The Folger Library Never Did This (1 Viewer)

[number6horse]

Copies of the First Folio to travel the U.S., the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands in 2016.

From the article:
"But moving tens of millions of dollars of rare books around the United States for a year sounds like a risk"...

Pffft.... they should have consulted some forum members here.

 

[roni]

they got balls.

 

[Skygazer]

they got balls.

They certainly have... should I say, good to see?
But it is fantastic to be taking it out and giving it a good airing.Letting the masses have a wee look.
Bit depressed about their decision to highlight the wait for it... Hamlet Soliloquy -To Be, or Not To flaming Be.Ok it's not bad, but there's a million great passages.
[...It also makes for a fascinating presentation on variations in the surviving texts: In the 1603 first quarto, for instance, Hamlet says, “To be or not to be; aye, there’s the point.”...]
There's about three known variations/script changes, see below::wb:

 

[Purple Stickpin]

They floated the idea of highlighting "Lo, I see m'lady's bulldog hath been eating porridge again" but it didn't get much traction.

 

[Skygazer]

Truly, Hamlet gets on my nerves, Holden Caulfield mark 1.
Now Macbeth, that's a different story.

I really shouldn't say that.

 

[Skygazer]

Only an excuse to put up an equally well known, but less overused Soliloquy, wish they would display this instead:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Mabeth: Act 5, scene 5

She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 

[skiroomalum]

The comedies are good, the tragedies highly overrated, the sonnets nice. The idea that Shakespeare is the pinnacle of achievement in the English language has always irritated me. He was good ( whomever he was), but the standard bearer for all things literary? Nope.

 

[Skygazer]

Not everyone's cup of tea I suppose, but "Not for Nothing " ( The Merchant of Venice:Act II Scene V) is he loved. I agree he is not the be all and end all, but you can't argue that he has been a major influence on writers ever since (whom you probably love) and justifiably.
Obviously there is one noteworthy exception.

In fact just to keep it topical, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, which you possibly may have read skiroom?

I just wish they were displaying a different piece when that wonderful book goes out on tour, in it's glass box and hopefully well protected.

ps I think Shakespeare was Shakespeare.
But it would be nice to have a debate on it, if anyone else is interested??

 

[Bruno Dante]

The main reason I think that it was Shakespeare who wrote the things that were attributed to him is that no one at the time thought that he didn't write the stuff. You get arguments that someone of his class couldn't have done but his being accepted as having done so by his contemporaries would tend to debunk that. I believe it wasn't well over a hundred years after his death that the theory of alternative authorship was first postulated. By this time, unlike during his lifetime, Shakespeare was being widely acclaimed as one of (if not the) greatest writer(s) ever. It strikes me that someone coming up with a conspiracy theory at this time had a lot to gain in terms of personal fame.

 

[mjp]

It strikes me that someone coming up with a conspiracy theory at this time had a lot to gain in terms of personal fame.

An 18th or 19th century Ben Pleasants...

 

[LickTheStar]

Well, we all know someone with limited formal education could never do anything of note...

I love Midsummer, The Tempest, Richard III... the rest, I could take or leave. Lear is good depending on the setting and the director...

 

[Skygazer]

I like this one;
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/shake_did_write_plays.html

 

[number6horse]

I love the tragedies myself... Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear... probably in that order.

 

[Bruno Dante]

I've managed to catch the Royal Shakespeare Company a few times. I'm not exactly a theatre goer, this was back at school and university. I saw a very dull production of Antony and Cleopatra at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle with Octavius Caesar played by John Nettles (who some people may remember as Bergerac) but I saw The Tempest in Stratford and I thought that was great.

 

[Skygazer]

I love the tragedies myself... Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear... probably in that order.

At school straight after Arthur Miller's The Crucible, we were plunged into Shakespeare, against our will, but to our amazement, after the brain ache of the language, knocked us sideways. I read more voluntarily, after that and loved them.

I suppose the thing with him, is even if you loathe him with every fibre, the writers you do love will have borrowed from him in terms of theme, plot or character. He's referenced everywhere basically, not just in literature, but art, opera, music, film, etc. (there's no escape).

