Moon’s Day, September 10, 2012: Bardology 101

EQ: What do we “know” “about” “Shakespeare” – and does it “matter”?

Welcome! Gather

Pencils, Paper, Wits!

Opening Freewrite:

Known Unknowns

William Shakespeare:

The “Jeopardy” Lecture

CLOZE / Quiz

Closing Freewrite:

Psalm 46

Ending Activities o Project Journals

o Fierce Debate

ELABLRL3: Student relates literature to historical and modern contexts

ELABLRL4: Student writes in various genres: essays, narratives, poems

ELABLRL5: Student acquires new vocabulary; uses correctly reading/writing

ELABLRC4: Student establishes context for information acquired by reading

ELA12W2: Student shows competence in many writing genres

ELA12W4: Student uses timed and process writing to develop, revise, evaluate

ELA12LSV1: Student has student-teacher, student-student, group discussions

ELA12LSV2: Student judges various media products; gives presentations

Opening Freewrite (100 words)

On February 12, 2002, as the United States prepared

for war against Iraq, a reporter asked Secretary of

Defense Donald Rumsfeld to prove that Iraq did in

fact have the weapons of mass destruction which

were the U.S. argument for war. He responded:

There are known knowns;

these are things we know we know.

There also are known unknowns;

these are things we know we do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns –

the things we don’t know we don’t know.

Freewrite (100 words): What did he mean?

Shakespeare, aka The Bard: What You Need To “Know”

if you are ever on “Jeopardy!” [and why the word “know” is in quotation marks]

The “Chandos” portrait – one of two pictures believed to be

authentic, contemporary portraits of William Shakespeare.

Church records show that a boy named Will Shakspere was

born in the tiny farming town of Stratford-on-Avon on April

23, 1564. Stratford-on-Avon was a tiny farming town over a

100 miles northwest of London. Nobody else famous ever

came from Stratford-on-Avon.

Will’s father was John Shakspere, a successful grain merchant

rich enough to own the second-biggest house in town:

The “Shakespeare Birth Home” in modern day Stratford-on-Avon

Will Shakspere received a 5th Grade education in Stratford’s little

one-room schoolhouse. Here is the schoolhouse today:

Here Will learned what one critic has called “little Latin and less

Greek” (just as Chaucer’s Prioresse was ridiculed for speaking

French “after the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe”). Despite this,

William Shakespeare (note the spelling change – we’ll come back

to that) went on to be universally famous as the greatest writer the

world has ever seen. Hmmmmm…..

In 2007 Cathy Charsley of the London Metropolitan Police Force took the famous

“Chandros” portrait and used criminal forensic computer imaging techniques to create this

image of William Shakespeare as he might have looked at age twelve. (www.metro.co.uk)

At age 17 Will married

26-year-old Anne

Hathaway. A son,

Hamnet, was born six

months after wedding

(hmmmm…)

Their daughter Judith

was born two years

later; both kids died

young (hmmmmm…)

Records show that

Will Shakspere was a

successful grain merchant who went frequently to London, where

he invested widely, including several ventures with an acting

troupe called the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and also in the Globe

Theater, where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men performed.

But these are strictly business records.

Below is everything published during the lifetime of William

Shakespeare of Stratord-On-Avon which identifies him as a poet:

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Nothing written anywhere during Will Shakspere's lifetime

unambiguously identifies him as a writer of any kind. No

plays, manuscripts, letters, diaries, or writings of any sort

exist in handwriting now believed to be Will Shakspere's. Will Shakspere of Stratford was a real person, but the only

writing we have from that time period about him is about him as

a businessman with business dealings – contracts, court cases,

wills. The six examples of what are believed to be his actual

signature exist on these documents, but they are so scrawled and

labored that some doubt he could even write at all (hmmm…):

Will Shakspere of Stratford-On-Avon died April 23, 1616 – his

52nd birthday (hmmmmmmmmmmmm….). No contemporary

document carries any mention of any public acknowledgement

of his passing. By contrast, the less famous Ben Jonson was

buried at Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey, in a ceremony

attended by the King himself. Hmmmmmmmm.

No positive

identification

of “William

Shakespeare” as

writer came until

The Plays of

William

Shakespeare in

1624 – 8 years

after Will

Shakspere’s

death. Hmmm.

With this book

(now called The

First Folio),

what we call

“The Plays of

Shakespeare”

became the most

famous writings

in England, and

in the world –

and remain so to

this day.

In 1780 the Rev. James Wilmot decided to write a definitive

scholarly biography of the English language's greatest master.

Shakespeare was by then a booming business, especially for the

area around Stratford,

which had become a

tourist mecca (John

Adams and Thomas

Jefferson made a

pilgrimage there).

Wilmot combed

Stratford’s libraries,

churches and records,

looking for poems,

plays, letters or

manuscripts written or

owned by William

Shakespeare.

He found ... nothing.

No poems, no plays, no books, no diaries, no letters, no legal

documents or grocery lists or even signatures. Nothing.

