First day on april 23rd. That means april 23rd is a really book deal at the Folger Shakespeare library. In fact the folger first opened on april 23rd in 1932, yesterday on our 85th birthday we celebrated with a cherished tradition, annual open house. Tonights birthday lecture, the 68th by my count, also holds a cherished position on the folger calendar. Here we bring current scholarly perspective and debate directly out of the reading room on the other side of that wall into this remarkable and intimate theater. Cspan2, booktv joins us tonight so audiences that couldnt be with us, the First American reconstruction of the theater can catch up and use the lecture in the weeks ahead. This is probably a good time to remind us all to turn off our cell phones so that we can all enjoy the lecture. This lecture were marking the conclusion of a yearlong celebration of the 400th anniversary of shakespeare. Tonight, at 401 we pause to reflect. What have we learned about our stewardship of the legacy that the Folger Institute had through this past year . As we explore how shakespeare resonates in classrooms and communities throughout the country through variety of events and partnerships. What have we learned about and through the wisdom of wealth . One person can best tell that story, michael witmore. Mike was appointed director of the folger in 2011, following appointments in the english departments of university of wisconsinmadison and Carnegie Mellon university. Mike is a director of the who leads by example. Michael thinks to cross boundaries in way that help us better understand what is possible for independent Research Libraries in the 21st century. Mike has a stellar scholarly career. I will give you a few highlights here this evening. He has published five books ranging from cultural accidents, unexpected knowledge and early modern england in 2001, to passing strange, reflections from shakespeare with Rosamond Purcell in 2010. He blogs. He collaborates with jonathan hoke, Mike Fleischer and others on visionizing english prints for instance, a mellon funded initiative and interdisciplinary project that is meant to bring a big data approach to the analysis of early modern texts. To give just a glimpse of his current work, i mention two recent articles. One is coauthored with jonathan hoke, called books in space. [inaudible]. That appeared in the 2016 volume entitled after the digital turn. The second is entitled, couture, the digital humanity and kingdom of knowledge. Thats been published in special issue of new literary history. In the abstract for that essay he asks, does the digital represent ant incursion across battle lines that demand countermeasures, a defense of human necessaritic inquiry from the reluctant methods of the natural or social sciences . Will humanities lose something precious by strain of knowledge that fits on the far side of the modern divide . What is this precious thing that might be lost and who is it to lose . I think those are actually rhetorical questions which makes sense for somebody in a phd in rhetoric. [laughter]. Dont think it is giving away too much to say that mikes understanding that there is nothing to lose in humanists reaching across the division across the kingdom of knowledge. Of course that phrase resonates, the divided kingdom resonates with king lear. There is everything to be gained and what we are humans have to contribute includes the wisdom of will. I give you mike witmore. [applause] thank you, kathleen. It is an honor to be here speaking with you as the 68th lecturer in the Shakespeare Birthday lecture series. I am tonight am going to stay on the humanities side of the divide because i like it there. I have learned a lot in the last 18 months t was 18 months of the wonder of will which included a first folio tour across 50 states, two territories exhibition work that went around the country, education work with teachers and digital exhibitions, commissioned theatrical work, commissioned musical work. We were busy in 2016 and 2016 lasted a long time. 750,000 people encountered our, biggs work facetoface. This year 3 Million People encountered us on line exhibition. Looking back on all of this i could say shakespeare is more popular than ever and that the Folger Shakespeare library which is the largest collection of its kind is committed to being the ultimate resource for shakespeare in his early modern world. Were put here to share this collection and the story of this remarkable period in history something we intend to do with Greater Energy and on a greater scale in the years to come. But tonight, i want to reflect a little bit on ways in which shakespeares writing, particularly the plays, have served in the source of wisdom and inspiration for readers and play goers since the 17th century. While scholars arent usually fond of talking about wisdom, i think that is because it is hard to say where it comes from, and what it does, wisdom is something that shakespeares audience would have looked for in his plays. Partly we know from the human nist practice of commonplacing which is a way human nists like little bees would go out in their reading find pollen, quotations proverbs, maxims and copy them into their commonplace books so they could mull them over and turn them into something the renaissance called it sweetness and life. That is what comes from the wax and the honey from the work of this bee. Sweetness in life, perhaps even honey. We know that they did this because we have copies of renaissance books in which humanist readers commonplace provided proverbial glosses on the texts they were reading. One of the most