The Shakespeare blog

Open access and going digital in 2013

Posted on December 30, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare’s plays, c 1840. Formerly attributed to Daniel Maclise. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund. DPLA http://search.openlibrary.artstor.org/object/AYCBAIG_10313604220

Looking back over 2013, there’s been a noticeable increase in Libraries, Museums and Archives making their digital collections available online. Organisations have been digitising their collections for years, and no wonder, since this potentially increases access to collections while simultaneously protecting the originals from the detrimental effects of handling, light damage or security risks.

There have been difficulties along the way: to begin with there were no agreed standards for scanning or for detailed descriptive metadata, and individual organisations went their own ways. But now several portals are making it possible to search hundreds of collections in one go, and individual collections are allowing much more open access to their holdings.

When Mr Shakespeare comes to town, song with piano accompaniment by William Jerome and Jean Schwartz. 1901. In the University of South Carolina Music Library . DPLA http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/salleysheet.html

In April the Digital Public Library of America launched their discovery portal and open platform, with over 5 million digital objects to explore. As they describe it:
The portal delivers millions of materials found in American archives, libraries, museums, and cultural heritage institutions to students, teachers, scholars, and the public. Far more than a search engine, the portal provides innovative ways to search and scan through its united collection of distributed resources. Special features include a dynamic map, a timeline that allow users to visually browse by year or decade, and an app library.

In May the New York Times explained how The Rijkmuseum was making high quality digital images of its collections available to all to use how they wish.

Henry Singleton. Ariel on a bat’s back 1819, Tate Britain. N01027

And in November Tate Britain reopened its doors after a two-year closure for a significant overhaul. The Tate had already, in April, issued a comprehensive Digital Strategy document for 2013-2015 stating its belief that “Through the development of a holistic digital proposition there is an opportunity to use the digital to deliver Tate’s mission to promote public understanding and enjoyment of British, modern and contemporary art. To achieve this, digital will need to become a dimension of everything that Tate does“. The four key areas are the digitisation of collections, online research publications, digital experiences in galleries, and the creation of digital editorial content. And they note that they expect to use more permissive content licenses to encourage the repurposing of their images.

Antonia Dietrich as Cleopatra At the Schauspielhaus, Dresden, 1940-41. Photo by Reinhard Berger. http://www.deutschefotothek.de/obj87505080.html Europeana

Then on 25 November 2013 Europeana – Europe’s digital library, archive and museum, celebrated both its fifth birthday and 30 millionth object, two years early. A Guardian report stated: “Europeana brings together the online collections of 2,300 galleries, libraries, museums and archives from across Europe…This means that anyone anywhere from members of the public to those working in the creative industries can explore Europe’s cultural heritage and build their own services, apps or games with it.”

Interestingly “Europe now leads the world in accessible digital culture as a result of Europeana’s work in bringing together and standardising cultural data and making that data available for re-use.”

And finally in December the British Library announced that they had placed on Flickr one million images from their collections. These are the result of the scanning of 650,000 of their 13 million volumes. The images are arranged and described according to the book in which they appear and date from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, meaning that copyright is not an issue. But the British Library is allowing users complete freedom to do what they like with the images. In their announcement they stated: “We are looking for new, inventive ways to navigate, find and display these ‘unseen illustrations”‘

An early theatre. In Edmond Malone’s An attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written, 1785. British Library Identifier 002357637

James Baker from the BL summed it up on 11 December ” And although we’d like folks to tell us how they use that stuff, they won’t have to: legally, morally and institutionally we will have waived any right to demand such information”

This generosity has been a shrewd move, resulting in the Library getting some extremely positive publicity. Within its first three days the site received 6 million hits.

The images are very varied, but it’s fair to say that on the whole they aren’t on a par with the paintings which are on show in galleries like the Tate. The debate about the wisdom of putting more than a very small digital image online has been going on for years. Would people buy an image or come to the gallery to see the original when they could look at it online? Fewer visitors and fewer purchasers would mean less income for the gallery. But now everything is instantly available, if your images aren’t there, for many people they might as well not exist. And if the gallery isn’t supplying a reasonable quality image the chances are that somebody else will.

The illustrations in many of the books are not listed or attributed so the Library will be looking for help in providing information ….We may know which book, volume and page an image was drawn from, but we know nothing about a given image… The title of the work may suggest the thematic subject matter of any illustrations in the book, but it doesn’t suggest how colourful and arresting these images are.

In 2014 the BL plans to launch a crowdsourcing application through which the public will be able to help describe in more detail what the images portray.

This is a real good news story, particularly if you’re interested in a limited subject area. I’m always looking for Shakespeare images, and almost every collection contains some images related to Shakespeare whether they’re production photographs, portraits of him, portraits of actors, costume designs, posters, programmes or topographical views. If you’re interested in the idea of using portals to connect up collections, Dan Cohen, executive Director of the Digital Public Library of America has written a great piece on the subject.

What, I wonder, will be new in 2014?

