Shakespeare 1

Greetings Mr. Bartley. Let me begin by saying that if you visit the city of Stratford-upon-Avon in England today, the first thing you’ll probably hear is that I was born in 1564. We don’t actually know the exact day, but we do know that I was baptized on April 26th at Holy Trinity Church. Since baptisms usually happened a few days after birth, tradition has settled on April 23rd — St. George’s Day — as my birthday. A fitting coincidence, since St. George is England’s patron saint and many individuals said during an after my life that Iwould become England’s greatest poet.

Master Shakespeare, could you tell us a little bit more
about YOUR background in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Certainly. I was the son of John Shakespeare, a glove maker and part-time wool dealer who rose to become an alderman in the town, and Mary Arden, who came from a well-off farming family.  My parents gave me a household connected both to trade and to old Warwickshire landowners.

Mr. Shakespeare, may I be so bold as to ask you what irritates you the most?  

What stings is when people decide
I simply sprang from the stage fully formed.
No rough drafts.
No homework.
Just “Ta-da, here’s Hamlet.”
I was not born quoting To be, or not to be”?
When I was twelve,
my most famous line was probably,
“Master, may I please go outside? My hand is cramping.”

Transcript

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity and Conversations with Shakespeare. This episode is the first of three episodes about the greatest writer in the English language - perhaps in ANY language - William Shakespeare.

And yes, looking back through the transcript for the previous episode, I saw that I had mentioned that this episode would be about the bobble head figure of Edgar Allan Poe.
As usual, let me get the disclaimer out-of-the-way.

I’m George Bartley… now let’s have some fun.

This podcast will initially have three episodes dealing with William Shakespeare because of his importance to the English language.

Greetings Mr. Bartley. Let me begin by saying that if you visit the city of Stratford-upon-Avon in England today, the first thing you’ll probably hear is that I was born in 1564. We don’t actually know the exact day, but we do know that I was baptized on April 26th at Holy Trinity Church. Since baptisms usually happened a few days after birth, tradition has settled on April 23rd — St. George’s Day — as my birthday. A fitting coincidence, since St. George is England’s patron saint and many individuals said during an after my life that Iwould become England’s greatest poet.

Master Shakespeare, could you tell us a little bit more
about YOUR background in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Certainly. I was the son of John Shakespeare, a glove maker and part-time wool dealer who rose to become an alderman in the town, and Mary Arden, who came from a well-off farming family.  My parents gave me a household connected both to trade and to old Warwickshire landowners.

Mr. Shakespeare, may I be so bold as to ask you what irritates you the most?  

What stings is when people decide
I simply sprang from the stage fully formed.
No rough drafts.
No homework.
Just “Ta-da, here’s Hamlet.”
I was not born quoting To be, or not to be”?
When I was twelve,
my most famous line was probably,
“Master, may I please go outside? My hand is cramping.”

Let me guess.
School?

Aye.
If you truly wish to understand my plays,
you must first visit my schoolroom.
Not a drama school.
Not a writer’s workshop.
A grammar school.
A rhetoric boot camp
in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Shakespeare
So…
add a stern schoolmaster,
a Latin textbook,
and about forty restless boys
who have been here since six o’clock in the morning and will be here six days every week.
And, all our classes were conducted in Latin.
Now Picture me there.
A town boy.
Son of a glove-maker.
At one end of the hall,
a large window.
At the other,
the schoolmaster with a rod that could silence an army.

We begin with grammar.
Nouns and verbs.
Endings and endings and more endings.
Latin prayers.
Latin fables.
Copying out lines until your wrist aches.

But that is only the doorway.

And beyond the doorway… rhetoric?

Just so.
When the master decides you are ready,
he stops asking only,
“What does this sentence mean?”
He starts asking,
“How does this sentence work?”
Why this word and not that one?
Why this order and not another?
Why does Cicero sound like a trumpet,
and another writer like a sleep remedy?
That, my friend,
is rhetoric—
the art of building words
so they move people.

George
So you might say thatlittle William Shakespeare
spent his childhood learning
how to argue?

SHAKESPEARE 
To argue.
To arrange.
To decorate.
To deliver.

In Latin, of course.
The master would hand us a short passage—
a speech, a story, a proverb—
and then the real work began.

SHAKESPEARE ACTION FIGURE (TEACHER MODE):
Allow me to show you
three tricks of that trade
that followed me all the way
from the school desk
to the stage.


SHAKESPEARE:
First: antithesis.

The master would say,
“William, write me a sentence in Latin
that contrasts two things.
Not this… but that.”

