Should We Save Shakespeare?
I live only a few streets away from Holy Trinity Church. Teetering on the bank of the River Avon, this picturesque church has since become a Mecca for Shakespeare enthusiasts. Shakespeare was baptized there in 1564 and buried there in 1616.
I was saddened to learn that this old, but beautiful building is only five years away from closure for health and safety reasons.
This cannot be allowed to happen! This building is an important part of our international history and our literary heritage. Beyond Shakespeare, I also have a personal connection with Holy Trinity: it's where my good friends got married and where I became a Godfather to my Goddaughter.
Although a $2.5 million appeal has been launched to rescue the church, I think it is appalling that there are no public funds behind the project. Does Shakespeare really mean that little to us?
If you haven't yet visited Shakespeare's grave inside Holy Trinity, then this maybe your final window of opportunity to see Bard's final resting place.
Photo © NYPL Digital Gallery
Comments
This “old, but beautiful building” is NOT an important part of anyone’s international history or literary heritage unless you consider one of the world’s greatest scams to be worth remembering.It’s where Wm. Shaksper or Shagsbere (or whatever he was called) was baptised.This person’s life (from what we know of it) was the antithesis of the writer’s – not least of all because his six extant signatures indicate a severe lack of familiarity with any writing instrument. Did a man who attempted to corner the local market in corn really write “who steals my purse steals trash….”? I don’t think so. What is so sad about all of this hokum is that so man seemingly intelligent people fall for it. Don’t drama lecturers or their ilk ever think? Edward deVere – Shakespeare – should be given the credit he so richly deserves.
Let me refudiate the last poster…Those who study Shakespeare’s life,learn the arguments of the Anti-Shakespeare cult just don’t hold much water. Holy trinity,apart from being a beautiful example of a medieval church, is a lasting monument to the man who was vited the 3rd most influencial human being in history!!!
Leaving the identity of Shakespeare aside, the bigger picture should be looking at the “Health and Safety” issue. What are the reasons? I recently visited the Tower of London and I’m sure that the entrances and exits to the various towers do not meet with the standards, and this is the case in many of the historical sites across the country and in fact the world. We should possibly question how dangerous is it to visit these buildings/sites? Or, are we just victims of institutions worried about the financial risk of injury. Possibly an “Enter at your own risk” sogn would suffice!
The authorship controversy is just part of the mystique that accompanies the name Shakespeare. I believe to argue about who was the “true” Shakespeare misses the point. The name “Shakespeare” denotes more than just a person; it denotes writing that is internationally lauded as exemplary. So, if the Holy Trinity Church is a shrine to Shakespearean writing, or the rightful or assumed author’s baptism and burial place, it should, because of its place in western literary history, command whatever it takes to save it.
Perhaps we need an international petition, requesting that the British government intervene to save the church. What about an international fund raiser as well?
Before saving Shakespeare let us save ourselves. In this connection let me quote a poem by Rabindranath Tagore in my translation.
GIFT OF THE GREAT
Having suffered a lot
Those whose minds are wrought
The base of whose existence becomes shaky
Those who are listless
Let them listen –
Don’t ever forget yourselves.
Let you meet every day
Those who have won over death
Those who have kept their torch aflame
Above whatever is mean and small
If you make them dwarf
The sin of their disrespect
Will make you dwarf as well
And you will suffer that indignity forever.
Make yourselves honourable
Honouring them
In the world
Those who are memorable men.
—————–
Transcreation of poem 18 from the collection Janmadine by Rabindranath Tagore.
Thanks to KB for elevating the conversation to exactly where it should be.
The first time I visited Holy Trinity Church, I was utterly overwhelmed by its significance. During my second visit, years later, I admit that my experience was tainted by the “Anti-Shakespeare Cult” controversy to which you refer (aka, “not-Stratfordian”). Nevertheless, this is not a question that will be settled any time soon, if ever, and in our little moment simply does not matter – except to agree that it must be preserved in any case. As KB so (more eloquently) points out, Holy Trinity is indeed a lasting (one hopes) and only mecca for all of us who absolutely cannot imagine living life without the work of “the poet.” Stratford-upon-Avon in general has its particular veneer; but…who cares? The work is what is important. Well, I could go on, but let’s hear from someone else.
