{"id":240,"date":"2008-10-25T07:33:29","date_gmt":"2008-10-25T07:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivyrun.com\/wordpress\/2008\/10\/25\/shakespeare-would-have-approved\/"},"modified":"2008-10-25T07:33:29","modified_gmt":"2008-10-25T07:33:29","slug":"shakespeare-would-have-approved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=240","title":{"rendered":"Shakespeare Would Have Approved"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I’m in the midst of an amazing trip to England<\/a> that included a visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the hometown of William Shakespeare.\u00a0 On the flight over, I read an excellent biography<\/a> of the bard by Stephen Greenblatt.\u00a0 As I read the book and visited the various Shakespeare sites in Stratford, I was reminded how heavily Shakespeare borrowed from the existing literature of his day.\u00a0 In fact, most of his plays are based on well-known stories or historical books.\u00a0 Shakespeare Online has a good listing of the various sources<\/a>.\u00a0 It shows how well read he was despite being without an Oxford education.<\/p>\n

But, it also underscores the importance of artists being able to draw on exisiting works.\u00a0 The genius of Shakespeare was his ability to take existing stories and add both new twists and poetical language to make those stories his own.\u00a0 If he were alive today, I think he would approve heartily of the notion of a creative commons<\/a> where people contribute their creative works to the greater good.<\/p>\n

Here’s some good news:\u00a0 all of Shakespeare’s writings<\/a> are in the public domain and available at Gutenberg so you and your students are free to draw on them for your own work.\u00a0 When I was still teaching English, I had my students write their own stories and poems based on Shakespearean themes.\u00a0 Now, I would open that assignment to include audio and video productions as well.<\/p>\n

And for your reading pleasure, here’s one of my favorite sonnets, mostly because of its ironic tone:<\/p>\n

CXXX<\/p>\n

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
\nCoral is far more red, than her lips red:
\nIf snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
\nIf hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
\nI have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
\nBut no such roses see I in her cheeks;
\nAnd in some perfumes is there more delight
\nThan in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
\nI love to hear her speak, yet well I know
\nThat music hath a far more pleasing sound:
\nI grant I never saw a goddess go,–
\nMy mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
\nAnd yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
\nAs any she belied with false compare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in the midst of an amazing trip to England that included a visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the hometown of William Shakespeare.\u00a0 On the flight over, I read an excellent biography of the bard by Stephen Greenblatt.\u00a0 As I read the book and visited the various Shakespeare sites in Stratford, I was reminded how heavily Shakespeare … Continue reading Shakespeare Would Have Approved<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[130,115,98,87],"tags":[385,131],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-commons","category-creativity","category-open-education-resources","category-open-source","tag-creative-commons","tag-shakespeare"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-3S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}