Tempest research hotlinks
February 9, 2010
Roger Stritmatter and Lynne Kositsky have produced a new website – Shakespeare’s Tempest – to chronicle the production of a book they are writing that will feature their research on The Tempest.
Stritmatter said:
On this website, you can track the progress of this project. Once the book is published, this site will publish regular updates, including reviews and promotional literature. And the (research) articles themselves — as time and permissions permit — will be directly available on the site, along with copious background material useful to student, scholar, and actor alike.
Three articles have recently been added to the site. Click on this shakespearestempest page for hotlinks to these articles:
- “Pale as Death: The Fictionalizing Influence of Erasmus’ ‘Naufragium’ on the Renaissance Travel Narrative.” Festschrift in Honor of Isabel Holden, fall 2008, Concordia University, 141-151.
- “The Spanish Maze and the Date of The Tempest.” The Oxfordian, fall 2007, 1-11.
- “Shakespeare and the Voyagers Revisited.” The Review of English Studies, September, 2007 (published online June, 2007), 447-472.
Stritmatter said a newly published article on The Tempest titled, “A Movable Feast: The Tempest as Shrovetide Revelry,” is slated to appear in the March 2010 edition of Shakespeare Yearbook.
Shapiro to discuss hot book March 24
February 8, 2010
London Times Literary Editor Andrew Holgate named James Shapiro’s April 2010 Simon & Schuster release Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare one of a dozen hottest books of the year in his January 10, 2010 article, “The hottest books of the year” in the Sunday Times. Holgate said:
Shapiro has already proved, with 1599, that he has a remarkable ability to make Shakespeare scholarship both original and accessible. This outstanding piece of literary elucidation examines 200 years of heated argument over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays — a debate that has involved everyone from Sigmund Freud to Orson Welles and Henry James.
Shapiro will discuss Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? at Shakespeare’s Globe in London at 6 p.m. on March 24. The event is announced on the Shakespeare’s Globe website, “James Shapiro, author of the bestselling and prizewinning book 1599, talks about Contested Will – his definitive investigation into who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.”
UPDATE Feb. 8, 12:46 p.m.: Andrew Holgate commented — Shapiro will also be appearing at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on Thursday, March 25 at 8pm. To book tickets, go to www.oxfordliteraryfestival.com
32 Hamlet quartos at your fingertips from JISC & NEA
February 7, 2010
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the United Kingdom’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has expanded The Shakespeare Quartos Archive, a free, digital collection of quarto editions of William Shakespeare’s plays. Launched by the British Library in 2004, the project brought together six institutions in the UK and the US to reproduce at least one copy of every edition of Shakespeare’s plays printed in quarto before the theaters closed in 1642.
The site has currently been expanded to include the The Shakespeare Quartos Archive — Hamlet Prototype where:
. . . you can view full cover-to-cover digital reproductions and transcriptions of thirty-two copies of the five earliest editions of the play Hamlet.
. . .
A cross-Atlantic collaboration has also produced an interactive interface for the detailed study of these geographically distant quartos, with full functionality for all thirty-two quarto copies of Hamlet held by participating institutions.
. . .
You can view quartos separately, or alongside any number of copies. You can search, annotate, make public or private sets of annotations, create exhibits or character cue line lists, and download and print text and images.
I was able to access the Hamlet quartos using the Google Chrome browser and had no difficulty viewing the books, zooming, and turning pages without registering to the site. If you register at the site you can use extensive research tools including making manuscript annotations that may be private or open to the public. Registering was quick and painless; name and birthdate were required information.
I don’t know how much of a Shakespeare geek you have to be to get as big a thrill as I got out of just looking at those books, but I don’t think you have to be too geeky to agree this is a magnificent achievement.
More information about the resource was available on the site including the following details:
(This) interactive interface and toolset (is) aimed at facilitating scholarly research, performance studies, and new pedagogical applications derived from detailed examination and comparison of the quartos. Tools and functions include the ability to:
- overlay text images
- compare images side-by-side
- search full-text
- mark and tag text images with user annotations
- create public or private sets of annotations
- create exhibits or character cue line lists, and
- download and print text and images
The interface prototype is at present fully functional for one play, Hamlet. The prototype is best viewed using the Firefox web browser, version 3.0 or higher. Many features have been tested and will also run on Internet Explorer versions 6, 7, and 8. Digitized images of all thirty-two pre-1642 copies of Hamlet held by participating libraries have undergone full-text transcription and encoding by staff at the Oxford Digital Library. The prototype has been assessed using professionally facilitated experimentation coordinated by the British Library, evaluation by graduate students and faculty at the Shakespeare Institute of the University of Birmingham, and evaluation by readers, staff, and secondary school teachers at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Future plans: The Shakespeare Quartos Archive plans to apply full-level Hamlet functionality to all plays in quarto, expand available online facsimiles by seeking involvement from new partner institutions with relevant holdings, and extend browser compatibility to all major web browsers.