Interesting topic, though. Thanks for spreading the word. I cannot imagine any tourism director would let this go from that perspective, in any event…?
As others cannot in your Forum, I can not for an instant believe the grammar school horse holder, factotum and front man, whose acme as an actor was the ghost in Hamlet wrote the Shakespearean Poet’s highly academic, linguistically sophisticated, insider-at-court neo-classical and highly Medieval literary works. Having said so much, I find saving Trinity Church avery worthwhile project in itself. The cult of Shakespeare must not be allowed to draw funds, admiration and intelligent focus away from the Elizabethan period as a whole. Tis building, its connections, its centrality to Stratfor’s history and other cogent reasons all argue for its
preservation. The Age remains more important than London alone, Shakespeariana
alone, tourism alone. Those who believe the public myth must support its salvation; those of us who logically oppose its wretched excesses as fantasy should support the preservation–in the wider context of remembering Elizabethan England’s thinkers, its importances, its national attainments and the continued worth of its artifacts in an Age of bad governmental ideas, bad art and too-hasty abandonment of many historical landmarks. Thanks for considering my view.
Was there ever a man called Christ? Pundits and people with high IQ may go on squabbling but the credulous fools like me will go on believing he was born and taught with his life things that sustain humanity. The works of someone who may be known by the name of Shakespeare give me something no one else can give me and how I view him will perhaps be evident from the following poem I wrote -
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE
The story is as old as time
And has been told by many
You have told it anew
And we hear it
As if we are hearing it
For the very first time.
Years older than you
Your wife conceived your child
Months before your marriage.
A poacher in others’ gardens
An angler in another’s pond
A truant and mischievous boy
You were a disappointment
And needed a fresh ground to graze
You left your village on the Avon
And came to a great market place
Where to earn one’s living
One had to be a good businessman
Your beginning was modest –
Mending others’ wares
And vending them in new packings.
The market was expanding,
The demand was growing
And though you were a novice artificer
Your goods sold well.
The buyers had their choices,
The market had its norms
And you had to make your both ends meet.
By and by you grew bold
And sharpened your skill
Sculpting things not seen before
Not even by kings and queens.
Sometimes you adapted
Sometimes you defied
To break the bondages
Of choices and norms and needs
And lifted yourself and others
Above those mundane compulsions
A great entertainer and a successful man
You retired a man of substance
And returned to your Anne.
Your story is not out of the ordinary
And is as good as any that ends well.
But is it all?
Was this the sum total of your being?
What about your dreams
Your illusions and visions
And the things that set your mind ablaze?
Is the forest of Arden
Without a local name or a habitation?
Was Anne only a Hathaway
Neither a Juliet nor a Rosalind?
Didn’t you meet her often
In lonely village lanes or behind hedges
Or in the backyards of her father’s cottage?
If it was in darkness
Didn’t you wish there was a moon?
Like Romeo
Were you not afraid
To be caught by her kinsmen?
As mad as Orlando
Didn’t you compose in your madness
A doggerel or two
And then hang or carve them upon a tree?
In the city of London
You saw courtly ladies of sophistication
Didn’t you wish your rustic Anne
Were a flirt, a jade and your torment
Or a dark lady
To be courted by a sonnet every moment?
Didn’t you wish her to be
Not merely a Fulvia nor an Octavia
The wifely virtue’s very pattern
But the Cleopatra of Mark Antony
Whom age could not wither
Nor could custom stale whose infinite variety
And where other women cloy the appetite
She would make you more hungry
Where she would satisfy you most?
The most mysterious of men
You never let us know
If your Anne was all these
Or they were the fantasies of your mind -
A midsummer night’s dream.
——————-
Health Safety, well some has to employ someone…That’s part of the problem in the UK …Health and safety gone mad. There’s never enough money to repair and support the history of this coountry but always enough money to keep people employed by the government using tax payers money. We have to many government employees sucking from the country. Instead of employing millions of bureaucrats perhaps the government should invest in the real things that need doing but that is unlikely to happen and they will let fund raising continue to be the only way to support our history. With the new ideas and purported support of Shakespeare in schools 1 in 5 kids from the UK cannot read properly or talk properly. This was not so 40 years ago.
