If you are with us tonight [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] in 1932 and we celebrated with an open house and tonights lecture we can bring the current perspectives and debate to the other side of the wall. Cspan twos book tv joins us tonight to the window for the reconstruction in the weeks ahead. This is a good time to remind all to turn off their cell phones while we get situated. We are at the conclusion of the celebration of the 400 anniversary but tonight we pause to reflect what we have learned this past year. The director of the culture through the university of wisconsin [inaudible] to better understand what is possible in the 21st century. Hes published five books ranging from knowledge in 2001. He has the reflections from shakespeare. [inaudible] its the project to give the data approach to the analysis i can mention two recent articles for the adjacency and the 2016 volume in the digital term for the digital humanity has been published in a special issue. The methods in the humanity is an incursion that expands countermeasures for the social sciences and it is kind of far side. What is this precious thing that might be lost. [inaudible] i dont think it is giving away too much reaching across the division. It includes the [inaudible] [applause] thank you, kathleen. It is an honor to be here speaking with you on the lecture series. Im going to stay on the humanities side of the divide becausei like it there. Ive learned a lot in the last 18 month this which included the two are across the two territories of exhibition work that went around the country and education work. 3 Million People encounter online. Looking back on all of this i can say that shakespeare is more popular than ever and its the largest collection of its kind is committed to being the ultimate resource in his modern world. We are put here to share this collection and the story of this remarkable period of history, something that we do with Greater Energy on a greater scale in the years to come. But tonight i want to reflect a little bit on the ways in which shakespeares writing of the plays shares the wisdom and inspiration for the readers since the 17th century. They are fond of talking about wisdom and thats because it is hard to say where it comes from and what it does. Partly we know this from the practice of the commonplace thing which is the way they find it appalling and proverbs and maxim in their commonplace books so they can turn it into something that comes from the work of this be. We know that they did this because we have copies of the book in which the readers are actually commonplace or provide on the text that they were reading. One of the most beautiful folios is one at the university in tokyo that was annotated by a 17th century line by line obsessively copying out phrases or finding proverbs that likely he could write in the margins. All the glitter is not gold. Commonplace is a way of bringing wisdom to the knowledge and experience and the text and taking it for later. That is a practice that is attested to in our collection that shows the views. You look at a young couple and see the course of true love never i am quoting from a midsummer nights dream that you can see how this quotation is drawn from experience could be directly put into a play. Theres even an online resource that can be found in english and theres the modern translation on this particular proverb that there will always be problems in a romantic relationship. [laughter] all is well that ends well. Measure for measure. I suspect he thought people would look at the situation and then think about what they illustrate. Not such lessons would be easy to find. Others can be found to prove the opposite point. But then there is a bird in hand is worth two in a bush. They call attention to particular features of situations and tell us what characters are encountering in height in the perceptions of a detailed of a moment, a vague gesture and a soft and for that reason i think it is still useful to look at the plays and ask if they illustrate principles we could use to navigate our daily lives today. Why plays and why shakespeare . Because the beautiful language and intense action and offer a version of life and experience of how things go and of what people do like that hes gathering pollen, we are extractinextracting left behindd saving it for later. So here are ten things shakespeare knew. My version of the wisdom of the. I will be talking about several play is tonight and i will probably talk for about 3. 5 times threepoint by the time id here we will be at number ten. Number on one, and we will begin with something that the theater artists and politicians already know well. Shakespeare knew that you have to improvise to get things done. He would have thought about the rhetoric. It is the faculty of the persuasion in any given situation. I will repeat it is the faculty of recognizing the means of persuasion in any given situation. It is an art of preparedness and it is an ability not just to do things but to scan the situati situation. The. As your member i you remember in the shores after a shipwreck believing she had seen the last of her brother and thi and the a captain tells about the land where she is and tells her about about. It might not be delivered to the welder so i will have my own nano. Make my occasion mellow. When she has been mistaken for the advances she throws her hands up and says how will this match. It is too hard for me not to untie. Thinking about the word occasion is one of those created in the renaissance. She is able to address her actions instantaneously. In thi is kind of like a forward ponytail. The idea is when an opportunity or a chance gives you something as it comes towards you do have the opportunity as it passes you buy there is nothing to hold onto. Chances missed our chance is lost. Its something a