The Bicks Pod

Topic Introduction:

What's in a face? That's the question we tackle this episode, with an auditory look at the various faces that have been purported to be of Shakespeare over the ages. Which portraits have been put forth as depictions of the Bard? Of those, which are most likely, and which have been discredited?
More importantly: Why do we care so much?

List of Portraits Discussed in this Episode:

The Stratford monument: In Stratford-upon-Avon, installed in 1617-1618 above the chancel in Holy Trinity Church, which is where Shakespeare is buried.

The First Folio engraving by Martin Droeshout: The most famous portrait of Shakespeare, featured on the title page of the First Folio.

The Chandos Portrait: Aka the sexy earring portrait. Possibly depicts Shakespeare in costume as Shylock. Definitely dates from the first decade of the 17th century. Owned by the National Portrait Gallery.

The Cobbe Portrait: One of the more recently identified portraits potentially of Shakespeare.

The Sanders Portrait: Maybe our favourite (as a Canadian, if nothing else). Has undergone possibly the most rigorous testing of any of the supposed portraits of Shakespeare.

The Soest Portrait: Aka Greg. Just a nice guy.

...and the rest, which have all been disproved as portraits of Shakespeare:

Grafton
Flower
Ashbourne
Janssen

Notes on terminology:
provenance: the record of ownership of a painting or work of art. It's used to authenticate a piece of art; the more solid the history of ownership or provenance, the more authentic it is deemed to be. Murky provenance doesn't automatically discount a painting, and solid provenance doesn't always guarantee that a painting is what it claims to be.

dendrochronology: the study of tree rings, used specifically to date a piece of wood. Used in the art world to determine the age and possibly the years of growth of the paneling a portrait or painting has been painted on.

microscopic analysis: examines signs of aging in the paint layer. Looks at things such a craquelure, pigment saturation, efforts at restoration and other such things that can only be seen under a microscope.

IR spectroscopy: uses infrared (IR) light to determine specific properties of a painting, like the paint or glue used in its production. Can also be used on wood to determine dating.

Ancient Bickerings:

Today is less of a debate and more of an opinion piece: Which portrait do we each want to be authentically of Shakespeare?

This week we explore one of the lesser-known history plays, Richard II. The chronological jumping-off point for the story that will eventually result in the Wars of the Roses (covered in previous episodes), this play is a through examination of the distinctions between man and king, god and country, and power and helplessness. Join us for a deep dive into the character of Richard himself, the language used to describe jolly old England, what the play is telling us about fathers and sons, and the interesting set-up for the upcoming Henry IV and Henry V plays.

Ancient Bickerings:

This week we dove into a favourite topic concerning kings named "Richard" - is Richard II a tragic figure? Lindsay said "yay" Aidan "nay" and somehow they both turned out to be wrong and right.

Shakespeare's sonnets are often the first and perhaps the easiest entry point for beginning students. They are lovely little bite-sized poems that exist in discrete units which can be appreciated as works of deep emotion and literary beauty or in grand cycles in the poetic tradition that lead the reader through a flurry of emotion when read together with other similarly-themed sonnets. Most of all, they contain some of Shakespeare's most romantic and certainly most famous written passages.

Our study today tackles the sonnets from both angles. We consider the history of the sonnet and the tradition within which Shakespeare wrote his 154-cycle work of art, before branching out into the works themselves, looking at them within the three distinct groups scholars have identified and as works unto themselves.

Eternal Bickering

It's a new year, a new decade, and so our newly named "Eternal Bickering" segment sees us tackling the age-old question of how to read the sonnets: Should they be considered autobiographical or not?

Notes:

List of Sonnets (with notes)

An Outline of the Contents of Shakespeare's Sonnets

The 8 Types of Sonnets and How to Tell Them Apart (check out the Terza Rima, Curtal, and Modern Sonnet!)

A fascinating article from the British Library about Mary Fitton, scandalized by her out-of-wedlock pregnancy by Shakespeare's patron, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, and candidate for Shakespeare's Dark Lady.

It is the humble opinion of your hosts that Shakespeare starts coming into his own as a truly innovative playwright in Love's Labour's Lost. Up until this point, the plays have been fairly straightforward in presentation, structure, and subject matter; in LLL, all of that is played with, to great effect. Starting with this play, Shakespeare starts showing the sense of playfulness as a writer, experimenting with his craft, that marks some of the great works that follow.

A conventional love story on the surface--four noble men fall in love with four noble women; hilarity ensues--bucks the trends of comedy (there's no marriage at the end) and comments on its own production ("That's too long for a play") and does so with tremendous flair and wit that Shakespeare is well-known for today, but which must have been terrifically fresh when the play was first written and performed in the middle-1590s.
Join us as we chat about the fun themes presented in this innovative play!
Marriage Counselling

In today's bickering session, we debate the question of whether or not Love's Labour's Lost is a comedy or... something else?

Other Notes

The 2000 Kenneth Branagh film has been pretty thoroughly scrubbed from the internet, but we did locate a German trailer for the dub of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hDoUMvZhk

As well as this audio from the original trailer, mixed up with a webseries that seems loosely based on the same events as the play: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVuR945tOqk&feature=emb_logo

It goes without saying that William Shakespeare, that Sweet Swan of Avon, the upstart crow who turned the English language upside down, was an influential dude. But what many people gloss over in their Bardolatrous zeal is the central question of our show today: Who influenced Shakespeare?

Ancient Bickerings
The gloves come off as Aidan and Lindsay take sides to answer the central question: Since so much of Shakespeare's work was adapted from other source material... was Shakespeare a thief?
Notes:

What Inspired Shakespeare?
- Warwickshire and Shakspeare's Plays
- BBC Radio 4: In Our Time - Marlowe
- The Holinshed Project
- The University Wits
- The Comedy of Errors - Shakespeare's Sources
- A Midsummer Night's Dream - British Library
- Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare's Sources
- The Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare's Sources
- Julius Caesar - Influences of Plutarch
- Hamlet Dates and Sources - Royal Shakespeare Company
- Prince of Jutland (aka Royal Deceit) - a film adaptation of Amleth (and yes, it starred Helen Mirren as Geruth)
- Macbeth - Sources
- King Lear Sources
- Edward Hall's Chronicle (Wikipedia - with references to a book about a possible copy belonging to Shakespeare)
- "The Poet's Hand" - The New Yorker
- James VI and I's Demonology
- Lindsay mentioned a comedian or actor who carries around a notebook that he used to write down ideas that struck him from conversations he was having; it was actually Canadian singer/songwriter and Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie. (Source: this came straight from Gord's brother Mike, but it is also referenced on Gord Downie's official website)