The Robben Island Shakespeare, with David Schalkwyk (Rebroadcast)

The Robben Island Shakespeare, with David Schalkwyk (Rebroadcast)

While Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners, Sonny Venkatrathnam, managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works. Venkatrathnam secretly circulated the book to many of his fellow prisoners—including Mandela—asking them to sign their names next to their favorite passages. As South African Shakespeare scholar David Schalkwyk explains to interviewer Rebecca Sheir, there is something special about "a book that had passed through the hands of the people who had saved my country." Schalkwyk shares some personal history and reveals what Shakespeare might have meant to the men who signed the Robben Island Shakespeare. David Schalkwyk is a Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Queen Mary University of London. He previously served as director of research at the Folger Shakespeare Library and editor of Shakespeare Quarterly. He is the author of Speech and Performance in Shakespeare’s Sonnets; Plays, Literature and the Touch of the Real; and Shakespeare, Love and Service. His book about the Robben Island Shakespeare is titled Hamlet’s Dreams. It was published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2013. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast. Originally published in 2013, and rebroadcast July 19, 2022. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This podcast episode, "Cowards Die Many Times before Their Deaths; The Valiant Never Taste of Death but Once," was produced under the supervision of Garland Scott, and is presented with permission of rlpaulproductions, LLC, which created it for the Folger. Esther French and Ben Lauer are the web producers.

Episoder(297)

Director Rosa Joshi on Julius Caesar Today

Director Rosa Joshi on Julius Caesar Today

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar feels urgently contemporary in Rosa Joshi’s new production at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival—one of America’s largest and longest-running theater festivals, now in its 90t...

26 Aug 202540min

Reading Jane Austen in the 21st Century with Patricia A. Matthew

Reading Jane Austen in the 21st Century with Patricia A. Matthew

250 years after her birth, Jane Austen is more popular than ever, with the publication of new editions of her novels and numerous new film adaptations in production. But what does it mean to read and ...

12 Aug 202532min

Inside Hamlet’s Head with Jeremy McCarter

Inside Hamlet’s Head with Jeremy McCarter

What if, instead of just watching Hamlet, you could step inside the prince’s mind? A revelatory new audio production reimagines Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy as a first-person experience told through ...

29 Jul 202541min

Shakespeare, Money, and Meaning-Making

Shakespeare, Money, and Meaning-Making

Can reading King Lear help us rethink economic policy? Can Measure for Measure shape how we talk about justice, or Hamlet help us face grief? That’s the idea behind an ambitious project at Montreal’s ...

14 Jul 202531min

Staging Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto

Staging Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto

When live performance shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic, actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen weren’t sure when—or if—they’d ever be onstage again. So, they turned to an unexpected venue: Grand T...

1 Jul 202539min

Simon Russell Beale on Shakespeare, from Hamlet to Titus

Simon Russell Beale on Shakespeare, from Hamlet to Titus

Called “the finest actor of his generation,” Sir Simon Russell Beale has played just about everyone in Shakespeare’s canon—Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Falstaff, Malvolio, Iago—and most recently, Titus Andr...

17 Jun 202537min

Shakespeare’s Boy Player Alexander Cooke

Shakespeare’s Boy Player Alexander Cooke

In Shakespeare’s time, the actresses were boys—and for the most celebrated of them, fame came early but could end abruptly with a voice change. In this episode, author Nicole Galland joins us to talk ...

3 Jun 202537min

King Lear and Mao’s China, with Nan Z. Da

King Lear and Mao’s China, with Nan Z. Da

Nan Z. Da, in her book The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear, finds unsettling parallels between Shakespeare’s play and 20th-century China under Mao Zedong. Da, a literature professor at Johns Hopkins Uni...

19 Mai 202531min

Populært innen Premium

papaya
ida-med-hjertet-i-handen
giver-og-gjengen-vg
krimpodden-vg
aftenpodden
harm-og-hegseth
storefri-med-mikkel-og-herman
tore-og-haralds-podkast
podme-krim
avhort
tusvik-tnne
big-5-med-nils-og-harald-2
konspirasjonspodden
topp-3-med-wold-og-fladseth
aftenpodden-usa
popradet
fastlegen
ma-pa-behandling-med-morten-ramm
hovla
katastrofe-2