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Who wrote the work attributed to Shakespeare?

  • Mr Shakespeare.

    Votes: 35 74.5%
  • Mr Marlowe.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Mr Bacon.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Lots of different people.

    Votes: 6 12.8%
  • Someone else entirely.

    Votes: 1 2.1%
  • Aliens.

    Votes: 5 10.6%

  • Total voters
    47
What about the future/past and by comparison to the Works of Shakespeare, the simplistic trans-dimensional postal device they knocked together with rocks and roots way back in the past?
 
Happy Birthday, Will - 450 years old today! 8)

Shakespeare's England: Where do you find it today?
By Jenny Scott, BBC News, England

The inns, brothels, battlefields and towns of England are sprinkled throughout William Shakespeare's plays. On the Bard's 450th birthday, take a tour of the "sceptred isle" that inspired his works - and look at how the locations have changed.

From Birmingham to Milton Keynes - Shakespeare's legacy exists far beyond the confines of his Stratford-upon-Avon birthplace. Many English locations that appear in his plays or are closely connected to them can still be visited, although they are often now drastically different places.

etc...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-co ... e-27041828
Also, Shakespeare 'a cultural icon' abroad
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-27110234
 
Somehow, until today, I had managed to remain entirely ignorant of Doctor Orville Ward Owen and his Shakespeare Mangle.

"It will come as no surprise to hear that Dr Owen's findings are considered to be complete rubbish by almost everyone." says the webpage. He was of the Baconian persuasion.

Yet I am glad to know that his massive cipher-wheel has been preserved! :)
 
JamesWhitehead said:
Somehow, until today, I had managed to remain entirely ignorant of Doctor Orville Ward Owen and his Shakespeare Mangle.
Thanks for that!

How delightfully old-fashioned. Perhaps too old-fashioned - surely at that period it should have been driven by steam?

Or perhaps he could have got in on the ground-floor of computing, and developed a Babbage engine to do the job? A missed opportunity there, it seems.

. . . . 8)
 
Some of the finest, most quoted verses in the English language were dedicated to him, and for centuries literary scholars have tried to establish his identity.

Now fresh research suggests that the mysterious Mr WH, to whom Shakespeare’s sonnets were dedicated, was not, as had been thought, a contemporary English nobleman, but a recently deceased associate of the Sonnets’ publisher, Thomas Thorpe, which would explain the dedication’s strangely funereal form.

Geoffrey Caveney, an American researcher, has unearthed possible evidence to link the initials with William Holme, who had both personal and professional connections to Thorpe. Both came from prominent Chester families, were publishing apprentices in 1580s London and had strong connections with theatres through publishing major playwrights such as Ben Jonson and George Chapman.

The Sonnets’ dedication reads: “To the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets Mr WH. All happiness and that eternity promised by our ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing adventurer in setting forth. TT [Thorpe].” ...

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/...ets-mr-wh-dedication-mystery?CMP=share_btn_tw
 
Shakespeare at ND ‏@shakespeareatnd 5h5 hours agoNotre Dame, IN
Many people die in Shakespeare's plays. Use this pie chart to find out how. Ironic fact: 2 die by pie. #SpoilerTime

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There is a mysterious turquoise one without a label between "Poisoned" and "Stabbed and Poisoned."

I see one old queen died of Snakebite - an ill-advised cocktail of lager and cider! :evil:
 
I love a very sheltered life.... ;)
 
Shakespeare's grave scanned in 400th anniversary
By Sean Coughlan Education correspondent

A radar survey into William Shakespeare's grave and an excavation of the playwright's house are among research projects marking the 400th anniversary of his death.

Shakespeare's grave in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford upon Avon has never been excavated, but a scan has been carried out to search below ground.
This allows an investigation without physically disturbing the site.
The findings are expected to be revealed in the next few weeks.

There are believed to have been discoveries in the grave, in a church where five members of the Shakespeare family are buried.
There has been speculation about a possible family vault under the stones - and questions about whether such a ground-penetrating scan would show other items buried with Shakespeare.
The grave, where the playwright was buried in 1616, carries the warning: "Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebeare, To digg the dust enclosed heare; Bleste be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones."

The investigation into the grave was revealed ahead of this summer's World Shakespeare Congress.
The congress, likened to an Olympics for Shakespearean scholarship, is held every five years.
This year's event will be split between Stratford upon Avon and London.
Michael Dobson, professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of Birmingham's Shakespeare Institute, said previous anniversaries had been "dogged" by rivalries between the playwrights's birthplace and workplace.

