Princess Diana, Shakespeare Scholar?

Here’s an interesting story – an old Shakespeare text from 1977 has been found with scribbled notes in the margins that have been authenticated as those of Princess Diana The play? The Tempest. There’s also apparently some math notes, and she weren’t so good at da math.
I’m not sure what’s more sad, though – her handwriting, her grasp of math, or the article’s sad emphasis on pocket change: ‘Being a Yorkshireman, my father always checked what people had thrown out in case it was worth a few bob.” And then later, “‘I’m shocked and delighted it’s worth so much. I’m going to sell it at the right auction and at the right time.’” Absolutely – you’ve found a piece of history. Sell it as fast as you can.
Also interesting is that it’s only worth about 1500 British pounds, which is somewhere around $2000US. At that price I think I’d keep it. What am I going to do when I sell it, buy a television? That’d make fun dinner conversation. “Oh, like the new high def? Yeah, I sold a piece of British history for it.”

Speechless

Regular readers know that I’ll often sing “Shakespeare songs” to my kids as lullabies. I know two — Sonnet 18, which I originally heard put to music by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd (and used to use as my cellphone ringtone), and “What A Piece of Work Is Man” from the HAIR soundtrack.
So last night I crawl into bed with the 4yr old. “Daddy sing you a song?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“What song should I sing?”
“Shakespeare,” he said
“Which one?” I asked
“William,” he answered.

You know that thing that fish do when you take them out of the water, how the little mouth just sort of opens and closes and nothing really comes out? I had one of those moments. It took me a good number of seconds to shake it off and regain myself. “Which Shakespeare song,” I asked more clearly.
“The one about the guy? With the skeleton? And he talks to it?”
“Hamlet?”
“Yeah, Hamlet.”
Ah, back to reality. 🙂

Who's Who In Shakespeare Blogs?

Thanks to Bardfilm for pointing out this list of the 30 Best Shakespeare Blogs. Best, of course, is in the eye of the beholder — look at instead as a survey across the wonderful world of Shakespeare Blogging. How much it’s grown in 5 years!
Many of our friends made the list. Congratulations to Mad Shakespeare, Shakespeare Place (JM’s site), Shakespeare Teacher, American Shakespeare Center, Bardfilm, Folger, Shakespeare Standard … great work, everybody!

I'm … Stumped.

Would you believe I actually found a good, unique question on Yahoo Answers? Maybe it’s been asked before, but in all my time I don’t think I’ve ever seen it.

What play, or type of play, do you think Shakespeare *enjoyed* writing most?

People these days find reason to debate the very identify of Shakespeare, so the idea that there’s hard and fast evidence about whether he enjoyed his work sees a bit ridiculous. But is it unanswerable? I’m not so sure.
Wasn’t it Midsummer that’s basically his only original story? Maybe we could argue that was a favorite. (Wasn’t Shrew an original story as well, though?)
I think that today we point to Hamlet and Lear as his masterpieces, but I wonder if that has simply come with time, and if he didn’t think of them as just another tragedy. Didn’t I read somewhere that Titus Andronicus would have been one of his more popular shows at the time? Shakespeare was a business man, that must have appealed. Then again, that would happened after he wrote it, so we can’t really use that as evidence that he enjoyed writing it.
Who knows, maybe it’s too hypothetical. But I thought it was a neat question.