In the beginning of september, we are live from the Nations Capital for the National Book festival celebrating its 15th year. This is on book tv. Announcer tonight on cspan, q a with Michael Witmore regarding the Folger Shakespeare library. Then, progressives and campaign 2016 and a look at republican president ial primary tactics. Announcer this week on q a, our guest is Michael Witmore director of the witmore of the Folger Shakespeare library. Brian lamb Michael Witmore director of the Folger Shakespeare library. When did you first notice in your life all editions using shakespeares quotes life politicians using shakespeares quotes . Director witmore it was hard to escape shakespeare, because politicians, whether they know it or not, are using shakespeares words. It is something that allows politicians to connect with audiences, and when they quote shakespeare, it gives the politician a certain kind of weight and half and heft. Brian lamb you said that robert byrd was probably the greatest senator . Director witmore yes, robert byrd was the cicero senator and he used ornate clauses and that is one of the things that he would use on the floor. Brian lamb we have a clip of him on the senate floor talking about him using shakespeare. Senator byrd then with a passion would i shake the world one drop of blood. , drawn from by countrys bosom thy countrys bosom. Aye, it is written having such a jewel and these covering heavens fall like dew to inlay heaven with stars. As we leave for the evening give me my robe, put on my crown, i have immortal longings in me. Brian lamb what did you hear . Director witmore i heard a very theatrical senator. He picks passages that are so poetic and full of images, and he also moves around, you also notice he has his hand moving here, he is almost ready to move around, he almost sounds like an english professor. Brian lamb what would you say to somebody like me who is not an english a shakespeare expert, how would you explain it to me . Director witmore you would listen to the poetic images and the sounds of the rhymes, and what senator heard did, you are able to pause or linger over a long phrase or stop and keep going. I think he is really using the rhythm of the language which is something that shakespeare used so brilliantly. He can take english and put it into high gear at one moment and then he can slow down, and that is one thing that shakes their you do if you are a politician that shakespeare lets you do if you are a politician. Brian lamb i have an article from the new york times, and the article states most politicians quote shakespeare not well et al. Is that fair not well at all. Is that fair . Director witmore well, i think that politicians are using shakespeare partial words whether they know it or not. Shakespeares words, whether they know it or not. He invented a lot of words. For example, he invented the word bedroom. So they are going to use a lot of words on the senate floor. I think that shakespeare is kind of in the bloodstream of our culture, and we often get him wrong, but we are close enough that people can hear that connection. Brian lamb we found this fun video on youtube. We dont who the man is, maybe you know the voice . But he does exactly what you talk about, putting quotes together the people dont know if shake spear. Here shakespeare. Here we go. If you cannot understand my argument, and declare, it is greek to me, you are quoting shakespeare. If you are saying, it it is more a sin more send against than sinning sinned against than sinning, you are quoting shakespeare. If you quote salad days, you are quoting shakespeare. If you wish if you Say Something vanished into thin air, you are quoting shakespeare. Director witmore that is funny shakespeare is onstage, he is in films, and people are taking different parts and performing them for their laptops and shakespeare is a public property. Brian lamb can you give me some . Director witmore oh sure, a man sinned against than sinning that is one way of saying tha wrong but you are more wrong, and what you are doing to me is worse than what i have re doing to me is worse than what i have ever done to you. It is a great line. Brian lamb we have some photographs to show everyone how close the Folder Shakespeare Library is to the United States capital. And we will put on a couple of pictures on the screen so you can tell us, here is one for instance. You can see the c scaffolding all around it, but your front door is right on the left. Director witmore at that point you are two blocks east of the u. S. Capital, and you are diagonally positioned from the u. S. Supreme court, and you are right next to the library of congress. Brian lamb how did this building, the full jerk shakes for library, get there in the first place and when was it built the Folger Shakespeare library get there in the first place, and when was it built . Director witmore it was built by henry clay folger, and he had a fortune, and fortunately, he wanted to spend it on books. He was a fan of shakespeare. Before he died, he said i am going to build a library and i am going to put it in washington, d. C. As a gift to the american people. That is really important because he understood that american politicians really americans and politicians really had a connection to this writer. If you look just to the east the congress, the Supreme Court the library of congress, the folger, those represent the Language Arts in our country. Youve got the law, which is about language, and i would say, when you look at that capital, that is word central for the United States, and we are really pleased to be a part of that. Brian lamb how were you chosen to be the director . Director witmore i was interviewed, and i had to make an application and write a letter, and you need to be a shakespeare scholar. You need to connect with the hundreds of people who come from all over the world who read our collection who come to write. You also need to be able to run an institution that has a theater program, we do three shakespeare plays a year in the first tutor tudor theater in north