beautiful folios, alas, one not in the folger collection, is folio at a university, in tokyo. This folio was annotated by a 17th century annotator almost line by line. Obsessively copying out phrases, more significantly finding proverbs that he likely, he, would write in the margins. In one of the blank sides of the page of merchant of venice, for example, the annotator writes, all that glitters is not gold. Commonplacing, a way of bringing wisdom of digested pieces of knowledge and experience out of the text and taking it for later. That is a practice that attested to in our vast collection, a collection that shows signs of just this kind of use. In the 1th century they called the collection of wisdom, the publication of collections of proverbs and their application, an art of construction. The idea was that you would look at a situation, you would look at a person, you would look at an event and then apply the proverb that would make sense of it. You look at a young couple, you see their upset, oh the true, the course of true love never did run smooth. Im quoting from a midsummer nights dream. This quotation probably drawn from experience could be imported directly into a play. There is even an online resource wick shun airy, that catalogs all proverbs found in english, their gloss or modern translation on this particular proverb is, there will always be problems in a romantic relationship. [laughter] without poetry a certain amount of wisdom is lost. [laughter] shakespeare even applied proverbs and maxims or clever turns of phrase to the titles of his plays. For example, alls well that ends well. What you will, measure for measure. I suspect he too thought people would look at the situations in his plays and then think about the about the principles they illustrate. Not that such lessons are easy to find. For any proverb that proves a point, others can be found to prove the opposite point. Fortune favors the bold which is an example after proverb that tells us to seize the moment. But then again, there is a bird in hand is worth two in a bush. It is best to stick with what you have. Any attempt to navigate the world will lead in circles with proverbs. But they do call attention to particular features of situations and they tell us what characters are encountering. They heighten our perceptions of a detail, of a moment, of a gesture, of a thought. And for that reason i think it is still useful to look at shakespeares place and ask if they illustrate principles we could use to navigate our daily lives today . Well, why plays, why shakespeare . Because these plays charge as they are with beautiful language and intense action offer a miniaturized version of life, an experience of how things go and of what people do. Like the bees gathering the pollen we can read shakespeares plays like renaissance humanists, extracting what we find and he saving it for later. So here are 10 things that shakespeare knew that we should know too. My version of the wisdom of will. Ill be talking about several plays tonight as i go through these 10. I will probably talk for about three points on lear. By the time i end lear we will be at number 10. Number one, well begin with something that jazz musicians, theater artists and politicians already know well. Shakespeare knew that you have to improvise to get things done. When shakespeare thought about improvization he would have thought about the art of rhetoric. As kathleen mentioned, rhetoric is something i think a lot about. Rhetoric, according to aristotle, is the faculty of recognizing the available means of persuasion in any given situation. Great definition. I will repeat it. It is the faculty of recognizing the available means of persuasion in any given situation. Rhetoric is the art of preparedness. It is perception. It is ability not just to do things but to scan a situation and figure out what is it for, what is its potential, what can be said, what can not be said . In the end it is the art of recognizing and since situations change from daytoday and moment to moment it has to also be an art of i improvization. One of the greatest improvisers in shakespeares play is viola, washed up on the shores after a shipwreck, believing she has seen the last of her drowned brother. The sea captain it wills her about the land where she is, tells us about olivia, a countess who lost her father and brother and became a rec clues in mourning. She sizes up the situation with her best wits. She decides at that moment she will bide her time. Here is what she said. Oh, that i served that lady and might not be delivered to the world until i made my own occasion mellow what mys state is. Made my occasion mellow, mellow as in lightness of a piece of fruit. She knows she cant act yet. She needs to wait. Later when she has been mistaken for woman and object of olivias advances, she throws her hanz up, how will this fag, great verb, faj, thou must untangle this, not i. It is too hard of a knot for me to untie. Someone who was watching this action and thinking about the word occasion would have brought to mind an emblem, one of those beautiful allegorical pictures created in the renaissance, glossed by proverbs, the emblem of ocasio. That is a goddess who stands on a sphere. She is able to adjust her actions and her weight instantaneously to every change. She is the perfection of the instantaneous correction. She is also depicted as the involved. With a single forelock here, like a forward pony tale. If you look at one of these emblems, it takes a while to figure it out but the idea is when opportunity or occasion or chance gives you something as it comes