Tis the season to share and exchange gifts. It is certainly a most wonderful time of year. It’s been a tame Christmas in the Nichols household. Conflicting schedules kept us from celebrating Christmas on the 25th. Luckily for me, the Internet has kept me entertained. I’ve found some brilliant Shakespeare related sites, and thought I would share my “gifts”. So sit back and enjoy
Shakespeare Saturday
One of my favorite bloggers
missficklereader hosts a wonderful blog, mostly related to Shakespeare. On Christmas she posts a new to me, Shakespeare Christmas story titles, Shakespeare’s Christmas. From her post:
This title piece in a short-story collection by writer and literary critic Arthur Quiller-Couch (who wrote under the pseudonym–get ready for it–“Q”) is in fact a bizarre yet clever mashup of Shakespearean narrative and mythology. On the surface, Quiller-Couch is fictionalizing the night that Richard Burbage and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, unbeknownst to their landlord, took apart The Theatre and transported the lumber to a storage facility near the Thames, where those same building materials would eventually be used to construct the Globe. Sort of a bizarre moment in Shakespearean history in and of itself, but it did happen on December 28, 1599 (not on Christmas eve, which is when Quiller-Couch’s tale is set). On another level, however, the story is a retelling of Henry IV, Part Two, with Shakespeare as Prince Hal and John Shakespeare, William’s father, as Falstaff. You can read the story here, and while you are at it, check out her blog. Miss Fickle always has something interesting to say.
McSweeny
I don’t know how I’ve missed this site. I stumbled upon it, following a link a Twitter user shared. McSweeny says it’s a publishing Company, but oh it is oh much more! The blog posts are hilarious. I offer this gem, Letters to Santa, written by Shakespeare characters. Below is one of my favorites.
Dear Santa,
The trifles you brought me last year meant absolutely nothing. What’s the point of gifts when everything is falling to shit all around you? Why didn’t you steal the family account information I left out for you last year? That would have meant something.
Do you ever feel like everything is just a big conspiracy? Do you ever want to hurl yourself out of your sled and fall down, down, down onto the cold hard street below?
Look out for the slings and arrows.
— Hamlet
Witty scholars
And just in case you think most Shakespeare scholars take themselves far to serious, I give you day 15, from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Foundation’s Shakespeare’s Singing Advent Calendar.
Be happy, I did not share day 14. You would have seen two ducks a’quaking.
The View From Sari's World 