A visit to the Globe Theatre in Southwark is an essential stop in London. Close to its original site, re-built through the efforts of Sam Wanamaker, the Globe had its official opening season in June 1997. Tours are conducted year-round and the museum housing the Globe Exhibition is a must-see – I have taken this tour a few times but have never been in London during the show season, usually late April to early October [ click here for this year’s offerings ] – so I was thrilled this trip to finally see a performance, and a play I have neither read nor seen: All’s Well That Ends Well!
London 1611, John Speed map. Genmaps.
The best way to get there is to walk across the Millenium Bridge:
Millenium Bridge from the Globe – 2010 rainy visit!
Globe Stage
We had fabulous seats, front row of the first balcony with the railing to lean on, looking down onto the stage and the lowly “pit-dwellers” [and cautioned to NOT drape anything or hold drinks over the rail for fear of droppings on the standing-room only crowd below] – and one piece of advice – either bring your own or rent a cushion – offered for £1 and worth every pence!]
The Seats! - the Globe Tour, Feb 2010, hence the coats
What an experience! – transported back into Shakespeare’s day –
the language, the costumes, the comedy! Though there was no such
Globe Theatre during Austen’s day, Shakespeare was produced in the
theatres and Austen was a regular theatre-goer when visiting Henry
and Eliza in London. Austen and Shakespeare is, however, book not
blog post material! – there are numerous allusions to Shakespeare in
her letters and writings [ Richard III, Macbeth, King John, Hamlet, Henry IV, The Merchant of Venice for starters…], but as heard in this
dialogue between Henry Crawford and Edmund Bertram in Mansfield Park,
we can perhaps get a sense of Austen’s true feelings about Shakespeare:
Crawford: “… I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I have heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman’s constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately.”
And Edmund replies: “No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree from one’s earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions; but this is totally distinct from giving his sense as you gave it. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent.”
[Mansfield Park, Vol. III, Ch. 3, p. 338]
But back to All’s Well That Ends Well: I turn to my trusty Shakespeare
text from college [we were using the G. B. Harrison text of 1952 in 1967!
yikes!] – now, I confess, quite torn and tattered, one of the few books I vigorously attacked with marginalia and underlining – but alas!, AWTEW remains pristine, a glaring anomaly, and I wonder what my professor had against this play?! This must be one of Shakespeare’s duds – a comedy
without humor, a romance without a hero. Indeed, this textbook says
[dated though it is!):
“The play seems never to have been popular. Scholars have found no contemporary mention of quotation. There is, therefore, no external fact by which the date of writing can be determined, nor is there any topical allusion or other clue within the play itself. The style is uneven, but in the best passages, both verse and prose, there is a maturity which shows that the play was written in the latter half of Shakespeare’s career…. [thus] a date is assigned somewhere between 1601 and 1604.” [Harrison, p. 1018.] It first appeared in print in the First Folio of 1623, after Shakespeare’s death in 1616.
First Folio - AWTEW - Wikipedia
Its original source was from Boccaccio’s Decameron, likely from William Painter’s collection of Italianate tales, The Palace of Pleasure (1566), Shakespeare following the tale of Giglietta de Narbone and Beltram de Rossiglione quite closely, with his usual added subplots of fools and
braggarts.
Basic story: Bertram, a young Count whose father has just died, leaves
home to attend the Court of the ailing King of France. Bertram bids adieu
to his mother, the delightful Countess* of Roussillon, and her ward, Helena,
the daughter of a well-respected physician. Helena is in love with Bertram,
but as she is of a lower class, her affection is not, cannot be reciprocated [though Bertram does carry Helena’s handkerchief with him for the entire play, all the while eschewing her love]. Conveniently the King of France is dying; Helena offers to cure him with the knowledge she has learned from her father; her prize if she is successful to choose a husband from his courtiers; the Countess sends her off to Paris, and the fun begins.
The King is cured, Helena chooses Bertram [the selection process is very funny!], he declines due to her low social status [he is a man on the way UP],
the King insists, they marry, and Bertram sends her home without a wedding night. He then heads off to war in Italy to make a name for himself, writing Helena that he will remain her husband in name only unless she can get the
ring from his finger and prove she is pregnant with his child [difficult with no wedding night…]. Helena leaves immediately for Italy, with full approval of
her now mother-in-law The Countess who loves her as a true daughter, and she discovers Bertram making merry with the young Italian lasses, one in particular named Diana. Helena tells her tale of woe to Diana and her mother and they agree to the infamous “bed-trick” whereby Helena will secretly appear to Bertram as his lover Diana – she requests his ring, she, or course, is left with child, her identity is revealed, Bertram confesses his true love after all, and as the saying goes, “all’s well that ends well”! [This very brief summary gives
short shift to the subplot of Bertram’s right-hand man, Parolles, a coward and
a traitor, blindly followed by Bertram until his true colors are revealed – and
all up to humorous par with Shakespeare’s other such braggarts.]