The images on this page are as follows:

Procession of Characters from Shakespeare’s plays, c 1840. Formerly attributed to Daniel Maclise. YaleCenter for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund. DPLA http://search.openlibrary.artstor.org/object/AYCBAIG_10313604220

When Mr Shakespeare comes to town, song with piano accompaniment by William Jerome and Jean Schwartz. 1901. In the University of South Carolina Music Library . DPLA http://library.sc.edu/digital/collections/salleysheet.html

Henry Singleton. Ariel on a bat’s back 1819, Tate Britain. N01027

Antonia Dietrich as Cleopatra At the Schauspielhaus, Dresden, 1940-41. Photo by Reinhard Berger. http://www.deutschefotothek.de/obj87505080.html Europeana

An early theatre. In Edmond Malone’s An attempt to ascertain the order in which the plays attributed to Shakespeare were written, 1785. British Library Identifier 002357637

Posted in Legacy | Tagged British Library, Digital Public Library of America, digital strategy, digitisation, Europeana, open access, Rijksmuseum, Tate Britain | Comments Off

Shakespeare in Italy

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Juliet’s supposed balcony in Verona

No sooner is Christmas Day over but we start to look forward to longer, warmer days, and here’s a suggestion – a fortnight in Italy at the height of summer, studying Shakespeare with some distinguished performers, educators and directors. And at the same time to enjoy some of Italy’s Renaissance architectural gems and early music.

Nobody knows if Shakespeare ever actually visited Italy, but the country certainly had an influence on him. Glamorous, dangerous, and exotically foreign, Italy held a unique place in the English imagination. The new cultural association Shakespeare in Italy has been founded with the aim ” to promote and perform Shakespeare’s plays in their original language in the country that was such an inspiration to him.” From 12-26 July 2014 a Summer School Shakespeare in Italy will take place in Urbino, a World Heritage Site that is the birthplace of Raphael and contains the 15th century Palazzo Ducale, one of the most elegant palaces in Italy, the setting for Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier. The summer school will be led by Julian Curry and Mary Chater. Julian is an accomplished actor and an experienced drama teacher. To complement and enrich study of the plays, Mary Chater, who has performed frequently with the RSC and the NT, and is also a teacher and a Blue Badge Guide, will lead a varied programme of cultural events in and around Urbino.

The Palazzo Ducale in Urbino

This description has been supplied by the organisers:
The summer school, which is supported by the University of Urbino, is being organised by Shakespeare in Italy, a cultural association formed by Julian and Mary, together with theatre manager Sandro Pascucci, to promote and perform Shakespeare’s plays in their original language in the country that was such an inspiration to him. No fewer than 13 of his plays are set wholly or partly in Italy.

The summer school will be led by Julian, whom many theatregoers and Shakespeare enthusiasts will know from his numerous appearances with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre and in the West End. He has also worked extensively on tv and film, and is an experienced drama teacher. Three of Shakespeare’s “Italian” plays will be studied, with three days (of lectures, discussions, practical work and screenings of contrasting productions) devoted to each play. RSC Associate Director Bill Alexander will lead a workshop on The Merchant of Venice and the distinguished musician and international performer, Martin Best, who has been associated with the RSC for over 30 years, will perform his lecture-recital Shakespeare’s Music Hall and teach a seminar on the sonnets.

Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Zeffirelli’s The Taming of the Shrew

Other participants will include the enormously distinguished actor Michael Pennington and experienced Shakespearian Kelly Hunter. The summer school will coincide with an Early Music Festival being held in the town which will be of particular interest given Martin Best’s attendance.

The summer school is open to all, whether would-be performers or observers. It should be a thoroughly enjoyable experience, the best sort of learning environment. As Tranio suggests to Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew:
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.

If you want to find out more go to their website

Shakespeare set many plays at least in part in Italy, but the connections between Shakespeare and Italy haven’t all been one-way. Italians have reciprocated by adopting Shakespeare’s plays as their own. The composer Verdi was inspired by Shakespeare to write operas, film director Zeffirelli directed Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew and famous actors like Eleanora Duse and Tomasso Salvini made their mark as Juliet and Othello respectively. This article, written during 2012’s Globe to Globe season, explores some of the many connections between Shakespeare and Italy.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World | Tagged Italy, Julian Curry, Mary Chater, Urbino | Comments Off

Michael Drayton’s Poly-olbion

Posted on December 23, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Michael Drayton

On 23 December 1631 the poet Michael Drayton died at his lodgings in Fleet Street, London. He was so highly regarded by his contemporaries that he was buried in Westminster Abbey with some ceremony. According to an account of his funeral, which it’s thought was paid for by a patron, “… the Gentlemen of the Four Innes of Court and others of note about the Town, attended his body to Westminster, reaching in order by two and two, from his Lodging almost to Standbridge.”

Ben Jonson’s friend William Drummond of Hawthornden prophesied that Drayton would “live by all likelihead so long as … men speak English.” Yet today few know much about Michael Drayton. He was born in 1563 in Hartshill, near Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Drayton came from a humbler background than Shakespeare, and it seems that when young he was a servant in the household of a noble family. Like Shakespeare, Drayton really became a serious writer when he moved to London. There’s a full biography on the Poetry Foundation site .

