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 t