Helena (Ellie Piercy) & Bertram (Sam Crane) - Globe website
The play has been rarely acted, and has no glowing reviews, as the following example of Samuel Johnson attests:
The play has many delightful scenes, though not sufficiently probable, and some happy characters, though not new, nor produced by any deep knowledge of human nature. …I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram, a man noble without generosity, and young without truth, who marries Helen [sic] as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate; when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.
[Samuel Johnson, Notes on the Plays of Shakespeare, 1765] –
in Harrison, p. 1019.
But enjoyable it was, despite the hero being a bit of a jerk [does “Bertram’
have a familiar ring as a hero sorely lacking??!] – he does every thing to hurt Helena, is obsessed with his social status, chooses friends who are scoundrels, whines, whines and whines again, lies his way into the beds of maidens, and in the last five minutes, is, as Johnson says, “dismissed to happiness.”
But who needs a dashing romantic hero when one has The Globe in one’s periphery and a play with much lively wit in prose and verse [the King’s
timely “I am wrapped in dismal thinkings” nearly brought the roof down, though alas! no roof in sight! – I shall now use this phrase repeatedly and annoy all my friends!], and it all ends with a lengthy round of dancing – all characters participating in the raucous festivities where one is finally able to see Bertram as a more lively and affectionate lover. My traveling companion and I agreed – all plays should end in such a way! [we later in the week saw Wicked and were much disappointed that the characters came out only for a bow and did not break into ten minutes of dancing!]
Musicians for AWTEW
* an Austen 6 degrees of separation stretch but worthy of note!:
The Countess is played by Janie Dee, who is also cast as Adam Dalgliesh’s lovely Emma in P. D. James’s Death in Holy Orders and The Murder Room – Emma of course being the perfect mate for her Austen-loving detective and recipient of a very Wentworth–worthy letter of Dalgliesh’s professed love!
Helena and the Countess (Janie Dee) - The Telegraph
A side note: the program guide is worth the price of admission! – with a short history of the Globe, Shakespeare in London, the background and history of the play to include its contemporary contexts all with pictures, photographs of the actors in rehearsal, extensive biographies of the cast, excellent ads, and the latest news at The Globe, a very exciting bit being the new indoor Jacobean Theatre which will allow winter performances. Hurray!
If you are in London this season, I can only emphatically say, get thee hence to The Globe! – this season’s offerings besides AWTEW are Hamlet, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Doctor Faustus, Anne Boleyn, The Globe Mysteries, and The God of Soho – see the link here for more information.
From The Globe Exhibition:
Elizabeth I dress
FurtherReading: [a very brief smattering of Shakespeare]
Shakespeare, William. Shakespeare, the Complete Works. Ed. G. B. Harrison. New York: Harcourt, 1952.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/ visit for this season’s schedule, the shop, membership, tour information, etc…
Breaking news from The Guardian: [and now all over the blogsphere!]
Jane Austen rare manuscript
up for sale
A rare, handwritten manuscript of Jane Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons is to be sold at auction at Sotheby’s in London.
by Mark Brown, The Guardian, May 20, 2011
An incredibly rare handwritten manuscript of an unfinished novel by Jane Austen – the only one that is still in private hands – is to appear at auction inLondon.
The neatly written but heavily corrected pages are for her unfinished work The Watsons, a novel which many believe could easily have been as good as her six completed works.
Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s senior specialist in books and manuscripts, said it was “a thrill and privilege” to be selling it: “It is very exciting. This is the most significant Austen material to come on the market since the late 1980s.”
It is unquestionably rare. Original manuscripts of her published novels do not exist, aside from two cancelled chapters of Persuasion in the British Library.
The novel is considered around a quarter completed and the manuscript has 68 pages – hand-trimmed by Austen – which have been split up into 11 booklets.
It is most but not all of Austen’s unfinished novel. The first 12 pages were sold by an Austen descendent during the first world war to help the Red Cross and are now in New York’s Pierpont Morgan Library, while the next few pages were inexplicably lost by Queen Mary, University of London which has been looking after the manuscript.
The college’s director of library services Emma Bull said it happened six years ago, before she arrived, and had resulted in a full investigation which, alas, “did not really come to any firm conclusions about what specifically happened.” There had been a hope that they would turn up, but clearly that is now highly unlikely.
