Shakes-Blog, Act II
The second installment in resident Shakespeare expert Bill Lloyd's guest appearance in the Buyer's Corner.
The beginning of the 21st century looks fair to becoming the New Age of Shakespearian Biography. The last few years have seen major biographies of Shakespeare from, among others, the English man of letters Peter Ackroyd (Shakespeare: The Biography) and the American literary critic Stephen Greenblatt (Will in the World). Both of these have been criticized in some quarters for being too speculative, but at the same time both are “good reads” and full of useful information. Two other good Shakespearian portraits are James Shapiro’s A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, and Stanley Wells’s Shakespeare and Co (the latter described in last weeks Shakes-blog). The former concentrates on a key year in Shakespeare’s life, 1599, which saw the building of the Globe Theatre and the completion or beginning of four great plays: Julius Caesar, Henry V, As You Like It, and (Shapiro argues) Hamlet. My personal choice as a biography would have to be Park Honan’s Shakespeare: A Life, which for the most part eschews excessive speculation, though it perhaps lends a bit too much credence to the “Lancastrian thesis” in which, during the so-called Lost Years, the young Shakespeare (aka Shakeshaft) was a tutor in a Northern Catholic household. But then Ackroyd and Greenblatt are also sympathetic to this thesis. All of these Shakespeare biographies are 15% during our Shakespeare in Washington Sale April 23-May 24.
Shakespeare in Washington! As most of you know the first six months of 2007 have seen a riot (orgy? overplus? plethora?) of Shakespearean performances of all kinds—theatrical, musical, poetical, visual, visual-musical, theatrical-visual-poetical (Yikes! I’m channeling Polonius!) in venues all over Washington. Right now the Royal Shakespeare Company is staging Shakespeare’s last tragedy, Coriolanus, at Kennedy Center (Oxford edition 15% off at Olsson’s) while our neighbors at the Shakespeare Theatre at the Lansburgh are putting on his first tragedy, Titus Andronicus (Folger edition 15% off at Olsson’s). Speaking of the Folger editions of Shakespeare plays, these reader-friendly, pocket-size codices, expertly edited by the folks at Washington’s own Folger Shakespeare Library are regularly stocked at all the Olsson’s locations, while our Lansburgh store has a selection of other editions as well—Arden III, Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin, New Variorum, and a First Folio Facsimile! Did I mention that they’re all 15% off through May 24?
In fact, every book in our Shakespeare section—a considered selection of criticism, guides, editions of the plays, poems, and Sonnets, as well as “Shakes-fun” books—and selected CDs, DVDs and sidelines are now featured at discounted prices through May 24. To top it off, two Shakespeare-related books are currently featured at 20% off on our Buyer’s Choice (“Would Be Bestsellers in a Perfect World”) tables: Shakespeare the Thinker, by the late A. D. Nuttall (Yale University Press) and The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama and Death in 19th Century America, by Nigel Cliff (Random House).
So hie thee down to Olsson’s and get thee some culture!
The beginning of the 21st century looks fair to becoming the New Age of Shakespearian Biography. The last few years have seen major biographies of Shakespeare from, among others, the English man of letters Peter Ackroyd (Shakespeare: The Biography) and the American literary critic Stephen Greenblatt (Will in the World). Both of these have been criticized in some quarters for being too speculative, but at the same time both are “good reads” and full of useful information. Two other good Shakespearian portraits are James Shapiro’s A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, and Stanley Wells’s Shakespeare and Co (the latter described in last weeks Shakes-blog). The former concentrates on a key year in Shakespeare’s life, 1599, which saw the building of the Globe Theatre and the completion or beginning of four great plays: Julius Caesar, Henry V, As You Like It, and (Shapiro argues) Hamlet. My personal choice as a biography would have to be Park Honan’s Shakespeare: A Life, which for the most part eschews excessive speculation, though it perhaps lends a bit too much credence to the “Lancastrian thesis” in which, during the so-called Lost Years, the young Shakespeare (aka Shakeshaft) was a tutor in a Northern Catholic household. But then Ackroyd and Greenblatt are also sympathetic to this thesis. All of these Shakespeare biographies are 15% during our Shakespeare in Washington Sale April 23-May 24.
Shakespeare in Washington! As most of you know the first six months of 2007 have seen a riot (orgy? overplus? plethora?) of Shakespearean performances of all kinds—theatrical, musical, poetical, visual, visual-musical, theatrical-visual-poetical (Yikes! I’m channeling Polonius!) in venues all over Washington. Right now the Royal Shakespeare Company is staging Shakespeare’s last tragedy, Coriolanus, at Kennedy Center (Oxford edition 15% off at Olsson’s) while our neighbors at the Shakespeare Theatre at the Lansburgh are putting on his first tragedy, Titus Andronicus (Folger edition 15% off at Olsson’s). Speaking of the Folger editions of Shakespeare plays, these reader-friendly, pocket-size codices, expertly edited by the folks at Washington’s own Folger Shakespeare Library are regularly stocked at all the Olsson’s locations, while our Lansburgh store has a selection of other editions as well—Arden III, Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin, New Variorum, and a First Folio Facsimile! Did I mention that they’re all 15% off through May 24?