great director knows what to do but she spear likes to show things in the opposite so lets consider someone else as the improviser when hes been promoted to lieutenant as they arise. He has embarrassed himself by fighting when he was supposed to be guarding. He decides to try to win himself back and that they are walking up they see the conference and he says what does he say. There is an art what it means is practice you are pretending to do something by accident but in fact youve been rehearsing it already. You can see as this applies to the politics. What he does is he seizes the opportunity this is the point at which im going to set up and now ive got to call attention to it. Then he feels like hes had too much. The danger of being around a great improviser if you dont know if they are trusting to chance or whether they are making their own fortune or seizing the perception. He knew that decisions must be made in the absence of all the facts. Knowing what to say in the situation where sometimes an audience is one means you dont know about what you want to do and that the conditions under the rhetoric. That clarity is what makes the situation dramatic. Its the same situation in the audience with the same amount of information or knowledge. He tests his uncle. 19th century loved this print and called attention dot in fact he set up experiments and the condition he could observe what was true. There are other people making decisions and testing things you will remember that they are employed in figuring out what he is working on. He sets up the scene like a director to walk down upstaged and as it were by accident encounter hamlet. When they observe this interview at the very end of which she says where is my father. He makes decisions and no matter what we think of the character. Its the accusations of witchcraft to decide where the turkish fleet is going. And the conflict in the accounts come into the senate and the first senator says after hearing the two versions we must not think. It was waged profitless. Hes using the probabilities y. Would it be headed in droves if it isnt useful. In the context of deliberations this is a perfect example of how he fits the probabilitie fixed d on the information that you have. Now it is true sometimes people lie about where they are going. [laughter] if the question is acting rationally we have to act without complete information. It is an unavoidable fact of our existence and makes old choice of human life compelling. Number three is easily topped. If you look at the paintings we see the figure of the child but it is one of the still life paintings and one of the warnings again vanity reputation like a bubble it inflates and then somehow suddenly it is gone. He feels this after hes lost his command. I have lost my occupation and what remains. He responds it is in opposition lost without deserving. Unless you repute yourself such a loser. That is the first time it is used that way in english. It is difficult to find and hear things. They can fall within an instance and he is described as an equinox and his power and skills are almost equal today. I think in the end he sided with him and in the seven ages he describes the bubble was reputation if the renaissance today were created maybe the real internet bubble is reputation. Number four he knew the power is harder to get away than it is to get. Consider the famous opening scene which he says which of you shall we say and his daughter arrives right on time. Take away give away power to the next because one of the daughters refuses to play the game but the problem starts earlier. Power isnt something that you can simply give away. There needs to be a ritual that can be passed from one to another. He thought about this and the second play. Richard the second we will set aside how accurate this depiction was. He is someone who acts rationally and doesnt consider what hes doing and that weakness is shown to be his downfall in this way. Henry the fourth rebels and says how could this happen. He is a divinely anointed king that occupies the bodies, the physical property and the second is to the body of the kingdom. The voice that comes from an anointed king is not from one person but the voice of the alternative speaking through one person. He says now how will i undo myself and get this heavyweight from off my head. With my tears i wash away. It tells us how can tears of water wash away the oil of an anointed king, it wont work. They publicized and that this is a story that shakespeare has already told. There is a connection here in american politics. This countrys founders many of whom read shakespeare knew that they solved the problem of the power away. The solution is you dont. The cover and the constitutional democracy is only ever on loan to whomever yields at. Number five, he knew that our love of legends is greater than the love of fact. In comparison nothing like modern history yet. Yet, there is a tendency in the history that shakespeare wrote and history plays that he wrote to castro people in history acting as heroes or villains, martyrs or saints. That certainly happened in the history place. Think about them as an exercise both in history storytelling and also smith making in and of itself. Showing characters who are in the process of making their own myth. So even while shakespeare sources were biased, look at what the tutors made of richard the third, something that shakespeare himself repeated. They also show his tendency to think of history as if it were a play. In henry the fifth, some of the most important action related to the court, a device that shakespeare uses because he cannot trick an entire army on the stage. He cant get his characters and action to fly to france. But of course imaginations can do that. They described the night before the battle. The men are up, theres nothing asleep, the back blacksmith