ENGL210 PEER REVIEW 12
I have watched an excellent example of transmedia creativity – a breaking news story that has cleverly employed the conventions of the news broadcast genre to create humour, whilst advancing the story of our friends from Shakespeare in the Library, Halley Prince, Helen Hotspur, and Jackie Falstaff. Great work! Informative and entertaining!
ENGL210 PEER REVIEW 11
Halley Prince, Jackie Falstaff, and Helen Hotspur’s adventures have taken an unexpected turn, don’t miss the unfolding drama! In this creative response to the story thus far, Henry IV reveals, via email, to his loyal librarians that a new library is opening across the road in competition! This new episode uses music in a highly effective manner to compliment the text and build drama. The introduction of a new complication to the story has increased the tensions in the narrative and driven the plot forwards in a dynamic and exciting way.
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 14
In Episode Four of Shakespeare in the Library, Falstaff gets revenge on Hotspur! But will the wily Falstaff escape undetected? Or, will Hotspur have the last laugh? And where is Hal? She’s not revising for the Dewey decimal bookshelf sort – what will happen at the interview for Head Librarian?
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 13
Welcome to Episode Three of Shakespeare in the Library, where the wicked Hotspur has come across the chaos left in Falstaff’s wake. Will Hotspur tell Head Librarian, Henry IV (the 4th Henry to be Head Librarian since the early 1960s), that Falstaff has been corrupting Prince Hal again? Or, will Hotspur take advantage of Hal’s absence to practice the Dewey decimal system and beat Hal in the race to be promoted to Head Librarian?
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 12
In Episode Two of Shakespeare in the Library, Halley Prince (Prince Hal), the Head Librarian’s daughter, is shocked to find that someone has been messing up the bookshelves and they’ve put the Dewey decimal system into chaos! Could it be Hotspur trying to sabotage Hal? Or could someone else be behind the disarray? Will Hal get the shelves back to rights before her disapproving father spots the mess? Or, will the Head Librarian find out that Hal’s been talking to the mischievous Falstaff again?
Shakespeare In The Library
Check out the Shakespeare In The Library’s Facebook Page and you can chat with your favourite characters! Halley Prince (Prince Hal), Jackie Falstaff, and Helen Hotspur!
https://www.facebook.com/ShakespeareInTheLibrary
Me hopes to see thee there!
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 11
Meet Halley Prince, the Head Librarian’s daughter. One day she too will follow in her father’s great footsteps and become Head Librarian! But will her great future be put at risk through the influence of the cheeky Falstaff, who has got Halley (Prince Hal) addicted to popular magazines! If she doesn’t keep up her reading of the classics, will the competitive Hotspur rob Halley of the promotion? Will there be war amongst the bookshelves? There will be blood, sweat, tears, and mistaken Dewey decimal placements before this tale comes to its end!
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 9
Colonial Australians had a paradoxical yet passionate relationship with the great William Shakespeare. The relationship begins in the twilight of settlement with a playbill for a performance of Henry IV that took place on the 8th of April 1800 at “The Theatre” in Sydney being amongst some of the earliest Australian printed documents (Warner 6). The performance was staged by an ex-convict baker, Robert Sidaway, and his leading lady was Mrs. Parry, who finished off the performance with a short song and dance routine for the audience of mainly military personnel (Jordan 7).
Victoria Theatre, Sydney, 1854
There were numerous performances of Shakespeare in the early days of the colony, as an article from The Australian in 1825 attests that £226 was made from the performance of 16 Shakespeare plays over the course of 20 nights (3). Yet, the opinion of the colonial authorities was heated as the Colonial Secretary was concerned that the unrefined people of Sydney would be incited to riot and ill behaviour by witnessing plays, particularly Life in Sydney: or, The Ran Dan Club, staged in 1843, which was a play based on Pierce Egan’s Tom and Jerry, itself an adaptation of the Falstaff/Prince Hal relationship from Henry IV (Fotheringham and Turner ixi). However, many of the colonial playbills were published in British newspapers in London to promote the idea that the colony was becoming refined, a note to a news-clipping from 1797 states “Copy of A Botany Bay Play Bill shews to what degree of refinement that the settlement has already attained” (Whittington 93).
Shakespeare Place, Sydney, 1956
Thus, in the great carnivalesque tradition, the performance of Shakespeare in the colony was seen as an outlet for subversion yet, conversely was also a civilising project to insure the ex-convicts benefited from the gifts of culture. Shakespeare was also viewed as a way to maintain connections to the motherland as an article from the Launceston Examiner, 24th April 1894 attests many Australians tried to find records of their family in baptism records of Stratford, and “Australians [were] obsessed to know all the habits of Shakespeare” (Barrett 6).
