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There will be a Memorial in New York on Monday 22nd June to celebrate the life of the late KC Ligon, a dear friend to all Oxfordians.
The memorial will take place from 6.30 pm to 8 pm at the Circle in the Square Theater, on West 50th Street between 8th Avenue and Broadway.
All welcome.
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May 20, 2009, 3:30 pm
The Sonnets at 400
By William S. Niederkorn
Four hundred years ago today, on May 20, 1609, Thomas Thorpe received license for the book he would publish as “Shake-speares Sonnets.” What is new, or even fairly new, or at least not too well known, to say about this work? What is there to say to commemorate this occasion that Shakespeare scholars, editors and biographers have not said and re-said?
To praise the craft, the passion, the singular simplicity of statement would be excessively redundant. Great pens of the 18th and 19th centuries wore themselves out in the effort, and propelled the world into Shakespeare idolatry. Now, Shakespeare experts are wearying in a contrary fashion. Despite the Sonnets’ obvious ardor and display of personality, they would deny that they depict the life of the author. An article in The Times of London last month voiced the prevailing view: “Don’t be drawn into the trap of supposing that they are autobiographical: that is an illusion of Shakespeare’s art.”
Why do exalted Shakespeare scholars want us to think the Sonnets are purely imaginative invention?
Hold that question, and let’s look at Sonnet 29:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Much Renaissance poetry sounds artificial; this by comparison doesn’t. But then how does Shakespeare find himself “in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes” when, having begun life with no great advantages, he is well on his way to the top in the Elizabethan theater world, if not on top already, and socking it away in real estate and commodity investments in Stratford? How is he all alone? How is he an outcast? Whose art or scope could such a successful man envy? Whose hopes, features and friends could he wish to have, and why isn’t he content with what he enjoys?
Similar perplexing questions could be raised throughout the Sonnets, opening a gulf between the Bard’s traditional life story and what poets from Wordsworth to Auden have regarded as Shake-speare’s self-portrait. Scholars who have cast their lot with the biography of Shakespeare as an unmatched literary genius arising from undistinguished circumstances have good reason to deny the Sonnets’ reality. But there have recently been signs that the prevailing view is changing.
“A Declaration of Reasonable Doubt About the Identity of William Shakespeare” has been gaining influential signatures. And according to an article last month in The Wall Street Journal, the sanctioned biography would be a tough case to argue in the Supreme Court.
In any case, the book Thorpe registered for publication today 400 years ago raises many questions, if a reader wishes to do more than admire poetry.
If anyone would like to post a response to this article, or read what others have written, go to
http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/the-sonnets-at-400/#more-3567
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A Symposium: Shakespeare from the Oxfordian Perspective
Friday, May 29 & Saturday, May 30, 2009
Watertown Square, Massachusetts
Friday, May 29, at 7 p.m.
First Parish of Watertown, Unitarian Universalist, 35 Church Street
Hank Whittemore performs his acclaimed one-man show, Shake-speare's Treason. Written by Hank Whittemore and Ted Story, and based on Whittemore's book, The Monument, a provocative interpretation of Shake-speare's Sonnets, Shake-speare's Treason explores the love and betrayal, murder and mistaken identity behind these poems. Directed by Ted Story. Discussion and reception to follow the performance.
Suggested donation $10, Students Free Admission
Saturday, May 30, 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Watertown Free Public Library, 123 Main Street
Watertown Savings Bank Meeting Room, 1st floor
Alex McNeil, President of The Shakespeare Fellowship will be Master of Ceremonies. We are delighted to have Shakespeare Fellowship Trustee, Bonner Miller Cutting presenting, 'Shakespeare's' Will considered Too Curiously, and Mark Anderson, journalist presenting, Overjoyed, Over Him, Overbury: The New 'Cobbe Portrait of Shakespeare' and what it means for the authorship question. We are also pleased to welcome Marie Merkel, poet, in her first Oxfordian presentation, Raising the Dead: Ben Jonson & The Tempest. Our final speaker, Bill Boyle, librarian and long-time Oxfordian will reprise his presentation, Shakespeare and the Succession Crisis of the 1590s.
From Will's "second-best bed" to Willobie's censored "Avisa," there will be much food for thought and inspiration for discussion. Whether you are already a lover of Shakespeare, or new to the works, please join us for a fascinating weekend event.
Admission Free and Open to the Public
RSVP by May 27 is recommended to ensure you a space.
For program schedule and additional information, or to RSVP, please visit: www.shakespearesymposium.org, or telephone: 617-955-3198
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Tragically, KC Ligon, a wonderful person and a staunch Oxfordian, passed away yesterday after a long illness.
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Is now available in the members room.
Bass
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