Bardic trivia

Anyone who’s ever spent any amount of time with me quickly learns about my Shakespeare obsession. The man has been a crucial part of my psyche for more than half of my life, so it’s hardly surprising that he seeps out. Here are some interesting bits and pieces that I’ve picked up about my favourite bard!

• William Shakespeare was a shareholder in the theatre company the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which was founded under Queen Elizabeth I in 1594. When Elizabeth died in 1603, she was succeeded by James I (and VI of Scotland), and the company became the King’s Men—prestigious!
• The company was not immune to scandal: in 1601, the Earl of Essex attempted a coup against the queen. To help get Londoners in a revolutionary mood, he commissioned the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to perform Shakespeare’s play Richard II, which is all about a king being overthrown. When Essex and his supporters failed miserably, it was determined that the theatre company were not at fault.
• As well as writing a large proportion of the company’s material, Shakespeare is believed to have taken on minor acting roles, such as the Ghost in Hamlet.
• There are a few known samples of William Shakespeare’s signature, spelled quite inconsistently. None of them spell his name as “Shakespeare”.
• The current “Shakespeare’s Globe” in London is a replica built in the 1990s—the original Globe Theatre burned down in 1613 after an incident with a cannon during a performance of Henry VIII. The building of the original Globe is also very dramatic, but I might save that for a post of its own…
• All theatre companies in London at the time banned women as actors. This meant that all the actors in the company were men or boys, including those playing the women’s parts.
• Early modern playwrights often collaborated with each other on plays, and Shakespeare was no exception. Due to the sporadic nature of attribution in publishing, it’s difficult to pinpoint where Shakespeare collaborated and with whom, but it’s likely that he co-wrote several plays with John Fletcher and Thomas Middleton, among others.
• During Shakespeare’s tenure, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men/King’s Men had two primary “clowns”, or comic leads. The first was Will Kempe (also spelled “Kemp”), who was very well known in the London theatre scene. He left the company around 1600, potentially due to creative differences, and he was replaced by Robert Armin. Each man had a distinct set of comedic strengths, and you can see in Shakespeare’s plays which clown he was writing for based on the characterisation.
• Most of the content in Shakespeare’s plays was written in blank verse, which is the name for non-rhyming lines in a metre of iambic pentameter. Part of the intention was to aid with learning lines quickly, as actors had to memorise their parts in a very short time.
• The First Folio was published in 1623 by John Heminges and Henry Condell, two of Shakespeare’s friends from the King’s Men; it was the first official publication of Shakespeare’s works, released about 7 years after his death in 1616.
• 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets were also published posthumously. The sonnets are directed to two different subjects or recipients, commonly referred to by scholars as “the dark lady” and “the fair young man”. It is unclear whether these characters represented real people in Shakespeare’s life, or were based on real people, or were entirely fictional. There is a lot of contention about this subject, but no settled conclusions.

So there we go, some fun wee pieces of trivia for you! Did you learn something new from this post? Is there a factoid that I’ve left out? Which fact is your favourite? Do comment and tell me; I’d love to know!

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