The Watsons manuscript shows how Austen’s other manuscripts must have looked. It also shines an interesting light on how she worked. Austen took a piece of paper, cut it in two and then folded over each half to make eight-page booklets. Then she would write, small neat handwriting leaving little room for corrections – of which there are many. “You can really see the mind at work with all the corrections and revisions,” said Heaton.
Scene from Pride & Prejudice, by Isabel Bishop - Morgan Library
At one stage she crosses so much out that she starts a page again and pins it in. It seems, in Austen’s mind, her manuscript had to look like a book. “Writers often fall into two categories,” said Heaton. “The ones who fall into a moment of great inspiration and that’s it and then you have others who endlessly go back and write and tinker. Austen is clearly of the latter variety. It really is a wonderful, evocative document.”
The Watsons was written in 1804, not a hugely happy time for Austen professionally – she had one novel rejected and another bought by a publisher who failed to print it.
It was also a difficult time personally and one reason it was not finished may be because fact came too close to the fiction. The Watsons heroine is Emma, one of four sisters who are daughters of a sick and widowed clergyman. The novel would have had the father die leaving Emma in a precarious financial position. In real life, Austen’s clergyman father died leaving her in a similar pickle to her fictional heroine.
Had Austen completed The Watsons there are many who believe it would have been a classic. Margaret Drabble described it as “a tantalising, delightful and highly accomplished fragment, which must surely have proved the equal of her other six novels, had she finished it.”
The manuscript was bought by the present owner in 1988 when it was sold by the British Rail Pension Fund. It had been bought from Austen descendents in the 1970s when manuscripts, rare books and fine art seemed like perfectly sensible things for nationalised pension funds to buy.
The manuscript has been valued at £200,000 to £300,000 and will be sold at Sotheby’s in London on 14 July.
One of the best places to visit in London if you have any interest in English domestic life is the Geffrye Museum – this has been on my ‘to-visit’ list for several years and I just haven’t made it there on previous trips to London – so when I met up with Tony Grant and he said said his favorite museum is the Geffrye – well, done deal, off we went!
As mentioned above, I did not have my camera, and we got there late, spent too much time chatting over tea, and the place closed down before I could finish the tour on contemporary life and go to the shop – so I cannot offer much more than a link to their fabulous website, where you can take any number of virtual tours through the various rooms, and begin to imagine Jane Austen in her own time and place!
From their website:
The Geffrye Museum depicts the quintessential style of English middle-class living rooms. Its collections of furniture, textiles, paintings and decorative arts are displayed in a series of period rooms from 1600 to the present day.
The displays lead the visitor on a walk through time, from the 17th century with oak furniture and panelling, past the refined splendour of the Georgian period and the high style of the Victorians, to 20th century modernity as seen in a 1930s flat, a mid-century room in ‘contemporary style’ and a late-20th century living space in a converted warehouse.
The museum is set in elegant 18th century almshouses with a contemporary wing surrounded by attractive gardens, which include an award-winning walled herb garden and a series of period gardens.
A parlour in 1790 – photography John Hammond
The use of the parlour remained much the same as earlier in the century; it was the room where the family would have gathered, received guests and taken meals. However, the way it was decorated and furnished had changed considerably.
In diaries, journals and letters of the time people often referred to rooms and furnishings that they liked as ‘neat’, which meant bright and stylish as well as clean and tidy. This taste required lighter colours and more delicate decoration. Wallpapered walls were particularly useful for achieving this effect, replacing heavily moulded panelling.
In the museum’s room the wallpaper is a modern replica copied from a fragment dating to around 1780. The plaster frieze is copied from a house in Cross Street, Islington. Interest in classical design and decoration was increasingly widespread towards the end of the century.
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When you first walk in, you are faced with a series of chairs depicting each era – a wondeful way to see the changes in that most essential piece of furniture – the lofty chair. And then you begin your tour through the period rooms, starting with a Hall of 1630. Each room is arranged to look as though someone just got up and left – letters half written, chairs a bit askew, cards spread out. Tony is a teacher and he said he loves bringing young people to this very hands-on museum – he would focus on a particular item or habit – for example, light – and have his students really think about how our use of and access to different kinds of light has changed through the years. It is a marvelous way of really putting yourself in each room and seeing how one would have to function in that context.
A drawing room in 1830 – photography Chris Ridley
The Almshouse was not open when I visited, so here again from their website:
An almshouse room in 1880 – photography Morley von Sternberg
The 1880s room, situated on the upper floor, shows how a former governess living in the Geffrye almshouses during the 1880s may have furnished it.
