Studying Shakespeare and finding your channel have been so helpful to get me through this pandemic. I hope to watch a play in the future and maybe act in one again.
I love the term 'scenic poet.' I think poets were more highly regarded so they are trying to uplift his artwork, but he relies so heavily on verse he is indeed a poet based on his plays alone. When I hear the word 'scenic' I think of scenery and set dressing more than a script, but Shakespeare relies heavily on his own verse to set the scene. I am amazed how many survived. Is it common for so many editions to survive? I wonder when people realized they truly had a treasure on their hands. I wonder who bought it and what kind of collections it ended up in.
My favorite book! I have a single leaf of it, stored away with the guns and deeds and other things nobody better touch if they know what's good for them. I have to remind myself that it's not a holy relic. Shakespeare never laid eye nor hand upon it. Except for the plays for which it is our sole source, it's probably not even our best source. And it's a source just for his plays. They are less "his" than his poetical works. Not only are many of them "collabs" as my son would call them, but they are almost all adaptations of previous plays or stories. Aside from Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, and the Phoenix and the Turtle, which it's pretty safe to say were personally delivered by Will to printer Richard Field, everything else Shakespeare wrote is subject to collaboration, emendation, and corruption. I hate to write this, because it makes me seem a bit like one of those hated Anti-Stratfordians, but it doesn't really matter that the language of the First Folio is something if a group effort. His dramatic works were born of the theater. What he wrote was almost certainly edited during production, with the likes of Hemminges and Condell proposing changes which made it into the final draft. In the 80s, a painting previously ascribed to Rembrandt, called The Man with the Golden Helmet, was determined to be by a different, unknown artist. It went from a prominent place in the Gemaldegalerie with people waiting in line to see it, to a spot on the wall near the restrooms, seen only by those who had too much beer with lunch. It would be tragic were that to happen to great plays by Shakespeare because they were deemed less "authentic".
This is a brilliant comment and I completely agree. The texts (however collaborative) were, are and should be living and evolving things. While a new edition may highlight new and interesting angles; the real discoveries will always come in performance for me. The cuts, the directorial choices, even the adaptations are all the playing of the thing. I do see the "Shakespeare monolith" - the man, the genius, the work - as fairly problematic. The works are, I believe, wonderful and enjoyable but it's good to take our heroes off the pedestal sometimes - if only because it lets us see the truth of them (flawed and human as that may be)! I must ask though... which leaf do you own?
@@ReadingthePast Poor old Malvolio being gulled. I find it funny that one of Shakespeare's best-known and unironically-repeated quotes"...and some have greatness thrust upon them", is actually said by a deluded steward. It ranks up the with "let's kill all the lawyers" for misused Shakespeare.
That's an iconic moment! It's fascinating how texts pass from hand to hand and come apart (or stay/get put back together). I enjoy finding the names of owners, recipients and givers - along with their various annotations - in books. I've seen a few examples of early modern texts being chopped up and reordered by an owner. Clearly, at some point, someone felt no compunction about undertaking their own editorial endeavours. Do you think that's where your example came from? Or are you able to trace its origins more precisely?
@@ReadingthePast Unfortunately, zero provenance. I was able to get a look at a genuine folio under a loupe, so I'm confident that it's printed on the same paper stock. It's been disbound so long that even the saw holes from the binding have worn away. No tracing it that way. I had a mind to compare the gradual warping of the border leads to see in what order various pages were were printed. It's not like Hinman left much research on the folios left undone. The Folger isn't going to let someone with my lack of credentials into the reading room, except on a tour, so it's a moot point. Maybe I should go to grad school when I retire.
The right grad school programme would certainly be a great experience for someone with your passion and pre-existing knowledge! If you haven't already, it's always worth a punt to contact the library directly. I've only really had significant interactions (starting before my MA) with the British Library, but have found the collections team to be really helpful and willing to find answers to questions.