To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action
JTC – and where did you get your guranteed information sir? Even if it were true which I doubt, the fact that someone did actually pen these words either by himself or in collaboration in part, still should be recognised and celebrated…and there needs to be someone put with that recognition….and Shakespeare was that someone…further there is more evidence to prove that Shakspeare from Stratford upon Avon was the author than Edward de Vere, I am unable to find any credits in any folios highlighting the name Edward de Vere as author, but I did not some references to Edward de Vere by a few hot headed so called educated Scholars…and as we know the establishment is NOT always correct… so JTC get over it dip your small hand in your tight pocket and help the world remember Shakespeare from Stratford Upon Avon learn about Shakespeare and help keep Shakespeare alive through culture history and Education:-) ….and further do you presume to think that only men of status or wealth had ability or desire or gift to write such amazing lines? God gives people from all walks of life certain gifts where others could never follow even if they educated themselves for a thousand years.
As I remember, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing, to breed me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit: for my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays me here at home unkept; for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling of an ox? His horses are bred better; for, besides that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me, his countenance seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the place of a brother, and, as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves me; and the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid it.
David Jones has quoted the words of a character who has no parallel in literature. It is indded painful to see his creator being treated so shabbily by modern people. They should know that the majority of the audience were artisans, sailors and other common people who patronized the theatres. Should we conclude from this fact that those poor illiterate people were better connoiseurs of the poet? And none else could mesmerize them as the prince of Danemark. He mesmerizes me always, perhaps because I am not as educated and literate as these carping critics -
HAMLET
Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood,
I wish you peace my son.
But why do you suffer so much
As if a smouldering cauldron
Your boiling heart will burst
And you seek your peace in death?
Not yet full of years
What makes you feel
The full burden of your time?
Why do you think it is out of joint
And something is wrong
In the state of Denmark?
Here justice is denied in delay
And the weak oppressed
By insolence of office
The villains wear a smiling face
While this quintessence of dust
Sublimates itself not in love but in lust?
Why the question to be or not to be
Haunts you continually
And a morbid obsession
Empties your being of all meanings
For wrongs suffered not only by you but all?
Your friends complacently live
In perfect peace with this world.
They never think
They were born to set it right
No doubts gnawing their blessed souls
They placidly drift
With the ebb and flow of things.
But you are maddened
By a lack of method in this world
A garden overgrown with weeds
Things rank and gross possessing it merely.
To suit your fancy
You fashion a world of your own
Your philosophy
Posits a pattern behind this distracted globe
That eternally revolves on its arbitrary axis.
Neither any cause nor any goal
Pushes it or pulls
It simply is.
In it there is nothing either good or bad
Only your thinking makes it so.
You hallucinate a hell or a heaven
When there is none
And your illusions and visions
Burst like bubbles in a broken dream
In a raging flame you profitlessly blaze
Finding your scalded existence
Purposeless and stale.
Do you repent over that skull
Dug up by the gravediggers’ spades
How in a metaphysic maelstrom you missed
To live your life in full?
Chastened rebels at last
Do all of us feel
Readiness is all?
Or there is a nobleness for our frail frame
Despite the diseases it is heir to
To take arms against a sea of troubles
In a world where all else take
Their inevitable end as something given?
————————
Neither William Shagspur or Edward de Veerd can be the author. The followers of each theory are blinded by their sentimentality and arrogance. Once these human emotions are cleared from the observers mind set the truth will unfold and the authors need for concealment revealed and the Shakespeare plays will be appreciated and understood at a greater level.
I thought would see the English translation of the sonnet of Rabindranath on Shakespeare in this page. I visited S-on-Avon and saw it, but did not copy; does anyone have it? Was this translation done by Rabindranath?
Of course the traslation was done by Rabindranath himself. I am not sure if it is available on the internet. You may try Old poetry at Allpoetry.com. I shall try to find it out.
I don’t have the superlative imagination of some of the folks who have commented on this thread, but as a lifelong theatre fan and small part actor, let me suggest that the folks who want to downgrade Will’s ability to create the work because he only managed to reach the role of Hamlet’s father’s ghost, are stomping on rather thin ice. Being “of the theatre” in some way has been a requisite for most major historic playwrights, but being a great actor has not. For the more scholarly I would recommend John Southworth’s lovely book, SHAKESPEARE THE PLAYER. It speaks nicely to both the impact of being in the theatre on the plays and on the importance of playing critical minor roles.