Monday November 26 2012

This week, too, has been exciting because now Hal and I have booked a hotel in London in June, giving ourselves some extra days before and after the Shakespeare seminar.  And again blog follower Alexander has contributed with a variety of thought-provoking comments. Take the time to check them out!

From Gregory Doran's Shakespeare Almanac:

• Only this: On November 24, 1616, “…Shakespeare Quinney was christened. His grandfather died in April.”  Not being totally conversant in Shakespeare’s grandchildren I checked this out and learned that Judith Shakespeare Quinney and her husband Richard had three children. Baby Shakespeare Q. lived only six months. Both of the others died without children so our Shakespeare has no descendants.  Having died in April 1616, he never knew his grandchildren.

 Shakespeare sightings:

• In Friends Season 3, Joey is in a play that has received bad reviews. The director snarls at the Joey and the lead actress, “A plague on both your houses!”
• I have now finished Bryson’s At Home (it’s a fascinating book!  Read it, and not only for the Shakespeare sightings!) and here is the final harvest of sightings:
• In Shakespeare’s day beds were valuable pieces of furniture and therefore leaving Anne their second best bed was not the stingy indication of a bad marriage that some have claimed but very likely an expression of tenderness as it was probably their bed, the best one being only for show.
• Historians have used the tender ages of R&J to prove that people got married young in the olden days but in fact there is no basis for that in reality, i.e. the documents. Why Shakespeare made them so young is unknown really.
• Because of the laws restricting who could wear what fabrics and colors in Elizabethan England, the permission received by the King’s Players to own and wear scarlet clothing was an immense honor.
• Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s wife Elizabeth Siddal is best known as the model for the famous painting of the drowned Ophelia among the flowers in the brook.
• The quote from King John about the grief expressed at the death of a child is used to support the thesis that parents indeed loved their children in the olden days.
• Poor poverty-stricken aristocrats (Bryson gives them far more sympathy than I do) in the 19^th century made money by selling off their treasures.  Thus, as mentioned last week, the First Folios made their way to the Folger collection in the US.
• When I was about twelve I read A Wrinkle in Time, a sci fi novel by Madeleine L’Engle and loved it. So I decided to read it again.  This time I didn’t like it at all – it’s simplified and has cloying religious undertones. But is also has some sightings so here they are (but you don’t have to read the book anyway):
• The family dog is named Fortinbras
• The three oddball women helping the kids quote the three witches “When shall we three meet again….” etc
• They also quote Prospero, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” More quotes from The Tempest show up later.
• Shakespeare, along with Jesus, Beethoven and others, is listed as a good force against evil.
• Jasper Ffforde’s Thursday Next, in her third novel The Well of Lost Plots, is hiding in a badly written novel that has not yet been published and is visited by the three witches who address her, “All hail, McNext, citizen of Swindon,” and try to sell her a prophesy for a shilling.
• In the movie Prick Up Your Ears, based on a biography of playwright Joe Orton, a representative of the local council visits young Joe’s working class parents to convince them to allow him to enter RADA because of the great acting talent he displayed in a Shakespeare production.  It later comes out that he played a messenger in Richard III.

 Further, since the last report:

• Still reading aloud: Twelfth Night.

 Posted:

·         This Monday Report

·         “Can You Do That to Shakespeare?” under Ruby’s Reflections.  Written for and sent to Blogging Shakespeare.

·         Comments on Alexander’s and others’ comments

Can You Do That to Shakespeare?

Can You Do That to Shakespeare?

                      In the Raspberry Hills Library English Book Circle the question has often been raised of how much we can accept things done to the classics. Can Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law really do that to Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson?  Can Laurie R. King really have a feisty young Marry Russell marry an aging Holmes?  Can Jean Rhys really tell Bertha’s story of how she went mad and ended up in Rochester’s attic?

                      Views often differ sharply in our friendly group.  “No!” say some.  “Yes!” say others.

                      This discussion slides easily into Shakespeare.  Can Caliban really be played by a twitchy grunge Goth behaving like a speed freak? Can Richard III really be a Hitler-like charmer in the 30’s?  Can Romeo and Juliet really live in a machine gun mafia run disco Catholic Miami? Can Othello really be played by a short skinny white girl? Can Twelfth Night really be set in a tire factory with a 60’s pop soundtrack?  Can Love’s  Labour’s Lost really be a Hollywood 30’s song and dance musical? Can Hamlet really be about a cyber-techno-capitalist corporation battle?