Wilmot, with a Doctorate from Oxford University, was too

honest to deny the implications of his research – and too

patriotic to publish them. He burned his notes and swore friends

to secrecy. Not until 1932 did a descendant of a friend finally

tell this story. By then Mark Twain, Ralph Waldo Emerson,

Sigmund Freud and many other famous thinkers had voiced

doubt. In modern times the opinion that the Will Shakspere

born in Stratford was not William Shakespeare the writer – that

somebody else wrote the plays, using that name – has become a

serious scholarly position, though it still is the minority view.

Even an old statue of

Shakespeare at the

Stratford Parish Church is

controversial. It shows

Shakespeare with a book

and pen, appropriate for

honoring a great poet.

Except … this photo shows

the statue after it was

“rebeautified” in 1746.

Here is the Stratford statue as

it looked when William

Dugdale sketched it in 1653.

Apparently, in the original

statue Shakespeare held not a

book and pen but some kind of

pillow or bag – like maybe a

bag of grain, as would be

appropriate for a statue

honoring a grain merchant.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm….

On the authorship issue Shakespeareans divide into two camps:

Stratfordians believe that the Will Shakspere who was

born in Stratford-on-Avon is the William Shakespeare now

famous for those poems and plays. They point out that

nobody claimed that anyone besides William Shakespeare

wrote the plays for 200 years after Shakespeare’s death.

Anti-Stratfordians believe that Will Shakspere existed,

and probably invested in theaters, but did not write the

poems and plays later attributed to William Shakespeare.

o They argue that Will Shakspere was too badly

educated to have written those poems, indeed that

there is no evidence that Shakspere could write at all.

o They believe that someone else wrote the poems and

plays, using the respelled “William Shakespeare” as a

pseudonym. The major “candidates” are:

Francis Bacon, the philosopher-scientist often

called “the Father of the Scientific Method.”

(The Rev. Wilmot favored Bacon as the author.)

Christopher Marlowe, a poet and secret agent

who wrote plays similar to Shakespeare’s and

who “died” in a barroom brawl just before

“Shakespeare’s” career began to take off;

Edward de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, known to

have been a poet and playwright at a time when

those were shameful occupations for royalty.

Whoever wrote

the plays,

Stratford-on-

Avon is a

ginormous tourist

attraction.

Today it is the

home of the

Royal

Shakespeare

Company,

pictured at left.

Stratford also boasts

the Pizza Hut Restaurant

pictured at right.

Tourists must be fed,

after all.

Hmmmmmmmm…

Lecture Quiz: Shakespeare (hmmmmmm….)

1. Will Shakspere was born in the tiny town of _________________-_____-_________.

2. He was born on ___________________, 1564 and died on __________ _____, 1616.

3. His father was a ___________ merchant, and the town was ________ miles from London.

4. He had about a _______ grade education, and married Anne Hathaway when she was

________ and he was only _______. Their first child was born ________ months later.

5. Shakspere invested in an acting company called The ___________ __________________

Men, and in a theater called the ____________________ Theater.

6. All the writing we have about him during his life has to do with ______________.

7. Scholars have found a grand total of _________ plays, poems, or anything else actually

written in his handwriting.

8. His signature appears to many to have been too ______________ to have been from a

person accustomed to ______________ for a living.

9. When he died, there were _______ public ceremonies mourning his death.

10. Nobody seems to have called him a writer until the publication of The Plays of William

Shakespeare, published in the year _________, which was _____ years after his ________.

This book is now called the _____________ ______________.

11. What changed when the Statue of Shakespeare in Stratford was “re-beautified”?

12. Name two famous thinkers on record as doubting that Will Shakspere wrote the plays:

a.

b.

13. People who believe that Will Shakspere wrote the plays are called ____________________.

14. People who don’t believe this are called _______________________________.

15. Name two people often cited as authors of the plays:

a.

b.

16. Despite doubts, Stratford remains a popular tourist destination, housing the ___________

________________ Company and a _______________ ___________ Restaurant.

Closing Freewrite: Psalm 46 In 1611, King James I of England commissioned

the first official English translation of the Holy

Bible. Not surprisingly, this is now known as The

King James Bible. Also not surprisingly, James

gathered England’s best writers for the task – but

did not allow anyone to know who they were.

In 1611, William Shakespeare was 46 years old.

One obvious question, then, is whether Shakespeare

helped to write The King James Bible.

So – let’s look at Sonnet 46 of the King James Bible.

King James Version (KJV) Psalm 46

1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the

mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;

3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with

the swelling thereof. Selah. 4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy

place of the tabernacles of the most High.

5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that

right early.

6The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth

melted. 7The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

8Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the

earth. 9He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and

cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.

10

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

11

The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Starting with the first word (“God”) count 46 words into the psalm.

Then starting with “refuge” – the last word if we don’t count “selah,”

a formal “Amen”-like word –count 46 words back into the psalm.

Now freewrite (46 words): Whattap?