towards you, you have the opportunity to grasp it, as it passes you by there is nothing to hold on to. Chances misses are chances lost. Viola is someone who knows how to wait for the moment to act, and something a great director knows how to do. It is something that a great retorcian but shakespeare liked to show things in opposites. Think of something virtuoso improviser. When he tries to frame his rival casio promoted to lieutenant as they arrive at cypress. Casio has embarrassed himself by fighting while drunk when he was supposed to be guarding, holding military watch at night. Lago framed him with a man named rodrigo. Casio decides to try to win himself back in the graces of general othello. Lago are walking up and seeing desdimona having a conference with casio. Casio turns to leave and walks away. Lago says i like not that. What does thou say . Nothing my lord, or if, i know not what. There is art in the renaissance called what it means is practice ease, practice casualness. Pretending to do something by accident but in fact youve been rehearsing it already. You can see how this applies to politics. [laughter] what he does, is he seizes that opportunity, he sees this is the point which i will frame cast he yo. I have the steps set up. I have my actors. Now i need to call attention to it. I will pretend like im noticing it. Ha, i not like that. Then he feels he said too much the danger around being a great improviser you dont know if they are trusting to chance. You dont know whether they are making their own fortune or whether they are seizing on a misperception. Number two, shakespeare knew that decisions must be made in the absence of all the facts. Knowing what to say in a shifting situation where sometimes an audience looks one way and sometimes another, means that you dont really know everything about what you ought to do. The conditions that undergird rhetoric, the art of making decisions in the moment, are also conditions that undergird Decision Making in life. Drama is almost by definition taking an action when you dont have all the information. That look of clarity is what makes a situation dramatic. You have to consider what you would do in the same situation in the audience with the same amount of information or knowledge. Hamlet has been described as a play about someone who couldnt make up his mind. I would prefer to say he is a man who chose to test things and test them obsessively. The ghost, is it a catholic ghost or protestant ghost . A spirit of health or a goblin damned. He also tests his uncle with a play called the mousetrap. I catch the conscience of a king. 19th century german romantics loved this indecisive prince and called attention to his slowness making decisions but in fact hamlet was like a scientist. He set up experiments. He set the conditions in which he could observe and so confirm what he thought was true. There are other people making decisions and testing things in hamlet. You remember that pelonius is many employed figuring out what hamlet is truly brooding on. He sets up like a scene in which a direction his daughter ophelia, once a lover of hamlet, will walk down up stage, she is holding a prayer book, and as it were by accident encounter hamlet. When they observe this interview, the interview in which hamlet says get thee to a nunnery, at the end he says, wheres my father . Maybe sensing its a setup, clawed just makes up his mind almost immediately, love, do affections that way tend or speak that form a little is not madness. There is something in his soul which his melancholy sits on a brood. As soon as he figures this out, he writes the death sentence on a letter and sends hamlet to england. Claudius is an executive. He makes decisions and no matter what we think of this character i think shakespeare went out of his way to show someone who could make decision on information he had and he used that to contrast, more pensive, deliberate hero. A different scene of weighing probabilities or figuring out what you have to do without all the facts occurs in the opening act of othello. Where as you remember, the Venetian Senate after othello clears his name and and accusation of witchcraft tries to decide where the turkish fleet is going. Is it to cyprus or rhodes. Conflicting accounts come into the senate. First senator says after hearing two versions, you must not think that the turk is so unskillful to leave the latest which concerns him first. Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain to wake and wage a danger profitless. He is using the probabilities. Why would the turk be headed to rhodes if it is not objectively useful, it is not a useful objective . And in the context of deliberations in the senate, this is a perfect example of how you sift the probabilities based on the information that you have. Now its true that people sometimes lie about or obscure where there armadas and ships are going. [laughter]. Its a question of weighing probabilities versus acting rationally. What makes life dramatic, we have to act without complete information. Unavoidable fact of our existence. A fact that makes all real choice in human life compelling. Number three. He knew that reputation is a bubble, and that it is easily popped. If you look at 17th century dutch still life paintings sometimes you see a figure of a child with a little pipe blowing bubbles. It is called the homobula. It is an example of one of the vanity themes in dutch still life paintings and one of the warnings against vanity. Reputation is like a bubble, it inflates and then somehow but its own size and elasticity suddenly pops and its gone. Casio feel