Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tour Of The Folger Shakespeare Librar

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Tour Of The Folger Shakespeare Library 20160423

Even if your letter doesnt get in, they count the number of letters from a particular perspective, and they will publish letters from that perspective. So it means, it means demonstrating, it means First Amendment protected activity, it means going to the trone base, Hancock Drone base and protesting in upstate new york, it means going to outside i know its not convenient, but if you have the opportunity going to Creech Air Force base where the drones take off outside of las vegas. It means working in any way you can, organizing and pressuring the government. Thats the only way that this is going to stop. Well, i think that is a wonderful question and a comment to end our discussion because, again, when i before i read this book, i mean, ive gotten another book on drones, and i hadnt, you know, there are drones and things that are going on out there, somebody else is doing it, doesnt affect me. But then when you say what are we doing with these drones, what is happening and what is being done in our name, you know . And then you see how horrible, as dr. Cohn said in her first chapter, these are a dark new weapon of war. You know . Its a dark weapon. And we really need to realize this, how dark these things are. Thank you so much for coming, and thank you so much for your questions and your comments. And i do hope that youll get this book. Weve got copies up here that you can, that you can buy. And, please, fill out the evaluation form and say what you thought about this thing because, as i said, thisll strengthen the festival of the book. And, please, line up if you want to get your book autographed by dr. Cohn. Thank you. [applause] well, saturday, april 23rd, is the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeares death. The Folger Library here in washington, d. C. , which has the largest collection of shakespeare documents and memorabilia in the world, will be hosting an event commemorating his life and his impact on our literature, our language, our politics and our history. Booktv will be covering that event life. It begin live. It begins at noon eastern time. And afterward well have a live, nationwide callin with shakespeare scholars so you can join in the conversation as well. Henry folger was the president of the Standard Oil Company and a shakespeare buff. So he and his wife spent many years and many dollars collecting shakespeare artifacts, documents, memorabilia. Its the Worlds Largest collection of shakespearerelated documents. So join us today. Well be live beginning at noon for 400 years of shakespeare on booktv. Host michael witmore, what is the Folger Shakespeare library . Guest the Folger Shakespeare library was created in 1932 by henry folger and his wife, emily. They had a big idea that the sources of shakespeare and his world would be of value to everyone in perpetuity. So they collected those materials, and they put them here, two blocks east of the capitol, for the benefit of the world. This was truly a national and international asset. So in addition to putting this marvelous collection here, they created this remarkable building which has the First North American tudor theater, it has the beautiful great hall that were in which is modeled on Hampton Court and then another beautiful, almost medieval reading room. Host who were the folgers . Guest mr. Folger was president of standard oil, and he made his fortune as an oil man. He then, while he was running standard oil, very quietly acquired the greatest shakespeare collection in the world, bar none. Including 82 copies of the 1623 first folio. Host okay. Were going to hear that term throughout this tour, first folio. Guest yes. Host what is that . Guest so the first folio is a collection of 36 shakespeare plays that were published by two of shakespeares friends who knew him. Without that book, which was published in 1623, we probably wouldnt have 18 of shakespeares plays including macbeth and Twelfth Night and the winters tale. Its probably the most studied single edition of a book in the world. And its also a great connection to shakespeare, this writer that is still used by scholars today to understand his writings. Host so that was put together seven years after his death guest exactly right. Host and how many of those exist . How many were printed, how many exist in the world today . Guest there were probably 700 copies of the first folio printed, and there are 233 known copies of this book. One just turned up last year in france. But the folger has 82 in its collection. Thats by far the largest number in any one place. And the folgers collected the book because they knew that every copy is different. The printers corrected this book as it was printed, and then when they put the books together, they just took from this file and that file. So mr. And mrs. Folger knew that if we wanted to get at the best version of shakespeares plays in this book, wed have to compare them. Host michael witmore, here at the folger are the items that you have displayed, are they open to the public . Guest yes, they are. Host such as the first folio . Guest anyone can come and see a first folio at the folger. We are free, and we are open to the public on holidays, but we were created in order to share this remarkable collection. And so thats what we do. Host and so do people come . How many people do you have come a year here . Guest so we have about 80,000 people come a year, and when you come here, you can see a first folio in the corner of our great hall. You can also see one of our exhibitions, you can see a shakespeare play performed in the first elizabeth january theater in north america, and if you are a qualified reader, you can come into our reading room and request items from the hundreds of thousands of items that we have in our rare collection. Host is the reading room restricted to scholars . Guest the reading room is restricted to people who have a good reason to use the collection. So often thats dollars, but if youre not scholars, but if youre not a professional scholar, we would open our materials to you. Host is the folger collection