Happy Birthday Shakespeare!

The study of Shakespeare’s life is full of assumptions, best guesses, and wild conjecture. Was he a secret Catholic spy? A nobleman hiding his identity? Sir Francis Bacon? Or the son of a minor civil servant and glove maker?

The first of many mysteries of Shakespeare’s life, the date of his birth is unknown, but we celebrate it, today, April 23^rd, 3 days before the recorded baptism of a William Shakespeare in Stratford-Upon-Avon.

So, today in honor of the birth of the greatest author in the English language, we have a handful of posts today that celebrate Shakespeare.

National Poetry Month: Prestwick House Recommends...

The poem that stands out in my mind is Robert Frost’s “Putting in the Seed.” I read it for the first time as a seventeen-year-old college student, in a freshman year class entitled “Metaphors Be With You,” taught by the unforgettable Devon Miller-Duggan. She was one of those teachers that made getting up for a Friday morning class wholly worthwhile. I often think of this poem at this time of year when I start to spend time outside and lose track of all else.

Putting in the Seed
ROBERT FROST

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree.
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

As an assignment for this class, we were asked to write a “response poem.” We were given no other direction than to read the poem, interpret it, and then write a poem answering or echoing Frost’s message in a way that made sense to us. I decided to write mine as the wife of the author —exasperated at her husband’s love of being outside for hours at a time.

A Wife’s Plea
ANNIE RIZZUTO

Tonight, once again, I have readied your dinner,
broiled and browned and fiddled with taste.
I shout for you now, and I fear you grow thinner —
Unlike the weeds you consider, you do not make haste.

You insist Earth sustains you with mere shedding crumbs
and feeds your desires with gold-brown shafts of light.
Your senses are satisfied, you need not come,
tear away from the Mistress, whose beauty delights.

Oh, She may captivate, fertile sprouts taking root,
but man’s hunger sustains — and you must not ignore!
For She knows her power, bearing sweet tempting fruit,
She knows you are weak. Just a man. Nothing more.

I beg you, come in, lest Her grip hold you fast,
She is hungry, (always hungry!), and Her belly is vast.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth day is an interesting holiday.


While a day devoted to awareness of your impact on the environment is, of course, a good idea, it has always struck me as kind of ineffectual to spend one day focused on the environment, when the only real way to help to is to change your habits rather than make a few gestures on a state mandated holiday.


That being said, I guess the real value of the day comes in taking a step back and looking at what you’ve done over the last year to help reduce your environmental footprint and what you’re planning on doing to improve further in the next year, and what good habits you've formed over the year and what you can do to improve next year.


This year, the biggest step that I’ve been a part of has been the reduction of paper from catalogues. We’ve made huge strides this year in reducing the circulation of our five core catalogues by becoming more active in targeting our mailings. Over this school, we’ve reduced the amount of paper used in our catalogues by a huge amount – an estimated 61,950 pounds of paper.


We improved our in-office recycling program by getting single stream recycling for the whole office. We’ve instituted an employee ride share and public transportation benefit that includes reimbursement for gas and transportation costs for employees. Over the summer, we also volunteered at a local wildlife preserve working on clearing trails, painting kiosks, and similar tasks. We planted trees at our Smyrna, Delaware offices to help provide shade to a number of our windows.


In looking at the upcoming year, we’re going to continue working on internal recycling programs including bringing a recycling container to every desk (In fact, I think I’ll order them today). We’re also looking at installing solar panels on our roof to offset some of our electricity uses.


What have you done this year to decrease your footprint? Do you have any ideas on what else we can do in the upcoming year?


PS. Our friends at the American Shakespeare Center have compiled the Top 10 Green Shakespeare Quotes to help celebrate the day in Bard-tastic style.

National Poetry Month: Prestwick House Recommends...

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
WALT WHITMAN

(click here to view the poem)

What I like most about this poem is the way it approaches interconnectivity, what I consider a beautiful, transcendental, and secular conception of life, the universe, and all things--animate and inanimate.

The central theme of the poem appears in the beginning of Section 2:

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the day;
The simple, compact, well-joined scheme—myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated,
yet part of the scheme.

Whitman presents an idea of a perfect system, in which every object and being has a separate, unique identity, but is part of a greater whole; every individual entity draws from and shares energy with all other things.