this is after he lost his command being lieutenant, the brawl happening at night in cypress. Casio, oh, i have lost my reputation. I lost the immortal part of myself. What remains bestial. Lago responds, reputation is idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all unless you repute yourself such a loser. That is probably the first time loser is used in that way in english. [laughter] the problem is that it is difficult to unhear things. Advisors to generals, kings and president s can fall from their perch in an instant because of a weakness. In the case of of cast he is described as equinox. His powers and skills are equal to his vices. His vice is drink. I think in the end shakespeare sided with lago. In the seven ages of man speech he describes the soldier searching after the bubble of reputation. It is something you cant control completely. Even entire professions rhetoric in the renaissance, pr today, were created to try to protect it. Maybe the real internet bubble is reputation. Number four. He knew that power is harder to give away than it is to get. This is a lesson of king lear and the history play, richard ii. Consider famous opening scene from lear, which of you shall say doth love us most . His daughter arrives right on time, great improviser with, i love you more than word can wield the manner, fury than eyesight. Lears attempt to give away power to the next generation may seem to go badly wrong because one of his daughters refuses to play the game but the problem starts earlier. Power isnt something you can simply give away. There needs to be a ritual. There needs to be a way, some order which it can cleanly be passed from one person to another. Shakespeare thought about this in his second tetrolegy, written play called richard ii. Richard ii an evil king, well set aside how accurate this depiction was, richard ii was a man who deliberated. He is a faithful man. He is someone who acts rationally. He doesnt consider what he is doing. And that weakness is shown to be his downfall in this play. At one point a man named bowling borok will eventually become henry iv rebels against richard who has gone to ireland. Richard hears the rebellion. He says, how can this happen . Show us the hand of god that has dismissed us from our stewardship. For well we know no hand of blood and bone can grip the sacred handle of our scepter. He is a divinelyanointed king. He has the two bodies, his as long as he is alive, that second body attaches to the first, the body of the kingdom. The voice that comes from an anointed king is not the voice of one person. It is the voice of a multitude. It is everyone speaking through one person. Bolingbrook corners richard. Demands the crown. Richard gives it. He says now, mark me how i will undo myself . I give this heavyweight from off my head and this unwieldy scepter from my hand. The pride of kingly sway throughout my heart. With mine own tears i wash away from balm. With mine own hands i give away my crown. The imagery here tells us that shakespeare is suspicious. How can tears of water wash away the oil of an anointed king . It wont work. Carlisle prove sized that the blood of the english will manure the ground if he is crowned this is a story shakespeare already told in the henry v iplace where boling brook grandson loses what henry the v gains in france. There is connection to american politics. This countrys founders many who read and reread shakespeare, knew the good constitution solves the problem of how to give power away. The solution is, you dont. Instead of giving away power you have to rereturn it. A power in constitutional democracy is only ever on loan to whomever wields it. Number five, he knew that our love of legends is greater than our love of facts. [laughter]. Shakespeare wasnt a historian but he sourced his stories from chronicles by holingshed and. When shakespeare was writing there wasnt modern history deciding what is likely, what is unlikely, using methods of comparison. Nothing like modern history yet. And yet, there is a tendency in the history that shakespeare read, in the history plays that he wrote, to cast real people in history acting as heroes orville lanes, martyrs or saints. The men are up. They are nervous. There is nothing asleep. They are pulled and for their armor. The sound of war is everywhere in the midst of the nervous Army Commander goes henry and heres what the koran says. Every rich timing, beholding him plus comfort from his books, a largess universal but the sun does give to everyone. Sign cold fear is man worthiness to find a little touch of parent in the night. The chorus is helping us make a scene and hairy and going out to blaze the spirit of his troops involved in thinking about the legend of harry, about what will be said, not what hes doing and like a good leader politician, you cant ignore the aspect of what he does. Contrast to Harry Richard the third, another person who loves to talk about what hes talk about buddies doing unless you think musty think about himself if it be the carrot during the play. Early on in the history of richard the third, richards says after noting that he is deformed, saying ive created the death hand on my deformity, to look at my shadow incurs. And i cannot prove a lover to entertain these farewell spoken days, i am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days. And later when its talking to their two Young Princes about to go into the tower, he calls himself a figure from a morality play. His audience knows that hes a dear in a play and he also knows that history like such characters. Historical figures sometimes styled their