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Pooh-Bah
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Today is the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death.
Today is also St George's day.
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Dear dxb: Do you mean Shakespeare died on his birthday?
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dr. bill asks, Do you mean Shakespeare died on his birthday?Yes -- to the extent the dates are known. http://shakespeare.about.com/library/faqs/blfaqsbirth.htmIt is spooky to me to realize that he died on this day at precisely my age this day. bartleby's quotation-of-the-day, today, is this spring-thought from his pen: Now ‘tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they’ll outgrow the garden,
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.-- Queen Margaret, in Henry VI, Part 2, act 3, sc. 1, l. 31-3.
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old hand
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Samuel Clemmens (Mark Twain) was born in the year of Halley's comet, and died in the year of the next Halley's comet. What other famous anniversary coincidences might there be?
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enthusiast
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John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day--a significant anniversary--July 4, 1826.
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Adams' last words were, "Thomas Jefferson still lives" -- he could not know that Jefferson had died a few hours earlier.
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Dr Bill inquires: Do you mean Shakespeare died on his birthday?
Indeed... which makes his prolific output all the more wondersome since he lived less than 24 hours.
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died on his birthday
It should be noted that dxb's original post said nothing of the sort. What it said was that April 23rd was the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth and death.
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On which logic we must of course delete the entire birthday thread.  
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I think it appropriate that my virgin post here should be as provocative and disruptive as possible.
Well now, why would you think that, I wonder? I am posting to advise you that we have had more than enough of that recently. Though I applaud your topic as being appropriate, I question your stated motive. This is not an invitation to reply.
Edit--Note: I made this post, speaking as the Administrator.
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For those who embrace the copious evidence which supports Oxford as the writer, it may be interesting to note that his birthday is actually April 11th.
Which, quite significantly*is April Double Fools' Day, April Triple Fools' Day coming on July 10th. I've never had the stick-to-it-iveness to figure out when April Quadruple Fools' Day is.
*Or not, depending
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Well, an interesting way to start SilkMuse, but WELCOME  none-the-less...
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Silk! I see you made it here! Welcome aBoard! Hope you enjoy posting here as much as I do.
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SilkMuse, if you really are a new person, then I bid you welcome. (Me, and the Administrator, too...)
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Now Jackie, that's hardly the warm welcome to a newcomer that's become your trademark. The warmest of welcomes to you, silkmuse. Here's hoping you slide smoothly into our sweet company.
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Imagination
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact:--
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,--
That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:
The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That, if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of joy;
Or in the night, imaging some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!
from A Midsummer's Night's Dream, Wm Shakespeare? Francis Bacon? Edward DeVere? Christopher Marlowe?
The Only WO'N!
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>or the obviously well educated, well travelled and well-read man who is responsible for the plays which bear the name of Shakespeare
There is also the view that a collection of writers got together in the pub to write and whenever they thought that they'd turned out something decent they called it Shakespeare - that might well account for his inability to spell his own name consistently.
I also love Tom Stoppard's idea in the script of "Shakespeare in Love" that all his best plots came from Marlowe.
Will we ever know the truth? Whatever the answer, April 23rd is as good a day as any to celebrate the Bard - the Scots have Burns Night, so I think that we should have a big party every year, any excuse really.
By the way Maverick, do the Welsh have a special Dylan Thomas day?
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a special Dylan Thomas day?yes - it's any day with a 'd' in the name 
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the suspicion with which a "newbie" might be greeted here aptually® we have a long history of exceptionally welcoming and receptive attitudes on this board - you enter on the coat-tails of discord which has seemed at times to deliberately ferment such attitudes. So in the spirit of enquiring minds, I bid you welcome, draw up a seat and have fun! yeah, right, that's what we need, another lawyer...
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I also love Tom Stoppard's idea in the script of "Shakespeare in Love" that all his best plots came from Marlowe.I've seen it three times now and laughed just as hard the third time. "Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter."
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Pooh-Bah
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If I take your point correctly, WO'N:
from A Midsummer's Night's Dream, Wm Shakespeare? Francis Bacon? Edward DeVere? Christopher Marlowe?,
I can only agree with you by saying - what's in a name? A rose by any other..........
dxb
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A rose by any other name would still have thorns.
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???? faldage? Non capisco.
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Pooh-Bah
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May I add my, somewhat belated welcome to you, SilkMuse. May you spin us many an interesting yarn. And how dare you suggest that our beloved Bill Shakespeare was anything other than our beloved Wm Shaksper.
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A rose by any other name would still have thorns.We can complain because rosebushes have thorns or rejoice because thornbushes have roses. The Only WO'N!
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"deliberately ferment such attitudes."