An article on this topic titled “Shakespeare goes digital: the earliest editions of the Bard’s plays will soon be accessible online in a new digital archive” by Louise Tickle was published January 26, 2010 in The Guardian.
Beauclerk opens US book tour in Portland April 7
February 6, 2010
Shakespeare's Lost Kingdom by Beauclerk
Former Shakespeare Oxford Society president (1995-97) Charles Beauclerk will kick off his US book tour April 7, 2010 in Portland, Oregon. Beauclerk will launch Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom: The True History of Shakespeare and Elizabeth (Grove Press) as the keynote speaker at the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference at Concordia University.
Publisher Grove Press says of the book:
Beauclerk has spent more than two decades researching the authorship question, and he convincingly argues that if the plays and poems of ‘Shake-speare’ were discovered today, we would see them for what they are—shocking political works written by a court insider, someone whose status and anonymity shielded him from repression in an unstable time of armada and reformation.
Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre Director Daniel Wright, PhD who organized the Concordia conference where Beauclerk will speak, said Beauclerk’s book about that “court insider” Edward de Vere will debut at the same time as James Shapiro’s book on the Shakespeare authorship question, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare?
(See SOS News Online review of Contested Will.)
Wright said:
The American launch of Charles Beauclerk’s latest book, Shakespeare’s Lost Kingdom: The True History of Shakespeare and Elizabeth, will take place on the Concordia University campus in the George R White Library & Learning Center, at 7:30 pm on Wednesday evening, April 7 — the night before the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference officially opens.
Charles will speak about the significance of his achievement in this majestic work and will follow his presentation with a book signing for those who want to acquire his book — there will be hundreds of copies at this Concordia Universtiy event, the first day the book will be available in the US.
Grove Press, the British publisher, has selected Concordia Universtiy and the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre as the North American home for this effort to counter the same-day release — in London, by Simon and Schuster — of James Shapiro’s latest flat-earth defense of the Stratford man: Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? (Yes, on top of the recent lame bios/defenses of the Stratford man by Greenblatt, Bryson, Wood, et al, ad infinitum; Shapiro now tosses his argumentative hat into the ring.)
The Beauclerk launch is an historic event you do not want to miss. A reception with cake and coffee will follow in the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre where you will be able to converse with Charles regarding his new, breakthrough book.
We anticipate a lot of media coverage of this event, so you may get the chance to share your authorship convictions and responses to Charles’ book with newspaper and television journalists.
Kamm’s anti-Eddy antics
January 30, 2010
Oliver Kamm’s anti-Eddy antics at the London Times Online assure Edward de Vere’s face and fame are spread ever more widely as the author of Shakespeare’s works. In a running commentary to Kamm’s latest foot-stomp “Great historical questions to which the answer is no 2″ dated 28 January 2010, Kamm rebuked Heward Wilkinson for saying Strats and anti-Strats alike love Shakespeare, while informing Richard Malim that neither Malim nor any other anti-Strat likes Shakespeare, either:
The sheer grubby irrationalism of this non-existent debate testifies to the point I’ve just made to your comrade: we don’t have a common passion for Shakespeare. To you and your comrades, the works are merely a vehicle to ransack – in a thoroughly amateurish manner – to buttress your belief in a conspiracy.
You gotta admit, the guy has a way with words and universal concepts. You go, Oliver!
Richard Paul and Jane Roe SARC to be named
January 27, 2010
Director Daniel Wright, PhD of the Shakespeare Authorship Research Center at Concordia University in Portland OR, announced that as part of the April 8-11, 2010 Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference, the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre at Concordia will be named in honor of Mr. & Mrs. Richard Paul Roe of Pasadena CA. The center will be christened the Richard Paul and Jane Roe Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre during a ceremony to be held at 5:30 p.m. April 9 at Concordia.
Wright said:
The gifts bestowed by this revered colleague and his wife, in sums totaling almost half a million dollars, have gone far to make the institutionalization of the Shakespeare authorship inquiry — in a permanent, academic, and non-political setting for the benefit of scholars on this campus and worldwide — a reality. I hope you will join us for the ceremony that will name the SARC after this esteemed couple during the 14th annual Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference.
For more information about the announcement, see “Shakespeare Center to be named . . . “
Click here for the Shakespeare Authorship Studies Conference Agenda, or here to register for the conference: https://acme.cu-portland.edu/ecomm/shakespeare/
New American publishes review of antiStrat book
January 27, 2010
Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection by Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Raven Clabough reviewed Samuel L. Blumenfeld’s two-year-old book, Marlowe-Shakespeare Connection: a New Study of the Authorship Question (McFarland, 2008), in yesterday’s edition of The New American Magazine, published bi-weekly by American Opinion Publishing — a wholly owned subsidiary of the John Birch Society.
Clabough’s review, “Who Authored the Shakespeare Canon?”, highlights the shortcomings of the Stratfordian authorship theory and places Blumenfeld’s Marlovian thesis within the controversy.