action theyve encountered in sacred text. Politicians as well as that does keep an eye on where legends may take them. No modern president from a boy being compared to others actions were larger than life. Both of these president s were well aware of the way life becomes the story. His frequent reading of shakespeare and Ronald Reagan quote in the film. Shakespeare wouldve appreciated the jimmy stuart says that he and of liberty balance. When the legend becomes fact. Race is the kind of script that governs our action company. And what some of the foundations of what we now call the modern world were set. He had a front row seat, the colonial expansion, the beginning of the modern corporation can thank its, international commerce, trade, religious conflict in the root solution that was the printed book. For example, shy . For the treatment of a handset is christian counterpart. Aaron the moores mockery and the fact that our fellow must constantly disprove the assumption that he . The moral temper of the christian. He puts words into people is now which is just what they do in shakespeares plays. Following antisemitic script with money adventures. Chirac repeats the script back to him when antonio asks were among noting the lapse in memory. And well ill tell you freighted me about my monies. Still havent wanted with a patient chart. You call me ms. Believer and spit upon major scabbard dini and all the use of that which is my own. Well then, and now it appears need my help. It is interesting shylock is the one doing the reminding here. The fact that only some people have to negotiate race all the time, the, africans and nonchristians had no choice but to think twice about what they say and do. If race remains a script in contemporary life, shakespeares play show us not only that it exists, but part of its power resides in the fact that some people have no option to ignoring. Number seven. He knew that word can do almost anything. Weve been talking about the art of rhetoric and improvisation. They are filled with moments for an improvised their work he or she is cornered talking with angelo and a fellow accused of the senate and find a way to turn that situation. They do something with words that were very special. They do with words of physical contact cannot. They can sneak around behind and grab someone from the point of view where they are not expecting. Part of what words can do is reframe the situation, forcing the listener to approach a topic in a completely different way. I think about the opening act of king layer where he begins to talk to his father about his brother who is legitimate. You will see it trickier. He says to his father as he is talking about the beginning action of the play. He actually put something very quickly in the pocket. What is that . Why are you so quick to conceal that . I defeat you sarah, pardon me. A letter for my brother that i have not read for so much i have careers, i found it now takes from your overlooking. Of course that creates curiosity. The same that he doesnt want to show it implying that he also is withholding something that therefore it must be true. Push comes to shove. His father takes the piece of paper and says i have heard him that it be said that sun and the perfect age and others declined the father should be the son and the son manages. It is a scene where everything turned upside down. Another one curries and one of the shakespeares play plays performed here at the soldier. In the story, losing his daughter in a series of accidents that and in typical romance form the style of the story adapted more towards the end of his career stumbling attempt is too noble kinsman. Kidnapped by parents finds herself in a brothel. Romance does not help you suspend his relief. It does the opposite and i will come back to that. His name as my senate cares who is the first customer to advances she must resist years which is as. If you were born to honor, show it now. If put upon you, if that honor was thrust upon you, and make the judgment good that site you worthy of it. I did not think al qaeda spoke so well you says common and i brought hither a corrupt the mind day speech and alternate. What the arena is able to do is Say Something quite realistic. I know why you are here. I know the fact you were here means that you dont think you have the virtue to turn around. Well, lets reframe it. The people who taught your not to be the governor. Why dont you honor their hope and faith in you, rather than your own. It is brilliant. Shakespeare also shows words failing a wrenching possibility, but always the possibility dealing with language and human being. Think about where again at the beginning of the play to earn yourself a bounty, a third more opulent. Dave said what he wants to hear, both of them improvising beautifully. Cordelias if thats what it is is to say nothing. Speak again. Cordelia tries to speak truth to her father. I owe you a divided duty. The duty i owe to you as the person who raised me, but also i will note to my husband who just heard my daughters right check they could never cash pledging their entire lives ceo. I love you will tell you who i am. Eloquence, even simple eloquence doesnt work. By the end of the play in one version, king layer has his daughter been killed at the guard didnt come in time. He put the setup over her mouth and says this feathers errors. It is a chance which does redeem that ever i have felt. Words can do almost anything. Almost. Member a period team is that the capacity to forgive is precious and goes handinhand with the capacity to love. Shakespeare begins this play with the man has