america, we have a beautiful exhibition on a longitude, how did they figure out how east or west they were when they were navigating . And then we are bringing in thousands of students who are performing on our stage. They are getting into the act and they are performing. So i think it would be hard to be qualified to do all of this but i knew i was qualified to do a lot of it. Brian lamb you came from where . Director witmore i came from the university of wisconsin, madison. Brian lamb what did you do there . Director witmore i taught there three years and prior to that i taught at Carnegie Mellon for 10 years. Brian lamb prior to that, where did you get your education . Director witmore i went to Vassar College and then after that i went and got my phd at university of california at berkeley. Brian lamb here is harry reid on the floor of the senate. Senator reid parting is such sweet sorrow, and that is what it is. It is from shakespeare. Good night, good night parting is such sweet sorrow, and it really is. Brian lamb director witmore he is quoting romeo and juliet. Clearly it is an emotional moment. He has a big challenge there as a politician. He needs to make an emotional connection, and there are many things that you can say in that situation that are wrong, that wouldnt work. So one of the reasons that many people turn to shakespeare is that he is tried and true. That actually comes from a courtship scene about romantic love, but like many politicians, he can just take a phrase and adapt it to his situation. He can say, goodbye, parting is such sweet sorrow. Brian lamb how many times do politicians come over to your library . Director witmore many times, they can just walk right over, but i think it is very, very important that shakespeare didnt take sides. He looked at the complexities of our life and we have members of congress, members of the judiciary, they come, they enjoy our exhibitions. We were fortunate to have a meeting of the female senators who got together and saw parts of our collection, they had dinner, they got to talk about the renaissance looking at some of these great materials including manuscripts from Queen Elizabeth and a beautiful painting of elizabeth. But there is a very successful female leader, someone who had challenges. So i felt very honored that these female senators chose to, and that they could see those connections between the challenges of a truly great she was a monarch, she wasnt a politician but her predicament as a woman in politics it was difficult. So it was very exciting to be able to share that with the leaders of our country. Brian lamb is there any way to know what William Shakespeares politics would have been in todays world . Director witmore oh my gosh, we speculate about that all the time. I will tell you what i think i think shakespeare understood that family politics are the countrys politics. Those history plays that you see show the problems of dynasties the problems of our minis of armies and wars, they talk about relationships. I am not sure that is a left or right issue, but it is definitely something that he was aware of. There were also moments in his place where he seemed very skeptical of crowds. There was a scene of a peasant rebellion in the henry the sixth henry vi play. So it is dangerous, he knew it is dangerous to having the rule of all and i think he would have been friendly to our kind of constitutional democracy, but i dont know. He wrote plays that flattered queens and kings, so he believed in the monarchy on some level. The question for shakespeare and maybe this is a way to think about this issue for shakespeare the culture war was really between the protestants and the catholics. That was the left and right of his world. On the left come up people wanted to remake the world of jerusalem, everyone wanted a direct connection with god, and on the right there was the catholic rituals that had been part of england for so long. So this was the tension. Catholicism was illegal during shakespeares time, he may have from eight catholic family from a catholic family. So what we see was going on in shakespeares mind was the battle that he was aware of between protestants and catholics. Brian lamb from the senate floor during a filibuster, here is senator ted cruz. Senator cruz for he today who shed his blood for me will be my brother, this day shall gentle his condition. And gentlemen in england now in bed shall think themselves accursed that they were not here and hold their manhoods cheap manhoods cheap upon sacred spends day st. Crispins day. Those words express centuries ago are precisely approved the precisely applicable to tonight because it is a stand against an administration that refuses to acknowledge limits on its power. Director witmore that is really fascinating, he is quoting from henry v, it is a speech that henry gives right before leading into battle. Often, people going into leadership talk about that speech. The power that a king has leading a people going into all odds. It is so tough to quote a play, because the senator is objecting to the monarchical tendencies of the way that the president is acting on his own authority. The person who delivered those lines in the play is a monarch. So we can use shakespeare against the purposes that they were originally intended, but i think that is a tricky one because he is trying to say one thing with shakespeare and i think shakespeare was on a different site at that moment. Brian lamb going back to that oped piece in the new york times, the author said no american politician today wants to seem to educated. Quoting shakespeare is risky as a rhetorical strategy. Director witmore that may be right. In the 19th century, people who were educated and who had learned to write were exposed to the study of rhetoric, it is public speaking, the one that senator byrd so well. Before you go to university, those happened by learning to quote shakespeare. You would deliver speeches, you would refine all of that, and that tradition is really gone now. Our speakers really need to be much more flexible, they need to