The best known and least known figure in literary history.
Slide 2
Slide 3
In 2006, a member of the Cobbe family saw a portrait in a
gallery that they were convinced was a copy of the painting hung in
the ancestral home. X-rays proved it was authentic. The Cobbe
portrait
Slide 4
Sold in 1839 by Richard Palntagenet Temple Nugent Brydges
Chandos Grenville (A Duke who had 9 of the first flush toilets in
England) to a gallery after losing his entire inheritance through
bad investments. The Chandos Portrait
Slide 5
Appeared as the frontispiece of the famous First Folio in 1623.
It is believed that the artist Martin Droeshout was in his early
twenties and not very experienced but got the job because he owned
printing equipment. The Droeshout Portrait
Slide 6
Installed by 1623 in Holy Trinity Church. The paint work was
refreshed by an unknown person. 24 years later it was white washed
by church wardens It has now been repainted in colour but who knows
what the original details or colours were. Gheerart Janssens
bust
Slide 7
Controversy exists due to: clothing, jewellery, dates,
symmetry, pose etc. Why is there controversy over what he looked
like? Which portrait do you believe is the most accurate and
why?
Slide 8
Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon
Slide 9
After nearly a million words of text, only 144 words are
written by his own hand- legal documents, his name signed six times
and the words by me on his will. Not a single note, letter or
manuscript survives in his own hand.
Slide 10
He never spelled his surname the same way twice. The spelling
we now use wasnt one he used. Other options: Shakespere,
Shakspeare, Shakspere We dont know for sure how to pronounce his
name. Perhaps with a short a as in shack
Slide 11
The first mention of Shakespeare as a playwright came from a
pamphlet written by a dying man- Robert Green on thoughts, events
in his life and observations of other writers. He died age 32 1592.
It was titled: Greens-Groats worth of Wit*, Bought with a Million
of Repentance. Describing the folly of youth, the falsehood of
make-shift flatterers, the misery of the negligent, and of
deceiving Courtesans. Written before his death and published at his
dying request. *A groat=small coin worth 4pence
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Yes, trust them not: for there is an upstart Crow, beautified
with out feathers, that this Tigers heart wrapped in a Players
hide, supposes he is as well able to bomnbast out a blank verse as
the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes fac totum, is in
his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. (Jealous much?
Green felt that actors should speak lines, not write them and leave
writing to uni grads.
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How could a lightly educated son of a glover who never owned a
book know so much about law, medicine, court life, military affairs
and life abroad possibly produce the most famous literary works of
all time? The suspected authors: Sir Francis Bacon the 17 th Earl
of Oxford-Edward de Vere The combined efforts of: Queen Elizabeth
I, Christopher Marlowe, Countess of Pembroke, Sir Phillip Sydney
and Sir Walter Raleigh (a few of these people were dead at the time
Shakespeare was still writing and more than 50 candidates have been
suggested)
Slide 14
Sir Frances Bacon Some believe him to be the bastard child of
Elizabeth I. He wrote essays about disliking the theatre
Slide 15
Delia Bacon, born in 1811, Ohio, U.S. A teacher and a
writer.
Slide 16
In the 1840s, after a courgar-esque affair with a uni student
who would read her obsessive, passionate letters to his mates, she
was devastated and became convinced that Francis Bacon wrote the
works of William Shakespeare. (She had no known genealogical
connection to Sir Francis Bacon)
Slide 17
She financed her trip to England with donations from
influential believers; not to research archives, libraries or speak
to scholars, but to seek out locations where Bacon spent his life
silently hoping to have absorbed atmospheres.
Slide 18
In 1857 she published The Philosophy of the plays of
Shakespeare Unfolded with no mention of the name Francis Bacon.
(You just have to assume thats who she discusses)
Slide 19
Exhausted by this work, she retreated to insanity and died
under institutional care believing she was the holy ghost. The 675
page book was a failure. Mark Twain, Henry James were supporters.
Nathanial Hawthorne wrote the preface (he later admitted that he
never read the book and was embarrassed to have endorsed a book
regarded by critics as hokum.)
Slide 20
Oxford was admired by the Queen, travelled, spoke Italian,
wrote poems and plays.
Slide 21
1918- J. Thomas Looney published Shakespeare Identified. He
argued that his name was pronounced Loney when publishers knocked
him back.
Slide 22
Sigmund Freud was a fan of the theory before he came up with
his own that Shakespeare was of French decent, really named Jacques
Pierre.
Slide 23
However, Oxford died before the Gunpowder plot in 1604, and The
Tempest was inspired by a shipwreck in Bermuda of 1609. So how
could these later plays such as Macbeth and The Tempest be written
by Oxford?
Slide 24
Why do you think there is so much controversy over who wrote
the works of Shakespeare? Who do you really think wrote the plays?
Do you really care?
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Slide 26
Only 230 or so plays still exist from Shakespeares times,
including 38 by Shakespeare (about 15% of the total) Shakespeares
works contain: 138,198 commas 26,794 colons 15,785 question marks
401 references to ears 2,259 character references to love 183
reference to hate =A total of 884,647 words made up of 31,959
speeches spread over 118,406 lines.
Slide 27
Shakespeares vocab. = 20,000 words Average persons
vocab.=50,000 words Produced 1/10 th of the most quotable phrases
used in the English language. He made the first recorded use of
2,035 words, approx. 800 of which are still used. Two of his
earliest plays Titus Andronicus and Loves Labour's Lost have 140
new words between them
All our yesterdays Bear a charmed life Be-all and the end-all
Come what come may One fell swoop Something wicked this way comes A
sorry sight Sound and fury There's no such thing What's done is
done
Slide 33
A sail maker living in Bergamo the most a landlocked city in
all of Italy Prospero of The Tempest sets sail from Milan 2days
travel from salt water Ancient Egyptians playing billiards
Introduction of the clock to Caesars Rome 1,400 years too
early.
Slide 34
A typical wage in 1594 was 8pence a day. One penny-mosh pit For
twopence-wooden seat in a covered gallery For three pence-hire a
cushion for comfort. The fleas were complimentary. Sixpence-balcony
at the back of the stage facing the audience, looking down on the
play from behind. (For those who want to be seen and not see)
Slide 35
The collected works in 1623 unbound= 15shillings, bound=1 or 44
loaves of Elizabethan bread. The price became more expensive over
the years as his popularity increased. E.g. 5,000 loaves 1850s -
96,000 by 20 th Century In 2001 an edition of the First Folio was
sold at auction for $6million 9 /17million loaves.
Slide 36
You could search through hundreds of thousands of documents
(marriage, property deeds, messages, conveyancings, trials etc.)
each potentially involving 200,000 citizens with names misspellt,
abbreviated, blotted beyond recognition as the Wallaces did in the
early 1900s for 18 hours a day. All they found was the 6 th
signature as a witness to a trial and the deed for a mortgage to
the Blackfriars theatre.