Calliope articles from April 2005

Calliope archives from April 2005

Musings.(William Shakespeare)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2005... This above all: To thine own self be true. --Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 1, Scene III, line 84) IF YOU TAKE A MOMENT TO THINK OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE LIVED OR ARE LIVING STILL AND TRY to name those whose reputation has made them known around...

Time line.(Brief Article)(Calendar)
April 1, 2005... All dates are A.D. 1558 Elizabeth I becomes queen of England. 1564 William Shakespeare is born in Stratford-upon-Avon. 1582 Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway. 1581 Shakespeare may have left Stratford for London around...

'All the world's a stage'.(Biography)
April 1, 2005... When William Shakespeare crossed Stratford's Clopton Bridge and began his long journey to London, little could he have imagined what lay ahead. He did, however, know exactly what he had left behind--a wife, a young daughter, infant twins, and...

The truth about Shakespeare.(William Shakespeare)(Biography)
April 1, 2005... For centuries, scholars have pored through documents to determine the truth about William Shakespeare and his life in the English town of Stratford-upon-Avon. Key to their search for indisputable facts are the local parish registers--the...

Quote code.(Activity)
April 1, 2005... One of the testimonies to Shakespeare's timelessness is that nearly 400 years after he lived you can still hear quotes from his plays in everyday conversation. Read the quotes at right. How many do you recognize? At the bottom of the page,...

Shakespeare's London.
April 1, 2005... At just about the time the English navy defeated the Spanish Armada, a young actor named William Shakespeare came to London. Although small by modern standards, the city was then the largest, most exciting place in England. It lay on the banks...

The Tempest.(Play)(Excerpt)
April 1, 2005... The Tempest is one of the last plays William Shakespeare wrote. In the beginning, a storm (the "tempest" of the play's title) batters a ship carrying the king of Naples, a city on the west coast of Italy, to Tunis, a city in Tunisia, in...

Who's who?(Activity)
April 1, 2005... In 1849, the English artist Sir John Gilbert painted The Plays of William Shakespeare incorporating as many of Shakespeare's characters as possible. How many can you identify? Use the list below as clues. To help you, we have grouped together...

At the theater.(Folger Shakespeare Theater)
April 1, 2005... The Folger Shakespeare Library has staff of librarians who answer questions about Shakespeare for scholars and the general public. Here are some of the most frequentlt asked questions about the theaters of Shakespeare's day: How many...

Dogs.(Shakespeare's Expressions)
April 1, 2005... Shakespeare gave us "puppy-dog" in King John, Act 2, Scene 1, line 480, where the word is said to be used by "maids of thirteen." He was not the first to say a "dog will have his day," which he uses in Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1, line 311. But most...

Method in madness.(Shakespeare's Expressions)
April 1, 2005... Our expression "There's method in this madness" comes from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, lines 223-224. In the play, Hamlet puts on an "antic disposition"--a pretense of madness--to try to find out whether the ghost he meets in Act I is his father's...

Language logic.(Activity)
April 1, 2005... Shakespeare wrote in what we call "Early Modern English." This means that, while some words might sound strange, we could probably understand him if we were to have a conversation with him. Shakespeare is well-known for having made up words,...

The Folger Theatre.
April 1, 2005... In Shakespeare's outdoor Globe theater, these seats in the upper balcony were the most expensive. In today's indoor Folger Theatre, the artists use the second balcony and the audience sits below. Notice also the overhead canopy, referred to as...

Blackfriars, then and now.
April 1, 2005... Imagine pawning your everyday clothes to purchase a silk gown with golden threads or a richly embroidered waistcoat to wear to an afternoon's performance of The Tempest at London's Blackfriars Theatre. Imagine now carefully putting on those...

From lead to gold.(William Shakespeare)
April 1, 2005... Why is Shakespeare considered England's most famous author? Certainly not because of his stories. After all, he copied most of them from history books, myths, old tales, and other sources. Although he did incredibly inventive work with what he...

