Literary Tea 2022: Shakespeare's First Folio with Sir Simon Russell Beale and Professor Emma Smith

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Жыл бұрын

On 13th November 2022, we welcomed alumni to a Somerville Literary Tea featuring Sir Simon Russell Beale and Professor Emma Smith (1988, English) in conversation. The pair were there to discuss all things Shakespeare in advance of the imminent 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The event was dedicated to the eminent Shakespeare scholar Professor Katherine Duncan-Jones, our Fellow and Tutor in English for 35 years, who died in October 2022.

Пікірлер: 27

@loriscunado3607 10 ай бұрын

Thank you, guys

@SlightlySusan 7 ай бұрын

I read that the master of the revels licensed plays for performance for a specific period of time. It might have been 2 years or 3. Then, changes had to have been made in the play before it could be staged again. Was Chris Laoutaris' book about the first folio, entitled Shakespeare's Book, The Story Behind the First Folio and the Making of Shakespeare, published before or after this conversation? The new historians' (or whatever that group of scholars that saw Henry VIII as the first modern king rather than the last Medieval king) understanding of Shakespeare's period is supported by Laoutaris' book, although the author makes no mention of the new historicism. Instead, Laoutaris shows us a world in which the conduct of business then was essentially the same as the conduct today. I think Will was a modern man and that his partnership with other playwrights was like the writers' room depicted in The Dick Van Dyke Show.

@squareleg5757 Жыл бұрын

“...having researched Shakespeare’s life in great detail...” Lol.

@ZZSmithReal Жыл бұрын

Well, it only takes a few minutes.

@Jeffhowardmeade 5 ай бұрын

@@ZZSmithRealOnly if you don't bother to read any of the documents.

@arealphoney 4 ай бұрын

@@Jeffhowardmeade, Do you mean the twenty or so docs about legal matters, rentals, corn hoarding, etc?

@Jeffhowardmeade 4 ай бұрын

@@arealphoney When you say "corn hoarding" it tells me you haven't read them. By omitting all the references to the poet being the actor and gentleman from Stratford, you show that you haven't read those either.

@arealphoney 4 ай бұрын

@@Jeffhowardmeade, Please direct me to all the documents that refer to the poet being the actor and gentleman from Stratford.

@apollocobain8363 Жыл бұрын

No mention of the Pavier quarto, 1619. "Shakespeare began as an actor" ..by writing long form sonnets like 'Venus and Adonis'?? The amount given to Heminges and Condell for rings is not even close to the cost of the layout, printing, binding and rights clearances for the First Folio. Their inclusion in the Will is added as interlineation. The myth goes on.

@commonberus1 10 ай бұрын

The various interlineals include the 'second best bed' .

@Jeffhowardmeade 5 ай бұрын

She never said it was. The money was enough to buy memorial rings. You know, those things that make you remember people?

@meghanandrockmackay5804 Жыл бұрын

Lord Burly had his hand picked lacky installed as the archbishop of Canterbury. All printing had to go through him(it was heavily censored) . Only someone very close to Lord Burly, could have got the works of Shake-Speare published.

@Jeffhowardmeade 5 ай бұрын

Lord Burghley died in 1596. The First Folio was published 27 years later. The Archbishop had the right to suppress books he didn't like, but nobody needed to get a license from him to print one.

@user-bc4mp6kh8h 5 ай бұрын

@@Jeffhowardmeade Hamlet is a deeply autobiographical play written by Edward De Vere, lampooning his father in-law(Lord Burly) and his brother in-law(Robert Cecil). It was Written many many years before the first folio was published. De Vere's wife, Anne Cecil is portrayed as Ophelia. His Cousin was called Horatio. His brother in-law traveled to Denmark and sent a letter back mentioning two guys called Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. De Vere received a thousand pounds a year from the queen, the same amount of money was taken away from the queens players. Hampton Court was where the plays were preformed before the queen. At that time Hampton court was known as AVON. The average word length of De Vere's writing is exactly the same as Shake-Speare's. No other person even comes close. In the Tin Letters to Queen Elizabeth, De Vere is using words & phrases that are credited in the oxford dictionary to Shake-Speare thirty years before Shake-Speare was published. Words like "Obscured" and others. The first folio is dedicated to De Vere's son in-law and his brother(who was once engaged to De Vere's other daughter.)

@user-bc4mp6kh8h 5 ай бұрын

Also Venus and Adonis is published in 1593. Lord Burly was still very much alive.

@Jeffhowardmeade 5 ай бұрын

@@user-bc4mp6kh8h Hundreds of other books were published in 1593 as well. Were they all published by friends of Burghley? Venus and Adonis was published by Richard Field, who it just so happens grew up with Shakespeare in Stratford. The first time the Archbishop of Canterbury exercised his right to censor published works was in 1599. Wikipedia has a nifty page about the Bishop's Ban.

@user-bc4mp6kh8h 5 ай бұрын

@@Jeffhowardmeade I don't have the energy to debate you. I have given you the key to the door, that Edward De Vere wrote most of the works of "Shake-Speare". Your faith that an illiterate thug from Stratford wrote the works, is your choice. The thug from Stratford that abused his daughters by never having them educated, leaving them illiterate. He never even left them a single book, Indeed the is no evidence that he ever owned a book. De Vere had three daughters (like Macbeth.) He loved them all dearly. He had them all educated. Ben Johnson was close to his Daughter Susan whose husband is one of the dedicatees of the first folio. Bonner Cutting has shown damning evidence that the Droeshout engraving was based on a portrait of Susan De Vere. Sigmund Freud believed that De Vere wrote the works based on the overwhelming evidence available, and the psychological profile of the man. I am with Sigmund on this. To know De Vere's life is to know the works of Ovid. De Vere wanted to be the English Ovid. He Succeeded. Ask your self why the number 1740 can be found in the works of Shake-Speare more than a thousand times. Why was the monument to Shake-Speare erected in 1740? Ask yourself why De Vere had no will at his death? What other Earl died at the same time without a will? If eyes had wings, you wouldn't miss a single thing.

@michaeldunne3379 Жыл бұрын

The MC is a bit whack

@ZZSmithReal Жыл бұрын

Emma Smith referring to whether "Shakespeare" was a bad actor: There's room to ask questions about things that look settled, as what a lot about Shakespeare are "apparent facts resting on not very much" - and "the tenacity to follow things up." "Lots of things we don't know about how the First Folio was put together" - there is a "received wisdom" about it. An "unusual title page." "You invent a single author." Hmmmm. And yet the professoriate class steadfastly refuses to engage with growing mountain of evidence that says to look elsewhere. I mean if you're going to discuss the First Folio, yes, it seems perfectly reasonable to leave out the fact that it was essentially an Oxford family production, right?

@Jeffhowardmeade 5 ай бұрын

The First Folio was not an "Oxford Family production". It was DEDICATED to the earls of Pembroke, who refused to marry a daughter De Vere didn't raise, and Montgomery, who waited until right after De Vere died to marry a daughter he also didn't raise. Pembroke was the Lord Chamberlain, aka The King's Men's boss. As he had no children, his heir was his brother, the Earl of Montgomery, who was confirmed to become the next Lord Chamberlain, which he later became. Hemminges and Condell dedicated the work to their bosses. That's it. The earls had nothing at all to do with producing it, and even less their wives.