The play’s the thing

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Classics Challenge January: All about the author

4 Jan 2012

21 Comments

 I am participating in a year long Classics Challenge hosted by November’s Autumn. The challenge is to read at least 7 classic works in 2012. On the 4th of each month Katherine of N.A. will pose a question for challenge participants to answer regarding whatever classic book  they happen to be reading at the moment.

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January’s questions are all about the author:

  • Who is the author?  
    This month I am reading The Tempest by William Shakespeare

    • What do they look like? 
      We do not know for sure what Shakespeare looked like, “none of the portraits qualifies as a verified likeness of him, for no evidence exists that Shakespeare actually sat for a portrait. Artists could have executed their portraits from memory or from descriptions of Shakespeare provided by persons who knew him. Even the so-called authentic likeness of Shakespeare–the 1623 Martin Droeshout engraving of him that appeared in the First Folio, the first published collection of Shakespeare’s plays–is suspect. The artist was only 15 when Shakespeare died in 1616. Apparently, Droeshout completed the portrait shortly before the First Folio publication.”  [1]
  • When were they born? Where did they live?
    Shakespeare was baptized on the 26th of April 1564. A baby had to be baptized on the Sunday following his or her birth, unless the parents could give a valid reason for not baptizing immediately. Therefore we can safely assume Shakespeare was born earlier that week. Shakespeare spent his childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon. The family was believed to live on Henley Street in the home shown below. The home has been under the care of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust since 1847

 

 

  • What does their handwriting look like?
    Six signatures of Shakespeare are known

    Image via Lawpundit

    There is also a play by Anthony Munday called Sir Thomas More, that is said to contain an addition written in Shakespeare’s hand, this is controversial though.

  • What is an interesting and random fact about their life? 
    Something I find interesting about Shakespeare is that it is widely said he was uneducated, or more specifically he did not go to college. Yet, Shakespeare’s father was a politician in their town of Stratford upon Avon and therefore Shakespeare and his siblings were eligible for a grammar school education at no cost to the family. There is no reason to suppose the family would not take advantage of this and it seems likely Shakespeare went to school from the ages of 7 to 14.
    Now a grammar school education in Elizabethan times was very different from the elementary school subjects taught now. Shakespeare would have been taught Latin and practiced translating Latin to English and English to Latin. A basic education included 7 to 11 hours a day studying the works of the great classical authors and dramatists such as Ovid, Plautus, Horace, Virgil, Cicero and Seneca [2] The type of education provided in grammar schools of the 16th century could be compared to a degree program in the classics today. In my opinion there is no reason to doubt that Shakespeare had the knowledge, ability, and historical education to write his plays.
    One other thing I found interesting is that Elizabethan schools were not big on handwriting. If it was taught, it was by a specialist teacher who visited the school for only a few weeks. [3] Also the English language was very much in a state of flux at this time. So, Shakespeare’s handwriting and spelling are really not a reflection on his intelligence.

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Visit the November’s Autumn blog for links to more classic challenge January participants!

By: Shannon Category: Classic literature, Renaissance, The play's the thing, Understanding & Interpretation Tags: ,

Shakespeare in January

31 Dec 2011

9 Comments

I have been keeping an eye on A Literary odyssey’s Shakespeare Reading month challenge and becoming… maybe a little jealous ;) of some bloggers grand plans to read many or ALL of Shakespeare’s work in January. I wish I could even hope to accomplish such a thing but there is no way lol! If I had all of Shakespeare’s plays on my shelf, which would be awesome and drool worthy, I could try to read all the plays straight through, skipping the introductions and appendixes. But, I am quite certain that by the end of the month I would have no idea what the hell just happened lol. I am still new to Shakespeare and need those introductions and all the notation. Plus I really enjoy them, especially the historical perspective.

Lovely Dh did buy me three new Arden Shakespeare’s for Christmas which gives me the perfect excuse to man (ehh woman) up and join the reading challenge. I though, only plan to tackle one of Shakespeare’s plays (mayyyyybe two, but doubtful). I’ll be reading The Tempest, very slowly, and if a miracle happens, The Winter’s Tale.

