Paul Adrian Fried / HAMLET'S BIBLE

How might Londoners have reacted to seeing Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night at its first public performance on February 2, 1602 [1]? The play’s character Olivia, mourning a father’s and brother’s deaths, and reluctant to marry, might easily remind them of their queen, Elizabeth I. Olivia hides her face with a veil (1.1; 1.5); Elizabeth survived smallpox and hid her facial scars with thick makeup [2]. Olivia’s steward, Malvolio, might remind many of the late William Cecil, long-time advisor to Elizabeth and sometime spymaster [3]. Malvolio intercepts a letter - a forgery by Maria, designed to entrap him and bring about his downfall, which he believes contains a code - this would remind audiences of the downfall of Mary Queen of Scots (executed February 1587), accomplished in part by intercepted letters – some in code, some alleged forgeries - overseen by Cecil [4]. Mary claimed at her trial “That it was an easy matter to counterfeit the Ciphers and Characters of others” [5]. It was an old ...

What Kind of Fool was Shakespeare? Climate Change; Olivia & Malvolio; Ophelia & Polonius; Politics in Hamlet and Twelfth Night [1] How should we best think of Shakespeare’s relationship to his patrons and the powers-that-be? As an enthusiastic supporter of the English monarch and English church, regardless of its faults or occasional oppressions? Or might we better think of him like The Pianist , the film about a musician and piano player who escapes death in a concentration camp, and briefly entertains a Nazi military leader who would protect him? Or like the musicians in the 1980 film, Playing for Time , about musicians in a Nazi concentration camp allowed to escape death as long as they entertain their captors? [2] Or as a court fool, paid to entertain royalty, but required to speak awkward and inconvenient truths, as long as he could do so in a witty and entertaining manner? I’ve been thinking about this question for the past few weeks in light of a news item in ...