Monday February 10 2014

Antony and Cleopatra crawls along. The war bits are boring. Two of the blog’s followers have commented directly to me about their views – A.T. promised to tell me on Wednesday what her “somewhat likes” means. M.R. told me yesterday evening that she saw it at the Globe and didn’t understand a thing.  In other words I haven’t yet been enlightened. Nevertheless, our tickets to the Globe performance have now been booked.

From Davis and Frankforter’s The Shakespeare Name Dictionary.

• Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, is one of the major characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  A rather likeable fellow, actually.  D+F tells us that Shakespeare makes his fairies nicer than earlier legends would have it. In fact, Shakespeare’s version seems to have led to our view of fairies as sweet little things…
• Gorboduc, a legendary British King, is mentioned in Twelfth Night but may also have inspired Lear.

Shakespeare sightings:

• Continuing with London the Biography by Peter Ackroyd:
• In describing “typical” London women, Ackroyd mentions Mistress Quickly as a good example of a female role “immortalised…but endlessly renewed ever since.”
• In the chapter about Southwark both Falstaff and his namesake Sir John Falstolfe are noted for being frequenters of local taverns.
• In The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear, the children of Doreen are said to have “borne the slings and arrows of their mother’s distress”. Main character Daisie’s friend Priscilla is trying her hand at matchmaking.  When Maisie tells her that she should leave it to Cupid, who has a better aim, Priscilla replies, “Not if you read your Shakespeare, he doesn’t.”
• In Charles Dickens’s first novel The Pickwick Papers, well, it’s not necessarily a Shakespeare sighting but a mention of a character: Mr Weller says, “Business first, pleasure arterwards, as King Richard the Third said wen he stabbed t’other king in the Tower afore he smothered the babbies.” Referring more likely to Shakespeare than history class in school, don’t you think?
• On a report about the security measures taken at the ongoing Olympic Games in Sochi by the Swedish authorities, a DVD on a shelf in the background was visible. The title: “Readiness is All”.  Clever Swedes.

Further since last time:

• Received from friend and colleague EÖ: Aspects of Shakespeare by Erik Frykman and Göran Kjellmer, found amongst the books of her father’s cousin. Thank you, EÖ! I’m very much looking forward to reading it.
• Ordered on line from the Globe: tickets to Julius Caesar and  Antony and Cleopatra in June
• Continued reading aloud with Hal: Antony and Cleopatra

Posted this week:

• This Monday report.