Also on the Shakespeare front, Risa is hosting a year long play a month challenge! I know I’m not up to this one, although I wish I was. But I am very much looking forward to all the Shakespeare posts coming up because of these challenges. Here’s to the bard!

 

By: Shannon Category: Reading challenges, Renaissance, The play's the thing Tags: ,

Top Ten Books I want for Xmas

20 Dec 2011

5 Comments

I’m jumping in on my first Top Ten meme by The Broke and Bookish because I have been meaning to post my book wishlist. Here are the top ten books I am hoping to find under the tree!

 

 

 



Faber and Faber’s The Romantics series

“This new series of eight hardback poetry books draws inspiration from the classic designs of Josiah Wedgwood (who had strong links to the poets from the Romantic period) and references the historical origins of the poems themselves. Inside each volume is a set of glorious bespoke endpapers, created especially to point towards the historical technique of marbling.

The eight poets included are Byron, Clare, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake, Burns and Keats.”

*Dies of happiness*

The Journals of Mary Shelley by Paula R. Feldman

“The definitive account of Mary Shelley’s life from her own pen is now available in a single softcover volume. Here we see even more vividly than in her letters her sympathetic identification with nature and her struggles with–and ultimate surrender to–the lifelong depression that followed her husband’s death. Supplementing the text are extensive annotations, a chronology, a thorough index, maps of the Shelleys’ travels, portraits of acquaintances, appendices giving biographical accounts of the members of Mary Shelley’s social circles in Pisa and London, the Shelleys’ reading lists, and a bibliography.”

Many of the books on my Christmas list this year are either very hard to find or expensive because they appear to be out of print. Good luck Dh!

The journals of Claire Clairmont by Marion Stocking

Here’s another tough find. I couldn’t even find a cover image or description of this book! There are a couple used books kicking around on Amazon but besides those I could only find this book available at University libraries. Claire Clairmont was Mary Shelley’s sister and the mother of Lord Byron’s daughter.


Percy Shelley: a biography by James Bieri

“This major biography of Shelley, England’s most radical and controversial Romantic poet, is the first to appear in thirty years. Informed by the author’s extensive research, psychological insight, and recent scholarship on Shelley and his circle, the biography stresses the intimate relationship between the poet’s writing and his complex personality.”

Soooo yeah, I’m a little obsessed with the Romantics right now…

1943 edition of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg

There are quite a few of these floating around online but the prices vary widely, anywhere from $25 to a couple 100. Click HERE to see my post with some of the amazing illustrations.

Arden Shakespeare

“The Arden Shakespeare has developed a reputation as the pre-eminent critical edition of Shakespeare for its exceptional scholarship, reflected in the thoroughness of each volume. An introduction comprehensively contextualizes the play, chronicling the history and culture that surrounded and influenced Shakespeare at the time of its writing and performance, and closely surveying critical approaches to the work.”

I pretty much want all of the Arden Shakespeare books. I’ve flipped through other editions of Shakespeare’s plays and I just don’t like how they are laid out. The Arden versions have all the notes at the bottom instead of  one page play, opposite page notes.


The Art Museum by Phaidon Press

“The Art Museum is the finest art collection ever assembled between two covers. This revolutionary and unprecedented virtual art museum in a book, features 1,000 oversized pages of over 2,500 works of art. It is the most comprehensive and visually spectacular history of world art ever published. Ten years in the making, this unique book was created with a global team of 100 specialists in art history, who have collected together important works as they might be displayed in the ideal museum for the art lover.”

992 pages! 3 inches thick! 20lbs! *swoon* Someone left a review for this book at Barnes and Nobles giving it 2 stars because it was TOO big. Wth! There is no such thing as a book that is too large!

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Well depending on how you count, my list may not be 10 books long, so I am going to include one more set of books that WILL be under the tree, from me to my daughter. I am so excited to share these books with her.


