How Goes It, Will?

 

 

Yesterday was the final day of Shakespeare’s “first folios” exhibit at the UVic Legacy Art Gallery – located a paltry two blocks from the office. Four folios under glass, each with a write-up to give meaning to the visual. Ter and I meant to go last weekend, but our plans were waylaid and the event fell off our radar. If a co-worker hadn’t reminded me this afternoon, I would have missed seeing them. Even if you don’t like Shakespeare, as a writer, one must pay due homage. Fortunately, I love Shakespeare.

 

However, I admit I am unfamiliar with more than the titles of the bulk of his work. Of his entire output, I’ve actually seen four plays (and on film rather than live, my bad): Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and Othello; but, like most folks, I am aware of so much more – too many to mention here. The folios exhibit only served to remind me that I have but scratched the surface of his genius. Fortunately, his plays are still produced and performed at every turn, on TV, at the beach, at the playhouse, on Youtube, on DVD and Blu-Ray. I reckon at some point we’ll see Hamlet talking to himself as a hologram.

 

So how can I say I love him when I hardly know him? Gee, can he being the most prolific, most famous, most revered and respected writer of all time have anything to do with it? His stuff has endured. Ironically, he was likely not as respected in his heyday as he is now – plays were naught but cheap entertainment and playwrights a gang of penniless charlatans in search of wealthy patrons to supplement their habit. I know what I’d have had to put out to get someone to support me … not that there were many (if any) female writers in Will’s time. Heck, we weren’t even allowed to play a female role on stage!

 

But back to the exhibit. Wow. I took some time from work and hiked over, grateful in the end that the display is so small, as I was able to knock it off in twenty-five minutes. Two of the folios are actually owned by the Legislative Library here in Victoria!?! Each was opened to a relevant page but the print is so small that I couldn’t get close enough to read without concussing myself on the glass. No matter. It was enough to learn that Charles I owned a copy of the first folio at some point (not the one I saw, but one in the 1632 print run) and had scribbled notes in the margins while languishing in prison. And a fair number of copies of the third folio, while awaiting binding, were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, which makes copies of them extremely rare. Who knew?

 

If I stood and stared for long enough, my mind – as with the dialogue when spoken – began to interpret the words so that they made sense. I still can’t fathom why, in the 17^th century, the letter “s” was printed as “f”; it really does confuse things. And might have caused me a moment’s embarrassment had I laughed out loud over “Richard the Fecund” in the second folio’s table of contents. Just looking at the tiny print and the absurd spelling of so many words was humbling. So much of our daily vernacular was sprung from those pages. They say he had a vocabulary of over 8,000 words. I have no idea if that’s good or not, but it sure sounds impressive. However many words he had at his command, he made the most poetic use of them. He had an enviable grip on emotional manipulation of the audience, that’s for sure!