26 February 2017
· My visit with a copy of the First Folio ·
It’s been a long time since my last post. Mea culpa. The perception of time changes once your mortal coil has been shuffled off. I’ve been online for a little over a year, but one out of the 413 since my demise does not make for much of a habit.
Yet I’ve not been idle. I did some wandering in the American Antipodes, where I had occasion to spend time with another of my significant books. The book, if we’re choosing only one. Venerated far more widely than those I described in my previous post, this one dates from shortly after my own lifetime. It’s old. These days it’s usually kept out of sight, well away from the dangerous and the profane. For this viewing it was brought forth from its tabernacle, encased in a transparent reliquary, guarded by a hovering acolyte. The lighting was reverentially low. Admittance into its presence was restricted to only a few of the faithful at a time.
The other two books were written about me, but this one is my work. Never mind what the title page says, you and I know better.
The book is of course the First Folio, the earliest published collection of thirty-six of my plays, printed in 1623 by Isaac Jaggard in collaboration with bookseller Edward Blount.
Click on the image to see an enlargement in a new tab.
Along with 81 other copies of the 235 known to survive from the original print run of 750, this First Folio normally resides within an inner sanctum at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. To the Folger I am a lurking devil, the root of heresy. But if it wasn’t for this one quibble, I’d assert that they were doing an admirable job with their co-opted portion of my legacy. Make that two quibbles: I still want my Bible back. They keep that locked up too, to hide its significance. Or maybe it’s three quibbles, since I’m not thrilled that so much of my stuff is immured so far from its origin. Ask a Greek about the Elgin Marbles. Just because a well-heeled Colonial who helped run Standard Oil in the days of the robber barons was able to buy me up and build a big bookshelf, doesn’t mean it’s proper. But possession is nine points of the law, and so there I sit.
You can click on this one for an enlargement also.
I did a small bit of photoshopping to remove
glare spots caused by the glass. The focus
is less than sharp, also due to the glass.
The Folio was open to my Hamlet’s existential crisis, which begins near the bottom of the left-hand column on the page shown. It was frustrating not to be able to examine other pages. I wanted to get close to Martin Droeshout’s engraving of you-know-who at the front of the book. Just myself and that dubious cartoon: nose to mask, eye to eye. You know Willy would blink first.To substitute for the inability to peruse, the exhibit included a full-sized reproduction (the Norton Facsimile edition) within which perusing was welcomed. A computer was set to the Folger’s browsable copy of their First Folio No. 68 (the copy in the room was No. 44). This resource is available to all via the web. As I’ve said, these folks do a nice job, except.
A video documenting the library’s history played on a loop in an adjacent room. You can see it on YouTube.
Large posters displayed information about the First Folio and Shakespeare’s impact on the English language. The lighting on these was uneven so the photos are less than optimal, but here they are. Click on a thumbnail, then use your browser’s Back button to return.
There were moments when I had to bite my tongue to avoid consternating the congregation, but I sealed up my lips, and gave no words but mum. Accepting received truth on faith is so much easier than discovering the truth for yourself, or admitting that your catechism might be wrong. I wondered how many of the flock around me had ever been told anything about me, or even knew of my existence. My guess: none.
Encourage a young person to look me up. Offer help if they want it. It’s the most effective thing you will ever do for me.
I knew I’d have to play a silent role amid this gathering – it was not an occasion for revelation. “I’m the gent who really wrote these plays. Ask Me Anything!” Alas, no. Discretion was not only the better part of valour, it was the better part of sanity. That hovering acolyte might have been armed. It was America, after all.
Sometimes you have to suspend your disbelief for a while and just enjoy the show. Even given all the givens, the book was worth seeing. I’m glad I took off my shoes and made the pilgrimage.
But what does the First Folio of 1623 have to do with pancakes? Aside from the four times you find the word in the book, I mean. (Thrice, plural, in As You Like It, and once, singular, in All’s Well That Ends Well.)
Consider – Gutenberg’s printing press arrived in the 1450s. Then the first English printers: Caxton, Pynson, de Worde. They were followed by Field, Roberts, the Jaggards, and others. Literacy increased and the demand for books went up as their cost went down. Fast-forward past the steam-powered presses of the Industrial Revolution, hot-metal typecasting, photo and digital typesetting. Xerography. Inkjets. Laser printers. Now in this century we see the growth of 3D printing, where it’s no longer just ideas being reproduced, but physical objects. You can roll a 3D-printed, 154-sided Sonnets Die to select your next poem from the quarto. How awesome is that?
Very, verily. But not as awesome as this:
A pancake printer. I encountered it during my travels. Press the button, wait a bit, then out rolls a pancake. Instead of ink, a bag of batter. The cooking surfaces are nonstick belts in motion between two heating elements. I made the attendant open the lid and show me the insides. She thought I was barmy. I thought it was genius.
This isn’t my video, but here’s one in action:
And if you’re barmy like me, here’s how it works:
I admit that in my present state I don’t have much use for breakfast. Even so, the pancake printer might surpass the misattributed First Folio as the pinnacle of my pilgrim’s progress. It’s a close call.
VERO NIHIL VERIUS