Great Illustrated Classics by Waldman Publishing

“For over 25 years, Waldman Publishing has published this treasury of 66 classic titles, a collection of books beautifully illustrated and adapted for young readers. Boys and girls of all ages can find classic titles such as Sherlock Holmes, Black Beauty, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Jane Eyre, to name just a few in our series.”

These books are available new in paperback but I bought a collection of hardcovers on Ebay. I am most excited to read Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre with Dd since we watched those movies together and she enjoyed them. Also in the set I bought is Moby Dick and Oliver Twist. I bought the Christmas Carol separately. Jane Eyre was the hardest to find but I had to have it for her!

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Oh I almost forgot lol!

Chronicles of Narnia box set

I completely forgot I bought the Narnia box set for Dd too. It actually just showed up on my porch this morning and I was afraid to open the box because I couldn’t remember what I had ordered! I was worried that it was a gift for me that Dh had accidental ordered on my account lol. After digging through my email I figured out what it was, oh yeahhhhh… Dh is going to lol. When the 15 Great Illustrated classics showed up yesterday he said “Good lord woman! I’m not building ANOTHER book shelf just for Dd.”

By: Shannon Category: Add to the shelf, Classic literature, Cover art, Non-fiction, Poetry, The Classics for Kids, The play's the thing, The Romantics Tags:

The Arden Shakespeare Hamlet

24 Jun 2011

2 Comments

I am on the last few pages of Appendix 5 in the Arden edition of Hamlet. I finished the play several days ago but with this edition the majority of my time was spent reading the lengthy introduction, the massive amount of annotation, and – just when I thought I was done- 6 appendixes.

No doubt about it, the Arden edition is work to read. It has a scholarly bent and is not for someone who isn’t prepared to invest some time. I was tempted here and there to skip bits. For example: where the editors explain, extensively, why they decided to use the Q2 version of Hamlet vs Q1 or F (more on this in a moment) or their explanation of why they ended up publishing Q1 and F as a companion edition. But every time I skipped a page, I ended up going back and reading it anyway. Because although lengthy, these details about the play, its many editions and textual interpretations, really are interesting.

Now in case you are not familiar, which I wasn’t before reading the book, the earliest copies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet have been found in three versions. The first version of the play found is called Q1 ( Q standing for Quatro). Q1 is the shortest edition and is thought to essentially be a bootleg. I.e. not copied directly from Shakespeare’s own papers or script but written down by a publisher as remembered by an actor or viewer of the play.

Next is Q2, this seems to be the favored version by most and the one Arden chose to feature. Q2 is thought to be largely copied directly from Shakespeare’s own papers.

Finally we have F, standing for first folio. This edition is believed to be copied from a script of Hamlet with Shakespeare’s own (probably post Q2) revisions.

Getting all the way back to Q1, they think that the performance memorized and written down as Q1, was in fact the play with an F script. So you can see how intermingled and confusing the various editions are. Once you start to look at all the Hamlet editions with “corrections”, often arbitrary as editors tend to over-correct instead of just leaving well enough alone. And then you have versions editors have decided to make “ideal”- what they think Shakespeare really intended- by cutting and pasting various pieces of the three plays into one, as they see fit. Now you really do have a confusing mess of Hamlets through the ages.

A major part of the Arden edition is to clear up this Hamlet chaos. To explain how the play has been published or performed in the past and why Arden has tried to get back to a less tempered with version of the play by accepting Q1, Q2, and F as independent Hamlets that should be read on their own terms. The editors do make some corrections to the plays. But they try to only change the obvious transcription errors which cause a line to make no sense. And when they do correct, the editors have looked to the other two versions of the play for answers, rather than try to channel their inner Great Bard.

Well you can see I’ve filled an entire post about the intro and appendixes of Hamlet without mentioning the play itself at all. This is a bit how my head feels after reading this edition. There is so much information and history to absorb that I really feel like I need to go back and read the play on its own. When I am finished re-reading, I may have to buy the second book and read Q1 and F as well.

By: Shannon Category: Finis, analysis and reviews, Renaissance, The play's the thing Tags: ,