Sunday, May 03, 2020

The origins of Shakespearomania

Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak Whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break. 
~ Bard - William Shakespeare, Macbeth


Knowledge is when you learn something new every day. Wisdom is when you let something go every day.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, who died in 1882

Happiness is a wondrous commodity: the more you give, the more you have.

— Germaine de Staël,  born in 1766



How Shakespeare Became A Modern Superstar


The modern idea of “Shakespeare,” both as artist and ideal genius, was essentially an eighteenth-century creation, though it is often credited to the Romantics. – Hudson Review


"What does it mean to be an artist in an economy that actually doesn’t allow many people to make their living as artists?"  Starving Artists 


The origins of Shakespearomania. His reputation as an artist of genius was essentially an 18th-century creation Shaken Not Stirred 

 

The laughs and thrills of Shakespeare studies … 

Shakespeare and Beyond: Imagining the greatest single event in Shakespeare studies as a quest full of chases, murders, mysteries and eccentric characters


Washington Post – How indie stores managed to take a slice of Amazon business – “In January, before life in America was upended by the coronavirus, a start-up calledBookshop.org launched a beta site to sell books online. Its goal was simple: to slice off a sliver of Amazon’s giant share of book sales and push it toward indie bookstores, which have long struggled to maintain footing in the business. In its first month, Bookshop brought in about $50,000 in revenue, and distributed a modest $10,000 to member bookstores. That number changed radically in March, when hundreds of bookstores shuttered their physical doors and signed up with Bookshop. Total sales are at about $4.5 million, with more than $870,000 of that going to stores, said Andy Hunter, Bookshop’s founder. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the die-off of America’s storefront retail at a frightening speed, forcing independent stores to close on short notice and deepening the advantage of online behemoths like Amazon and Walmart. But a few independent retailers have rapidly pivoted toward e-commerce, in some cases using strikingly low-tech analog systems to retaliate against Amazon, which itself went live as a small online retailer of books 25 years ago…”



Boris Johnson family: How many kids does he have? What are their names?

The Australian Red Cross and Salvation Army have so far paid out fewer than half the donations they received to help Black Summer bushfire victims — with one charity claiming it's had to sift through more than 1,000 fraudulent claims.

Online database with 26 million documents on Nazi victims, survivors now online - Jewish News Syndicate: “The world’s most comprehensive archive on the victims and survivors of Nazi persecution reached a “milestone” on Tuesday by publishing 26 million documents to its online database, including new information on forced laborers and deported Jews. The Arolsen Archives–International Centre on Nazi Persecution, formerly known as the International Tracing Service, has a collection of information on about 17.5 million people and belongs to UNESCO’s Memory of the World initiative. It was established by the Western Allies in 1944 and changed its names to Arolsen Archives in 2019.  All 26 million of the Arolsen Archives’ documents, are now available online, a collection that includes information on 21 million people who were displaced, persecuted and murdered by the Nazis…”



Happy birthday, William Shakespeare! The bard on freedom, imitation, and coronavirus | The Book Haven




Erudite and complex, Interred with Their Bones draws readers into an allusive labyrinth embellished with the words and plots from the plays of the upstart Crow, as one contemporary dubbed the Bard. Here is a novel that will appeal to mystery-thriller fans as well as Shakespeare aficionados. Shakespeare and Beyond: Into the allusive labyrinth among the bones


Dedicated to literature | Spectator USA

After Fault Lines, his acclaimed family history, David Pryce-Jones has written another kind of autobiography: Signatures, the memoirs of a bibliophile



Nurse who blew the whistle on his hospital has died. His legacy should be remembered

Tim Griffin, the Austin Hospital nurse who blew the whistle about what he believed was medical negligence, has died.



Incredibly, the inquisitor sometimes meant football player. That’s how big William Valentine Shakespeare — better known as Bill — had become at Notre Dame. His nephews would beam and regale their questioner with stories.

Imagine walking through life named William Shakespeare. It can’t be much different than introducing yourself as Jozef Imrich or Napoleon Bonaparte or Sigmund Freud. Would anyone believe you? The last name alone is a conversation piece.

“I hear it almost every day,” says Bill’s great nephew, Craig Shakespeare of Colt’s Neck, N.J. “Somebody will see my credit card and say, ‘You must be good at English.’”

William Shakespeare - Sports - Stripes