online . Guest about 60,000 items, we would call them page openings from the collection, are online in these beautiful, high quality digital images. So one of our missions is to open that collection to people who want to visit us virtually. Were also starting a project to make searchable about 130,000 pages of our manuscript collection. So a manuscript is handwritten material. Its hard to decipher, and were inviting others to join in a crowdsourcing initiative to look at some of those pages online, and then we will teach you how to decipher the writing. Youll decipher it, and then youre going to add to our collection. Host michael witmore, was William Shakespeare well known . First of all, when did he live, when did he die, and was he well known . Guest he was born in the mid 16th century, and he died in 1616. Thats why this year were celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death. He was well known. There are hundreds of references to shakespeare that occur during his lifetime, and one of the things weve done this year is to gather the documents that really connect us to shakespeare, the man, the talk of people about shakespeare whether its in print be or whether its in gossip that theyve noted on a piece of vellum or paper. We wanted to get that all in one place. So this year our show, called life of an icon, is our attempt to bring that together so that people really can see what an impact this writer had on the people around him. Host well, we are in the display hall right now. Guest we are. Host whats the architecture of this hall, and then lets walk through the display. Guest what youre looking at is a tudor great hall. Its the kind of room you would put in a large family estate. Its actually something you would use for exercise. Thats why its long. Usually windows would be open to a garden, and you would put your painting collection in this room. That was actually what this room was designed to look like. But after 1932 we realized that full daylight is not good for rare materials. And so we decided to limit the amount of light in this space. And so its different from what you would see in england, but its still grand. Youve got this very high ceiling, its a city block length. Its also got tudor [inaudible] work on the plaster above. Host would William Shakespeare have been comfortable in this room . Would it have been familiar to him . Guest yes, he would. He would have known exactly what kind of room this is. And one thing were learning about him, he did purchase a home in stratford called new place which is quite a fancy pile in his hometown. And one of the things the archaeologists suspect that he did was knock down some of the bedrooms so that he could create a long gallery or a great hall. And he must have liked rooms like this. It was either he who did it, or it was a member of his family. But he would have recognized this kind of room. Host well, lets look at some of the display items you have here. Guest sure. Host what have you got . Guest were going to walk over first, i just mentioned new place which was this grand house in stratford. Shakespeare actually needed to do something that we would call today, i think, a title search, which is to make sure that he had clear title to this property that he bought with the earnings he had from his theater career. And so were going to go over here. These are two halves of something that is called an indenture. And when this document was executed, the two sides of the deal or the agreement look at either side which has the identical terms on each side. One is read out aloud, and the other is checked to make sure that the terms of the deal are identical. And then the indenture cut with a wavy line so that if theres ever a dispute, you say show me the other side of this, and well check it. But it was a fascinating earlymodern antifraud device that was used when shakespeare decided to check whether he had clear title to this property. And here is a third piece that was these two were kept by shakespeare and the other party in the agreement. Shakespeare would have held one of these pieces of vellum in his hands. He would have kept it in his home with all of his other important host basically, a title to the house. Guest an important document, and this is one of the things host did he sign it . Guest he didnt sign this because he didnt need to. The scribes had to create this other counterfoil which is probably in 400 years never been next to the original piece of vellum that it was a part of. This came over to us from london, and were now bringing these pieces together for the first time x. Its a nice symbol for what this exhibition is, because never have are so many documents directly connected to shakespeare ever been in one place. And this is in centuries. And i doubt they will ever be gathered together again. So the ability to bring together a kind of congregation or fellowship of documents is this remarkable moment of connection with this writer. And thats why we really wanted to share it, because its so precious to have this ability to show them. The other thing i would say is weve chosen to create this online resource with the assistance and permission of our partners, almost 30 other institutions, so that we can show 400 of these documents in high quality digital images, and weve actually transcribed them so that you can search them. Its called shakespeare documented, and i think it will be the first and most important stop for people trying to understand shakespeares biography. Weve made this freely available with the help of our partners, and thats going to be one of the surviving kind of legacies of this particular initiative. Host what do some of your british partners think about the fact that the Folger Shakespeare library in washington, d. C. Has the largest shakespeare collection in the world . Guest well, i think its a mixture of feeling, this is their writer, but shakespeare is probably one of the most important not the most important cultural export from great britain. Shakespeare is a global phenomenon. There are more films made about shakespeare in india than there are in the United States and britain combined. So the ability to make the connection with the United States and to its a way of embodying this