But then he pinched ideas, themes too.

Reading about that First Folio of Folger Library going out on tour, apparently of the 228 still known to be in existence, they have 82 copies!
which makes you breathe a little easier, if some mishap doth befall it:wb:. But single copies run into millions.

Bruno, our local cinema mutilplex has been doing a lot of live streaming of (amongst other high arty stuff) Shakespeare's Plays from the Globe Theatre, they did some last year also.
(Gets streamed across the world in other cinemas too) a lot more affordable and accessible, for me.

 

[Bruno Dante]

Bruno, our local cinema mutilplex has been doing a lot of live streaming of (amongst other high arty stuff) Shakespeare's Plays from the Globe Theatre, they did some last year also.

You Sweaties are just so highbrow ;)
I saw The Tempest at the Swan Theatre which is basically an indoor version of an Elizabethan-style theatre like The Globe.

 

[number6horse]

On the subject of Shakespeare, what does everyone think of Kurosowa's adaptations ? I believe there were just two: Macbeth (Throne Of Blood) and King Lear (Ran). He made a few changes to each without undermining the story structure or basic lessons of either one. His Lear has sons instead of daughters. And there are not three witches in his Macbeth but only one. And it's a good one. Very gender-non-specific and unsettling - pretty adventurous for it's day I think. Of course the settings are feudal Japan instead of the English monarchy, but the subject is still the downfall of kings.

One of my local cinemas participated in those theatrical Shakespeare productions. I think they kind of failed. But I can't criticize because I didn't get my butt over there to buy a ticket either. And I should have.

 

[David]

How did Shakespeare get in here?

"No, Shakespeare didn't work at all for me, except given lines. There was a lot of good advice in there, but he didn't pick me up. These kings running around, these ghosts, that upper-crust shit bored me. I couldn't relate to it. It had nothing to to with me. Here I am lying in a room starving to death--I've got a candy bar and half a bottle of wine--and this guy is talking about the agony of a king. It didn't help." (Interview with Robert Wennersten, 1974).

OK, we could play a game: famous novels which use Shakespeare lines as titles. I can think of two right away:
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley, from The Tempest)
The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner, Macbeth).....
Must be lots of them...

 

[Skygazer]

How did Shakespeare get in here?
...

It's all number6's fault:).

Another Kurt Vonnegut short story; 2BRO2B.
Did an online search, don't know if it's comprehensive. One of The Merchant of Venice ones is wrong though, should be glisters.

http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-inspired-novel-titles/

 

[roni]

"No, Shakespeare didn't work at all for me, [...]

Gerry Locklin once said:
"I'm sorry that Bukowski felt it necessary sometimes to banter [bantam?] other writers low, Hemingway and Shakespeare and all those, because he was giving students and young people an excuse for not putting any effort of reading writers, who would be very enrichening to their lives. They're a little more difficult, maybe, than Bukowski. But you gotta read Bukowski and then go to other writers too. It doesn't have to be an either-or, could be a both-and. You don't have to exclude other authors just to love Bukowski."

I'd agree.

 

[roni]

A kinda scholarly question:
I have 'HAMLET' (which I dig) only in German translation and now intend to get me a version in the Original language.

If I do this, I want to have reliable, quotable text with valid annotations /commentary on it, like the distant English language (vocabulary, grammar, idioms, etc) as well as on the context (culture, everydaylife, literature at the time that he may refer to or is neccessary to know for a proper understanding, etc).

When I was in highschool we've read a play ('Twelfth Night') using 'The New Swan Shakespeare', which was alright. But concerning my attempt to get The Hamlet now, I'd like to dig a little deeper.

So, QUESTION:
What edition should I go for?

 

[Short Bus]

Roni
Start here there are many free versions to chose from
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=HAMLET

Try this one
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/27761/27761-h/27761-h.htm#noteI_12
And from that link I found this word in the notes
Contumacious-I had not seen that word till today-thanks Roni!