Shakespeare’s players knew that they were reciting great poetry, great art; as Jane Austen’s family knew she was going to be remembered and read because she was creating timeless classics and works of art.
IMO, there's no reason to read anything into the poems being left out. The Folio never claimed to be a Complete Works of everything he ever wrote, just a collection of his plays. Anyone who sees it as the One True Canon of everything Shakespearean is bringing in expectations far beyond what the original claimed to be, IMO. Why certain plays were left out is a more valid question, since the Folio seems to have been aiming to be a complete collection of his plays. It's possible they weren't popular or someone involved in the production didn't like them, but my guess would be simply that it was hard to organize everything and get good copies of all the plays, so some things slipped through the cracks. 36 plays is already a lot to deal with, after all! Who knows- he may well have written other plays that didn't make it in, and that we simply have no records of at all anymore.
Essentially, put your money where your mouth is. If you care to voice an opinion, then first purchase the right to do so by buying a copy of the txt first. I love it.
1:40 We don't know how many copies were printed, "750" is within the range that most agree to 2:40 there are no images of either Shakspere or anyone who claimed to be writing under the pseudonym "Shakespeare" and it is very unlikely that any person had two right eyes and no left eye 2:55 Heminges and Condell had no financial role in the production of either the Pavier Quarto or the first folio. 3:00 Shakspere did not have his own "acting company" 3:26 the forehead is obviously exaggerated to suggest genius and many suggest that the image is the origin of the phrase "high brow" 4:30 now you are on the right track -- Heminges and Condell did not have the finances to pay for a portfolio printing but Ben Jonson and Jaggard's patrons did 6:14 plagiarism software has shown that it is ALL Ben Jonson, not just the two poems but also the ghost-written Heminges and Condell letter as well. 8:25 Printed works were not owned by actors or friends of authors but by printers as documented in: "The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England. The Register itself allowed publishers to document their right to produce a particular printed work, and constituted an early form of copyright law." I stopped the video at this point. I hope that you will research the true origin of the First Folio and how it evolved from the earlier Jaggard printing of the 1619 Pavier quartos. It is fascinating and enlightening information which explains the copyright issues and how they were overcome. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_Folio
Today we know with certainty that the first folio was forged in the first few pages and d elsewhere in the collection to hide the true author of the plays represented by actor William Shaksper, aka Shakespeare. Distinguished literary scholars and metricists have confirmed without a doubt that it was the Italian Giovanni Florio who was the true author of these immortal works, but many, perhaps for convenience or otherwise, deny the evidence. Shameful forgeries were drafted to make a semianliterate actor appear as the greatest playwright in history. They have made images of Florio and all the material attesting to the true author of Shakespeare's plays disappear. All that is known for sure about Mr. William Shaksper is that he was born in Stratford Upon-Avon, married and had children, went to London, where he began acting under the stage name Shakespeare, returned to Stratford, made his will, died and was buried. The rest of his life is a blank sheet of paper, not a pen or a book was found in his house. A semi-literate man who could not write his own name could not have written immortal works, so who was the real author of Shakespeare's plays? The first to identify Shakespeare with Giovanni Florio was his enemy Thomas Nashe, who in one thousand five hundred eighty-nine, published in clear letters in the Metaphon that "an Italian pen puts eternity in an actor's mouth.'' What do we know instead about John Florio? About John Florio his whole life and countless works are known, he had a huge culture in all fields, he spoke countless languages and dialects, he translated into English many Italian, Latin Greek, French, and Spanish works bringing much erudition to a country where culture was very scarce. John Florio was a valiant writer; in addition to the works of Shakespeare, he introduced over a thousand new learned words into the English language and produced a dictionary with over one hundred and fifty thousand English terms. It cannot be otherwise; half of the works are perfectly set in Italy and part in Denmark. It is no accident that Giovanni Florio was Italian, personal secretary and confidant of Queen Anne of Denmark. No English scholar was equal to such a feat.