The title page of Poly-Olbion

A new project from the University of Exeter is trying to raise the profile of Michael Drayton. It’s called the Poly-Olbion project. Poly-Olbion was his great 15,000-line poem, described on the project website as “an expansive poetic journey through the landscape, history, traditions and customs of early modern England and Wales”. He began this massive poem around 1598. The book is decorated with beautiful allegorical maps by William Hole in which the spirits of the rivers, hills and woods appear as scantily-clad maidens or rustic characters, and with prose “illustrations” by John Selden.

Some of the maps have been scanned and made available by the Folger Shakespeare Library, and some are also on the Windows on Warwickshire site.

The poem was published in two parts, in 1612 and 1622. In just one of many unlucky events in Drayton’s life, the first volume was dedicated to the heir to the throne, Prince Henry who died only months after its publication. The current project aims to produce a scholarly edition of the poem, to hold a conference in 2015, and to publish a volume of critical essays reassessing Drayton’s work. There will also be an exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society, recognising the importance of the poem as a description of the country’s topography as well as its folklore.

An image of merry-making from one of the maps in Poly-Olbion

Although Drayton lived in London, he is known to have returned to the Warwickshire village of Clifford Chambers, just a couple of miles away from Stratford. In 1622 he wrote a tribute to “his Incomparable Friend, Sir Henry Raynsford Of Clifford” who had died on 27 January 1622, who he described as “so fast a friend, so true a Patriot”. It’s said that he regularly spent summers at Clifford Manor, Raynsford’s home, a building that still stands. From these lines in Poly-Olbion it seems he used the time to write:
‘…dear Clifford’s seat (the place of health and sport)
Which many a time hath been the Muse’s quiet port’

Shakespeare and Drayton are thought to have been friends, and it seems inconceivable that two famous poets would not have met up while both were in the area. One of the legends of Shakespeare’s life is that he died as a result of a night of hard drinking with Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton while both were visiting Warwickshire. Jonson admired Drayton’s work, calling it “pure, and perfect Poesy”. And later John Hall, Shakespeare’s son-in-law, a well-known doctor, records treating Drayton, “an excellent poet”. Particularly in Poly-Olbion Drayton specialised in the description of topographical features, in which Shakespeare took little interest. But there are echoes of Shakespeare’s lines about the native inhabitants of the Forest of Arden in this section:
And near to these our thicks, the wild and frightful herds,
Not hearing other noise but this of chattering birds,
Feed fairly on the lands; both sorts of seasoned deer:
Here walk, the stately red, the freckled fallow there:
The bucks and lusty stages amongst the rascals strewed,
As sometimes gallant spirits amongst the multitude.

The map of Warwickshire from Poly-Olbion

Here are a few lines describing the Avon as it flows through south Warwickshire:
Scarce ended they their song, but Avon’s winding stream,
By Warwick, entertains the high complexioned Leam:
And as she thence along to Stratford on doth strain,
Receiveth little Heil the next into her train:
Then taketh in the Stour, the brook, of all the rest
Which that most goodly Vale of Red-Horse loveth best.

These quotations are taken from selections in Roger Pringle’s excellent Poems of Warwickshire.

Travelling between Stratford and Clifford Chambers Drayton, Shakespeare and Hall must have crossed the Avon, perhaps using the little footbridge which from 1590 crossed the Avon at Lucy’s Mill, south of the town itself. It’s still an important crossing point that links lots of paths including those leading to Clifford Chambers. The twentieth century version of this bridge now has a support group aiming to fund a feasibility study to find out if it can be made accessible to people of all ages and abilities. I know I’m digressing, but we’re looking for more supporters and if you’d like to join you can do so on the Friends of Lucy’s Mill Bridge website.

When Michael Drayton died he was almost penniless. His pastoral style of poetry, reminscent of Edmund Spenser’s, was no longer fashionable, and Drayton had always preferred to tell the truth as he saw it rather than flattering potential patrons. In a late poem, The Muses Elizium, he prophesied that there would be no future for his kind of poetry. But maybe the project just beginning will bring his work, and the man himself, more attention after so long.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged Ben Jonson, Clifford Chambers, John Hall, Lucy's Mill Bridge, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion, River Avon, Westminster Abbey | Comments Off

Astrology at the winter solstice

Posted on December 21, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Aquarius

This weekend is the winter solstice, the turn of the year after which days begin to lengthen again (at least for those of us in the northern hemisphere). It’s a perfect time to enjoy a wonderful illuminated book now kept at Harvard University’s Houghton Library recently fully digitised for everybody to enjoy.

How it must have comforted its first owner in the 1470s with its glorious illustrations, particularly in the dark depths of winter. It was obviously created as a personal book of devotion, but it’s also a reminder of the colourful imagery that existed in churches in England before the Reformation. It’s one of those wonderful mixtures of the sacred and secular that could be seen until after Shakespeare’s lifetime. As well as offering the comfort of religious images such as the story of the passion and the life of the virgin plus the text of divine services it also contains images of the signs of the zodiac and country tasks to be undertaken month by month.