                      Well, yes. Obviously.  All of these have been done. You’ve seen some of them.  I’ve seen all of them. Some people have hated them.  I am one of those who loved these productions, or at least found them interesting.

                      The question is not really should it be allowed to do this kind of spin-off on Shakespeare, but how can it not be. If all we had to look at was four hundred years worth of people standing around a stage in Renaissance or Roman clothes reciting the plays, Shakespeare would now be one of those old poets like Spenser that only literature majors bother to read.  Instead, everybody in the world knows Shakespeare (only a small exaggeration, don’t you think?)

                      Admittedly the productions that got me addicted to Shakespeare were quite straightforward adaptations:  Branagh’s Henry V, a simple performance at the Roundhouse in London of Henry IV, Part Two, Branagh’s Hamlet (well, that was set in the 1800’s for some reason but that was hardly noticeable). However some of the radically changed concepts of several of the performances mentioned above have really fired that addiction.

                      What Shakespeare wrote is so big, so deep, so complex, so significant to so many people and eras in the past four hundred years and probably the next four hundred years that there is no way that his plays can’t be brilliant no matter what’s done to them. Or if not brilliant or even successful, at least the experimentation enriches the canon immeasurably. And we must remember, Shakespeare’s plays themselves were mostly spin-offs of earlier works.

                      So I say spin-off away!  I’m waiting for a sci-fi intergalactic Macbeth.  Or a Comedy of Errors set in apartheid South Africa of the 50’s.  Or why not Sherlock Holmes and his young wife Mary Russell incorporated into Richard III to find out if he’s really guilty of killing those kids? Or Jane Eyre deciding that Mr. Rochester is an old fogey and running off with Hamlet, thus saving his life (maybe that’s already happened; I haven’t read all of Jasper Fforde yet).

                      So don’t be so nervous, all you skeptics of spin-offs!  Shakespeare can take it! Shakespeare thrives in any interpretive environment in which inspired creativity rules.

Monday November 19 2012

This week has been most exciting because of future events. Hal and I have bought our plane tickets for London in June, giving ourselves some extra days before and after the Shakespeare seminar.  It’s never a good idea to hope time goes fast but we sure are looking forward to it. But it’s been a good week blogwise too so let’s get to that.

From Gregory Doran's Shakespeare Almanac: Nothing this week

Shakespeare sightings:

• Review in Svenska Dagbladet of Macbeth at the Regional Theater of Blekinge-Kronoberg in southern Sweden. The review of this Brechtian production was middle of the road, not a rave, not a bomb.
• On season 3 of Friends Joey tells Chandler that his new flame is “the greatest actress since sliced bread” and Chandler says, “Oh yeah, she did a great lady Macbeth”.
• I saw in the TV listing that Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus was on last week on a channel we don’t have but that’s OK. We have the DVD and are saving it until we get to the play.  Dagens Nyheter gave it 3 stars anyway and called it a “heavy but exciting experiment.”
• Still reading Bryson’s At Home and learned that Henry Clay Folger, president of Standard Oil and connected to Folger’s Coffee bought about a third of all surviving First Folios from hard-up aristocrats who had collected them through the years. These purchases formed the basis of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.
• Same book: Thomas A. Watson, Alexander Graham Bell’s colleague and co-inventor of the telephone and sole inventor of the iron lung and the metal detector, tired of living in the US eventually and moved to England to become a successful actor. He was especially good at Shakespearean roles and performed often in Stratford-upon-Avon. Aren’t people’s lives fascinating?
• Langston Hughes is mostly known for his poetry but he has also written novels including Not Without Laughter from 1930. In it the young protagonist is introduced to Shakespeare by his teacher through the study if The Merchant of Venice. He later wonders if knowing things like Latin and Shakespeare makes a person happy but continues his studies and is given the assignment to write about “A Trip to Shakespeare’s England”.
• In Lorna Landvik’s novel Oh My Stars the unlikely hero, gorgeous and wonderful-in-all-ways hero Kjel (is that really how Norwegians spell Kjell or did Landvik get it wrong?) not only recites Shakespeare while making love to his girlfriend of the day – “We few, we happy few!” but goes on to become an actor for awhile and ends up meeting his best friend Austin who performs in an all black cast of Macbeth.
• Shakespeare goes to Mars in Ray Bradbury’s The Silver Locusts albeit rather anonymously when a character is accused of murder and replies calmly, “Murder most foul.”

