Transcripts For CSPAN2 BOOK TV 20161022

Addition to being chilly and highly controlled, its also within several hundred yards walk from this spot are for me probably 95 of the documents i will read in my working life. For a scholar or someone who has studied its once you are standing here you have to contemplate your mortality because theres so much that you could. And in fact peter, a book that could be so important to me could just be 15 yards down here on the right but unless i know its there i will never see it. And so everyone who comes and looks at this collection take that challenge. Theres an infinity of doors and pathways you can go down in your research and the challenge is to resist all of those opportunities or almost all of them and just take the ones that really matter to you. I presume there are cameras at this point besides a cspan camera. There are. I will turn on the light here. We controlled temperature and humidity. One of the challenges for rare materials is that we need to keep them dry and thats one of the threats to rare materials. A major threat to a book is for it to get wet and in fact one of the ways we deal with that threat is were there to be a blogger incident we would freeze the books. Thats because its easier to thought a book out page by page and to control how those materials are changing that it is to make a quick pile and hope that they dont get any more wet. We have protocols for how we deal with that particular type of emergency or mold could be another threat to rare materials or smoke or fire. Thats something we actively plan for. Michael have you ever had an incident like that here . We have not have an incident like a fire but we did have a leak in our fault and that was a real threat to our collection. We had to move collection material and then way to insulate the fault. Turns out there was an underground river that was going around that area so the fault had to be resealed and we actually received money from the federal government from the institute for museum and will libraries to help make that transition. What are you going to show us today . Im going to show you several items that i thought you and your viewers would enjoy. The first one i will start with is the first folio. This is the first folio we talked about published seven years after his death. This was published in 1623. The most complete single volume wreck or did shakespeares work and its important that his friends assembled it because they probably have a better idea of what shakespeare thought was important and they actually did a wonderful thing. They said here is a play on histories of comedy and tragedy. This is an engraving. Its part of the book thats missing from some copies. Ben johnson had new shakespeare said this is a likeness of that man and thats important because is once again one of those person to person familiar cao connections to shakespeare. We would say this has Real Authority in the likeness of his writer. 82 folios in the shakespeare collection, correct . Correct. How many worldwide began . 233. If someone wanted to buy one how much would it cost them . There are very few folios and complete folios can go from five to 6 million was a very valuable book. You have first folios going around the country. One of things we realize its a really matters when you come facetoface with one of the sources of shakespeare. We wanted to take our folio to all 50 states and the two terry terry territories. The response has been tremendous. Someone proposed marriage successfully on the occasion of the first folio in oklahoma. Someone had a funeral a jazz funeral for shakespeare. The great indie rock band is doing a concert for the first folio in duluth so the ways people react are the difference. We have been inspired by the fact that people want to see this book facetoface. What else do you have . That may show you a taller version of the shakespeare play. This is what is known as the cordoz and you might wonder why we call this a folio and the sick quarto. A folio means a single sheet of paper has been printed on one side and then the other end of bookmaker folds that sheet into a set of choirs and then their son together. Cordero is actually folded twice and then you cut the edges so you can thumb through them. This is a smaller format is cheaper to produce but half of shakespeares plays appeared in this quarto format. That means their multiple editions of shakespeares plays and there are real differences between the quarto edition and the folio edition. You mean in a language . In the language and also the stage action. Here we have mr. William shakespeare and his true chronicle history of the lifeanddeath of and his three daughters. In the first folio this is not described as a history but is it tragedy. So if you are creating and be edition of this play you have to decide for yourself what to call it. There are two conflicting versions of what this play is. If you are doing an edition of hamlet you have several quarto it editions in the folio and one of those quarto editions to be or not to be, thats the point. Its so different from the one that we recognize and thats because there were different ways of capturing the performance and perhaps that version is from a series of scribes and we transcribed in the audience in real time. Scholars are really interested in that and they should be because ultimately you want to create editions of these plays are people who want to read them. One of the things that happened at folgers as we have created the folger edition using this collection. The bestselling High School Edition United States in almost 90 of their High School Students are reading a shakespeare play. What we found was that we could also share these plays on line so we put them into digital form and they are now freely available, all of the place and all of the poems from the folger edition which means we put a copy of the complete works of shakespeare in every persons backpack all around the world. What is your favorite play . I have two favorite place. My first favorite play is 1290 because i think its a beautiful bill play. Each little bit is like clockwork. I love that made character viola who is this very, shes a great improviser and thats what gets her through the tough spots. I think thats a great virtue. I like her. I love the winners tail. Thats a play that was written late in shakespeares career and i think its a really beautiful play that is really meant for adults although it sometimes feels like a fairytale and it tells the story of why people should continue to have hope for love and reconciliation and forgiveness even if experience tells them its probably not going to happen. Michael whitmore to be or not to be, that is the question. What does that mean . I actually struggled with that because i had to write a panel for our traveling exhibitions. I think what hamlet is saying there is i wake up every day and every day i have to ask myself why do i keep going . And thats a question that deserves careful attention. I think any person who has made it to this point in their lives where they