be able to broadcast to people that i may know more than you, but i am also like you. So i think our political discourse has been turned in some different directions. We still quote shakespeare in some moments that are important but i think politicians have to have some more down to earth way that does not sound like it is coming from on high. That is where you get into the press release and the talking points. Political speech right now tends to be much more about focus goals, precision. That is where it is tough for shakespeare to work his way back in. Brian lamb here is a completely different look take on shakespeare from sarah palin. Sarah palin thank you friends i am so glad to be here, truly. It reminds me of that speech from henry v. Where young henry box up the troops before he leads them into battle, because that is what i do, i quote bucks up the troops before he leaves them into bow, because that is what i do, i quote shakespeare. [laughter] their Palin Sarah Palin we are a happy band of brothers that fight for the constitution and the future of freedom. [applause] brian lamb that is from an nra event. Director witmore i think that is very sophisticated. I think she is able to use shakespeare and take some great part of that speech and she delivers them. And then she is able to mix it with something that sounds just the opposite, buck up or stay in the truck. So she has something that politicians and know how to do, which is to go from the high end of her acreage and culture and get closer to of our culture and of our language and culture and get closer to the ground. Some of the more powerful moments in shakespeares plays have the heroes using it grounded words of our language using grounded words, the anglosaxon words of our language. That is when french and latin came to britain, and those are the words that are part connected to bureaucracy. I think abraham lincoln, when he read shakespeare so carefully, what he got from shakespeare, he wasnt always quoting shakespeare he realized shakespeare he realized it was important to do something very ornate and then stop and do something very direct. I think sarah palin hit both of those sides. Brian lamb dick durbin is on the floor of the senate here talking about hamlet. Senator durbin i spoke before the session about a line in shakespeare that i have always struggled to understand. It is from hamlet and a line from his famous soliloquy where he says conscious makes cowards of us all. What does that mean . Director witmore thats a good one, he is asking if you think about something and wondering whether it is right for you and then you pause. So your conscious is sitting on your shoulders saying, dont do it, dont do it. So instead of being a hero, you feel like a coward. Brian lamb shakespeare lived when . Director witmore from 1664 through 1616. He started his life in 1716. He started his life in stratforduponavon. Brian lamb how much was he split from his wife when he lived in london and she lived in stratford . Director witmore that is a really good question, he spent time away from her, and we often think about his relationship to her. In his will, he left her his second best bed, which sounds insulting, that there may be reasons that was a more intimate gift to give to her. One of the reasons that one of our scholars at the Folger Shakespeare library was thinking about is that she had bankrolled him when he was in london. I would love to know more about that, and i think if we do learn more about shakespeare, it will be because we find more documents connected to his life. Brian lamb how much do you trust about what you know about shakespeare, the time that he lived, he was only 52 when he died, and what did he die of . Director witmore that is a great question, we dont know exactly what he died from died of. Brian lamb director witmore the Folger Shakespeare library will be hosting an exhibition where we will bring together almost every document that is directly connected to William Shakespeare, the man from stratford who lived in london. This will be collections from our collection, from the british library, all from one place, probably in the First Time Since shakespeare died that they will be in one place. Most of those will be documents about his birth, about his death, there will be legal documents, we know that he brought lawsuits. There will be legal documents that have a certain amount of trustworthiness because they are bureaucratic documents. The other part that we rely on is that shakespeare was a famous man and people wrote about him during his lifetime. See you get people complaining about him, who is this upstart crow, this swan of avon . He is not from london. He didnt go to university. So those complaints help us understand how people thought about him. That may have also helped connect the body of work that is his place to what we know from the Court Records and other kinds of records. Brian lamb here is Michele Bachmann talking about shakespeare. Director witmore it just doesnt quit. Michele bachmann it was press secretary jay carney who admitted that the sequestration was president obamas idea. There are numerous republicans who voted against sequestration because we knew all of these calamities were in the future. And so it reminds me of the shakespeare line, thou protest this too much. That is why we voted against this bill. Brian lamb she wasnt reading that, so it was obviously off the top of her head. Director witmore she doth protest too much, hamlet, i mean macbeth. It is very is he to take a quote from shakespeare another common one is alas, poor yorick, i knew him well. But actually, it said in the play, i knew him, horatio. When someone misquotes shakespeare other people hear it and they keep doing it. So we like to have the sources at the folder. We folger. We have the first editions, so you can come and check. He was like an encyclopedia of our language, and Michele Bachmann can pluck out a small piece, it is not exactly right but it makes a point. I think her point there, it is kind of tricky, people who are against or are actually f