#henslowe's diary

[frogshunnedshadows]

Meticulous archaeology of The Rose playhouse, circa 1590 to 1600, just outside London, used to make some very elaborate 3D modeled interiors, exteriors, and environs. With stills and a short movie.

[shakespearenews]

AA: Why stage As You Like It here?

JR: There’s a warmth to this auditorium that made me think about falling in love. I would also say that As You Like It was written as a commercial play. We forget that Shakespeare made a ton of money. It’s worth looking at Henslowe’s diary, which kept an account of everything. You see plays being turned around incredibly rapidly. Sometimes we think Shakespeare was a subsidised playwright, and that if he lived now he’d be on commission to the Royal Court. He would not – he’d be under commission to Nica Burns.

[lenbryant]

(Long Post quoting) NY Review of Books:

This year marks exactly four centuries since the publication of William Shakespeare’s First Folio, the giant two-volume set of thirty-six plays that reframed his work in “overtly literary terms,” as Catherine Nicholson puts it in our Sixtieth Anniversary Issue. Nicholson’s writing about Renaissance literature—including in books on the formation of a vernacular tradition (Uncommon Tongues: Eloquence and Eccentricity in the English Renaissance) and on The Faerie Queene (Reading and Not Reading The Faerie Queene: Spenser and the Making of Literary Criticism)—flashes with a rare combination of historical precision and fresh insight. Her essays for the Review so far include considerations of Edmund Spenser, John Milton, and what we’re able to know about childhood in the sixteenth century; a characteristically sharp line on Milton notes that his “nonchronological narrative design” in Paradise Lost “teases us to think, perhaps God is Eve-like.”

Nicholson’s essay on the First Folio, “Theater for a New Audience,” traces the contingencies that have helped to shape our idea of Shakespeare through the big posthumous book of his plays, revealing among other things how our understanding of foundational texts can be enlarged by studying the history of their reception. It also touches on a number of literary questions that could have formed a separate essay on their own, and this week she discussed a few of them with me via e-mail. -Catherine Nicholson Jana Prikryl: We have no evidence that Shakespeare, who died in 1616, had anything to do with the First Folio, which was published in 1623. In your essay you criticize Chris Laoutaris’s Shakespeare’s Book for speculating that the Bard himself instigated the folio project. It’s tempting to imagine something of the sort, since otherwise we have a Shakespeare who was recklessly indifferent to the survival of his own work. What’s your own theory for why he, as you put it, “seems to have had no such ambition”?

Catherine Nicholson: I’m not sure we need to think of Shakespeare as recklessly indifferent to the survival of his plays so much as possessed of a different sense of what survival might mean—firstly in the repertory of the King’s Men, and only secondly in the market for print. And survival within a theatrical repertory often entailed a great deal of change: lines, scenes, characters, and so on might be altered, cut, or added as a script was adapted to the resources of the playing company, the shifting tastes of audiences, and the demands of a particular performance occasion. The playwright might be enlisted in making those changes, or he might have no say at all. Since, at the time, playscripts were the legal property of playing companies, publication happened at a still further remove from authorial control. The version of a play fixed in a printed edition might be the one the playwright intended or preferred, or it might simply be the one the printer could get his hands on. And many, many plays never made it into the hands of any printer: the diary of the Elizabethan impresario Philip Henslowe mentions 280 plays, of which thirty survive in print. Some may have been printed and then lost, but it seems clear that most plays written in Shakespeare’s lifetime lived exclusively in the theaters. That environment must have shaped Shakespeare’s relationship to his work. No doubt he did sometimes find it frustrating to have his words altered without his say-so. Hamlet’s irritable injunction to the players—“let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them”—gives us a glimpse of the sometimes fraught relations between writers and performers, especially those with the most license to improvise on stage. But that speech itself runs quite a bit longer in the 1603 quarto (Q1) than it does in the 1623 folio: in 1603 Hamlet goes on to recite a string of random comic catchphrases exactly like the ones he doesn’t want forced into his own play. I don’t have an opinion on which version of the speech belongs in a modern edition or performance: the folio version is certainly more elegant and concise, but the ironic effect in Q1 is one I cherish; it suggests that Shakespeare was wont to poke fun at any impulse toward authorial control, even his own.

I have a similar response to, say, Sonnet 55, which begins, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments/Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme….” That poem channels the voices of Ovid and Horace to make an extravagant claim for the undying power of Shakespeare’s verse, and it’s hard to read today without a shiver of appreciation and awe: he was right (so far)! But when I teach the Sonnets, I always point out to students that these are poems that circulated in manuscript for over a decade before making their way (with or without Shakespeare’s knowledge and approval) into print; moreover, they are in a poetic form that already, in the mid-1590s, was a bit passé and in a vernacular almost no one outside of England spoke or read. The idea that these verses would retain their meaning and value for all time—“Even in the eyes of all posterity/That wear this world out to the ending doom”—has got to be shot through with some pathos, implausibility, or even humor.