In fact, every book in our Shakespeare section—a considered selection of criticism, guides, editions of the plays, poems, and Sonnets, as well as “Shakes-fun” books—and selected CDs, DVDs and sidelines are now featured at discounted prices through May 24. To top it off, two Shakespeare-related books are currently featured at 20% off on our Buyer’s Choice (“Would Be Bestsellers in a Perfect World”) tables: Shakespeare the Thinker, by the late A. D. Nuttall (Yale University Press) and The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama and Death in 19th Century America, by Nigel Cliff (Random House).
So hie thee down to Olsson’s and get thee some culture!
Bill Lloyd is a long-time Olsson's buyer and manager, having helped both to open and to close our late great Bethesda store. When not keeping Olsson's remainder tables supplied with bargains, he studies Early Modern Theatre History. He did not write the plays of Shakespeare.
Well, I’ve just flown back from San Diego (and boy are my arms tired!) where I attended the 35th annual conference of the Shakespeare Association of America. There were plenty of seminars, and paper sessions galore, but probably the most popular meeting place was the Book Exhibit Room where various publishers with Shake-stuff to vend displayed their latest wares...
Two notable items were to be found at the Random House table. One was Shakespeare and Co.: Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, John Fletcher and the Other Players in His Story by Stanley Wells. Professor Wells (a charming man with a white beard), one of the most distinguished of living Shakespeare scholars, the author of numerous books in the field, and the General Editor of the prestigious Oxford Shakespeare, was there signing copies of his latest book. It’s a fascinating look at how Shakespeare, so far from being a lonely genius on the mountain-top, was a working man of the theatre, intimately involved on a daily basis with his fellow actors and writers in the burgeoning entertainment industry of his day. Shakespeare and Co. is just the right mix of serious scholarship, interesting anecdotes, and popular appeal. I’m reading it right now...
The other star of the Random House table was the new Royal Shakespeare Company’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare edited by the English critic Jonathan Bate and the American textual scholar Eric Rasmussen. Each collected edition of Shakespeare varies somewhat from every other edition, and the RSC Shakespeare is no different. The editors and publisher trumpet its return to the First Folio of 1623 for the base texts of the 36 core plays of the Shakespeare Canon, rejecting the idea of "conflated texts" made by combining readings from both the Quartos and the Folio. The RSC does use the Quartos to correct errors and prints omitted Quarto passages in appendices. In addition to the Folio plays this handsome volume includes the collaborations Pericles (by Shakespeare and George Wilkins) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (by Shakespeare and John Fletcher), as well as Shakespeare’s Sonnets and the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece. No edition of Shakespeare would be complete nowadays without its controversial decision and the RSC Shakespeare comes through by omitting the poem A Lover’s Complaint, accepting Brian Vickers’ arguments in Shakespeare, ‘A Lover’s Complaint’ and John Davies of Hereford' that Davies not Shakespeare was its author and that it was printed at the end of the Sonnets in error. MacDonald Jackson will have something to say about that!
A long time ago, a somewhat intimidating and acerbic wit suggested that I read The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg. It is the story of pious young Robert Wringhim who believes that he is one of the Just, that is, one of the select group of people, according to Calvinist predestination doctrine, who will ascend to heaven regardless of anything. His religious fanaticism mixed with the heady power of his predestination empowers him to ignore that pesky moral code in favor of delivering righteousness to those who have it coming to them. Darkly funny and strangely powerful, Hogg's novel was a formative reading experience for me.
The first is James Robertson. His novel The Testament of Gideon Mack certainly sparked memories of Hogg's novel when I read it. It is similarly structured with the text being "discovered" and then presented by an editor. The story of a minister and apparent suicide, it reveals a curious and twisting narrative that takes him from his cold and strict upbringing at the firm hand of his minister father through his own self-inflicted obedience. Gideon Mack diverges from Hogg's Robert Wringhim in his absolute and avowed atheism. This, despite his dedication as a Presbyterian minister to his small parish on the bleak Scottish coast. This atheism is challenged not by some powerful affirmation, but by the devil himself whom he meets after a freak accident that should have left him for dead.
Hi everybody. My name is Alex Beguin and I am the Store Manager/Book Buyer at Olsson's Old Town-Alexandria. I've been with Olsson's for five years and you may have seen me at the Courthouse-Arlington store and the former Bethesda location. I've met some wonderful customers and staff over the years and have enjoyed the sense of community at our stores. Old Town is especially nice with the waterfront, the historic neighborhood, and the dog-friendly atmosphere.