Aries

The book is known as the Heures de Notre Dame. It was created in France, probably Troyes. It has 237 pages, and is only a few inches high. The background to the pages include acanthus leaves, decorated initials and flowers and in addition to the signs of the zodiac and monthly occupations there are 29 additional miniatures. Every part of each page is gorgeously decorated. The text is written in Latin and French.

The full reference is: Catholic Church. Heures de Nôtre Dame (use of Troyes and Sens) : manuscript, [ca. 1470]. MS Richardson 7. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. The entire book is digitised.

Shakespeare doesn’t seem to have had a lot of time for astrology. One of the most striking references to the subject comes in King Lear. “How long have you been a sectary astronomical?” asks Edgar, surprised that his brother unexpectedly appears to be taking predictions seriously. The audience know that it’s just a front, as Edmund has already confided his own views about the stars.
This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are
sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make
guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if
we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;
knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence; and all that we are evil in by a divine
thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whore-master man, to lay
his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father
compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail, and my
nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and
lecherous. Fut! I should have been that I am had the
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.

This link takes you to large reproductions of some of the astrological signs.

The illustrations that follow are the full pages as photographed by the Houghton Library so the layout of the book is shown. I hope you enjoy these wonderful images, created getting on for 650 years ago and still full of glowing life. Click on each one to see the images at larger sizes.

Posted in Shakespeare's World | Tagged astrology, astronomy, Book of Hours, Christmas, stars, zodiac | 2 Comments

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the charisma of acting

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Peter O’Toole as Hamlet

Since the the death of Peter O’Toole was announced on Sunday the media have been full of reminiscences of him. It’s noticeable that he is remembered for his larger-than-life character and skills as a raconteur almost as much as for his acting.

Some actors disappear into the roles which they play, while others imbue each role with their own character. O’Toole was one of the latter. He was the National Theatre’s first Hamlet in 1963, but he was already a movie star having appeared in Lawrence of Arabia. He was also a character. In the first year of Peter Hall’s leadership of the RSC he had played three interestingly contrasting roles: Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, Thersites in Troilus and Cressida and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice: all controversial parts in what were also controversial plays. He had enthusiastically become one of the first actors contracted for three years, but left at the end of the first season, 1960, when offered the role in Lawrence of Arabia. Nobody could blame him for taking it, but it also showed that O’Toole was not, as he had claimed earlier in the year, really a company man.

Benedict Cumberbatch

Hamlet is a role that adapts itself to the character of the actor playing it, and it has attracted a good many famous for their bon viveur lifestyle such as Richard Burton. But their place sometimes seems to have been taken by a generation of more earnest actors. Just a week or so ago Benedict Cumberbatch announced that in 2014 he will be taking the role of Hamlet in a London Theatre (still unnamed). Cumberbatch has a strong background in theatre but he’s become an international star through his fiercely intellectual Sherlock in a contemporary take on the famous detective stories. He’s a brilliant and compelling actor, and his Hamlet will be a hot ticket, but neither he nor his contemporaries have the sometimes outrageous personality of O’Toole, Burton or Oliver Reed.

Shakespeare’s original Hamlet was Richard Burbage. Although much mourned at his death we know very little of what he was like. We do know, though, that Shakespeare wrote the hugely demanding roles of Hamlet, Othello and King Lear for Burbage and we can’t help feeling that Burbage must have had a personality to match.

Thomas Betterton as Hamlet from Rowe’s 1709 edition of Shakespeare’s works

The next great Hamlet, coming after the reopening of the theatres with the Restoration of the monarchy, was Thomas Betterton a man who, in spite of his enormous success, was not a showman in the way that Garrick was. Yet for over forty years Betterton was the leading actor in London, in particular as Hamlet. John Downes recorded that he had been trained in the role by William Davenant, “having seen Mr. (Joseph) Taylor of the Blackfriars Company act it, who being instructed by the author Mr. Shakespeare, he taught Mr. Betterton every part of it.” The dates don’t quite fit, but there could be an element of truth in the story.

Betterton was born in the right place at the right time, being twenty-five at the Restoration in 1660 and immediately engaged to act in the revival that took place under the theatre-loving Charles II. He first played Hamlet in 1661, and from then onwards dominated the role. He was much admired by Samuel Pepys who wrote on August 31 1668 “To the Duke of York’s play-house, and there saw Hamlet, which we have not seen this year before, or more; and mightily pleased with it, but above all with Betterton, the best part, I believe, that ever man acted.”.

Throughout his life Betterton aimed to be a gentleman rather than merely a “rogue and vagabond”. His personal behaviour was always exemplary. Having been apprenticed to a bookseller as a young man he retained his interest in books and amassed an extensive collection of over 600 volumes and large numbers of pictures and engravings. Four months after his death in 1710 his widow was forced to sell his collection and the sale catalogue tells us much about Betterton’s tastes. Published by Jacob Hooke under the title Pinacotheca Bettertonæana, it was described as “A catalogue of the books, prints, drawings and paintings of Mr Thomas Betterton, that celebrated comedian, lately deceas’d. Sold at his own lodgings in Russell Street, Covent Garden.” A new edition of the catalogue has just been published under the auspices of the Society for Theatre Research by Betterton’s biographer, David Roberts.