This disintegrated interconnectivity exists between person and person. Whitman knows that he has an identity and an independent, contemplative mind, but he is still “one of a living crowd.”

It exists between people of all lands and continents, just as Whitman notes that the ships in the bay fly the flags of many nations. Many diverse people share the experience.

It exists between person and object: the flood-tide and ferry carry the crowd across the East River, and during the journey, Whitman and others are “refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow.”

Most fascinating of all, the scheme connects and transcends time and space. As Whitman stands aboard the ferry, watching the soft waves beneath him, the reflection of the sun on the water, the hills in the distance, and the sailors working in the rigging of nearby ships, he perceives the presence of the future—a generation of people who, two-hundred years after Whitman takes this journey home, will behold and observe the exact same scene through his eyes. Whitman projects his thoughts forward through time; the reader projects his or her thoughts backward. As Whitman writes:

It avails not, neither time nor place—distance avails not;
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence;
I project myself—also I return—I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh’d by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh’d;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you looked on thenumberless masts of ships, and the thick-stem’d pipes of steamboats, I look’d.

Furthermore, the interconnectivity exists between the mind and body, the spiritual and the physical:

I too had receiv’d identity by my Body;
That I was, I knew was of my body—and what I should be, I knew I should be of my body.

While Whitman—as well as every human being, the reader included—is able to transcend the physical plane of existence through thought and contemplation, but he can still conceive his personal identity through the physical limitations of his body, confined within finite boundaries of the palpable world. His sensory experience crossing the East River, in addition to the laws of nature, give him an identity.

For me, this poem is both awe-inspiring and reviving. It gives me great comfort me to think of the universe as something all-encompassing and good. Every single being, object, and occurrence exists or happens for a reason. In a way, the poem echoes a statement by Dr. Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide:

It is demonstrable…that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for all being created for an end, all is necessarily for the best end.

"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" suggests that the world is a perfect scheme, and perfect just as it is--without streams of milk and honey, a choir of angels, the endless laughter of children, and rolling hills stretching as far as the eye can see. It only takes a transcendent mind and a person who is willing to see beyond his or her own limited perception, to view the ultimate, subliminal truth—the interconnectivity—and acknowledge the perfection of the universe.

-- Stephanie Polukis, Writer

Tuesday Trivia

1. The first published drawings of what famous children's book author-illustrator appeared in a physics text entitled Atomics for the Millions?
2. In the book Gone With the Wind, how many months actually pass during Melanie's pregnancy?
3. Which Alfred Hitchcock movie title is drawn from Shakespeare's Hamlet?
4. What did writer Edgar Allan Poe and singer Jerry Lee Lewis have in common with their choice of wives?
5. How did Voltaire rid himself of tiresome guests?

Last Week's Answers

Author Eric Blair wrote under what pen name?

Eric Blair, author of Animal Farm and 1984, wrote under the pseudonym George Orwell. Blair considered several names including P. S. Burton, Kenneth Miles, and H. Lewis Allways. He finally adopted the nom de plume George Orwell because, as he told Eleanor Jacques, "It is a good round English name."

Which Aldous Huxley work was the inspiration behind Jim Morrison naming his band The Doors?

The book The Doors of Perception, by Aldous Huxley, was the inspiration behind Jim Morrison naming his band The Doors. The book tackles the subject of hallucinogenic drugs.

Which classic novel was written based on a bet between several authors vacationing together in 1818?

Mary Shelley and her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, were visiting their friend Lord Byron when she got the idea for Frankenstein. The three friends agreed to see who could come up with the best ghost story to scare the other two.

Which piece of American literature containing over 50,000 words does not once use the letter “e”?

American author, Ernest Vincent Wright wrote Gadsby: A Champion of Youth, which, except for the introduction and a note at the end, does not use the letter “e.” Every word is properly spelled and all narration is grammatically correct. He actually taped down the letter “e” on his typewriter to avoid accidentally using it.

Which word in the English language has the most definitions?

Of all the words in the English language, the word ’set’ has the most definitions.

**Missed out on past weeks' trivia? View them all here!

Deathmatch Winner

The Winner of the Prestwick House
Literature March Madness Deathmatch Challenge is...