Can you talk a bit about the kinds of new readings that became available after the plays moved from performance to the page?

In some sense, the shift from playhouse to page must have seemed like an impoverishment: the media of performance are so vivid and multisensory in comparison to the medium of text. One of my favorite recent works of scholarship on early modern drama is Claire Bourne’s Typographies of Performance in Early Modern England (2020), which reveals how painstaking and ingenious early modern printers were in devising typographic conventions to make playbooks legible both as books and as plays. At the turn of the sixteenth century, the resources for communicating dramatic structure and dramatic action were limited: the first playbook printed in England, a Latin edition of Terence’s Comedies, included an editorial note telling readers what an act and a scene were and urging them to imagine actors moving on- and off-stage as they read. By the time Shakespeare’s plays were being published, printers had devised an incredibly sophisticated repertoire of typographic conventions, from act and scene divisions to speech tags, italicized stage directions, printed marks like dashes and pilcrows (the symbol that marks a paragraph break), and woodcut illustrations, all of which helped readers to imagine the text in performance.

But printing a play also creates all sorts of new opportunities for engaging with it, beyond the shared temporality of performance: reading a bit at a time, for instance; stopping to look something up; marking and returning to a favorite passage; noticing the recurrence of an image, phrase, or word across a wide expanse of text; annotating in the margins or copying passages out into a commonplace book. Add those modes of readerly engagement together, and you begin to get something like literary criticism: an approach to a play that can coordinate character and plot with features of the text that would be hard to pause over or even register in performance.

To what degree Shakespeare anticipated or sought that kind of engagement from readers of his plays is an open question. In his 2003 book Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist, the scholar Lukas Erne argues that the length of a number of Shakespeare’s plays suggests he wrote them, at least in part, with print publication in mind, lavishing care on passages he knew would likely never make it on stage. On the other hand, maybe the length of the plays as written reveals that Shakespeare was far less precious about his own words than we tend to be; he knew they might be cut and adapted for performance, and he wrote freely in expectation of that winnowing. In either case, the looser, nonlinear, potentially discontinuous temporality of reading allows for all sorts of lingering and reading across or against the narrative grain that I, at least, can’t fathom doing without. And the First Folio encourages that kind of reading—not simply of each play, but of the plays as a dynamic and interrelated whole.

In the first piece you wrote for the Review, on Edmund Spenser, you called The Faerie Queene “the emblematic textual commodity of an age in which book ownership expanded from the domain of aristocrats and scholars to become a bourgeois expression of taste.” When the First Folio was published twenty-six years later, would you say it was comparable in status?

I’d guess that both the 1590/1596 quartos of The Faerie Queene and the 1611 folio of Spenser’s Works were more immediately recognizable to readers and book buyers as prestige literary commodities. The full title of the latter—The Faerie Queen: The Shepheardes Calender: Together with the other Works of England’s Arch-Poët, Edm. Spenser: Collected into one Volume—takes for granted both the author’s preeminence among English poets and the value of assembling his writings into a unified corpus. Contrast that with the mocking reception in some quarters of the 1616 folio of Ben Jonson’s Works (“Pray tell me Ben, where doth the mistery lurke?” inquired one anonymous wit, “What others call a play you call a work”), which suggests the difficulty seventeenth-century readers still had in conceiving of vernacular stage plays as literature.

But there’s a nearly seventy-year gap between the first and second folios of Spenser’s Works, while the Second Folio of Shakespeare’s plays appears just nine years after the first, in 1632. And by the middle of the eighteenth century, their fortunes have decisively crossed: The Faerie Queene is, increasingly, a book to own—or, perhaps, to study—but not to read, while editions and adaptations of Shakespeare sell in a wide variety of formats and at a range of price points. In that sense, too, textual fixity or bibliographic iconicity isn’t the same as influence or survival: change remains the lifeblood of literary tradition. I don’t want to give away the brilliant ending of your piece, but its reading of The Tempest made me think of other times in the plays when characters rely overmuch on textual sources: the several letters intercepted in King Lear, the fatefully undelivered letter from Friar Laurence in Romeo and Juliet, the comically bad poems Orlando pins to trees in As You Like It…. Is it too much to say that it seems, in Shakespeare’s worlds, as if things written down are inferior to those acted out?

