Tea at Trianon: Shakespeare's Plays

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Shakespeare's Plays

How did they really sound?

The CD is said to bring to life rhymes and jokes that are not audible in contemporary English - as well as to illustrate what Hamlet meant when he advised his actors to speak “trippingly upon the tongue”. (‘Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue’ -- Hamlet, Act 3) The recording has been overseen by Ben Crystal, who has chosen the actors, and curated and directed their speeches.

"For the first time in centuries, we have 75 recorded minutes of sonnets, speeches and scenes recorded as we hope Shakespeare heard them. It is, in short, Shakespeare as you've never heard him before.

“The modern presentation of Shakespeare's plays and poems in period pronunciation has already attracted a wide following, despite the fact that hardly any recordings have been publicly available," he said. The CD is also said to illustrate what Hamlet meant when he advised his actors to speak “trippingly upon the tongue”.’ (Read entire article.)