Monday, June 9, 2008

PlayShakespeare

I received an email today asking if I was interested in moving this Shakespeare blog to the PlayShakespeare website.

Here are the rules. On reading the rules, they require an update every day or at least several times a week. Obviously I cannot commit to that high frequency so I will decline. I like being able to post what I want to write about Shakespeare, when I want to, and it doesnt matter too much if a few weeks go by. It also help that some challenge readers are posting their books on this blog as well - thank you John, Pamela and Athena.

So I think I will decline their gracious offer, but I will bookmark the site. It looks very interesting. It has all the plays wriiten out in full (which is very useful. And it even has a few plays I am not familiar with.

Sir Thomas More is one, and Two Noble Kinsman is another. I have a vague idea that this was another name for the Cardenio play - I am not sure about that. There is no mention of Edmund Ironsides - a play I have in book form, but which most Shakespeare scholars reject as not being one of the bards. There is also a play listed called Edward III - another one I am not familiar with. I don't recall Shakespeare ever writing a play about any king named Edward. None of these four plays are listed in the First Folio. Which is probably why they are unknown.

And I just found another interesting website. Hudson Shakespeare Theater Company based in Weehawken, New Jersey.

2 comments:

Duane Morin said...

Hey, I'm jealous, they didn't ask me! If you're curious about them you could hit up Alan K. Farrar (a frequent contributor over at 'Geek), they seem to have his Shakespeareance blog listed.

Two Noble Kinsmen, is known, and is generally considered to be Shakespeare's work now. If you hear people referring to 38 plays instead of 37, it is because they're including that one.

Edward III and Thomas More are both of disputed authorship, I believe I lose track of which are "known, but lost" (ala Cardenio) and which are "disputed" even though we have the text.

http://www.shakespearegeek.com

Unknown said...

This comment is a bit late, but for the record bloggers on PlayShakespeare.com are not required to post every day or several times a week (as you state). The link points to a page that says "on a regular basis" and gives no specific time requirement. And this is evident by the time between posts by our current bloggers.

As Duane states, the three plays you mentioned are of unproven authorship but we decided to include them anyway. If someone is looking for them, we shouldn't get in the way of them finding the resource just because the authorship question is unresolved.

If there are any other questions about the site or why certain things are the way they are, feel free to post in the forum there and they will be promptly answered.