I don’t know about inferior—Shakespeare is keenly alert to the perils and pitfalls of dramatic reenactment—but certainly subject to error and misapprehension. Sometimes those misapprehensions are disastrous; other times (I’m thinking of poor Malvolio deciphering what he believes to be a love letter from Olivia, in Twelfth Night) they are deliciously comic; occasionally, as with the letter that mysteriously surfaces in the final moments of The Merchant of Venice, restoring Antonio’s lost fortune, they are redemptive. Like Spenser, Shakespeare seems to delight in scripting encounters that anticipate the possibility of his own misreading by others, and misreading is not always figured as a catastrophe; sometimes it offers the wayward path to a happy ending. #refrigeratormagnets

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You are ignoring historical reality. We know next to nothing about the playwright himself. What we DO know is that he was writing for monarchies that had no compunction about torturing and murdering writers who did not toe the party line (Thomas Kyd is the best example from this era). We know that censorship was rampant and often extreme. We cannot POSSIBLY attribute any intent to the man himself given these historical realities.

We also don't have the original texts. We have a Frankensteined corpus of the Folios and a ton of illegal quartos that get mixed and matched based on scholars' judgments and what little historical evidence we can get from sources like Henslowes' and Pepys' diaries. Again, this completely obliterates our ability to attribute intention to the playwright himself. We can read themes. We can interpret the text. But to say that we can understand Shakespeare's intentions through the texts? Sorry, no. And imposing an arbitrary intention on 400+-year-old texts is ridiculous. Not to mention that to assume every author's intent is to teach is so broad and vague as to be meaningless.

I'm not even touching the "theme of the story = soul of the story" nonsense. Stories don't have souls, and some forms of stories and storytelling aren't about themes. Sometimes they're character studies, sometimes they're just fun, and sometimes they're faerie smut. ALL of those examples are stories.

Some Things I Believe About Stories

Stories should not be PRIMARILY created to entertain. They should be created to teach, or encourage, or inspire, USING entertaining qualities. The Romans used entertainment to distract the populace from corruption. J. R. R. Tolkien, on the other hand, described "escapism" as "a prisoner of war escaping from enemy camp to go back home." You're not running from reality to fantasy when a story does it's job. You're running from the dark, twisted side of the world to something that reminds you of the good, the true, the beautiful, the correct. You've been imprisoned by bad ideas and confusion and dark perspectives, and the story shows you how to escape and get back to true and beautiful reality. It's got a point, it's not just for diversion.

Stories should be made to serve others and leave the world better than they found it. Storytellers should not only tell a story to exorcize their personal demons or point to how clever and artistic they are. That can be a nice bonus. But the point should be to serve the audience. Think about it. When it's made, it's timeless; it will be read or watched or listened to by the next generation, or the next. What are the storytellers letting fall into the hands of the people who come after they're not around to explain or gain a profit?

The storyteller should be passionate about the story while they make it. This could look like a sense of duty, or fun, or just excitement. But those outward emotions usually signal an inward understanding of how important the story is, and therefore, a level of compassion and care for the eventual audience.

You can like a story or dislike a story. You can interpret a story or misinterpret a story. Those things are subjective. But whether or not a story is good is objective: it can be measured. Does the story say what it is trying to say in the clearest, most compelling way possible? If yes, it's a good story. If no, it might be great entertainment. It might be funny. It might be cool. It might be quotable or franchise-able or profitable or even memorable. But it's not a good story if it does not say something in the clearest, most compelling way possible.

A story's main point, or theme, is the most important thing about it. The characters, the set design, the pacing, the soundtrack, the language, the use of color or lighting or blocking etc.; all of those pieces work best when they are unified in the goal of communicating that main point or theme.

Death of the author = death of the story. It's point is to say something. If you claim the speaker's intent is meaningless, so are the words spoken. If you claim it can mean anything, your words are meaningless too. We all might as well tell no stories and blabber gibberish instead. It’s one thing to say you understand what the author intended, and you like to think of it in/wish it were another way. But it’s quite another to say that what the author intended is unknowable or doesn’t matter. You’re either calling the author a bad storyteller or, again, recommending we all speak gibberish.

Both form (the quality of the story and it's elements) and content (the main point or lessons) matter. Without one you have a lecture, not a story. Without the other you have entertainment, but no valuable, timeless, beautiful truth to make it a “story.”

