Shakespeare's Plea for Refugees
William Shakespeare's handwritten plea for refugees to go online
Sir Thomas More script is only surviving copy of a play in the bard’s hand and is one of 300 texts being digitised in run-up to British Library exhibition
Part of The Book of Sir Thomas More, handwritten by William Shakespeare. Photograph: British Library
The last surviving play script handwritten by William Shakespeare, in which he imagines Sir Thomas More making an impassioned plea for the humane treatment of refugees, is to be made available online by the British Library.
The manuscript is one of 300 newly digitised treasures shining a light on the wider society and culture that helped shape Shakespeare’s imagination. All will be available to view on a new website before an extensive exhibition on the playwright at the library next month.
The Book of Sir Thomas More script is particularly poignant given the current European migration crisis.
The powerful scene, featuring More challenging anti-immigration rioters inLondon, was written at a time when there were heightened tensions over the number of French Protestants (Huguenots) seeking asylum in the capital.
“It is a really stirring piece of rhetoric,” said the library’s curator, Zoe Wilcox. “At its heart it is really about empathy. More is calling on the crowds to empathise with the immigrants or strangers as they are called in the text. He is asking them to imagine what it would be like if they went to Europe, if they went to Spain or Portugal, they would then be strangers. He is pleading with them against what he calls their ‘mountainous inhumanity’.
Drawing of Shakespeare’s house by George Vertue. Photograph: British Library
“It is striking and sad just how relevant it seems to us now considering what is happening in Europe.”
The original play, written in approximately 1600 about the life of Henry VIII’s councillor and lord chancellor, was not by Shakespeare and was not staged because of fears it might incite unrest.
Shakespeare was one of several writers brought in to rework the piece, and it is his contribution which remains the most remarkable.
He writes: “You’ll put down strangers,/ Kill them, cut their throats, possess their houses,/ And lead the majesty of law in lyam/ To slip him like a hound. Alas, alas! Say now the King/ As he is clement if th’offender mourn,/ Should so much come too short of your great trespass/ As but to banish you: whither would you go?/What country, by the nature of your error,/ Should give you harbour? Go you to France or Flanders,/ To any German province, Spain or Portugal,/ Nay, anywhere that not adheres to England:/ Why, you must needs be strangers.”
John Dee’s self-portrait. Photograph: British LibraryWilcox said all the evidence suggested the writing was by the hand of Shakespeare, making it a unique manuscript. “All we have other than that are the six authentic Shakespeare signatures, so this is really amazing. It is not even a fair copy, it is something he was drafting as he was mid-composition.
The manuscript has been conserved and digitised and will also be on display at the library’s Shakespeare in 10 Acts exhibition, which opens on 15 April.
Other highlights on the Discovering Literature: Shakespeare website include:
Some of the earliest images of Native Americans brought back by the first European settlers.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s personal copy of The Dramatic Works of Shakespeare, which includes extensive annotations and his famous comments on Iago’s “motiveless malignity”.
The only surviving portrait of John Dee, the Elizabethan polymath thought to have inspired Shakespeare’s Prospero.
There will also be essays and films as part of an effort by the library to bring to life the world in which Shakespeare was writing. “We are trying to help students understand the context of Shakespeare’s time because many English teachers tell us that students struggle to understand him and the world he came from,” Wilcox said.
Shakespeare ya pedía un trato humano para los refugiados en el siglo XVII
La Biblioteca Británica ha digitalizado 300 piezas relacionados con la vida de Shakespeare en su 400 aniversario, entre ellas un guion de teatro en el que Tomás Moro desafía a los que se oponían a la inmigración
15/03/2016 - 16:35h
Manuscrito de Shakespeare. Foto: Biblioteca Británica
Un guión de teatro de William Shakespeare (1564-1616), en el que el dramaturgo inglés imaginaba a Tomás Moro pidiendo un trato humano a los refugiados en el siglo XVII, está desde hoy en la red, informó la Biblioteca Británica. El manuscrito es una de las 300 piezas relacionadas con la vida de Shakespeare que han sido digitalizadas y que serán también expuestas al público el mes próximo, con motivo de cumplirse este 23 de abril los 400 años de la muerte del escritor.
El guión lleva el título de El libro de sir Tomás Moro, según la biblioteca, que considera particularmente importante dado el contexto actual de la crisis de los refugiados en Europa. La pieza, colgada en una página de la biblioteca, tiene una escena en la que el pensador, teólogo, político y Lord Canciller del rey Enrique VIII desafía a los que se oponían a la inmigración en momentos de gran tensión en el siglo XVII por la entrada de protestantes franceses, los hugonotes, que buscaban asilo en Londres a raíz de la persecución religiosa.
"Es una verdadera pieza de agitación", señaló al diario The Guardian la comisaria de la biblioteca, Zoe Wilcox. "En el fondo, se trata de empatía. Moro pide a las multitudes que muestren empatía con los inmigrantes o 'extraños', como se les denomina en el guión", añadió. "Es llamativo y triste y es tan relevante ahora para nosotros, considerando lo que está pasando en Europa", dijo Wilcox.
El guión original, escrito cuando Moro (1478-1535) era Lord Canciller, no fue redactado por Shakespeare y tampoco fue puesto en escena por temor a incitar disturbios, pero se le pidió después al dramaturgo que volviera a escribir esa pieza de teatro. Es este trabajo de Shakespeare que es colgado en la red por la Biblioteca Británica. Wilcox calificó de "increíble" la existencia de este manuscrito, que se podrá ver en la muestra que está organizando la biblioteca y que abrirá al público el próximo 15 de abril.
http://www.eldiario.es/cultura/guion-Shakespeare-trato-refugiados-red_0_494851277.html