the-full-shakespearience reblogged
Boy, I felt that one
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
Has this been done yet?
Alternately just sign up to read with us
He was not of an age, but for all time
Sometimes that famous quote by Ben Johnson about Shakespeare feels more real to me. Shakespeare's work has been hugely popular for over 400 years, and it connects us not just to his time but to all the time in between.
This is a page from from my copy of Macbeth from The Temple Shakespeare. The Temple Shakespeare was a collection of Shakespeare's plays published individually. These little red volumes were published prolifically from 1894 - 1930 (The New Temple Shakespeare was published from 1934 - 1956). They're fairly common in vintage bookstores throughout the English-speaking world. My copy of Macbeth was published in 1896.
One of the previous owners (perhaps the original owner) left their name inside the cover:
It looks to me like the name is Z. R. Stuber (though it could also be E. R. Stuber). There is also a little ticket listing the bookseller, Gilbert and Field at 67 Moorsgate Street, London E.C. The only information I can find about the bookseller is a reference from the Royal Academy of Art. They have a listing for Don Quixote of the Mancha by Edward Abbott Parry that also had a ticket in the front cover for the same bookseller, which they describe only as a book seller in London during the 1890s.
The area of the city that housed this bookshop was heavily bombed during the Second World War, which lead to the widening of London Wall just west of here. Most of the buildings around this address are obviously modern, though this building is either older or was built/restored in an older style.
This is 67 Moorgate today, a store selling designer greeting cards and stationary:
This book went on its own journey for more than 120 years before I acquired it, being bought and sold an unknown number of times before getting here. It is a century older than I am. The people who first printed, sold, and bought it are gone. The store that sold it is gone. The street it was sold on is unrecognizable. The company that published it was bought by another company that was in turn bought, like a matryoshka doll of corporations.
The story inside was already ancient when this was published, and now the world in which it was created is as inaccessible as the Elizabethan Era.
And yet something has endured.
Knowing that other people have shared in these stories with us makes them real like almost nothing else can. Charles I retitled his copy of Much Ado About Nothing. Sylvia Plath annotated her Hamlet. Z. R. Stuber left their name in Macbeth.
This is my copy of Macbeth now, but for how long? Will it outlive me? Will its fragile pages fall apart before I do? Or maybe I'll leave my name in the cover so that one day someone else can try to decipher my handwriting and know that we read the same lines.
she rosencrantz on my guildenstern until the both of us are dead
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
sometimes I look at the things my dear friend Harley used to tag me in and think, yeah , we all should have seen this autism diagnosis coming
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
i love the concept of divorce lawyers. the only things in the world that have the power to undo your marriage are death itself or a special little boy with a law degree.
til death or some guy do us part
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
"problem plays" this "romances" that I'm proposing new and exciting Shakespearean Play Groupings for your amusement!
- The Bad Dad Triad: King Lear, Henry IV Part 1, Romeo and Juliet
- The "My Wife's A Floozy" Trifecta: Othello, Much Ado About Nothing, the Winter's Tale
- The "Me And My Shitty Little Minion Are About To Fuck Up Your Shit Hardcore" Trilogy: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III, the Tempest
- The Falstaffiad: Henry IV part 1, Henry IV part 2, The Merry Wives of Windsor
- The "Holy Fuck There's Two of 'Em" Saga: Twelfth Night, the Comedy of Errors
- The "Dear Diary My Homoerotic Bullshit Has A Body Count Now" Series: Richard II, Julius Caesar, Coriolanus
- The "Why Are The Fucking Trees Trying To Kill Me. Hate This Shit" Trilogy: Macbeth, the Winter's Tale, As You Like It
I'd like to create "I Gave Up Hope and Died and It Worked" for Hamlet and Timon of Athens
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
Dumb little Taming of the Shrew Playlist
Connecting to questionably sexist 16th century characters is hard
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
Taming of the Shrew Memes
I’m currently performing in a production of Taming of the Shrew and I was so disappointed to discover there were barely any niche memes about the play it’s filled with so many dumb plans and idiot characters. So I did the lord’s work and made some memes myself. You’re welcome. Feel free to add your own
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
tragedies make me unhinged for obvious reasons but there's something about problematic comedies that gives me brainrot like nothing else. comedies where the ending isn't happy but it's supposed to be happy. because the genre is based on resolution, reconciliation, everyone returning to their proper place, and never mind if it's not satisfying, if some people get left behind, if there's a barely-concealed horror behind the facade of marriage and unity and happily ever after. the pain not of death and destruction but of having to keep on living.
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
I’m back and I’m here to promote Renaissance cat
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
Here’s all of my cat prints! You can get them on clothes and stuff from my redbubble here!
My friend Harley makes the cutest cat portraits
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
i hope i wouldn't laugh out loud in a room full of concerned audience members - but i would. also, they didn't even break character! give them a tony
If things like this were happening my friends would be more excited to see my theatre shit
the-full-shakespearience reblogged
I know I’ve talked about it before but it never ceases to amaze me that the city of Toronto created this labyrinthine series of underground walkways that stretch for kilometres under the heart of downtown and they called it the fucking PATH. like how much more ominous could that even be. It doesn’t even stand for anything it’s just the PATH, all caps. What fucking fae named this artisanal bakery maze.
@asimovsideburns #it doesn’t even stand for anything?????
It doesn’t!!! even stand!! for anything!!!
“PATH is downtown Toronto’s enclosed pedestrian walkway linking 29 kilometres of shopping, services and entertainment connecting Toronto Coach Terminal to Maple Leaf Square/Air Canada Centre. The Acronym (PATH) does not stand for anything - just signals that there is a pathway.”
Like I always lose my mind at this. If it doesn’t stand for anything it’s not an acronym Toronto!! Toronto!!!!!!!!!
Copying my tags:
I’m not exaggerating about the part without a ceiling:
This is, by the way, right under Bay & Bloor, dead centre of the city and some of the most expensive real estate in Canada. It radiates an incredible aura of menace.
Okay far more poeple have reblogged this than I thought and I just wanted to clarify- the horror of the PATH is not that it all looks like a spooky basement where you’re about to get murdered. There ARE spots like that, but to understand the ~vibe~ of the PATH, you have to understand that it is essentially one very large mall co-designed by like, 70+ different corperations who all have different aesthetics. SO, the PATH looks like that, but it also looks like this
and like this
and like this
and like this
Here’s an entrance to the PATH at Union
And here’s another- also at Union
And here’s another a few blocks away, though tbh I have never been able to enter here because it always seems to be locked, no matter how much I want Wendy’s that day.
And you’d think these mixed aesthetics would make it easier to navigate, or at least figure out where you are, but again, there are over 70 different entities designing this shit and not one original thought between them. So while you may well know when you step from one property to the next, whatever the look of your current section it’s more than likely they’re a nigh identical section somewhere further just to confound your mortal sense.
Basically, everyone tagging this with the Magnus Archives is very correct- If any place on earth could be the true domain of the Spiral it’s the PATH, and it’s just a shame Jonny didn’t know about it before the show wrapped up.
Oh my God
It’s actually a great illustration of the failures of capitalism. The PATH isn’t something designed by the city, instead each building has their own section. And because of that, the signage isn’t just inconsistent, it’s actively hostile to you leaving that section. Every incentive points towards keeping you in that one area and not making it easy to find another building.
Also one time I tried to leave the PATH at night through a small set of double doors and while the doors leading to a small atrium opened, the doors leading to the outside were locked, and had I not caught the first doors before they closed I would’ve been trapped in an unheated 2m square between-space, neither in the PATH nor out of it, overnight