Friday Video: What Did Shakespeare's English Sound Like?

Romeo & Juliet

Loretta reports:

Not long ago, I posted a short video about the way the English language has changed over the centuries.

I raised the question about how understandable Shakespeare’s English would be to modern audiences: not only in the sense of unfamiliar words and phrases but also in terms of the sounds.

Lo and behold, wandering through YouTube at some point when I probably should have been working on the WIP, I found the answer as well as more glimpses of what goes on at the new Globe theater.

Image: Francesco Hayez, L'ultimo bacio di Giuletta e Romeo (Romeo and Juliet's Last Kiss)

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Readers who receive our blog via email might see a rectangle, square, or nothing where the video ought to be.  To watch the video, please click on the title to this post.

Shakespeare's Buildings, Lost, Found, Recreated

William Shakespeare-Chandos Portrait

Loretta reports:

Shakespeare’s birthday is 26 April, but since this is my day to post, we celebrate a day early.

I hastily put down a date, which turned out to be wrong, so let's just celebrate Shakespeare's being born in April around this time, we think.

I had a chance to experience a Shakespeare play in something close to what it might have been like when he was alive. A few years ago, we were in England, and had, for once, made reservations sufficiently far in advance to see one of the Bard’s works at the recreated Globe Theatre.

Though it represents an educated guess at what the original Globe was like, it seemed an authentic enough experience to me. At one point in the performance of Much Ado About Nothing, it started raining. Those standing under the open roof pulled up their rain hoods or umbrellas or simply got rained on.

It was an altogether different experience from watching a performance in a closed theater, or even at an outdoor theater. For one thing, the playhouse is small, and the audience is practically mingling with the players. All in all, it was a fabulous experience, and I hope to return next year.

The Globe

That was one reason I became so intrigued when an email message invited me to look at this beautiful series of Shakespeare-related photographs—including some fine shots of the recreated Globe Theatre—and I learned about the discovery, by members of the Museum of London Archaeology,  of the Curtain Theatre, where it’s believed some of Shakespeare’s plays made their debuts.

The Curtain is going to be a centerpiece, interestingly enough, of a luxury development. You can find out more here and here.

There’s more about the Curtain Theatre at the MOLA site, and you can learn more about MOLA on their blog.

Images: Shakespeare, Chandos portrait, National Portrait Gallery via Wikipedia.
The Globe Theatre courtesy Shakespeare's Buildings

Clicking on the image will enlarge it.  Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.