are pounding for their armor. The sound of words everywhere. I mixed with that army, there goes henry and heres what it says. Every ranch pining beholding him comfort for his looks, universal like the sun, his eyes looked everyone. Fear that gentle all behold as man for the mystifying a little touch of heaven and the night. The cards are helping us make up the scene. And theyre going out to the night to raise the spirit of the troops who are also thinking about the legend and what will be said, not what hes doing. Like a good leader or politician he cannot ignore that aspect of what he does. Contrast to harry, richard the third another person who talk about what he was doing and who could think about himself like a character in the play. Early on in the history of richard the third, richard says after noting that he is deformed, saying that ive created my deformity to look at my shadow occurs. And therefore he says since i cannot prove to entertain these affair, well spoken days i am determined to prove a villain and hate vital pleasures of these days hes a villain. And later when he responds to two Young Princes about to go to the tower he calls himself a figure out of the place. Richard knows that his audience knows that he is a character in a play. He also knows that history likes such characters. Historical figure sometimes look at their actions after stories that they have encountered in sacred text or folktales. Politicians and actors keep an eye and where legends may take them. No modern president can avoid a logan or reagan, these president s are well aware of the way in which life becomes a story. And Ronald Reagan quoting the film in which she was the star. Shakespeare wouldve appreciated what you mr. It says at the end of the man who shot liberty, when the legend would, fact. Number six shakespeare knew that race is a script that governs our actions. A time in which he lived in marks was a time in which the foundations which we now call the modern world were set. He had the beginning of the modern corporation, scientific unification, international commerce, trade, religious conflict, and the media revolution that was the printed book. He also saw conflicts around race neuronal. For example his treatment of his christian counterpart aaron the mockery of the romans and the fact that our fellow must constantly disprove that he lacks the moral temper of a christian a script says what will happen it puts words into peoples mouth and has assumptions about what race doesnt shakespeares place. Antonio for example is following the script when he mocks shot off repeats the script back when they ask for a long knowing that he lacks the memory in the rialto you have rated me about my monies but still have a board it with the patients shrug you call me a miss believer, cutthroat dog, you spit upon my jewish gabardine. All for the use of that which is mine. Well then, it appears you need my help. Its interesting that shylock is the one doing the reminding here. The fact that only some people have to negotiate race all of the time africans and nonchristians in ways have no choice but to think twice about what they say and do. If race remains a script in contemporary life, shakespeare shows us not only did it exist, but part of its power resides in the fact that some people have no option to ignore it. Number seven, you know that words can do almost anything. Weve been talking about the art of rhetoric and improvisation. The plays are filled with situations in which he or she is cornered, isabella talking with angelo, i know they equipped themselves they find a way to turn that situation, they see something with words that are very special and they do with words what physical contact cannot. They can sneak around behind. And grab someone from the point they are not expecting. Part of what words can do is reframe the situation. Forcing the listener to approach a topic in a different way. I think about the opening act of king lear were edmund, the pastor begins to talk to his father about his brother we will see if he likes trip. He sisters father, talking about the beginning action of the play actually put something very quickly on this topic and his father says what is a so quickly near pocket. Why are you so quick pardon me, in the is a letter from my brother that i have not over read. And for so much i found it not sick for your overlooking. Of course that creates curiosity and curiosity leads to suspicion. The sense that he does not want to show it applies that he is withholding something something that therefore must be true. Push comes to shove in his father takes a piece of paper that says i have heard him off 19 that it be fit that the sun at a perfect age of the fathers to call the father should in the sun manages revenge. A scene where everything turns upside down. Another that occurs in the late play was performed here at the folger. A prince named and a typical romance forms and shakespeare was born towards the end of his career settling the temptress. It was kidnapped by pirates and then finds herself as one does in a brothel. Romance does not suspend disbelief. I will come back to that. So they encounter the governor and his name was the first customer whose advances she must resist and heres what she said. If you are born to honor, show it now if it was put upon you this honor was thrust upon you make the judgment could and worthy of it. I did not think that so well nordstrom that it could have i dropped a corrupted her speech. But what marine is able to do, Say Something quite realistic, i know why you are here. I know the facts that you are here means you dont think you have the virtue to turn around. Well lets think about the people who thought your virtue enough to be the governor. What are you honor their hope and faith rather than your own. Brilliant shakespeare also shows were fairly, wrenching