Thomas Betterton

It shows that Betterton was a man of wide interests, including literary and dramatic criticism, science, translations from Virgil, Homer and Ovid, volumes on geography, law and over thirty studies of civil wars. It’s a sober and serious collection for an actor who might be expected to enjoy light-hearted reading. But Betterton was no ordinary actor and in his introduction David Roberts claims that he “staked an unusual claim to respectability shared by no previous performer… Whatever its limitations, Betterton’s collection was, remarkably, the work of a gentleman”, at a time when actors were barely respectable.

Towards the end of his life Betterton ventured to Stratford-upon-Avon in search of biographical information about Shakespeare. His findings were published in Rowe’s 1709 edition of the Complete Works, just a year before Betterton’s death. The scene for Hamlet in that edition, reproduced above, of the Ghost’s appearance in Gertrude’s closet, is thought to show his performance. Betterton’s assistance is acknowledged by Rowe, and a copy (probably a gift from Rowe), is the only one by Shakespeare in the sale catalogue.

Luckily Peter O’Toole’s recorded performances ensure he will be remembered for both his acting and his charismatic personality.

If you’re interested in reading more about the stage history of Hamlet, an excellent survey by Robert Hapgood reworks the introduction to his book Introduction to Hamlet: Shakespeare in Production, published by Cambridge University Press in 1999.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Benedict Cumberbatch, David Roberts, Hamlet, Nicholas Rowe, Peter O'Toole, Thomas Betterton | 1 Comment

Shakespeare, gloves, textiles and trade

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Annunciation to the Shepherds, book of hours (Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevive in Paris, c. 1433-1465

Now we’re in the grip of winter most of us don’t venture out for a walk without being muffled up in hats, scarves and gloves. While scarves are fashionable adornments at any time of year, hats and gloves are usually reserved for cold weather. But it’s not long since these garments used to be worn all year round and formed part of any respectable outfit.

Going back in history gloves had particular significance, and this is to be explored in a lecture on Wednesday 18 December entitled ‘Taking up the glove: Finds, uses and meanings of gloves, mittens and gauntlets in Western Europe, c.1400-1700 AD’. It’s being given by Dr. Annemarieke Willemsen from the Medieval Department, National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden. Here’s part of her abstract:
Late-medieval and early-modern people wore gloves, mittens and gauntlets for protection and decoration in many different contexts. They were made for men, women, and children: for workers, hawkers, fighters, preachers and lovers. They exist in wool, textiles, metals and leather, made to fit and sometimes lavishly decorated…. . There were rules for when to wear gloves, and when to take them off. They made suitable gifts and appear often as fashionable items in portraits. … Annemarieke Willemsen will be… presenting new research into the archaeology, iconography and symbolism of anything covering people’s hands in the late- and post-medieval period.

A pair of gloves dating from c 1600

Organised by the Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology entrance is free, but seats at the Clore Learning Centre in the Museum of London have to be secured in advance. The lecture itself is from 7-8.30pm, preceded by a wine reception.

I’ve recently been reading some of the pamphlets relating to Shakespeare accumulated by members of my family, and my eye was caught by one written to celebrate the 1864 Tercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth. On closer examination it turns out to be an essay written (it is claimed) by E Moses, a London tailor and outfitter.
Our main purpose in this little pamphlet, is… to help to show…that the recognition of his greatness…is not confined …to any particular class, or rank, or profession…. Shakespeare has exhibited…such a familiarity with the practical details of different trades and professions, that some of his biographers…have endeavoured to illustrate his earlier personal history, by some of those allusions in his plays and poems which seem to indicate a more special acquaintance with certain particular employments than could be expected from any man…who had not served an apprenticeship to them.

The trade or profession which the pamphlet concentrates on is, not surprisingly, the making and supplying of clothes.
Shakespeare too well appreciated the importance of all external things and outward appearances, as emblematic of the unseen spirit, to deem it a profanation of the poet’s art to embody allusions to the subject of clothes in his majestic and immortal verse.

There is no shortage of references to clothes in Shakespeare from Macbeth, whose title hangs “like a giant’s robe upon a dwarfish thief” to Polonius’ precepts to his son in Hamlet that “the apparel oft proclaims the man”. And to Shakespeare gloves are among the most meaningful of items. Juliet’s glove is imagined as an intimate garment.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

Gloves (gages) are thrown down as deadly challenges by nobles in Richard II, worn as trophies in Henry V and exchanged by lovers in Troilus and Cressida.

Albrecht Durer self-portrait painted in 1498 shows him flamboyantly dressed, including fine kid gloves. Musee del Prado in Madrid.

As suggested in the summary of the lecture, elaborate gloves made handsome gifts, embroidered and perfumed, and could be made from a variety of materials. In a miscellany compiled by Sir Francis Fane (1611-1680) there is a little rhyme which is supposed to have been composed by Shakespeare to accompany a gift of gloves which the master at Stratford grammar school was to give to his mistress.
The gift is small,
The will is all,
Alexander Aspinall.
Alexander Aspinall was master at the school from 1582 until he died in 1624, and it has also been conjectured that he bought the gloves from John Shakespeare on the occasion of his betrothal in 1594. Needless to say there is no evidence for any of this, but it is a charming idea even if the verse is mundane. This website includes information and images relating to the history of gloves.