Further, since the last report:

·         It’s the last week of Shakespeare Calling follower Harold Berglund’s art exhibit. Even eagle-eyed blog follower Alexander hasn’t spotted the Shakespeare connection, and admittedly it’s far-fetched…, a bit of a joke really. Any last-minute guesses? http://www.wiberg.com/haroldberglund/berglund2012/berglund2012.asp

• Read Alexander’s very interesting review of Bill Bryson’s book on Shakespeare http://www.librarything.com/work/3714885/reviews/91426329
• Skipping Hamlet for reasons previously explained we started reading aloud Twelfth Night.

Posted:

·         This Monday Report

·         Comments on Alexander’s and others’ comments

Celia in As You Like It

Celia

in

As You Like It

                      Celia, Jaques, Celia, Jaques.  Which one do I want to look at here?  Jaques is definitely tempting. His “All the world’s a stage” monolog is deservedly one of Shakespeare’s most famous and Jaques is so very morose and melancholy.  Harold Bloom, of course, thinks he’s a fake and I could therefore protest and show that Jaques’ melancholy is genuine but I don’t have to argue against Bloom every time. Jan Kott rightly analyzes Jaques as the forerunner of a bitter Hamlet and the only character in the play who has no reason to leave the alienation of the forest (Kott, pages 285-286). So that’s why, I find, that I won’t choose Jaques. Kott and others have dealt well with him.

                      Celia, on the other hand, hasn’t at all been given the attention she should have, as far as I can see. And what has been written tends to emphasize an interpretation of her relationship with Rosalind as homoerotic. Maybe it is. But that’s not what I find interesting.  What I like is that Celia takes the initiative in heading out into a new world and changing her life.  And she has some great retorts, mainly to Rosalind who, granted, is one of Shakespeare’s greatest creations, but where would she be without Celia?

                      First a brief summary of the story.  It’s another one of Shakespeare’s silly romance comedies with women dressing up as men, in this case Rosalind who must flee her evil uncle Duke Frederick - Celia’s father - to join her own exiled father in the forest.  Orlando too must flee his nasty brother Oliver and Duke Frederick. Rosalind and Orlando fall for each other – don’t bother asking why they have to go through all the rigmarole of Rosalind pretending to be a man pretending to be Rosalind so Orlando can woo her (I told you it was silly).  Four loving couples are in any case wed in the end.

                      What makes the play more than a silly pastoral romance is, as always, the darkness within which it is framed and the feistiness of the characters. Being banished to a forest was no picnic and Rosalind is rightly grieving at the loss of her father when we meet her in the first act and Celia is trying to give her the strength to go on. Claiming that Rosalind should accept Celia’s father out of cousinly love is a shaky argument, seeing what Uncle Frederick has done, but it works on Rosalind who decides to cheer up. Celia goes on to say that everything she has or will inherit is Rosalind’s.

                      This first exchange continues and Rosalind suggests they talk about falling in love. Celia, not as romantic as her cousin, would rather talk about more prosaic subjects like looks and morals. She suggests that they “ …mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally” (Act 1.2). Nice line but sadly Celia isn’t expressing socialist leanings here. She means the unequal distribution of beauty and chastity: “for those she makes fair she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly” (Act 1.2)

                      The two young women are trying to lighten up their spirits with this amusing dialog but Celia nicely sums up the rigid dilemma of the roles women in her society have to deal with, which is what the play is mostly about.

                      In the following banter with Touchstone, Celia again  proves to be the more receptive of the two cousins by seeing through the clown’s babble and recognizing that he “sayest true; since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show” (Act 1.2). The Norton edition’s note explains that this is a possible reference to the Bishop of London’s order to burn books in 1599, which would give Celia a political mind that Rosalind doesn’t display.

                      In the first encounter with Orlando as well Celia is the stronger character.  She urges Orlando not to wrestle; Rosalind agrees. While he and the mighty Charles are wrestling Rosalind falls in love: “O excellent young man!” while Celia is ready for concrete assistance: “I would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg,” and “If I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell you who should down.” (Act 1.2) And when, after his victory, Orlando is insulted by Duke Frederick, Celia is the one who takes the initiative in supporting him:

“Let us go thank him, and encourage him.

