the Cassius of my old school-fellow, Washington Custis.”

There’s also record of his attendance at a Hamlet, and I believe a Tempest as well.  Not too much of a connection with the father of my country.

This posting marathon, in celebration of Shakespeare Day, is brought to you by nothing but my time, my resources, and my love for the subject. While we’ll always be the original Shakespeare blog, it takes a significant amount of effort to make us the best in the digital universe.  If you’ve not yet seen how you can show your support, now’s a great opportunity.  If you’ve already done so, thanks very much!

Continuing my mashup of presidents and Shakespeare, let’s look at John Adams.  Once again, this information all courtesy Folger’s Shakespeare in American Life series.

“Let me search for the clue which led great Shakespeare into the labyrinth of human nature. Let me examine how men think.”

A new BBC program, Shakespeare’s Restless World, examines the life and times of our bard one object at a time.  Topics for the first week alone range from communion to snacks to swordplay.

4 weeks, 5 audio programs each week.  You know what I need for this? I need some sort of podcast, or other way to just automatically get it on my iPod.  It’s the sort of thing that I’d love to listen to, I just never find the time between *finding* it and actually remembering to go back each week and get the next episode.

Hey wait, I just discovered the podcast link!  Ok, I’m all set. Awesome.

This posting marathon, in celebration of Shakespeare Day, is brought to you by nothing but my time, my resources, and my love for the subject. While we’ll always be the original Shakespeare blog, it takes a significant amount of effort to make us the best in the digital universe.  If you’ve not yet seen how you can show your support, now’s a great opportunity.  If you’ve already done so, thanks very much!

[ These have apparently gotten out of order, darn it.  This obviously should have come out before the Foolish Games post!  -d ]

So after taking the appropriate amount of  pictures outside, in we went.

Straight ahead is a theatre (empty, there is no show right now).  I spy a guest book!  I write Duane “Shakespeare Geek” Morin in it.  Ha!

My wife, with the kids, wanders into the theatre.  The security guard wanders in right behind them.  He’s not scooting them out, however – he’s encouraging them to go down and take pictures, just not to get on the stage.  We did get pictures, but since they all have my kids in them I can’t post them here.

He asks if we’re big fans of Shakespeare.  I tell him that we’re here by invitation of Garland Scott (Director of External Relations) to tour the vault, he tells me how lucky I am.  I agree.  (For the record I did not say it like that, I just wrote it like that for link purposes – I said “We’re here to see Garland.”)

He shows us the gift shop, where we’re supposed to meet at 2pm.  It’s early, so we wander around for a little while, looking for stuff to buy (or, rather, stuff to not buy as I am starting with the assumption that I’ll take one of everything, and then put stuff back one thing at a time :)).

Georgianna Ziegler, Head of Reference, wanders over, spies my shirt, and says “You must be my two o’clock!”  Indeed I am.  Introductions are made all around, and I sign in with security.  Again, I write “ShakespeareGeek.com” as my Company.  For posterity, don’t ya know.

At this point Garland was not with us, so Georgianna begins the tour solo but has to call for a backup.  I learn later that this is one of the rules, for security.

We learn about Mr. and Mrs. Folger. I had no idea that Mr. Folger died before the library was complete, so he never got to see it.  This has led to plenty of ghost stories about Folger walking the stacks, and Georgianna shares her own story of the ghost elevator opening itself at will.  This fascinates my boy, who spends the rest of the tour asking whether we too would be going on the ghost elevator. I can’t tell if he’s excited about this or terrified.

I would have taken about a million more pictures, but this was a library after all and we were trying to be particularly quiet – which meant about 110% of my attention spent on praying that my boy didn’t get me kicked out.  Luckily Georgianna let us continue, and I let the little geeklet live.

Shortly Garland joined us, and it was down into the vaults!  I most definitely did get pictures down there (after asking permission), so stay tuned for a whole series of what I got to see!

My trip continues …

This posting marathon, in celebration of Shakespeare Day, is brought to you by nothing but my time, my resources, and my love for the subject. While we’ll always be the original Shakespeare blog, it takes a significant amount of effort to make us the best in the digital universe.  If you’ve not yet seen how you can show your support, now’s a great opportunity.  If you’ve already done so, thanks very much!