possibility but also the possibility when dealing with language in human beings. Its about lear again the beginnings of the play, what can you say to earn yourself a bounty, a third board opulent than your sisters. And then it all has gone, they have said what he wants to hear both improvising the gambit is to say nothing nothing will come of nothing yourselves. This is the end. They tried to speak the truth to her father. I you a divided duty. The person who raised me and also the duty i will oh to my husband. You just heard my daughter playing in their entire lives to you, i who love you will tell you a just reckoning of who i am. Even simple eloquence does not work. By the end of the play, one version, kingly or has his daughter killed by the guard the messenger did not come in time. He puts a feather over her mouth and he says, this father sisters, she lives it does re deem all that ive ever felt. Words can do almost anything, almost. She knew the capacity to forgive is precious and it goes handinhand with the capacity to love. Continuing on with lear, shakespeare begins his play with the man who is utterly unforgiving. His youngest target or disappoint submittal of competition in the punishment is swift. You cannot begin to object to say youre moving too quickly. He says, not between the dragon and his wrath, the bow and the shaft is drawn. Just step back the most important moment from the play occurs when the tables have turned completely and they must ask forgiveness. Asking is not enough however since the asker has to recognize what he is stuck. That moral recognition coincides exactly with his recognition that the women in front of him is his daughter. Lear im a very foolish old man, to not laugh at me for as i am a man, i think this lady to be my child. His just coming down from the wheel of fire getting bearings in this new world where his daughter is his only hope. Later, he looks to the future and thinks about the ways in which his experience could be redeemed. He looks to his daughter is said to be your tears away yet safe i pray, wheat not. If you have played them for me i would drink it. I know you do not love me, for your sisters have aside to remember, do me wrong. She response, no call. He is forgiven. Later he looks at his daughter and says come, we too would go and sing like birds in the cage when they asked for blessing and for forgiveness is the prodigal father who comes home and he kneels in front of his daughter, clear saw that he is the child. This moment of loving connection which is a dreamy exclusion that one moves way of the trial of this world this going to be given to the audience in this play, one that king lears ordeal and has to sit through as well. At the plays opening such change what it seems nearly impossible. Of course, in the theater it is not. Which leads us to our point, he knew that people actually change. Changes of the heart required changes of perception. That is a Crucial Point whether its comedy, history, tragedy for late romances. How hard is it to see things in a different way . How do we know a character sees things . In lear the answers signaled by language. In this case the language of simplicity and concreteness. This is a play with some of the most devastating anglosaxon in the shakespearean canon. The low voice in the low music of the left hand that we complain about life, come about the body, but are appropriate for it shows your house list headset on fed your looped and dragon this defend you from the season such as these. Oh, ive taken too little care take your medicine, he then says, is man no more about art the thing itself. On accommodated man is no more but such a poor. He changes his mind after his trial in the storm. He experienced nature to return to humility. Shakespeare also used the theater itself to change people. Here we turn to a late play, my favorite play, the winters tale. Like many of the late place, the winters tale is filled with fantastic events, chance encounters, lost children, special tokens of recognition, and of course a dreamy reconciliation and reunion of a family one separated at the very end of the play. Its like a once upon a time story. Its an adult nursery rhyme because it begins in a realm of fantasy. They turn before the have any sense of why he might be jealous. His turn against his wife killed his son. His son dies upon hearing the news of what his father is done. This leads to the death, he thinks of his wife he also exposes his daughter who is somehow taken up and taken away by sea and brought back for reunion. Pauline it does something very interesting. By the end of the play she is back in bohemia. They come into the space, i want to show you a statue. A statute that is naturally like the image he gestured toward the sculpture, so much the more are the excellence which like a by some 16 years and makes her as she lived now. As you might have done, so much of my comfort it is piercing to my soul. She stood, even with such lights of majesty, warm life as it coldly stands. When i first moved her, i am shamed. A work of art and we will soon learn what kind of art. This brought it to full and frank recognition of his terrible air and the price that he and others had paid for. The price is too high, something that shakespeare searches in the middle of the play. This is a play and even at the very adult world of jealousy and unforgivable air, the audience want some kind of reconciliation. Here we learn something about ourselves and our story, and shakespeare looks at the ending for the tail in our final point, number ten, he knew that our hopes sustain service even when we think they cannot be satisfied. The adult pleasures of the winnerwinters tale, and outcomt we know is passed out of reach. The truth of our longing for the impossible which is what theater in poetry deliver. Once upon a time it was a story told by the fire that