ongoing relationship between the two countries. Turns out to be important. So we do have regularly diplomatic gatherings here at the folger. The British Ambassador is often here, the ambassadors spouse customarily serves on our board. But its important because it shows this ongoing cultural connection. The other thing i would say is that americans really discovered shakespeare in the 18th and 19th centuries and made this writer their own. He was like someone you could turn to when you were in uncertain times. Youre trying to think about your aspirations or these tough decisions that americans were making after the civil war or during civil rights. And theres something about this writer, the way he tells stories, the way his characters are so vivid, the powerful language that meant that americans felt like they could just grab that and use it themselves. And i think of shakespeare as the kind of uncle that we turn to when we need to have a conversation that we cant have with family, with our closest family. Theres something good about the fact that shakespeare wasnt an american. He never came to this country. And that gives us a lot more latitude when we want to say i think this reminds me of macbeth or when we watch, say, the house of cards, and we think, oh, thats macbeth, you know, lady macbeth married to richard iii. Or when a member of Congress Like senator byrd will quote shakespeare on the floor of the senate. Host who was king or queen during shake shakespeares life for the most part, and did that influence his writingsome. Guest shakespeare was alive during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the reign of king james i. And when those reigns kind of, when the succession happened, a scottish king came. It used to be james v. And shakespeare had to change his theatrical practice. Now there was a different monarch on the throne, and he needed to flatter that monarch. So, for example, in the play macbeth, theres a procession of kings. And when james watched that performance and we belief he did believe he did he would have been seeing his own ancestors in this play, and they would have reflected well on him. So shakespeare was really aware of his political audience. And thats interesting because we live in washington, and washington is a political city which you know so well. Shakespeare was careful as a writer. He didnt want to offend his noble patrons or the monarch. But he also was such a good storyteller that he could get himself into territory that might have been uncomfortable for someone who was directly addressing the king or the queen. There are some things you just cant say to a monarch. But shakespeare wrote a play could richard ii about a monarch who has to give over his crown to someone who has forced him to be deposed. Now, talk about a controversial idea. You couldnt suggest that about a sitting monarch, but you could show it in a play. And so shakespeare had a way of getting into that tricky territory by using storytelling and theater. Host what else do you want to show us here guest let me show you host by the way, this is open to the public through march 27th. Guest correct. Host this may air after march 27th, but if people wanted to come and see this after march 27th guest well, thats why we created shakespeare documented, because that is an even more comprehensive record of this exhibition. There are 50 very rare documents in this exhibition physically, but there are 400 items that are on shakespeare documented. So if you go to shakespearedocumented. Org, youll be able to see all of this material. Host great. Guest let me show you another item which i think is very interesting. Over here were going to have to watch out for the light here. This is a page of what many believe to be shakespeares handwriting. Its called the sir thomas moore manuscript. Its written in something called secretary hand which is a particular type of scribal handwriting that shakespeare knew. Its also difficult to decipher if you havent had experience looking at that type of writing. Its part of a play called sir thomas moore that we think shakespeare wrote because of the style. And theres been computer tests to can ask how much does this particular style resemble shakespeare or other candidates. But whats remarkable about it is, it is a beautiful passage about refugees. And its so timely as you think about the e. U. Struggling to accommodate all of these people who put their lives and their children on the sea in the hopes of fleeing a very dangerous place. This speech from sir thomas moore asks the question why would you put your family at risk and bet on the sea when it turns out that staying on land might even be more dangerous. So weve got this marvelous, really powerful passage that was written by shakespeare on a piece of vellum that is possibly written in his own hand. It is one of the most valuable documents in the world, and were very lucky to have this document here in the United States. It has never traveled out of the u. K. , and its here until end of march. Host and now you say this document may have been written guest right. Host by William Shakespeare himself. Why dont you know . Does his writing exist anywhere . Guest thats a really good question. We have confidence that we have six signatures of shakespeare. Host in the world. Guest in the world. Host not at the folger, but guest not at the folger. The folger does not own any signatures. Our colleagues in britain have different documents. Theyre legal documents that have shakespeares signature on them. When you think about that, there are only so many letters in someones signature, and when you sign your name, you may not sign it in the same way that you would write a letter to someone, because you do it often. That means that if you want to authenticate a whole page of writing and say that its shakespeares writing, you really only have a couple of letters to work with for your comparison. And for that reason, we would say that it is very tough to establish that a particular piece of writing is beyond a doubt by William Shakespeare. But this is a very suggestive example. Its hard to rule it out, and it is stylistically, looks a lot like shakespeare, so we tend to think of

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