Out of house and home household words.(Shakespeare's Expressions)
April 1, 2005... In Henry the Fourth, Part 2, Mistress Quickly complains about Falstaff's enormous appetite and his unwillingness to pay for all he consumes. "He hath eaten me out of house and home," she cries. (Act 2, Scene 1, line 76) The idea that...

Fun with words.
April 1, 2005... Shakespeare loved making up words and probably invented more words than any other writer in the English language. He also is known to have used words and expressions that were being commonly used but not yet written down or found in...

Shakespeare's other world.(William Shakespeare)
April 1, 2005... In Shakespeare's magical plays A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest, fairies and sprites work magic and dabble for a time in human affairs. Shakespeare drew inspiration for these otherworldly characters from oral tales filled with fairies,...

Dispelling the rumors.(William Shakespeare)
April 1, 2005... Doubts about whether Shakespeare really wrote the plays and poems attributed to him began surfacing in the late 1700s, almost 200 years after his death. Some anti-Shakespeare forces even questioned his existence. Others argued that it was...

The lure of Shakespeare.(From Past to Present)(William Shakespeare)
April 1, 2005... Many people consider Shakespeare the greatest writer in the English language. His legions of admirers point with awe to the rhythm of his words and the wide range of human emotions he portrays and evokes. But has Shakespeare always been so...

Folger Shakespeare Library.(William Shakespeare)
April 1, 2005... When someone says Shakespeare, what's the first place that comes to mind? Maybe London, where Shakespeare achieved great theatrical success? Perhaps Stratford-upon-Avon, where he grew up? But, it is definitely England, right? No! Not if...

Essential Shakespeare Handbook.(BOOKS)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... Essential Shakespeare Handbook, by Leslie Dunton-Downer and Alan Riding (DK, 2004, www.dk.com), includes a fully illustrated guide to the Bard's works, play by play, accompanied by a multitude of color photographs, explanatory charts, and fact...

The New Folger Library Editions.(BOOKS)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... The New Folger Library Editions, edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine (Washington Square-Pocket, 1999-present, NFLS editions at www.folger.edu), is an excellent series that offers each play as a separate paperback. Each volume includes...

The Usborne World of Shakespeare.(BOOKS)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
April 1, 2005... The Usborne World of Shakespeare, by Anna Claybourne and Mary Cartwright (Usborne Publishing, 2001, www.edcpub.com), accompanies two-page topic spreads about Shakespeare, his times, and his works with a great variety of diagrams, well-chosen...

Cobblestone resources.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2005... Materials that complement this theme's topic, "William Shakespeare, Master Playwright," and are available from Cobblestone Publishing include: Mary, Queen of Scots (CAL0403) Victoria, Queen of England (CAL030S) Captain Cook...

On the net.(Off the Shelf)
April 1, 2005... For a great site that has a wealth of information about Shakespeare with links to many related sites, go to: www.shakespeare.org.uk/homepage For a complete listing of Shakespeare's works with links to the text of each, check out: ...

Ask Calliope.
April 1, 2005... ? I've read of the inscriptions Emperor Ashoka of India had carved on stone pillars and sides of large rocks. Can you give me an example of one? --Marianne, 12, Web post ! Here's one from Edict 12: One should honor another person's...

The Straus Center at Harvard.
April 1, 2005... The oldest fine arts conservation research and training facility, the Straus Center provides analysis and treatments for the more than 150,000 objects in the collections of the Harvard University Art Museums. On a limited basis, it also...

Reversing the damage.(restoring paper artifacts)
April 1, 2005... Time, dirt, rough handling, improper storage--all are potential threats to the preservation of paper artifacts. This list, however, does not include one of the most destructive causes of paper damage: the adhesives used to attach paper...

Meet two conservators.(Henry Lie, Craigen Bowen)(Interview)
April 1, 2005... How did you come to be a conservator? Henry Lie: After studying art history in college, I wasn't sure that I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing just that one thing and maybe spending a lot of time in the library doing it. I already...

Try washing paper.(Activity)
April 1, 2005... Time, sunlight, dirt--combine any one of these with paper, and it is the paper that will suffer. While the result is sometimes irreversible, other times a little washing will help. How? Just follow the directions for a simple experiment using...