The interior exemplifies the principle of genteel poverty. Within this context, the objects on display reflect many of the principal themes related to daily life during the nineteenth century, such as scientific and technological developments, moral and social trends, travel, and educational and artistic accomplishments.
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The Museum also houses elegant gardens from the 17th to 20th centuries; here is one from the 18th c – you can visit the website for lists of key plants:
18th century period garden – photography Jayne Lloyd
A lovely visit, despite my lack of camera! – and again my hearty thanks to Tony Grant for taking me there!
All the images posted here are from the website, where you can visit all the rooms, take virtual tours, shop*, and discover this magical world of the English home.
*the shop has many books, such as The History of the Geffrye Almshouses, by Kathy Haslam.
or gifts:
You can also visit them on Facebook here, where you can like them!
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Have just returned from a week in London – hence the blogging silence – will post more pictures and some thoughts, but to start here are a few. I met up for a delightful tea and afternoon of sight-seeing with Tony Grant, of the blog London Calling [alas! he just lately removed it from the blogsphere] – Tony now writes regularly for Vic at Jane Austen’s World, where you can see his pictures and posts on Austen’s England [see his latest on The Library of an 18th-century Gentleman and also today’s post at Jane Austen Today on Brighton Pier.]
As I did the unbelievable, mind-boggling error of leaving my camera in the hotel, I have only this one photo of Tony and I [taken by an obliging passer-by on Tony’s camera] to prove that we actually met up!
Here we are in front of Henry Austen’s home/office at 10 Henrietta Street where Jane stayed!
I went back a few days later to get a photograph of the plaque on the building:
Many thanks to Tony for a lovely day of walking around London – I find that it was all the more satisfying because I DID forget my camera – one ceases to look at everything from the inside of that little box, framing all in view for just the right shot – so everything seen remains all the more etched in my memory.
More to come – museums, plays, walking, walking, walking in search of Austen in Regency London – and in perfect sunshine all week! Stay tuned!
Westminster Abbey
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Registration for the 2011 AGM in Fort Worth Texas is now open. You must be a member of JASNA to participate, so what better time to join than now, when you can head off into the sunset with all new thoughts about Sense and Sensibility [and perhaps a Col. Brandon by your side!] – check out all the events at the AGM website here as JASNA celebrates the 200th anniversary of Austen’s first published novel:
The ABC Sydney, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, has posted online its weekly “Self-Improvement Wednesday.” This week’s lesson is an 11 minute chat on “Jane Austen’s Crime” with Susannah Fullerton, the JASA President and author of the fabulous Jane Austen & Crime.
Enjoy this very quick and entertaining run through all the possible crimes in Georgian England as seen in Austen’s writings: adultery and crim con, dueling, prostitution, murder, elopement, rape, theft, smuggling, gaming, and the various punishments. Better yet, read the book! [you can read my review here.]
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
Fantastic Ferens ~ The Canaletto on display in the Ferens Gallery, Hull
Plus: All the latest news from the world of Jane Austen, as well as Letters, Book Reviews, the always difficult Quiz, a Competition, and Jottings from JAS and JASNA.
*We are very pleased to see that our very own JASNA-Vermont member Kelly McDonald has another article in JARW – congratulations Kelly! You can follow Kelly on her blog Two Teens in the Time of Austen.
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum, of Jane Austen in Vermont
In A Jane Austen Education, Austen scholar William Deresiewicz turns to the author’s novels to reveal the remarkable life lessons hidden within. With humor and candor, Deresiewicz employs his own experiences to demonstrate the enduring power of Austen’s teachings. Progressing from his days as an immature student to a happily married man, Deresiewicz’s A Jane Austen Education is the story of one man’s discovery of the world outside himself.
A self-styled intellectual rebel dedicated to writers such as James Joyce and Joseph Conrad, Deresiewicz never thought Austen’s novels would have anything to offer him. But when he was assigned to read Emma as a graduate student at Columbia, something extraordinary happened. Austen’s devotion to the everyday, and her belief in the value of ordinary lives, ignited something in Deresiewicz. He began viewing the world through Austen’s eyes and treating those around him as generously as Austen treated her characters. Along the way, Deresiewicz was amazed to discover that the people in his life developed the depth and richness of literary characters-that his own life had suddenly acquired all the fascination of a novel. His real education had finally begun.
Weaving his own story-and Austen’s-around the ones her novels tell, Deresiewicz shows how her books are both about education and themselves an education. Her heroines learn about friendship and feeling, staying young and being good, and, of course, love. As they grow up, they learn lessons that are imparted to Austen’s reader, who learns and grows by their sides.