Shakespeare often displays a knowledge of the craft of glove-making. He talks of the tools of the trade “Does he not wear a great round beard, like a glover’s paring-knife?”, in The Merry Wives of Windsor and knows the qualities of raw materials. Cheveril is a kind of easily-stretched leather used in glove-making, and it’s mentioned by Mercutio as a symbol of something easily manipulated:
O here’s a wit of cheveril, that stretches from an
inch narrow to an ell broad!

The company of E Moses & Son claimed to be bespoke tailors for all classes, but they wanted to be seen as more than just tradesmen. In 1864 they published both their pamphlet on Shakespeare and another on “The Philosophy of Dress”, which contains press comments about the Shakespeare pamphlet. While the Chatham News was positive: “They have spent their money in a way that stamps them as above the ordinary run of advertisers. The whole is in excellent taste”, the Court Circular responded to a comment that reminds us of the snobbishness that surrounded tradespeople: ’A correspondent takes us to task because we have amongst our reviews a notice of the pamphlet…as if we had no right to recognise any literary talent in a tailor—as if no genius ever sprang from behind a counter.” No doubt the author had in mind the humble background of Shakespeare himself.

Finally, there’s also time to catch an exhibition that relates the manufacture and global trade in textiles to the development of empire. Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800 will be on at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York until 5 January 2014. It’s also a celebration of textile-related crafts such as dyeing, weaving and embroidery. Amelia Peck, the exhibition’s lead curator said in an interview “this is the first time that anyone has created an exhibition that uses textiles to tell the story of worldwide trade in the early modern period.”

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare's World | Tagged clothes, E Moses, fashion, gloves, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of London, tailor, textiles | Comments Off

Christmas shopping for Shakespeare-lovers

Posted on December 14, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Judi Dench in An Age of Kings

In case you’re still looking for Shakespeare-related Christmas presents for your nearest and dearest (or yourself), there are plenty to choose from.

Top of my list is the DVD set of An Age of Kings, the fifteen-part BBC series from 1960 that adapted Shakespeare’s history plays for the small screen. If you regularly read these blogs you will have heard about these highly-regarded programmes already, but they are now available in time for Christmas. An Age of Kings has never been available for purchase in the UK before so it’s a great choice for an unusual gift.

Here’s the link to the Illuminations blog which includes a link to purchase the series, and another to the Movie Mail site which includes lots of information about the series and stills from the DVD, so worth a look even if you decide not to buy.

Hamlet in Spineless format

Another unusual present that’s been drawn to my attention is the series of posters published by Spineless Classics. These are tasteful and attractive posters which include a whole play on one page, beautifully designed and completely legible. The Hamlet poster features an outline of Hamlet holding the skull, with “To be, or not to be – that is the question” positioned on the page just where it comes in the play. The Merchant of Venice poster includes both the Rialto bridge and Shylock’s scales, and Romeo and Juliet a heart pierced by a dagger.

There’s even the option to buy the Complete Works of Shakespeare “on 5 majestic A0 pages” if you want to surround yourself with every word he wrote. They can still be ordered in time for Christmas.

If you’re still looking for inspiration, don’t forget the specialised shops that contain lots of Shakespeare-themed ideas. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s online shop is offering a 20% discount until 24 December if you enter TWEET20 at the checkout, and if you’re quick they are still guaranteeing delivery in time for Christmas for UK orders.

And the Royal Shakespeare Company’s online gift shop contains not just books and DVDs but several ranges of clothing, decorations, posters (including the Spineless posters) and jewellery.

Happy (online) shopping!

Posted in Legacy | Tagged An Age of Kings, Christmas, gifts, Illuminations, Spineless | Comments Off

Shakespeare in Germany

Posted on December 13, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

No country outside the UK can boast a longer history of involvement with Shakespeare than Germany. During Shakespeare’s lifetime companies of English players performed at the courts of German princes, and there were even purpose-built playhouses remarkably like English playhouses some years before the building of the first theatre in London. Many adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays were performed in Germany in the century after Shakespeare lived, and the first translations of Shakespeare’s actual text into another language were German, beginning with Julius Caesar in 1741. During the later years of the eighteenth century Shakespeare worship took off in Germany, as it was doing in the UK and elsewhere. The first complete translation of Shakespeare’s plays into German was published between 1775 and 1782, and adaptations continued to flourish. The German romantic writers Schiller and Goethe were united in their admiration of Shakespeare.

Germany was thought of as Shakespeare’s second home, and the play with which Germans most associated themselves was Hamlet. In his article Short Cuts, written for the London Review of Books, Professor Michael Dobson comments “Certainly once Shakespeare was naturalised by the Schlegel-Tieck translation and others in the early 1800s as ‘the third German classic’, the status of his Wittenberg-educated prince as a national allegory in waiting was assured. In a poem of 1844 Ferdinand Freiligrath lamented that ‘Deutschland ist Hamlet,’ and for many subsequent commentators, both at home and abroad, the chief task facing an emergent Germany was that of pulling itself together and rousing itself to action, thereby finally outgrowing Shakespeare’s depressing and constraining plot.”