utterly unforgiving. His youngest daughter disappoint them in a competition on the punishment is swift when kids begins to object, moving too quickly. Come not between the dragon and his wrath. The boat was manned, the shaft is strong, make from it. Just step back. One of the most important moments occurs when the tables have turned completely and must ask for forgiveness. Asking is not enough however since the oscar has to recognize what is done, that moral recognition coincides exactly with his recognition that the woman in front of him is his daughter. We are, i am a very foolish old man. Do not laugh at me for if i am a man, i think this lady to be my child. Hes just climbing down from the wheel of fire in this new world where his daughter is really his only hope. Later, he looks to the future and thinks about the way in which is experienced to be redeemable. He says be your tears, and yet faith i pray we not. I know you do not love me, for your sister as i do remember has done me wrong. You have some cause. They have not. And she responds no cause, no cause. He is forgiven. Later he looks at his daughter insists calm. We will seem like birds of the cage, when we ask new blessings i will lean down and ask to be for forgiveness. It is not the prodigal daughter. It is the prodigal father who comes home and he kneels in front of his daughter, a clear sign in elizabethan culture that he is the child. This moment of love and connection, which is a dreamy exclusion when away from the child of this world is one of the only respite in this play, a play for whose experience they have to fit through as well. At the plays opening, such a change wouldve seemed nearly impossible, but of course in the theater it is not. Which leads us to write ninth point in my last remark about leader. Number nine, he knew that people actually change. Changes of heart required changes then perception. That is a Crucial Point whether they are comedy, history, tragedy or what they call the late romances. How hard is it to see things in a different way . How do we know that a character sees things the new . The answer is signaled by language. In this case, the language that mixes simplicity and concrete mess. This is the play with some of the most devastating anglosaxon monosyllables in the shakespearean canon, but low music of the left hand about life of love, not our world. For wretches that by the pelting of this pity storm the house list had in your loot and windows racket mess defend you from the zend such as these. I have taken too little care of this. Take your medicine. He then says, is man no more than us . Looking at anchor, thou art the thing itself. On accommodative man is no more, but such a poor bear in the mall as thou art. He changes his mind after his trial. It. Prompts him to return to humility. Shakespeare also used the theater itself to change people in your return to one of his late place, my favorite play, the winters tale. Like many of the other place, the winters tale is filled with fantastic event, chance encounters, lost children, special tokens of recognition and of course a dreamy reconciliation and reunion of a family that was one separated at the very end of the play. Its about the once upon the time story. Its an adult nursery rhyme before we have any sense of why he might jealous that knows about his father has died and the slave to the death he thinks of his wife. He also exposes his daughter who was somehow taken a, taken away by cm brought back for a reunion. Align a does something very interesting. Hes back in bohemia and says come into this space. I want to show you a statue. It is a statute that is printed naturally like the mh of this one man who has gone and who is dead. Heres the line that gesturing towards the sculpture. So much the more our excellence which lets go buy some 15 years as she lived now. The yankees have now she made a done so much to my good comfort that it is now, it is piercing to my soul. Though she is to come even such a way that matches they, if coldly stands when i first wooed her, i am shamed. A work of art who will soon learn what kind of art has brought to a full and Frantic Mission of this terrible error and the price that he and others have paid for it. That is too high, something the shakespeare asserts in the play. This is the play and even the very adult world, jealousy, the audience wants some kind of reconciliation. And here we learn something about ourselves and our story to shakespeare cues the ending and our final point, number 10. He knew that our hopes sustain a even when we think they cannot be satisfied. The adult pleasures of the winters tale, the persistent hope for an outcome we know is past out of reach. The truth of our longing or the impossible, which is what theater and poetry delivered. Not in the 90s that has enabled upon a time story told by the fire and a winters tale, but in a way that makes his audience the efficient cause of the miracle that the theater creates. Looking at the sculpture, what you can make her do, what to speak i am content to hear for it is easy to make her speak. In other words, i dont ask that either one. It is required that you do a week your face. Then ill stand still for those that think it is a nonlawful business buses depart. Music strikes and a surprising as it is to his daughter, it is also a surprise to the audience. He stepped back the impossible revival that could not have been, at least in the middle of the plate. And there is one thing only is utterly real. Shakespeare believed in the persistent reality of our longing for justice, for a world in which the good prevail, and