is what a winters tale is. But in a way that makes the audience its hopes, longings, and official cause of the miracle the theater creates. Looking at the sculpture, what you can make her do out of contempt to look on, what to speak i am content to hear, for it is easy to make her speak as move. In other words, do not expect either one. It is required that you do await your faith at all standstill. For those to think it is an unlawful piece lessened apart. Music strike and as surprising as it is, it is also surprise to the audience. And she comes back to life. She steps back into life the impossible revival that the dramatist said could not happen. At least from the middle of the play. What theater creates in this moment is one thing only, it is utterly real. Shakespeare believed in the persistent reality of our longing for justice, for world in which the good prevail even as he and we know we are being told fairytale. It is annoying falsehood. Its also a great comfort of the theater. We find unequal freedom and unequal access of this world. In the middle of all of these things we bring for your nonfree, it is the sunken depth, a better empty hand of knowledge, its shakespeare create a democracy of perception. Theater gives us the ability to see. There are things, true things that we can all witness and theater. Even if we do not equally possess the power to act on those things. That is the great gift of these plays. The last great gift of shakespeare, the one to which we must all hold fast. Thank you. [applause] i just want to note here that the advisors of my undergraduate days, susan is actually in the audience. [applause] i must be in the presence of a lot of great friends and scholars. Its a privilege to have these plays and talk to them about people. The place keep talking, we just have to hear them. So id be happy to answer questions that you may have. I will not quiz you on the ten items. Ten things in templates. We will try that. Any questions . It was great and as much performance as lecture. I just need a little insight, how much time did you spend preparing it . [laughter] i will point out it is a written speech. But, i really was trained in frederick. A lot of things i talked about is things i have talked about for 30 or 40 years. But first scratch from today, ive been quietly trying to remember what i wanted to say. Its always important to jump back in. Ive been working on it for a while. [laughter]. [inaudible] [inaudible] adapted by every medium we can imagine. Its always very interesting. If the camera shooting over the shoulder of someone, you actually occupy with consciousness and perspective of that person. If they say you have to go here. So, i think of film as terrific own rhythms and storytelling. What is wonderful about live theater is you can enjoy it in a state of control distraction. That is good. Youre thinking about the people next you. You are there with someone. Even if the lights come down you never forget there in a small room with other people hearing the truth that only a human can present to you facetoface. That is the bounty of theater. The fact that we can look at what we want and of course you can even drift its all fun. So i am all for it. Thank you for the wonderful talk. We know a little bit about what is shakespeare, any ideas about who he was talking to at this time . Who he was sharing ideas with . I will admit to not knowing then and not having any idea the range of address. Was he talking to us 401 years later . No. I think he was a competitive man. To get into theater you have to be looking over your shoulder. He was also collaborating with other playwrights 30 of those plays. I think of him as a person with the desires and ambitions of the artists we know today. But he has all kinds of things it in that bottle. Even if the message was to someone else, for some reason we pick up the bottle and look inside and i think it was addressed to us. Its magic. Just magic. One more question. [inaudible question] if you move to the american constitutional system in which american politics a good constitution we found of how to take power away, the answers you dont. But in particular when you thinking of american politics. Where situated two blocks from the u. S. Capital and surrounded by the institutions where the power of the written and spoken word represented every day the work of the supreme court, United States congress and the library of congress. As i look to is not a miracle but a peaceful transition of power mediated by constitution that makes certain people a legitimate source of authority and rule of law, not the people but the laws themselves, i think of them as something that is fantastic. Its not fantastic in the way that shakespeares fantastic, but there is a certain wisdom and magic to that. That is as soon as you dont say individuals on state power you then create a situation where the only situation of who acquired it and who will acquire it. I think they are governed by laws and the constitution. Its not accidental. Thomas jefferson hit the ground, Thomas Jefferson and those who wrote the constitution, that says a lot about shakespeare. They thought about the situations where power is an object. Something that someone can hold. At one point hamlet accuses his father of having grabbed at the crown and thrust it in his pocket. That is the image of tierney, the power possession and that someone can just take it. I think shakespeare was thinking of the divine right of kings and that something that we do not believe in. But he was very careful when he came to moments where people tried to give away power and he realized its complicated. I want to turn the power over to you. I am so pleased that you came tonight to celebrate tonight. We are going to go to a reception of the great hall and keep talking. I thank you for coming tonight. [applause] [inaudible] [inaudible]