Earlier this week Emily Oliver, who has just received her PhD, spoke to the Shakespeare Club in Stratford-upon-Avon about Shakespeare under Socialism, specifically in Eastern Germany from the 1980s until the fall of the Berlin Wall. With huge numbers of people behaving as informers on their fellow-citizens and a Ministry of Culture largely responsible for controlling what was seen, the parallels with Orwell’s novel 1984 were compelling. Oliver gave an outline of the theatrical landscape of East Germany: a country of 16 million which subsidised 68 state-funded theatres. The country has few big cities, so many of the theatres were in far-flung locations. Theatres had their own resident ensembles, and there was a considerable requirement for plays to perform. Not surprisingly Shakespeare was popular, with more performances of his plays than the German writer Goethe.

The role of Shakespeare in the socialist German Democratic Republic has been analysed in a number of books such as Steven G Kellman and Andrew M McLean’s 1997 collection Redefining Shakespeare: Redefining Shakespeare: Literary Theory and Theater Practice in the German Democratic Republic.

It has been suggested that Shakespeare’s popularity in Eastern Germany was caused by him being a “secret agent”, academic Dennis Kennedy labelling his plays dissident texts. The public became sensitive to ambiguities, reading between the lines of everything that was presented to them. It’s easy to see, in this climate of suspicion, how important Hamlet could be. Hamlet productions, even in the UK, have often been given a setting in which spying is rife, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being employed as government informers.

Oliver concentrated on the production of Hamlet that has become associated with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the East German government. It’s the production pictured on the jacket of Kellman and McLean’s book, entitled Hamlet/Maschine, directed by Heiner Muller and performed at the Deutches Theater in Berlin. It went into rehearsal in August 1989 and received its first performances in March 1990. During this period there were weekly anti-government demonstrations, large numbers of people left the country for Hungary, the Government resigned, the Wall fell and, just days before the first performance free elections were held. In that period of seven months the country had gone through massive permanent changes.

Ulrich Muhe in the 2006 film The Lives of Others

The play was set inside a thawing ice cube, an obvious symbol of the developing political climate. The Ghost was Stalin, and Fortinbras a representative of the Deutsche Bank. It has become part of the folklore surrounding the production that it actually influenced events, and it is the case that the actor playing Hamlet, Ulrich Muhe, addressed demonstrators while the rehearsals were going on. But although people have liked to say that Shakespeare helped lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall, she suggested this is, sadly, not true.

It’s a persistent idea, and Emily Oliver speculated about why this might be. She suggested that it was to do with the ephemeral nature of theatre and memory. With each performance irrecoverable, anything could be claimed by those who had been in the audience. And those audiences consisted of newly-liberated East Germans as well as visitors form the West. In retrospect, people have turned the performance into what they would like it to have been, coming as it did at a critical moment in the history of the continent. Those of us who admire Shakespeare believe that Shakespeare can certainly influence and improve our lives, but starting a revolution is perhaps going a little far.

Posted in Legacy, Shakespeare on Stage | Tagged Berlin Wall, East Germany, Emily Oliver, German Democratic Republic, Germany, Goethe, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, socialism, Ulrich Muhe | Comments Off

Shakespeare, collaboration and the apocryphal plays

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

Title page of the Third Folio

The question “how many plays did Shakespeare write?” is not an easy one to answer. The First Folio includes 36 plays, but I’ve always been intrigued by the list of additional plays on the title page of the Third Folio from 1664: it includes seven extra plays, one of which, Pericles, has long accepted as containing a high proportion of Shakespeare’s writing and is included in all editions. But the other six, The London Prodigal, Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir John Oldcastle, The Puritan Widow, A Yorkshire Tragedy, and Locrine, were usually dismissed as mere fillers added in order to increase sales of this new edition.

In 1908 C. F. Tucker Brooke, in his book The Shakespeare Apocrypha, listed forty-two plays conceivably attributable to Shakespeare, many in his own lifetime, but dismissed the majority, printing only the fourteen which “alone appear entitled, on grounds either of reason or of custom, to a place among The Shakespeare apocrypha.”.

Then came computerised versions of the plays, and the possibility this gave of examining the texts statistically in what came to be called stylometry. By comparing vocabulary, spelling and grammatical constructions it was said that each writer’s work could be identified. But stylometry wasn’t accepted, perhaps because unreliable results came out of the earliest computer analysis.

Nowadays attribution studies is a subject all of its own. and over the past few years it’s become accepted that Elizabethan and Jacobean playwriting was very often collaborative. No wonder examining sections of plays taking a model section and comparing other to it had been fraught with problems: more and more plays once confidently assumed to be entirely by one author are now thought to be by more than one person. A Shakespeare Apocrypha website lists 46 plays and includes information about when they were attributed and whether there’s a modern printed or online edition.

