Tag: Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s ‘Salad Days’. Expectations of HVI part 1

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Only 6 years between these albums:  less time than between Richard III and Macbeth …

‘Please Please Me’ or ‘Abbey Road’?

‘Surfin’ Safari’ or ‘Pet Sounds’?

‘Hangin’ Tough’ or ‘The Block’?

[please note – I’ve only ever listened to just four of those albums.  Promise.  I hope you can infer which they are!]

As I approach the first monthly instalment of my Arden Amble, what are my expectations from a work I know relatively little about?  Why start the journey of a thousand steps with a month reading and blogging about Henry VI Part 1?

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Volumes that I prize above my dukedom …

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Amongst the cosmetic changes I’ve made over the past few days, you might have noticed the arrival of a new page:  The Boar’s Head Bookshelf.

What’s that all about?

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Come, and take choice of all my library

… and so beguile thy sorrow  (Titus Andronicus)

An era ended on Thursday this week …

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Like Hyperion to a satyr …

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Back in November I compared the next President of the USA to Richard III. A little reluctantly, given I have some sympathy, and a degree of fondness, for Richard.

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Exit, pursued by Redditors

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Reddit’s not ALWAYS like wearing this to the zoo …

I find it interesting that many students are aghast when I tell them that whilst I don’t do Facebook, I DO spend some time on Reddit.

Usually, it’s the more sensible ones who register the most shock.  It’s not the horror of having someone as old as their dad (increasingly I seem to be older, actually), trying to be ‘down with the kids’ – they seem more worried that I’m entering the big cat enclosure in the zoo wearing one of those outfits that seem to be made entirely of slices of bacon …

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Beat the Teacher (part 1)

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I know this; and thus I challenge it. (Henry V)

How do you get a bunch of giddy Year 8s to do some ‘proper’ contextual research for HW, rather than just ripping stuff off Wikipedia, printing it without actually reading it?

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Cheaper than a Harley. Easier than growing a ponytail …

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How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!


Why this?  Why now?  And why so slow?  What on earth would prompt someone to commit to a read-through of Shakespeare’s plays?

I decided to do this about 6 weeks ago, let’s say about the end of November 2016.  In many ways this post is a way to work through my motivations, as well as finally committing to the project.

Continue reading “Cheaper than a Harley. Easier than growing a ponytail …”

The School Shakespeare Timetable

O, is it all forgot?

All school-days’ friendship, childhood innocence?

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Image copyright: King Edward VI school

What does the Shakespeare curriculum look like in the UK in 2017?

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‘Weak with toil, yet strong in appetite’

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Ron Cook in the BBC’s 1983 production.  Underrated.

‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.’

What do Sundays look like for an English teacher and Shakespeare obsessive?

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Henry V, War Criminal?

bh-cover-henry-v-war-criminal ‘… like Olivier, Branagh ducked what is the most contentious element in the play for British audiences, namely Henry’s apparently criminal massacre of his helpless French prisoners …’

John Sutherland

 

 

I bought this book, which arrived today, on the strength of the fun I had with another of John Sutherland’s: ‘Is Heathcliffe a Murderer?  Puzzles in 19th-Century Fiction.’

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