Hamlet

Canterbury Tales Trivia

I am thrilled to announce that this Summer, Prestwick House will be releasing a revised version of our Literary Touchstone Classic, Canterbury Tales, with an updated glossary and so many new footnotes that you'll know more about the medieval period and classical mythology than you ever wanted to know.



Since I've been eating, sleeping, and breathing Canterbury Tales for the past couple of weeks, a Chaucer-related blog post was almost inevitable.

I invite you to test you basic, Canterbury Tales knowledge and

NAME THAT PILGRIM!

Read the clues below and determine which Canterbury Tales pilgrim is being referred to. Post your answers in the comments section below. All of the clues come from "The General Prologue," but as tempting as it may be to look up the answers, don't cheat!

Pilgrim A
• wears a tunic of coarse silk, discolored by his armor.
• loves honor and chivalry.
• is the first pilgrim to tell a tale.

Answer: The Knight


Pilgrim B
• wears bright red hose.
• hates when other women give offerings before her in Church.
• has been to Jerusalem three times.

Answer: The Wife of Bath


Pilgrim C
• knows only two or three Latin phrases.
• loves to eat onions and leaks.
• has a face covered in pimples and boils.

Answer: The Summoner



Pilgrim D
• speaks fluent French.
• has impeccable table manners.
• loves animals, especially her little dogs.

Answer: The Prioress


Pilgrim E
• spends all of his money on books.
• is reserved in manner and hardly ever speaks.
• prays for the souls of his benefactors.

Answer: The Clerk

Pilgrim F
• carries pins and trinkets to give to pretty girls.
• knows every innkeeper and barmaid in town.
• has a bit of a lisp.

Answer: The Friar


Pilgrim G
• used to be a carpenter.
• has a horse named Scot.
• manages land very efficiently.

Answer: The Reeve


BONUS QUESTION: What is the name of The Host?
Answer: Harry Bailey

Answers coming this Wednesday.

Happy 50th, Strunk & White

Strunk and White’s wildly popular Elements of Style turned 50 yesterday, and the occasion spurred quite an unexpected fracas in some academic circles. This slim and straightforward guide is said to be the only style manual ever to have appeared in bestseller lists, and in recent years it has even been celebrated with an illustrated edition and a musical adaptation. (No…seriously.) Not bad for a 50-year-old style guide of fewer than a hundred pages, eh?

But not everyone is in love with Elements. In fact, instead of cutting cake and lighting candles for yesterday’s birthday celebration, one indignant academic crashed the party with a stick of dynamite in hand. Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum of the University of Edinburgh marked the anniversary of the guide’s publication with an article called “50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice.”

For better or worse, William Strunk and E. B. White’s little book has had a profound impact on the way we’ve been writing for the past 50 years. So if you haven’t yet read it, you might want to pick up a copy and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

Deathmatch Finalists

Ok, folks, this is the final match-up.

Who will it be:
The Prince of Denmark or a bunch of good kids gone bad?
Cast your vote now!



Hamlet vs. Lord of the Flies

National Poetry Month: Prestwick House Recommends...

Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes
(unknown)

Adam
Had ’em.


When asked to write about a favorite poem in honor of National Poetry Month, I considered posting a rambling exposition of Beowulf or Paradise Lost. Fortunately for you, the reader, I decided to instead tackle the opposite end of the poetic spectrum and offer my exegesis of a mere four-syllable couplet, often cited as the world’s shortest poem.

On the surface, it’s a rhyme about bugs. But just below the surface is a slightly more interesting layer, in which the poem can be read as a gentle mockery of poetry itself. These pithy lines caricature several of the genre’s essential characteristics, as well as a few of the poet's common pitfalls. In them, we see the value placed on brevity and verbal precision, the importance of sound, as illustrated through the exaggerated use of rhythm and rhyme, and the poet’s lofty aim of conveying a timeless, universal theme, exemplified here through an allusion to our common ancestor, Adam, and his "lousy" condition. Perhaps more than anything, we see a reflection of the bathos sometimes found in more long-winded, high-minded poetry, in the absurd pairing of a lofty title with a banal subject.

Some will surely say that I’m reading too much into these four syllables. And they’ll probably be right. But regardless of how you read the poem, it’s certainly one that can be used to start a discussion about the poetic genre—its defining features, its diverse forms, and its occasional charming absurdities.

—Magedah Shabo, Staff Writer