even if we know we are being told is a tale. Its a knowing falsehood, but its also one of the Great Companies of the theater. We dont come to the stage with equal gifts. Unequal freedom, unequal access of the precious things of this world. But in the middle of all these things that we bring, free and unfree and for the sunken depths, the bitter emptyhanded end of knowledge, shakespeare creates a democracy of perception. Theater gives us the ability to see. There are things, true things we can all witness in the theater, even if we do not equally possess the power to act on those things. That is the great gift of these plays, the last great gift of shakespeare. It is the one to which we must all hold. Thank you. [applause] i just want to note here that may senior thesis advisor for my undergraduate, Susan Mccloskey is actually in the audience. [applause] and im lucky to be in the presence of a lot of great friends and a lot of great scholars. It is a privilege to have this job. Its a privilege to keep thinking about these plays and talking to people. We just have your then. So i am happy to answer any questions that you have. I will not quiz you on the 10 items but im told we can really, what is it called . Do it on the internet. 10 things and 10 plays. Maybe well try that. Any questions . It with as much performance as lecture, just as a little bit of insight. How much time did you spend preparing . [laughter] i will point out that it is a written speech. But i really was trained in rhetoric, so a lot of the things that i talk about are things they been thinking about for 30, almost 40 years. But i did write this from scratch for today. Ive been quietly trying to remember what i wanted to say. But you know, its always important to jump back in. Been working on this one for a little while. [laughter] [inaudible] adapted by every medium we can imagine. Its very interesting because film, unlike theater isnt a democracy. You actually have to go with the camera takes them that the camera is shooting over the shoulder of someone come you actually occupy the consciousness and perspective of that person. The filmmaker says you have to go here. So i think that a terrific meeting him at own defense in its own storytelling dialed. It also courses in a way. What is wonderful about life theater is you can enjoy it in a status control distraction. And thats good. You are thinking about the people who are next to you. You are there with someone. You never forget that you are there in a small room with other old. The truth that only a human can present to you facetoface. That is the bounty of theater and the fact that we can look at what we want and of course you can even dress, which in shakespeare is all fine. So im all for a film and im all for life theater. Im also for reading the play. Yes. Thank you for this wonderful talk. When a little bit of what influence shakespeare. Any ideas about who he was talking to at the time, who he was sharing ideas with . I will confess to not knowing that in not having any idea. Was he talking to s. 401 years later . I think to get in the theater you have to be looking over your shoulder. He was also collaborating with other playwright than 30 of those plays. I think of him as a person with all the desires and ambitions of the artists putting out today. That is a tricky case. Hes not been all kinds of things into that bottle and even for some reason we picked up and look inside and we think it was addressed to us. Its just magic. One more question. [inaudible] good constitution we have found how to give power away. The answer is you dont. What in particular were you thinking . The power of the written and spoken word a representative everyday of the the work of the Supreme Court of the night Takes Congress and even the library of congress. And as i look to what is i think still not a miracle, but the secular miracle of the peaceful transition of power mediated by constitution and make certain people illegitimate source of authority and rule of law. Not the people, but the laws themselves. I think of that as something that is fantastic. It not fantastic in the way shakespeare is fantastic. But there is a certain wisdom and magic to that, which is the same as you dont say individuals on a power, you then create a situation in which the only question is who has acquired it and who will acquire it and that could be governed by laws and icons to shame. I think it is not accidental that Thomas Jefferson kissed the ground when he visited strap erred. Thomas jefferson and those who wrote the constitution and developed the system of legal thought in the country shows a lot about shakespeare. They thought about the situations where power is an object. It is something that someone can hold. At one point, hamlet accuses his father and grabs the crown and press it in his pocket. That is the image of tierney, the power of possession. We had our public dont believe in he came the moment and came to realize. I am so pleased that we are now going to go out into a reception into the great hall and keep talking and i just want to thank you for coming tonight. [applause] [inaudible conversations] and are you pleased to introduce dr. Meredith wadman. She has an impressive career, received her ba in biology from stamp or come and be from Oxford University where she was a Rhodes Scholar and a degree in journalism from columbia university. In addition shes written for the new york times, Washington Post and the journal nature among others issues currently is that frederick heintz magazine. As an epidemiologist and a researcher in training i was excited to read the book,