Dear mav: to tease you gently,whouldn't this be in WW's thread about words that get confused?
ferment vs foment
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A rose by any other name would still have thorns.
Oh. I thought that ...A nose by any other name would smell a sweet.
I saw Bill Moyers' new PBS show last night wherein Herman Gollob, author of Me and Shakespeare, stated that the common theme of the tragedies was the conflict between ego and altruism. Using that idea, could a tragedy even be written today? IMHO, altruism has been murdered.
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Dear Geoff: though repeatedly violated, altruism is more widely practised than at any time in previous human history. It just hurts more because we notice selfishness more.
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could a play be written today about dreams, since MacBeth murdered sleep?
Ohmygosh, I thought it was SHEEP, in keeping with Lady Mc's killing their dog ("Out, damn Spot!")
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Gollub's statement that "altruism vs. ego is a common theme of the tragedies of Shakespeare": this
seems an unsupported notion, given the tragedies themselves. Key, in point, are two of the most well-known:
Hamlet & Romeo&Juliet. IMHO, the only completely altruistic characters in these particular plays are,
respectively, Horatio and Benvolio - neither of whom is, unfortunately, actively involved in the conflict.
Don't these two stand as balance points, or sources of reason, somewhat like a Greek chorus, or Lear's fool? And the very name Benvolio seems to suggest altruistic behavior.
I'm not saying that I agree with Gollub, and your citations well refute what ws said in the short time allotted to him on TV - I just tossed it out as food for thought. As for altruism being dead, I did get hyperbolic, but the world seems so steeped in egoistic corporate power and the de-selfing of the common person (as seen in the term "consumer" usurping the place and implicit rights of "customer") that I go overboard with exaggeration at times.
As for your mentioning Arthur Miller's "All My Sons," I'm more worried about another "Crucible," wherein the righteous kill the right. Dr Bill, you lived through the time Miller wrote about in allegory. Do you not see parallels?
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Dear mav: to tease you gently,whouldn't this be in WW's thread about words that get confused?
ferment vs fomentWell, Bill, you make an interesting point. But hang on a mo – just consider this definition of ‘foment’: vt, to apply a warm lotion to; to foster or instigate (usually evil) – n fomentation the application of a warm lotion. […] to reduce inflammation and pain {from Latin fovere, to warm}Instigating evil – yes, quite accurate; but reducing inflammation? I don’t think so! ;) Now contrast it with this definition for ‘ferment’: n a substance that excites fermentation; fermentation; agitation; tumult; vt to cause fermentation in; to work up, excite […] fermentation the act or process of fermenting; a slow decomposition process […] accompanied by evolution of heat and gas… {from Latin fervere to boil} (both definitions from Chambers Concise 1997) Uh-huhhhhh – exciting tumult which results in slow decomposition accompanied by heat and gas – that does it for me So how come ‘foment’ came to have the meaning of “instigating evil” attached to it, when otherwise it usually refers to a therapeutic poultice?
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Dear mav: I can see we need not fear you fomenting a revolution.
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altruism is more widely practiced now than at any time in previous human history. - wwh Hear, hear, Uncle Bill, so true, so true. Now if we can only learn to properly integrate altruism with the purpose of our existence we will become a happy bunch. - -
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to paraphrase Dorothy Parker "a human is like a teabag - you never know how strong
they can be until you see them in hot water."
Very good, SM! Parker is one of my favorite wits! Indeed, I quoted her elsewhere a couple of days ago.
I'm very glad to see you on here; you've introduced some really good stuff to this board!
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...the world seems so steeped in egoistic corporate power and the de-selfing of the common person (as seen in the term "consumer" usurping the place and implicit rights of "customer") that I go overboard with exaggeration at times.
Geoff, just this morning I finished reading Fast Food Nation ~ if any reader finds even *half* of Schlosser's case plausible, you're not exaggerating. It's not particularly word-related, but if anyone else has read it, I would welcome discussion of the topics via PM.
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And getting back to the whole Who-the-heck-is-Shakespeare thing, there's also the point that basically none of the extant copies of the plays were actually "written" - by hand - by their purported author; many were written after Bill died, almost certainly by the actors who played the parts. So if Hamlet doesn't remember Polonius' lines very well... or Nurse doesn't remember Romeo's lines... we certainly can't claim to have 'authoritative' versions. And how could we, anyway? Playwrights at the time didn't publish their plays - they wrote for their company, shaping characters for actors, and having their words regularly changed in rehearsal and performance. The whole idea of a static text would have been foreign; it's quite a modernist idea, as far as I can tell (but don't get me onto Eliot's Wasteland...). And does it matter? Nah. I still get a kick out of Lady Macbeth and the various fools, so who really cares who gets the credit? It's just easier to attribute to a single body...
alexis =]
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