The World Shakespeare Congress, beginning in July, will bring together a thousand Shakespearean specialists, researchers and academics.
Plans for the congress were presented at Shakespeare's Globe, one of the venues, in an event co-hosted with groups including the Royal Shakespeare Company, the University of Birmingham, King's College London and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
As well as a range of performances, debates, seminars and conferences at the congress, this anniversary year will see new findings from research and archaeology.

There will also be findings from investigations in Shakespeare's last home, New Place in Stratford.
The house, due to be reopened to the public in July, has been excavated in a dig commissioned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Paul Edmondson, the trust's head of research, says the excavation has uncovered a much clearer picture of Shakespeare's home life, and there will be findings about his cold store - the equivalent of a 17th Century fridge - and the family's oven.
He says it gives a stronger impression of someone who spent much more of his life in Stratford than might once have been claimed - and Dr Edmondson suggests that if the playwright's commercial life was in London, his place for writing might have been his home in Stratford.

Dr Edmondson says the fascination with Shakespeare's life shows no sign of fading and for researchers "his life will never be complete".
There are also excavations this year in London, which would reveal more about Elizabethan theatre, said Gordon McMullan, director of the London Shakespeare Centre, King's College London.
In the spring, Museum of London Archaeology will carry out the biggest dig so far on the site of the Curtain theatre in Shoreditch.
Until now there have only been exploratory excavations, and this dig could reveal how much of the theatre, where Shakespeare's plays were performed, has survived.

Farah Karim-Cooper, head of higher education and research at Shakespeare's Globe, said it could have been where Romeo and Juliet was first performed.

Prof McMullan said the forthcoming anniversary would emphasise the idea of Shakespeare as a global figure - while a century ago, there were still strong associations of Shakespeare as a national poet.

Peter Holbrook, chairman of the International Shakespeare Association, welcomed the idea of staging the congress in both Stratford and London.
"It is entirely fitting then, in this quatercentenary year, to bring Shakespeare home," he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35688546

I had to check whether 'quatercentenary' is a typo - it's not! :D
 
Such Ado: The Fight for Shakespeare’s Puns
The evolution of English pronunciation has eroded much of the evidence of the Bard’s wit—but a new approach aims to bring some of his original wordplay back to life.

Much Ado About Nothing is a play (and also, at this point, an opera, and a TV show, and a movie, and the source of many additional songs and shows andmovies) with a very good title. It’s a little bit ironic, a little bit knowing, a little bit whimsical—but also, with its efficient quartet of words, suggestive of some of the primary themes of Shakespeare’s iconic comedy: gossip, the ceremonies of social drama, the wooziness of love. The title suggests more than that, though. In Elizabethan English, the word “nothing” was pronounced as “no-ting,” and it suggested our modern sense of “noting” as “noticing” (and even as spying)—so, yep, yet another theme in the play.

But! There’s another pun, too. Wordplay-happy Elizabethans often used “nothing”/“no-ting” as a euphemism for ... “vagina.” (There’s no thing there, get it?) Which means that the title Much Ado About Nothing, on top of everything else, also suggests Much Ado About … yeah.

So: Four little words, with three layers of meaning. A pun parfait, in the title of the play! Today, the fashionable reaction to a pun is to roll one’s eyes and/or groan—except, of course, when the pun in question is used in the service of what we have deemed to be Poetry, in which case it is treated as a tool of literary “ambiguity.” Some of the credit/blame for that belongs to Shakespeare—who, despite and because of being perhaps the greatest poet ever to wield the English language, was also an inveterate punster. The bard of Avon took advantage of rhymes and doubled-up (and occasionally tripled-up) meanings to turn his plays and poems into interactive riddles. ...

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...abours-found-saving-shakespeares-puns/471786/
 
Shakespeare's skull is likely missing from his grave, an archaeologist has concluded, confirming rumors which have swirled for years about grave-robbers and adding to the mystery surrounding the Bard's remains.

Four hundred years after his death and burial at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon, central England, researchers were allowed to scan the grave of England's greatest playwright with ground-penetrating radar.

But in the area under the church floor where the Bard's skull was expected to be, they found signs of interference.

"We have Shakespeare's burial with an odd disturbance at the head end and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone's come in and taken the skull of Shakespeare," said archaeologist Kevin Colls from Staffordshire University.


