Monday May 19 2014

OK. It’s written. It’s even been put onto the computer (I write my first drafts by hand, pen on paper, quaint, yes?).  But it still needs polishing and proof-reading so once again there is no text on Coriolanus to post. But next week, I promise, barring unforeseen hindrance, it will be posted.

From Davis and Frankforter’s The Shakespeare Name Dictionary.

• Leicester is a county northwest of London and Richard III spent a night in an inn there on his way to the final battle at Bosworth Field. If memory serves me correctly Hal and I rode by there on our way to Scotland and there was a sign to that effect.
• Lady Lingard is mentioned in Henry V and figures in the English argument that women can inherit the throne, something the French disputed. All of this was used as shaky evidence but that’s all it takes to start a war sometimes.

Shakespeare sightings:

• There was a long article in Dagens Nyheter about Hilary Mantel and her novels about Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell (read them, they’re interesting). About writing them she said, “I had to go beyond Shakespeare...the time, the 1500’s was different” (translated from the Swedish, she probably didn’t say exactly that).  She also listed Shakespeare as one of the people who has most influenced her.
• Also in DN there was an article about Russell Brand, who is being suggested as a new member of the canon of English literature along with Shakespeare.  Cool. But it seems not everyone thinks so.
• On the TV news there was a short report on the coming autumn program for the Uppsala Stadsteatern and though there doesn’t seem to be any Shakespeare on it they showed a clip from a previous production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
• In showing my English students how many different ways the word “do” is used in English I went to the on-line Oxford Dictionary and one of the examples was “The Royal Shakespeare Company is doing Macbeth”.
• In the book The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, about how using the Internet is changing the way our brains function, mostly in a negative way according to him (I’m not convinced yet), he mentions Shakespeare as part of the great flowering of literature after the printing press was invented.

Further since last time:

• Finished and written onto the computer: text about Coriolanus
• Started reading aloud with Hal: Julius Caesar in preparation for seeing it at the Globe in a month!

Posted this week:

• This Monday report.