It’s time once again to check in on what searches people have done to find themselves at Shakespeare Teacher, and to respond in the name of fun and public service. All of the following searches brought people to this site in the past week.
googleplex fridaysThis feature happens to share its name with the
headquarters of Google Inc., located in Mountain View, California. I have no idea what goes on there on Fridays.
how come king james didn’t like macbethI don’t grant your premise, unless you are referring to the historical figure and not the Shakespeare play. In fact, you might say that the play was actually written specifically to appeal to the new king. Witches were a fascination for James, so he’d have been intrigued from the start. Also, James was a direct descendent of both the historical Malcolm and the historical Banquo. Notice that the witches make a prophecy that doesn’t actually come true in the play, which is an odd dramatic convention. They prophecy that Banquo will not be king, but will instead be the father to a line of kings. Later, Macbeth is shown a vision of eight kings along with the ghost of Banquo who points at them for his. The eighth king is meant to be King James, as he is the eighth king in the house of Stewart. The prophecy doesn’t come true in the play; it comes true in the audience.
presidents with the letter xSo far, it’s just Nixon, but the night is young.
shakespeare film 2010You do realize you’re skipping over a whole year, right? No interest in
The Tempest with Helen Mirren as Prospero? Not
anxiously awaiting the new
Hamlet with Screech and the
Chocolate Rain guy? Okay. From what I can tell, the Shakespeare film event of 2010 will be
King Lear with Anthony Hopkins in the title role and Naomi Watts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Keira Knightley as his three extremely beautiful daughters. Also, Eddie Murphy – I kid you not – is planning to do a version of
Romeo & Juliet. I imagine he will be playing both roles, but that’s pure speculation.
shakespeare king henry lambasts halI was amused to see this one because I used the phrase “lambasts Hal” in my first
Shakespeare Lipogram, and I chose the verb because it only has the vowel “A” in it. But I wonder if you’re really looking for that scene from Henry IV, Part One, or if you’re actually looking for
this scene from Henry IV, Part Two. It’s one of the great scenes from one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works and was even listed as #38 on my
Top 50 scenes in all of Shakespeare.
Hal finds his deathly-ill father asleep, assumes he’s dead, and takes the crown off with him. When he returns, the King’s awake, and lambasts Hal. They reconcile, and Henry gives his son advice for how to be king. The language is… there’s no adjective I could use that you wouldn’t say “Well, yeah, it’s Shakespeare” but the language is particularly rich and evocative in this scene. I did an anagram of a quote from it a while back, but I’m surprised I still haven’t done the most timely quote of them all: “Be it thy course to busy giddy minds/ With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,/ May waste the memory of the former days.” It’s even got a “Q” in it. I’ll have to save that one for a rainy day.
is macbeth is worth readingMost definitely. I suggest gathering a group of friends together, dividing up the roles, and reading it out loud. Trust me on this one. That’s how to read
Macbeth.
I leave the task of responding to the remaining search terms to my readers:
why is shakespeare is one of the founding fatherswhat did the tudors bring back to England
was shakespeare a teacher?
slings and arrows on demand time warner
which president read macbeth before he die
how did shakespeare die on youtube
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 9:42 pm and is filed under Film, Googleplex, Hamlet, Histories, King Lear, Macbeth, Meta, Politics, Reading Group, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, Slings & Arrows, Tempest, The Plantagenets, The Tudors.
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