To mark the 409th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, and to celebrate his birthday, we are releasing a new series; BARD409.
Two new novels. One immortal voice.
Releasing on April 23rd. More details to come.
Join the fun on socials! Can you translate these Shakespeare quotes from Emoji?
These two are the clues to which books are coming out first:
⚠️➡️?➡️?➡️??️?➡️?➡️?➡️?
➡️ ?️➡️?️➡️?️➡️
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Like nearly every high school student in England, I studied Shakespeare. Unlike most of the others in my class, I loved it. I enjoyed acting it out, and my amazing English teachers seemed to appreciate my enthusiasm. Now, as a teacher myself, I know how that feels. Teachers don’t get paid a lot, so we need to see our students’ enthusiasm as a kind of supplement to our salaries. My favourite role to play was Iago from Othello. He was so utterly cunning and deceitful, I got to play many parts in one— the friendly convincing person who everybody trusted, and then the evil schemer who showed whatever side of himself was necessary to manipulate people to do his bidding.
It may surprise you to learn that Shakespeare was only formally introduced to the UK National Curriculum in 1988, which seems quite recent to me. JRR Tolkien considered Shakespeare a bit too modern, and until the late 19th century even the field of English Literature was looked down upon, being favoured by knowledge of Latin and the classics. But even though I enjoyed performing Shakespeare in the classroom, I must admit that I did not enjoy reading it. I appreciated it, of course! William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the finest writer in the English language. But given that, isn’t it a crying shame he never wrote a novel? In my opinion, the novel is one of humanity’s greatest literary contributions. Could Shakespeare’s plays be rewritten as short novellas, I wondered? Of course, many have adapted his work—some as novels, others as films. Some are set in feudal Japan, like Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood (1957); others, like Warm Bodies (2013), take place in a zombie apocalypse. Even The Lion King (Hamlet) and West Side Story (Romeo & Juliet) draw clear and intentional parallels. But why has no one simply written a straightforward, historically grounded novel—set in the period, using the language of the play?
Richard S. Pinner
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