Shakespeare Memorial, Sydney, 2013
In fact, throughout the 1800s and early 1900s newspaper articles show numerous examples of rampant bardolatry, a tree erected to Shakespeare (The Mercury 8), a push for the erection of a monument to Shakespeare in Sydney (The Mercury 10), a call for the new Australian capital to be named Shakespeare (The Brisbane Courier 6), a stallion named Shakespeare (Australian Town and Country Journal 21), calls for Australian students to learn Shakespeare (Goulburn Evening Penny Post 4), and the celebration of the erection of the Shakespeare monument in Sydney (The Sydney Morning Herald 12). So, why did Australia have such a passionate love for Shakespeare? And does the continued popularity of the Bell Shakespeare show that our love of the noble bard continues? Do we love him because of the “degree of refinement” he brings to the country? I doubt it. I suspect that what Australians see in Shakespeare today is what they saw in colonial times, a writer who can speak to all classes of society because he speaks to our common humanity.
Works Cited
Barrett, Abraham. “Shakespeare. ” Launceston Examiner 24 April 1894: 6. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
Fotheringham, Richard, and Angela Turner. Australian Plays for the Colonial Stage: 1834-1899. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2006. Print.
Jordan, Robert. The Convict Theatres of Early Australia: 1788-1840. Sydney: Currency House, 2002. Print.
“Public Taste.” The Australian. 28 June 1825: 3. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare.” Australian Town and Country Journal. 6 May 1876: 21. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare.” Goulburn Evening Penny Post. 18 June 1926: 4. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare Place.” Photograph. 1956. Sydney. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare.” The Brisbane Courier. 31 Oct.1910: 6. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare.” The Mercury. 13 July 1912: 10. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare Tree.” The Mercury. 18 Jan 1940: 8. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
“Shakespeare Memorial.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 2 June 1925: 12. Trove. Web. 3 May. 2013.
Warner, Colin. “The Quest for Australia’s Oldest Surviving Document.” M.A.R.G.I.N. (2003): 5-10. Web. 3 May. 2013.
Whittington, G.D. Theatrical Scraps Consisting of Various Casts of Shakespears Plays, & other Stock Pieces. Also many other things relating to the Theatres of London. 1782-1799
The playbill was published in the Oracle, 13 July 1797. Mitchell Library Online. Web. 3 May. 2013.
PEER REVIEW 8
I have read a very clever poem that reflects not only the significance of the relationship between Hal and Falstaff but also captures the tone and style of Hal’s voice most convincingly. The poem re-creates the playful way that Hal regards Falstaff. In lines such as “chivalry may escape him like honesty,” Hal teasingly digs at Falstaff’s tendency for trickery and exaggeration yet Hal’s affection for Falstaff is still clear. “About life he doth know most quaintly” alludes to Falstaff’s great understanding of the simple things in life, which are so much of what is truly important to being human. I particularly liked the line “see his knowledge like the sea,” placing emphasis on the vast wisdom of lived experience that Falstaff holds beneath his outwardly foolish appearance.
The image of a great girth as something earthy, generous and comforting is created in the line, “Banish plump Jack – banish all the world,” as the image of a great, globe of a jolly belly is juxtaposed with the image of the world, the great globe that is Earth itself. We therefore see that there is something fundamental to the experience of life that Falstaff, with all his supposed imperfection, embodies. It does prompt the question, what does Hal really lose when he denies Falstaff? Does some part of Hal’s or indeed our own humanity die when we reject the earthy freedom and excess of Falstaff?
Works Cited
Henry V. Dir. Thea Sharrock. Perf. Tom Hiddleston, John Hurt, and Julie Waters. BBC 2, 2012. TV Film. Web. 24 April. 2013.
ENGL210 JOURNAL ENTRY 8
Falstaff: Honour’s a mere tombstone!
Cleopatra: Antony thinks ’tis not so.
To die by Roman hand, Roman honour, Roman duty
Is to die most nobly, most rightly
Yet would he see me Rome’s whore
Paraded before plebs, lunged at, laughed at
Till all that was Cleopatra fall into a dust, lost upon the winds of fate!
Falstaff: Nay, but would you not be safe,
To live and laugh another day?
Do not choose a proud man’s folly, be not so grave
Tis foolish to set honour above life,
When none but worms will feed upon your honour in the earth!
Cleopatra: I am great and mighty Egypt,
I will not kneel at Rome’s feet
Caesar will not make me his toy,
A master of men’s minds he may be,
But a mere boy will not make me his trinket,
Cleopatra will ever be mistress of men’s hearts.
Works Cited
Claesz, Pieter. Vanitas. 1630. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, Netherlands. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis Online. Web. 22 April. 2013.
Cleopatra. Dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Rouben Mamoulian. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton.Twentieth Century Fox, 1963. Film. Web. 22 April. 2013.
Grutzner, Eduard Von. Falstaff with a Pewter Tankard.1921. Private Collection. Art Prints On Demand. Web. 22 April. 2013.
"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." William Blake
ENGL329 The Visionary Imagination
A topnotch WordPress.com site
A fine WordPress.com site
To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour - William Blake
ENGL329
A Canadian poet, his poetry & other works
Shakespeare & The Renaissance
Literature, Philosophy, Art, Music, Drama
Smile! You’re at the best WordPress.com site ever
It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves - William Shakespeare
This is Jasynda Radanovic blogging space
Just another WordPress.com site
Exploring Shakespeare and the Renaissance.
Just another WordPress.com site
Sara's 19th Century Literature Blog
Just another WordPress.com site
In Eternal Lines To Time Thou Grow'st 