A Jane Austen Education is a testament to the transformative power of literature, a celebration of Austen’s mastery, and a joy to read. Whether for a newcomer to Austen or a lifelong devotee, Deresiewicz brings fresh insights to the novelist and her beloved works. Ultimately, Austen’s world becomes indelibly entwined with our own, showing the relevance of her message and the triumph of her vision.
A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
ISBN 9781594202889
272 pages
Release date: 28 Apr 2011
The Penguin Press: available in hardover for $25.95; ebook / adobe reader for $12.99
About the author:
William Deresiewicz was an associate professor of English at Yale University until 2008 and is a widely published literary critic who writes for a popular audience. His reviews and criticism regularly appear in The New Republic, The Nation, The American Scholar, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times. In 2008 he was nominated for a National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism.
Regency Dancing was how young ladies and young gentlemen met and courted, and the dance floor was often the only place they could talk without being overheard by their chaperones. As was to be expected, the dancing was lively and flirtateous. The dancing needs to be accurate and elegant, but always remember that it is also about love and young people having fun.
A lovely email from a Gentleman in England alerted me to this new website on Regency Dances [ http://RegencyDances.org ].
From his email:
Launched in January, the site is a free learning resource for Regency Dances. As well as providing dance notations, the dances are shown as animations. This combination of watching the animation while following the notation has been found to be an excellent way of quickly understanding the structure of a dance. The dances are taken from original 18th -19th century sources and written into modern notation by experienced dancers under the watchful eye of a recognised international expert.
Two or three new dances are added each week. To keep informed you can “follow” them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RegencyDances
The objective of http://RegencyDances.org is to create an international shared website resource independent of any specific dance group for (a) sharing genuine Regency dances of known provenance, (b) sharing news of upcoming Regency balls, and (c) sharing information about other Regency groups.
The site includes a history of the dances, the various dance steps presented in animations, lists of dances and music sources, plans on how to organize a Regency party, a listing of various societies and upcoming events, and a very informative section on “What to Wear” which includes the details of the era fashions and how to locate or make your very own costume.
Please visit the site if you have any interest in the dance of Jane Austen’s period – new information is being constantly added, and the site editors are “looking for sources of recorded music that we may use, videos of single dances to be selected as examples of ‘good practice’ and a few more editors.”
If you are a member of a Regency dance group, certainly add your name and events to their growing list.
[Image: Regency Dances website]
Copyright @2011 by Deb Barnum of Jane Austen in Vermont.
A new exhibition takes a closer look at a glittering yet turbulent era. In October of 1810, England’s King George III slipped into that final madness from which only death would release him, nearly a decade later. The following February, Parliament authorized the king’s estranged and profligate eldest son, the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), to rule in his place as regent. Extravagant, emotional, controversial, and self-indulgent, the prince regent lent his name and many of his characteristics to a glittering era.
In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of this extraordinary decade, The Huntington presents an exhibition titled “Revisiting the Regency: England, 1811–1820.” Opening April 23 in the West Hall of the Library and continuing through Aug. 1, the exhibition draws on The Huntington’s extensive holdings of rare books, manuscripts, prints, and drawings documenting this historic era.
The term “Regency England” usually evokes Jane Austen’s world of graceful country-house living and decorous village society, the elegance of London’s fashionable elite, or the licentious activities of the prince and his aristocratic Carlton House set. Ladies followed the latest fashions in La Belle Assemblée while gentlemen copied Beau Brummell’s severe elegance. Readers found new works by a generation of England’s greatest poets and novelists: Austen, Lord Byron, John Keats, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Sir Walter Scott. Londoners enjoyed a rich theatrical and musical life, watching Edmund Kean’s premiere in Richard III or hearing the first English production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Art lovers followed the latest exhibits at the Royal Academy. Under the prince’s patronage, architect John Nash created the fantasy Royal Pavilion at Brighton and remade London’s West End with the new developments of Regent’s Park and Regent Street.
Yet underneath this ordered upper-class surface lay a far more complex and turbulent world: more than a century of intermittent war with France ended at Waterloo, but peace revealed wrenching poverty, social unrest, the strains of rapid industrialization, and growing calls for political reform. The first railroads, gas lighting, and other advances in technology altered the landscape of everyday life.
This rich cavalcade of people and events provided irresistible targets for a brilliant generation of visual satirists. The witty, savage, and iconic images of George Cruikshank and his fellow caricaturists, well represented in the exhibition, capture all the vagaries of an extraordinary decade in English arts, letters, science, and society.
Jane Austen in Vermont 