My father’s rough and envious disposition

Sticks me at heart…” (Act 1.2).

                      Without Celia, would Rosalind ever have had the chance to fall for Orlando?  But fall she does and Celia begins her role of trying to poke holes in Rosalind’s rosy balloons of romance:

Celia: O, a good wish upon you!  You will try in time, in despite of a fall. But turning these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest. Is it possible on such a sudden you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?

Rosalind: The Duke my father loved his father dearly.

Celia: Doth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly? By this kind of chase I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly, yet I hate not Orlando (Act 1.3)

                      Not only is Celia being sensible but she is already revealing a spirit of independence, even resistance, towards her father that doesn’t fit the stereotype we have of submissive daughters.

                      She continues this resistance when Duke Frederick then enters the room and banishes Rosalind.

Rosalind protests too, a little. But she has no choice. Banished, she is.  Celia, on the other hand, is not.  When she tries to convince her father that she and her cousin are inseparable, he replies that she will be better off without Rosalind who outshines her in beauty and popularity. Nice. He of course stands firm in the banishment and Celia tells him, “Pronounce that sentence then on me, my liege. I cannot live out of her company” (Act 1.3).

Duke Frederick simply replies, “You are a fool,” and exits. Celia vows loyalty to Rosalind, who is uncertain what to do – “Why, whither shall we go?” So far Rosalind has shown none of the quick-thinking determination for which she is so famous. Instead, it is again Celia who takes the truly brave and daring first step: “To seek my uncle in the forest of Ardenne.”  Rosalind protests:

Alas, what danger will it be to us,

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

Celia’s quick solution:  “I’ll put myself in poor and wear attire.”  Finally Rosalind gets into the spirit of things and comes up with her gender-crossing idea. And Celia with her own alias, “Aliena”. The estranged one. How much this young woman is estranged in her society could – and should – fill a book especially in view of her lines that close Scene 3 and Act One:

…Let’s away,

And get our jewels and our wealth together,

Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from the pursuit that will be made

After my flight.  Now go we in content,

To liberty, and not to banishment. (Act 1.3)

Estranged. Hide.  Pursuit. Flight. Content. Liberty. Has anyone, even Shakespeare, ever strung together in a just a few lines a list of more significant words to describe women’s lives throughout history?

                      Thus in the first act Celia is established as one of Shakespeare’s most significant characters and although Rosalind takes the center stage more or less completely through much of the remaining play, Celia is still there and in Act Two confirms her liberty and independence from her father and his court.  Rosalind offers to buy the cottage, pasture and sheep from which Corin ekes out his living and Celia declares that if he will continue to work there she wants to live there:

And we will mend thy wages. I like this place,

And willingly would waste my time in it (Act 2.4)

The Norton edition explains that “waste” does not have the negative tone we would give it but means simply “spend”.  And she does.  No mention is made at the end of the play of Celia returning to court; it is reasonable to assume she stays in the cottage.

                      But back to the big romance which starts sizzling and sparkling between Rosalind/Ganymede and Orlando. Here we have an interesting circle. What Rosalind does to Orlando’s wild declarations of love with sarcasm and laconic put downs – for example, the brief but succinct, “Love is merely a madness” (Act 3.3) and surely the most famous and funniest, “Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love” (Act 4.1) – Celia does to Rosalind’s wild declarations of love.

                      When Rosalind is frantically trying to get Celia to reveal who has written the ridiculous love poems all over the forest and obtusely refuses to get it (it’s impossible to believe she really doesn’t know) Celia bursts out impatiently with a couple of the best lines in Shakespeare: “O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful-wonderful, and yet again wonderful, and after that out of all whooping (Act 3.2 – oh how could Branagh have cut that line out of his film?!).

                      Her impatience continues when silly lovesick Rosalind won’t let her get on with her story but repeatedly interrupts her: “Give me audience, good madam…Cry ‘holla’ to thy tongue…I would sing my song without a burden; thou brings me out of tune…” (Act 3.2).  Who can blame her for being impatient?

                      Later when Rosalind is pining for Orlando and wishes to talk about him Celia counters with more irony: “O, that’s a brave man. He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths, and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter that spurs his horse but on one side breaks his staff, like a noble goose. But all’s brave that youth mounts, and folly guides” (Act 3.4).