Clabough says:
Blumenfeld, like most anti-Stratfordians, makes use of the lack of information recorded about Shakespeare as a means to justify that Shakespeare could not have written the plays. Scholars cite Shakespeare’s failure to mention any manuscripts or books in his will to justify the claim that he could not have been the author, since the plays reflect an author who had access to historical, political, and geographical sources. Yet Shakespeare seemingly had none.
While it is certainly reasonable to question the authorship of the plays, given the lack of historical documentation, the solution proposed by Marlovians leaves several questions unanswered.
. . .
Despite the lingering questions, Blumenfeld’s book proves to be an intriguing read. His use of English history and close analysis of Marlowe’s plays are vital to the reader’s understanding of his theory, which is to convince the reader that Stratfordians have been duped for nearly 400 years.
Hogg to play Robert Cecil in Emmerich’s Anonymous
January 26, 2010
RADA actor Edward Hogg
Michael Symons of Hamilton Hodell Talent Management in London confirmed today that Royal Academy of Dramatic Art trained actor Edward Hogg will play Robert Cecil in Roland Emmerich’s “Anonymous” set to begin filming in late March this year in Berlin.
“Anonymous” is set during the Essex Rebellion at the end of the long reign of Elizabeth I, when factions struggled over the succession. The queen’s counselor Robert Cecil cranked the levers of state, and his foster brother/brother-in-law, Edward de Vere seventeenth Earl of Oxford, revealed the blood and glory as the author of the works of William Shakespeare.
An announcement today from Shooting Stars: Europe’s best young actors said Hogg will be honored at a Berlin film festival in February as the UK Shooting Star of 2010:
Edward Hogg was selected in November 2009 by an independent jury as the UK SHOOTING STAR 2010. Together with nine other young European stars, he will be presented to international professionals at the Berlinale from 13-15 February and honoured at a glamorous award ceremony in the Berlinale Palast by festival director Dieter Kosslick.
Oxfordian research repository
January 21, 2010
In response to concerns raised among Oxfordians regarding long-term plans for maintaining research materials online, Oxfordian Bill Boyle — owner of Shakespeare Adventure and creator of the New England Shakespeare Oxford Library and its attendant online service, the Shakespeare Online Authorship Resources (SOAR) – prepared the following message:
Long-term planning for Oxfordian research is the goal of the Shakespeare Online Authorship Resources (SOAR) and the New England Shakespeare Oxford Library, and also for the Shakespeare Authorship Research Centre (SARC) at Concordia University. Since SARC is now officially open at Concordia, such long-term planning is one of the things we will be discussing this April 8-11, at the 14th annual Shakespeare Authorship Research Conference.
Dan Wright has informed me that the seminar room and classroom in the SARC will be available all day April 7, 8 and 12 for groups to meet and discuss projects. I plan to hold a meeting during the conference on Thursday, April 7 to discuss long-term plans for the Shakespeare Online Authorship Resources (SOAR).
If you go to the Shakespeare Online Authorship Resources (SOAR) right now and search under “family” or “birth” you will see new entries that I have added with links to material on Nina Green’s The Oxford Authorship Site. If you search under “Willobie” (for Willobie his Avisa) you will find six entries that demonstrate how I envision SOAR working when there are many hundreds (or actually, thousands) of entries. These Willobie entries include two for research notes Barbara Flues sent me on Willobie two years ago, so as you can see how they are now easy to access. Files could just as easily be maintained at SARC/Concordia, or anywhere where one person agrees to be responsible and for which the minimum funds are available to keep an account open forever (and by minimum I think about $10/month would do it …text files are not that large). Keep in mind with SOAR the actual location of files is not important as long as they are maintained somewhere. Also, such files could be kept in protected, passworded directories if any author/researcher so requests.
To access SOAR go to http://www.shakespeareoxfordlibrary.org and click on SOAR in the-left hand column.
Note also under the Willobie entiries in SOAR that two are for articles available only by subscription. Since the SARC has now created a new status of campus student called “SARC Associate Scholars” anyone with an interest in Shakespeare and/or the authorship question can be enrolled at the SARC for a small annual fee ($95.00) and gain access to an incredible amount of material, most especially JSTOR (the mother load of humanities research articles). I will be creating links to JSTOR materials that will use the SARC proxy ID, so that access is streamlined for anyone with a SARC ID. Of course, anyone with access to JSTOR can always get at these articles, but most such access is limited to universities and very big public libraries (such as the state of Michigan electronic library, Michigan eLibrary, at http://mel.org/) LT)
Go to this address for more info about the Shakespeare Authorship Research Center: http://www.authorshipstudies.org/databaseSubscriptions.cfm
Comments are welcome.
Bill Boyle
CORRECTION from Deb Biggs Thomas, MeL Coordinator, Library of Michigan: Just to let you know that the Michigan eLibrary does not have JSTOR as one of its statewide databases. We do, however, have others in which Michigan residents may find humanities articles. Best thing to do first is a full-text journal search; click on the button on the MeL homepage that says: Full Text Magazines and Journals.