So the new book William Shakespeare and others: Collaborative Plays, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, promises an answer to the question about which plays Shakespeare collaborated on, and which bits he wrote. It’s designed as a companion volume to the RSC edition of Shakespeare’s Works, published in 2007, which includes both Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen as well as the 36 plays of the First Folio. Both are collaborations, but then so are a few of the plays in the Folio such as Henry VIII. Jonathan Bate indicates in his introduction to the Complete Works that he already had the answers: “We know an immense amount about how plays were put together collaboratively and a whole battery of stylometric tests has enabled us to work out which playwright wrote which scenes”.

The new book, though, doesn’t quite satisfy the expectations raised by the earlier volume. It gives us the full text of just ten plays: Arden of Faversham, Locrine, Edward III, The Spanish Tragedy, Thomas Lord Cromwell, Sir Thomas More, The London Prodigal, A Yorkshire Tragedy, Mucedorus, and The Double Falsehood. It includes a general introduction which goes into the history of the subject and the reason for each play being chosen, as well as an introduction for each play. There’s also a 90-page section written by Will Sharpe entitled Authorship and Attribution which explores the subject further and includes a clear and measured judgement about the claims of each play. Finally there’s a series of interviews By Peter Kirwan with directors and actors who have been involved in productions.

The Sir Thomas More manuscript, kept at the British Library

It’s not unreasonable to expect that the the plays selected all contain at least some Shakespeare, and the book goes over the now well-trodden ground of the evidence surrounding the manuscript of Sir Thomas More. But the editors themselves strangely eliminate at least two of their selected ten. In the introduction to A Yorkshire Tragedy Bate states “The entire play is almost universally attributed to Thomas Middleton”, and for Thomas Lord Cromwell “The Shakespeare attribution has been universally rejected on grounds of style”.

Perhaps it’s only to be expected that a book published under the title The RSC Shakespeare would concentrate on the plays that work well in the theatre. The book declares that it will “help you to understand Shakespeare’s plays as they were originally intended – as living theatre to be enjoyed and performed”. There’s a review here. The RSC have performed several of the plays in this collection (Arden of Faversham, Edward III, Sir Thomas More and The Double Falsehood (Cardenio), and will be giving another production of Arden of Faversham in 2014. The RSC Shakespeare edition attempted to reclaim the First Folio as a collection of essentially theatrical texts, and these 10 plays have perhaps also been chosen more because of their potential for performance than for their Shakespearian content. The Double Falsehood (Cardenio) is a case in point as the version staged by the RSC was very much a reconstructed text – undoubtedly theatre-worthy, but making few claims to be authentically Shakespearean.

At the same time some interesting conclusions are drawn. The Spanish Tragedy is printed complete with 1602 additions, and the scene between Alice and Mosby in Arden of Faversham is confirmed as being by Shakespeare. The plays are indeed, “fascinatingly varied” in subject matter, performance and publication history.

This book won’t answer all the questions you might have about exactly what Shakespeare wrote, or about how playwrights worked in his time, but it certainly provides lots of information and whet the appetite for seeing these plays on the stage. A recent student production of Mucedorus at the University of Toronto described it as: “A princess in distress, a prince in disguise, a jealous lover, a clown named Mouse, a cannibal wild man, and a BEAR! What more could you want in a fairy tale romance?” It was the most popular drama of the age: let’s hope it isn’t long before it’s given a full professional production.

William Shakespeare and Others: Collaborative Plays
Edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, with Jan Sewell and Will Sharpe
Palgrave Macmillan, 816pp, £25

Posted in Legacy, Plays and Poems | Tagged apocrypha, attribution, Collaborative Plays, editions, Eric Rasmussen, First Folio, Jonathan Bate, Peter Kirwan, stylometry, Third Folio, Will Sharpe | Comments Off

Nelson Mandela and Shakespeare

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Sylvia Morris

From around the world the main news this morning, is of the death of Nelson Mandela. I was privileged, in 2005, to meet Sonny Venkatrathnam who had been imprisoned with Mandela on Robben Island, and to examine the Robben Island Shakespeare at close quarters. I believe the Complete Works Exhibition in Stratford-upon-Avon was the first occasion on which the book had left South Africa, though it has since become something of an international star itself, globe-trotting to London in 2012 and to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC in 2013.

The impact of this remarkable book has been extraordinary and I’ve been interested to see how many people have, over the past 12 hours, quoted the lines from Julius Caesar highlighted by Mandela in it.
Cowards die many times before their deaths:
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men
Should fear…
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.

Still in the possession of Sonny Venkatrathnam, its original owner, it surely deserves to be one of South Africa’s national treasures.

If you would like to follow them, these links lead to two of my posts about the book.
Shakespeare and our restless world
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s African play

Posted in Legacy, Stratford-upon-Avon | Tagged Complete Works Exhibition, Nelson Mandela, Robben Island, Sonny Venkatrathnam | 1 Comment

Open access and going digital in 2013

Shakespeare in Italy

Michael Drayton’s Poly-olbion

Astrology at the winter solstice

Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the charisma of acting

Shakespeare, gloves, textiles and trade

Christmas shopping for Shakespeare-lovers

Shakespeare in Germany

Shakespeare, collaboration and the apocryphal plays

Nelson Mandela and Shakespeare

Subscribe to the blog

Search the site

Latest posts

Categories

Recent comments

More blog posts