                      After the odd scene in which Rosalind urges Celia to perform the mock marriage to Orlando, which she does reluctantly and curtly, she is irritated with Rosalind: “You have misused our sex in your love prate,” and when Rosalind continues to moan and sigh, “Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando. I’ll go find a shadow and sigh till he come,” Celia retorts in exasperation, “And I’ll sleep” (Act 4.1).

                      After this snippet of impertinence Celia doesn’t exactly fade away and she plays her characteristically active role in her unexpected love affair with nasty-turned-nice Oliver, older brother to Orlando. But she recedes into the background, her last line being addressed to him: “Good sir, go with us” (Act 4.3).

                      Act Five amiably pulls all of the heartstrings together.  Celia and Oliver are one of the four couples to be brought together in wedded bliss and Rosalind winds things up with her saucy epilog.

                      So yes, Rosalind deserves the praise that raises her to the position of one of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters. Her brilliance is undisputed (even if her silliness is often ignored). But in my eyes Celia is no less brilliant, no less witty, and far feistier.

                      Shakespeare wouldn’t have created her like that if he hadn’t thought so too, would he? So when will she get the attention she deserves?

Works cited:

·         The Norton Shakespeare, based on the Oxford Edition. Ed. Greenblatt, Stephen et al. Second edition. 2008.

·         Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare, the Invention of the Human. 1998.

·         Crawford, Julie. ”The Homoerotics of Shakespeare’s Elizabethan Comedies” in A Companion to Shakespeare’s Works – The Comedies. Dutton, Richard and Jean E. Howard, editors. 2003.

·         Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary.1964.

Films seen:

·         BBC, 1978. Director: Basil Coleman. Cast: Helen Mirren – Rosalind; Brian Stirner – Orlando; Angharad Rees – Celia; Richard Pasco – Jaques; Clive Francis – Oliver; Richard Easton – Duke Frederick.  After seeing this the first time a couple of years ago I noted that I liked it very much. This time I didn’t.  Somehow it struck me as tepid. Ask me again next time.

·         1936. Director: Paul Czinner. Cast: Elisabeth Bergner – Rosalind; Lawrence Olivier – Orlando; Sophie Stewart – Celia; Leon Quartermaine – Jaques; John Laurie – Oliver; Felix Aymler – Duke Frederick. Better than expected. Beautiful black and white photography. Bergner much better as Rosalind than the film critics had led me to believe and Olivier was not only gorgeous but not yet aware (it was his first Shakespeare role on film) that he was Lawrence-Olivier-the-Big-Shakespeare-Star. Sadly, Stewart ruined Celia by being giggly, toothy-smiley and altogether juvenile.

·         2006. Director: Kenneth Branagh. Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard – Rosalind; David Oyelowo– Orlando; Romola Garai – Celia; Kevin Kline – Jaques; Adrian Lester – Oliver; Brian Blessed – Duke Frederick. By far the best, no surprise there.  Very strong cast who all bring depth to their roles. I still wish Celia had been allowed all of her lines but Romola Garai is very good.  The filming was lavish, as usual with Brangh, but the forest was surprisingly and effectively quite barren at times.

  
SSeen on stage: No.

                     

Monday November 12 2012

Thanks to our new blog follower Alexander it has been an active week. Read his comments! And feel free to be inspired by them and post your own comments.  It’s just that kind of discussion this blog wishes to invite. For other interesting activities see below.

From Gregory Doran's Shakespeare Almanac:

• On November 5, 1605, Shakespeare and others were undoubtedly startled by what became known as the Gunpowder Plot for which Guy Fawkes’ Day has been commemorated since.  
• On November 8, 1623, two of Shakespeare’s friends John Hemmings and Harry Condell registered the first folio of the plays. Oh thank you thank you thank you! The price? One shilling bound, or five shillings, bound in calf skin.  In their intro they encouraged the public: “Read him, therefore, again and again.”  Oh, we do.