[shakespeareoxfordfellowship]

“Dating Shakespeare’s Plays” Now Available Online

“Dating Shakespeare’s Plays” Now Available Online

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[krisp715]

Darwin Online

The world’s largest and most widely used resource on Charles DarwinFacebook. Press. What’s new? Edited by John van Wyhe • Darwin’s Publications (bibliography)    Books Origin of Species, Voyage of the Beagle, Descent of Man…    Articles Glen Roy, Darwin-Wallace, An appeal…    Published Letters Life and letters, Darwin & Henslow…    Published Manuscripts Autobiography, Beagle diary (2) (audio),…

[50-year-old-diary-uk]

Memory Lane

Memory Lane Recently discovered 50 yr old diary of a London kid in the 60's #sixties #londonblog #wokingblog #kidblog #sixtiesblog #flashback #oldjournal #surreydiary #surreyjournal #sixtiesjournal #sixtiesdiary #woking #memorylane

Tuesday 16th January 1968

I met Tanks at the Henslow Way bus stop, my mum not kowing we were going back to Tottenham Court Road to exchange our Walkie Talkies and pay another twenty five shillings difference.

We tried them in the shop, the man said that if they were the same we could take them back. But they were really fantastic, they are all streamlined with chrome etc on them. They can…

[thequeensthroat]

these are the "giant hose" mentioned in henslowe's diary btw

every piece of writing on early modern drama that includes a list of play names is so insanely funny

[jay-michaels-public-relations]

Lamentable

Review: “Henslowe! Or, A Lamentable Complaint” at Torn Page

By OuterStage lead reviewer, Anthony J. Piccione

The diary of Philip Henslowe serves as a notable artifact for theatre historians who seek to know more about theatre and drama during the Elizabethan era in London. Such shows were, of course, known for their ability to entertain massive audiences, and to provoke various emotional and…

[venezia214]

A page from history: 6 January 1616

(On professional networks such as LinkedIn we come across a wide range of job titles as well as companies. Occasionally, I’d like to share a page from the history of London. My aim is to get a better appreciation of how people worked and lived in old days and how those professions and organisations might be affecting our lives today. If you are reading today’s entry, hope you enjoy it!) 

 6 January 1616, Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario Philip Henslowe died in London. His diary has been a primary source on the theatrical world of Renaissance London. If you have watched the Academy Award-winning movie Shakespeare in Love, you might then remember actor Geoffrey Rush portraying Philip Henslowe. While he lived in Southwark, he purchased several properties, including The Little Rose, which had rose gardens as well as a brothel. In 1587, it became The Rose, the first permanent playhouse in Bankside. You may be interested to know that in 1598 another group of entrepreneurs built the new Globe Theatre in Bankside.

https://lnkd.in/gTiTtqb 

  https://lnkd.in/gh9rxgg

[dulwichdiverter]

To the Gallery... #22

Joan Alleyn

The British School

This striking oil on panel was painted in 1596 and depicts Joan Woodward, stepdaughter of the theatrical entrepreneur Philip Henslowe.

Born in around 1573, Joan married Edward Alleyn in 1592 when she was aged 18 or 19.

Alleyn kept a diary that detailed almost every single day of his life for five years between September 29, 1617 and October 1, 1622, with frequent mentions of Joan.

According to the Henslowe-Alleyn digitisation project, the diary reveals many aspects of his domestic life and household as well as his social circle.

It documents how he lived on a day-to-day basis – the places he went and the people he met.

The diary often goes into minute detail, with Alleyn recording what he and Joan wore, what medicines they took and what they ate.

He also lists his expenses, including a miscellany of items such as screws, leather stirrups, binding rods, herbs, seeds and a whalebone for Joan’s bodice.

Joan died aged 51 in 1623, the year after Alleyn stopped writing his diary. She is buried in Christ’s Chapel, Dulwich, where her stone is inscribed: “Here lyeth in hope of resurrection, the body of Joane, the religious and loving wife of Edward Alleyn Esqr, founder of this college, who departed this mortal life the 28th of June 1623, being in the 51st year of her age.”

The portrait shown here went back on display at Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2017 following a long period of structural restoration.

dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

[kiralamouse]

As was pointed out in another reblog (can’t find it on the poster’s blog, so I’m linking a version with additions)... @emilysidhe‘s not so far from the truth. According to @sandovers:

no, but this is why people do the boring archival work! because we think we do know why “exit, pursued by a bear” exists, now, and we figured it out by looking at ships manifests of the era -

it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.

we think the answer is polar bears.

no, seriously!  in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’  it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they?  so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless?  well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences.  and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear?  what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity?

and, voila, we have a death-by-bear for the unfortunate antigonus, thereby freeing up paulina to be coupled off with camillo in the final scene, just as the comedic conventions of the time would expect.

I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.

[shakespearenews]

“...it’s worth reflecting on the fact that, for Hamlet’s earliest audiences, seeing real human remains on stage would have been a shock. The diary of theatre manager Philip Henslowe (1550-1616), who ran the Rose on Bankside, lists any number of exotic props – among them a “snake”, a “tree of golden apples” and two “lion’s heads” – but a human skull is not among them. And as far as it’s possible to tell, no 16th-century play before Hamlet called for one.”