Shakespeare and Myths About Genius

[GreatGazoo]

17. I had heard about Patrick Stewart's Shakespeare roles but had not seen any clips

thanks for that.

Years ago, my boss at a film studio took Ray Walston out to lunch and right as Walston was telling how he had been classically trained and done Shakespeare but will always be remembered for his TV role, a woman at the next table caught their eyes and with both hands mimed extending antenna above her head ala "My Favorite Martian".

I am an English Lit major but came back to Shakespeare while researching Henry Hudson (~1565 to `1611). Historians disagree strongly with Literature scholars. I easily found connections between Hudson and John Dee and Leonard Digges and Walter Raleigh and Richard Haklyut and many others that made up the circle of explorers, writers, publishers in this period. Hudson has 4 writers on his final voyage, two of whom planned to publish. Sailors, especially the officers, were more literate than the general population and they valued books, especially those that held up to repeated readings. At this time London had no more than 23 master printers operating less than 60 presses so it is fairly easy account for everyone. The primary source records disagree with the traditional biographies of Shakespeare and many parts of that biography are being abandoned.

Right now is a wonderful time to be researching history because of the tools and digital resources that have become available. As with the genetics of Columbus, which were well known for a decade but publicized widely only last October, science has forced some radical rewrites.

Someone has reassembled parts of John Dee's famous library and put the books and their marginalia online. This gives us an unprecedented perspective into what authors of the era had available to them:
https://archaeologyofreading.org/bibliography/Dee-corpus/