 Shakespeare sightings:

• There have been ads for various Shakespeare productions going on in Stockholm, including a stand-up version of Hamlet that we would dearly love to see but haven’t been able to arrange.
• Bill Bryson, writing about the history of houses and private life in At Home , continues to refer to Shakespeare:
• “…a typical London theatre like Shakespeare’s Globe could hold two thousand people – about 1 per cent of London’s population – of whom a great part were working people…”
• Shakespeare’s plays were usually performed around two in the afternoon because daylight was needed.
• In the Swedish answer to Harry Potter (sort of), Cirkeln, by Mats Strandberg and Sara Berggren Elfgren, the teenage witches use play rehearsals of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet as excuses for being away from home. Of course they’re really practicing their witchcraft skills.
• In the novel These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach:
• “The old bearer, Jimmy, hobbled up to the door, muttering like the porter in Macbeth…”
• Out, out, brief candle, life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player etc is recited at a funeral.  Of course you can identify this one
• And in the movie based on this novel, Hotel Marigold, the enthusiastic young proprietor of the hotel rather inappropriately but eloquently points out to his elderly guests that they have all “heard the chimes at midnight”. Any guesses? A somewhat less known play than the one above.

 Further, since the last report:

·         Watched: Branagh’s version of As You Like It.

·         Booked: 2 places at the Shakespeare conference in London in June. www.shakespeare.nu

·         Posted on Blogging Shakespeare: “O Kenneth Where Art Thou?” http://bloggingshakespeare.com/o-kenneth-where-art-thou

·         Of further interest: http://bloggingshakespeare.com/webinars/filming-shakespeare

·         Shakespeare Calling follower Harold Berglund’s art exhibit continues.  Have you spotted the Shakespeare connection? http://www.wiberg.com/haroldberglund/berglund2012/berglund2012.asp

Posted:

·         This Monday Report

·         Comments on Alexander’s comments

Monday, November 5 2012

Another As You Like It week, with Bloom and other analyses, movies and wondering what in the world I’m going to write about. I have decided but I haven’t gotten so far so don’t expect a text for another couple of weeks.

From Gregory Doran's Shakespeare Almanac:

• Othello was performed at Whitehall on November 1, 1604 and on the same day in 1611 The Tempest was performed.
• On November 4, 1604 The Merry Wives of Windsor was performed for King James.

 Shakespeare sightings:

• In the novel The Picture Book by Jo Baker the character Will (a coincidence?) is accosted by a crazy old beggar who, he fears, sees right through him: “Lunatics and fools, they see the truth; at least, they always do in Shakespeare.”
• Again in Richard Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth” he winds up his book with two gems.
•  “Is ‘the production of higher animals’ really ‘the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving’? Most exalted? Really? Are there not more exalted objects? Art? Spirituality? Romeo and Juliet? General Relativity? The Choral Symphony? The Sistine Chapel? Love?” His quote is from Darwin; he goes on to say that he doesn’t have to defend Darwin, but shows how evolution includes all of these exalted objects.
• In the second he discusses the evolution of cultural memory and lists Shakespeare as one of the legacies passed down non-genetically.
• In the novel The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, recommended by blog follower Anna, the Kirk Douglas role of Spartacus is called a “Shakespearean hero.”
• In Dagens Nyheter, November 2, the Italian actor Salvatore Striano is interviewed.  The article’s title is “Camorran exchanged for Shakespeare” and in the article we find the comparison of Shakespeare’s view of Brutus as a hero in contrast with Dante’s view of Brutus as the worst kind of murderer.
• Bill Bryson, writing about the history of houses and private life in At Home , has so far referred to Shakespeare twice:
• Wood or tile floors began to replace dirt floors around Shakespeare’s time.
• “’Bedroom’ was first used  by Shakespeare in A Midsummer Night’s Dream in about 1590, though he meant it only in the sense of space within a bed. As a word to describe a dedicated sleeping chamber, it didn’t become common until the following century.”
• In the teacher’s union magazine there was an ad for www.shakespeare.nu . See you in London in June!

 Further, since the last report:

·         Read aloud with Hal: Harold Bloom’s analysis of As You Like It.

·         Watched two versions of same, the BBC version and the 1936 production with Lawrence Olivier. In last week’s report I forgot that we had it. Both versions messed with my head because they didn’t do it right! So I might have to wait for next Saturday when we are planning on watching Branagh’s version before I can get my thoughts in order. Still, I’m going to try to work a little on my text after lunch today.

·         Shakespeare Calling follower Harold Berglund’s art exhibit continues.  Have you spotted the Shakespeare connection? http://www.wiberg.com/haroldberglund/berglund2012/berglund2012.asp

Posted:

·         This Monday Report

·         Some of my earlier blog reviews of books on Shakespeare on http://www.librarything.com/