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-shakespeare-idUSKCN0WQ192
 
Shakespeare First Folio discovered on Scottish island
A copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, printed in 1623 and one of the most sought-after books in the world, has been discovered in a stately home on a Scottish island.
Oxford University academics, who authenticated the book on the Isle of Bute, say the find is extremely rare and significant.

The First Folio was the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The discovery comes ahead of the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.
Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University, said her first reaction on being told the stately home was claiming to have an original First Folio was: "Like hell they have."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35973094
 
"Chimes at Midnight" has been making the rounds at artsy theaters and museums in the U.S. We saw it about a month ago at a museum screening. It's a 1966 Orson Welles movie wherein he mashed up four or five Shakespeare plays to form a story of the last years of Falstaff. Gorgeous cinematography and a really authentic medaevel feel to the sets. The brutal war scene utterly deglamorizes swords and such type battles. We highly recommend!
 
Shakespeare First Folio discovered on Scottish island
A copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, printed in 1623 and one of the most sought-after books in the world, has been discovered in a stately home on a Scottish island.
Oxford University academics, who authenticated the book on the Isle of Bute, say the find is extremely rare and significant.

The First Folio was the first collected edition of Shakespeare's plays.
The discovery comes ahead of the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.
Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at Oxford University, said her first reaction on being told the stately home was claiming to have an original First Folio was: "Like hell they have."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35973094
This gives me hope that one day an older folio will turn up with a short preface explaining who wrote which play, why it was never openly declared and what deal was made with the barely literate son-of-a-glover to put his name on this folio...I can dream.:cool:
 
We're trying to work out a way of marking Shakey's 400th deathday, and the most popular suggestion at the moment is me spending all week in full Will clobber, hair and beard styling included, with some sort of video of it being made public.

The tenuous reasoning behind this is that I was born in Stratford-on-Avon and am 40 this year.
 
We're trying to work out a way of marking Shakey's 400th deathday, and the most popular suggestion at the moment is me spending all week in full Will clobber, hair and beard styling included, with some sort of video of it being made public.

The tenuous reasoning behind this is that I was born in Stratford-on-Avon and am 40 this year.

Seems reasonable to me.

You should also play 17th Century music for the week.
 
We're trying to work out a way of marking Shakey's 400th deathday, and the most popular suggestion at the moment is me spending all week in full Will clobber, hair and beard styling included, with some sort of video of it being made public.

The tenuous reasoning behind this is that I was born in Stratford-on-Avon and am 40 this year.
If you have access to Channel 4, this may be of interest:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/great-canal-journeys/on-demand/62008-006

Old Thesps Timothy West and Prunella Scales take a canal narrowboat to Stratford on Avon. Tim is turning into an old fart, and Pru has memory problems, but they still get on together. (An interesting example for Growing Old!) Both acted in Shakespeare's stuff almost from their youth, and can spout lines of it from memory - even Pru!

Lovely countryside along the canals, and even Stratford today seems more rural than I had imagined it would be.

In Stratford, Tim and Pru put on a reading of old Will's stuff in the church where he is buried, for the enjoyment of the locals.

recommended by rynner!
 
If you have access to Channel 4, this may be of interest:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/great-canal-journeys/on-demand/62008-006

Old Thesps Timothy West and Prunella Scales take a canal narrowboat to Stratford on Avon. Tim is turning into an old fart, and Pru has memory problems, but they still get on together. (An interesting example for Growing Old!) Both acted in Shakespeare's stuff almost from their youth, and can spout lines of it from memory - even Pru!

Lovely countryside along the canals, and even Stratford today seems more rural than I had imagined it would be.

In Stratford, Tim and Pru put on a reading of old Will's stuff in the church where he is buried, for the enjoyment of the locals.

recommended by rynner!

Cheers I'll have a look at that!

"In Stratford, Tim and Pru put on a reading of old Will's stuff in the church where he is buried..."

...and Carlos was christened!
 
There is one thing you notice about Timothy West. He can't steer a boat!
I watched one episode where he kept ramming into things.
 
Old Thesps Timothy West and Prunella Scales take a canal narrowboat to Stratford on Avon. Tim is turning into an old fart, and Pru has memory problems, but they still get on together.
Syb Ill?
 
