Anonymous

This afternoon I watched the movie Anonymous, and it is now my favorite movie tied with Midnight in Paris. The movie weaves a plot about the existence of William Shakespeare. There are many conspiracies about Shakespeare being a mere pen name for another author or multiple authors. Anonymous takes the stance that he is a pen name, but many twists require the real identity to be hidden. It was a great movie in my opinion. I don't know if I believe the plot, but seeing the plays being acted as they were in Shakespeare's time was incredible (I actually skipped back and watched that scene twice). Also, seeing the political effect the plays had was great. I know the movie is fictional, but the purpose of the plays as a political statement was beautifully acted in the movie. It's at Redbox. Go get it.

The First Folio

-“incomparably the most important work in the English language.”

I looked into the publishing history of Shakespeare's sonnets in my post La Sonnet, so I decided to do some research on how Shakespeare's plays were published, and I surprised myself with what I found. The First Folio was made postmortem by John Heminges and Henry Condell. They compiled 36 of Shakespeare's plays as a sort of memorial to his life. I doubt they realized that had they not compiled The First Folio, 18 of Shakespeare's plays would be lost. This compilation holds the only record of Macbeth, Julius Ceasar, Twelfth Night, As You Like It and The Tempest. So thanks to Heminges and Condell, we get to read The Tempest.

Excerpt from The First Folio of Shakespeare plays in 1623 (marks added later).