So I might write,
“Not the lazy boy, but the diligent one
deserves praise.”
You feel the little seesaw, do you not?
Lazy–diligent.
Not this–but that.
Years later, on stage,
it turns into things like:

“Some are born great,
some achieve greatness,
and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.”
Three kinds of greatness.
Side by side.
Balanced like scales.

George
So what sounds like a brilliant flourish
starts out as…
a homework problem.

SHAKESPEARE
Many brilliant flourishes
begin as homework problems.
And what sounds like a beautiful language started out as individual letters of the alphabet.

SHAKESPEARE 
Second: anaphora.

That is the fancy name
for repeating the same word or phrase
at the start of several lines.

The Schoolmaster might say,
“Take one idea.
Begin three sentences with the same phrase.
Make each sentence stronger than the last.”
So a boy writes,
“I fear failure.
I fear shame.
I fear the master’s rod.”

Crude, perhaps,
but the pattern is in place.

Now listen to a grown man
standing over the body of Julius Caesar.

(LOWER, RICHER, PERFORMER MODE)
“And Brutus is an honourable man.”
Again.
“And Brutus is an honourable man.”
Again.
Again.
Soon the words turn on themselves.
What sounded like praise
becomes a knife.
That is anaphora.
Repetition that quietly
changes the meaning.

George
And from what I understand - the schoolboys didn’t just read this.
They had to say it.

SHAKESPEARE ACTION FIGURE:
Oh yes.
We read.
We copied.
We memorized.
We stood up in front of the room
and spoke our own little speeches aloud.

When you hear a Shakespeare character
moving a crowd,
you are hearing a boy from Stratford
who has already some what moved
a classroom full of other boys
with a trembling, practised voice.

SHAKESPEARE ACTION FIGURE:
Now The third trick has a longer name:
prosopopoeia.  pros-uh-puh-PEE-uh

It means giving speech
to someone—or something—
that does not usually speak.

Death.
Honour.
A city.
A season.

Block a
Or speaking on behalf of the rest of the alphabet blocks, pros-uh-puh-PEE-uh could refer to our conversations at night since no one expects us to converse.

Shakespeare
Precisely. That is an excellent example.
In my situation, the schoolmaster might say
“Write a short speech
as if you were Winter.
What would Winter say?”

So a boy begins,
“I am Winter.
I chase the leaves from the trees.
I drive men indoors.”
Clumsy, perhaps,
but the door has opened.
Now, years later,
on stage…

Ghosts speak.
Rome speaks.
Jealousy speaks.
In my sonnets,
even Time and Love
argue back and forth with me
like two very stubborn lawyers.

NARRATOR (TO LISTENER):
All right, Will.
You’ve shown us your schoolroom tricks.
What should our listeners do with them?

SHAKESPEARE ACTION FIGURE (TEACHER MODE, FRIENDLY):
They may try a very small exercise.
Choose any character you like.
Perhaps a hero.
Perhaps a villain.
Perhaps a toy from your own childhood shelf.
Give that character
three little lines to say.
First, use antithesis.
“Not this… but that.”
“I am not X; I am Y.”

Second, repeat one phrase
at the start of each line—
that is anaphora.  Such as

Doubt thou the stars are fire; 
Doubt that the sun doth move
And Third, if you feel brave,
let something that cannot speak
borrow your voice for a moment.
A season.
A city.
A feeling.
A forgotten action figure.

There.
You have just done
the same kind of homework
that prepared me
to write speeches for kings
and fools
and star-cross’d lovers.

George
So when you hear a Shakespeare speech—
a king roaring before battle,
a young woman arguing for love,
a friend turning a mob
with nothing but words—

remember the boy in the schoolroom.

The long wooden desk.
The ink-stained fingers.
The master clapping for silence.
And somewhere in the back row,
a thin, dark-haired boy
testing out a new sentence,
a new pattern,
a new rhythm—

just another bit of schoolroom rhetoric
that, one day,
will bring a whole theatre to its feet.

SHAKESPEARE 
To move a soul with language,
you must first learn
how language moves.
How the letters on your the faces on you alphabet blocks can form wonderful words and beautiful language

George
Now I must say Good night, Will.

SHAKESPEARE ACTION FIGURE (LIGHTLY):
Good night, good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow
that I shall say good night
till it be morrow.

George
Ah, there it is.
The schoolboy
and the playwright
in the same line.

Sources Include:  Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare by Isaac Asimov, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human by Harold Bloom, Shakesfear and How to Cure It, an unpublished manuscript by Ralph Cohen, and ChatGPT four. 

Join celebrate creativity for the Second part of this very special three part series with the William Shakespeare aas it center

Thank you for listening to celebrate creativity.

Greensleeves, traditional, performed by George Bartley, Source: Fallingwater Dreams by George Bartley. License: Public Domain (composition) / Creative Commons (recording).