Shakespeare's school to open to visitors to celebrate 400th anniversary
The still-functioning school in Stratford-upon-Avon opens its doors after a £1.8m restoration
Maev Kennedy
Wednesday 20 April 2016 18.16 BST

The school room in Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare learned “small Latin and less Greek” – as affectionately mocked by his friend Ben Jonson – will open its doors, scarred by centuries of rowdy schoolboys, as part of the town’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the death of its most famous son.

“We’re not opening a museum,” said Bennet Carr, head of the King Edward VI school, which will continue to use the building, “we’re welcoming visitors into our world.”
The children and teachers are well used to the tourists pressing their noses and camera lenses beseechingly against the diamond paned windows. From this weekend, after a £1.8m restoration mainly funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, the tourists will be welcomed in and offered the chance to sit though a Tudor grammar school lesson – but only after 11am on school days. The early mornings will still be reserved for school assemblies and classes, though the pupils will now sit on new benches made of oak from a Warwickshire woods once owned by Shakespeare’s family.

The historian Michael Wood has called it a treasure, “one of the most atmospheric, magical and important buildings in the whole of Britain”.
“Even though the evidence suggests he was yanked out of school without finishing the curriculum, due to his father’s dire business troubles, what he learned here stayed with him for life,” Wood said. “Right through to his last plays he was still drawing on stories he knew and phrases he had translated and learned by rote so many years earlier.”

The project manager Lincoln Clarke said the school’s importance for Shakespeare was incalculable. “The birthplace is obviously key, because that’s where he happened to be born, but this is the building that made him Shakespeare, where he learned so much, witnessed so much, that inspired him for the rest of his life. It is of worldwide significance.”

The school was venerable even in Shakespeare’s day, and the building much older: dendrochronology work during the restoration has dated the earliest timbers to 1420. “We bear his name but we don’t regard Edward VI as our founder,” Carr said. “He stole the school when he abolished its true founder, the Guild of the Holy Cross – but at least he had the sense not to abolish the school.”

Fundraising continues, partly as a result of the dramatic reappearance of John the Baptist. It was known that the building had ancient wall paintings, including the earliest Tudor roses in England, which the town – which had sided with the Yorkists – clearly thought it politic to add when the regime changed.

A whole painted wall emerged in the conservation work, including faint but still recognisable images of the Virgin Mary and the Trinity, probably deliberately defaced and covered over in the Reformation, possibly by Shakespeare’s own father during his term as mayor.

Then a few months ago, after an image reconstructing the original appearance of the original painting had been completed, an unexpected and startlingly well-preserved painting of the John the Baptist emerged on a beam, holding a lamb, still with traces of gilding on his staff.
“His face and his blazing eyes were uncovered first - it was a transfixing moment,” Carr recalled.

Among the genuine treasures the visitors will see, one outrageous fake has been kept: a little pane of glass into which somebody – almost certainly a schoolboy – has scored “William Shakespeare 1575”. Of the six known genuine signatures of Shakespeare, all are different and not one spells his name in the way now regarded as correct.

etc...

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/...en-to-visitors-to-celebrate-400th-anniversary

I had no idea old Will's school still existed. I should like to see it, although I probably won't, sad to say.
 
Apart from all the intellectuals, thespians, academics and others who have got up on their hind legs to commemorate Shakespeare's death 400 years ago, there are a few less obvious people who also want to join the game. Like the regulars on Countryfile!

To mark the 400 years since Shakespeare's death, Countryfile travels the length and breadth of the country in search of the landscapes that inspired Shakespeare in his greatest works.

Ellie Harrison is in Warwickshire, rediscovering the ancient Forest of Arden and looking at Shakespeare's intimate knowledge of plants. Meanwhile, Matt Baker visits the Clydach Gorge, a magical hidden valley on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, where local legend says Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Also in the programme, John Craven is joined by Dame Judi Dench, one of Britain's best-loved Shakespearian actors. Together, they follow in the footsteps of Shakespeare and his players to Fordwich in Kent, where they performed for the town in 1605.

Joe Crowley visits the Minack Theatre in Cornwall to see how Shakespeare has had a dramatic effect on our landscape. And Adam looks at Shakespeare's relationship with the lucrative wool trade and takes sheep back to the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon for the first time in over a century.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0790ltt/countryfile-shakespeare-special

I have read several 'biographies' of the Bard, but because the documented facts about his life are so few, most of these biographies resort to trawling through his works for clues to what he knew, places he had seen, and so forth. So in looking at Shakespeare's life through his knowledge of 'country matters', Countryfile is following in the footsteps of several academics!
 
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