can ask big collections has to at some point say what is it that makes me get up and why is it that i keep going when i very easily could become a person that doesnt exist anymore. Maybe its about suicide or just a thought experiment. I tend to think its a thought experiment but hes really talking himself into keeping going with life and its really interesting because you are hearing a very smart person talk himself through that decision and its almost as if you are able to overhear the process that he goes through to make that decision. What else can you show us here from the archives . So this is another version of the folios, the second folio printed in 1632 but this is an edition that was censored by the jesuit. They went to her and said these passages are fine but these are somewhat challenging and so this is his writing. The society of jesus. As long as we dont do it for a long time we are fine and if i have the right page highlighted im going to take off the page opening and carefully open the book to another page opening. You see that these foam cradles are here. Thats to make sure that we dont stretch the binding. That is where book will break if you come here and look at these passages these have been expunged by the censors and this is the end of a play called the life of king henry viii. This is a set of speeches or the passages here are praise of the new princes who will become Queen Elizabeth. Queen elizabeth if you are catholic is a controversial figure because of how she sides in a postreformation fallout. Thats something that the jesuit sensor says, we dont need that but so much of the play is perfectly fine. That shows us someone who says this is a marvelous document and a marvelous play, i just cant sanction this particular bit. People have been censoring shakespeare for a long time. Issey loots . Does he play blue . He plays blue and purple. I think shakespeare has laid out some of the most challenging pictures of what humanity is capable of. What are loves and what our desires are. Its out there and that is what makes him a challenging writer. If you really plays like king lear and if you want to wake up the next day and be an optimist i dont think you can. I think that play shows humanity at its worst and it raises Big Questions about is there a god and is therefore surrogate in the world . Shakespeare look that right in the eye and the answer is maybe not. So its not the answers we get from the play that makes them powerful. Its the Big Questions. Why do people love, lead or follow one another . Why did they get up in the morning lacks why are the things they think they want are not really think that they want and employers people so successful sometimes in leading people to a place where Everybody Needs to go and for example and love and in shakespeares plays are about the ways in which people set out to fall in love with someone or to create this happy Marriage Union and the path is rocky because people seem to do the same thing over and over again that puts their beloved object out of reach. Shakespeare. Bat. Its a fascinating thing about a human being. He wrote about it. He wrote about all kinds of people. You have prostitutes and you have got kings and criminals. You have people who turn into donkeys. You get a lot. So i wants a show you this book. Our collection peter covers much more than shakespeare. Its really a picture of the entire renaissance and answer the european renaissance so we have really covered the introduction of the 1470s through about the 1730s which is the full emergence of the Atlantic World to include the part of the world we are standing in now. This is a copy of this a row which is a schoolboys book but this copy happened to belong to henry viii. Henry viii, king henry viii. This copy of cicero is one of henry annotated and he says here in his early modern spelling this book is mine. You would prefer face to face because theres so much more information there, and its exactly the same with historical materials. The more you work with them, the more you get a sense from the feel and the touch in just how things are put together. So well move around a little bit more. I want to show you a couple more things. Lets jump here. This is a copy, its called the bishops bible. Amazing. This is Queen Elizabeth is bible this is her bible. This is her bible. This was given to her by matthew parker, and it was probably used in her chapel. So the readings during those celebrations in her chapel would have come from this book. And you can see it has the beautiful red velvet cover. This is clearly a very expensive book. It has the tudor roses here, and it has her identifying marks here, elizabeth regina, saying that shes the queen. You can also see on this side, if the cameras can come in, this has actually been textured on the fore edge of the book. So even the side has had a set of patterns carved into it. When i think about this book, peter, this is the equivalent of a cathedral. In the sense that its tremendously complicated. The amount of learning and craft that you have to develop as a community to get to the point where you can create a book like this is just tremendous. And thats why its created in this way, because its given to elizabeth, and its a monument. Its one of those its not made out of stone, but its fabulously complicated object. And you have to learn how to set type. You have to learn how to handle classical languages, because the sources for these are greek and latin. And all of that learning goes into creating this beautiful object. Well, michael wit more, when you see this beautiful yes. I want to say print or maybe you tell me what it is sure. The colors are still so vivid 400 years later. This is a wonderful example of handcolored or handtinted early modern print. So this is an atlas, the lasting title here latin title here, the theater of the world or the globe, and youve got these figures representing africa here, another figure here, youve got some pretty grisly stuff down here, and then youve got probably Something Like the goddess wisdom on the top or a monarch whos got the scepter. Actually, thats probably a monarch here. Whats done here is that theyve made a beautiful printing using a copperplate thats been etched, so its a high quality print. And then someone has handcolored the page itself. And this edition is wonderful because the hand coloring extends to every, every plate in the edition. So i just would show you this one. This is a, this is europe, and, you know, some of this is known well and some of its not known well. But you can see the cathedrals, the National Borders at the time this was created. You got the youve got the three kingdoms here, england, ireland and scotland. And theres wales here in the west. Pretty accurate map. This is pretty accurate. And, of course, the way in which the Atlantic World takes shape is through exploration and mapping. And so our collection holds a large quantity of items about that exploration moment which includes the moment when elizabethans and well, j jacobeans come to the United States, youve got the colonies in jamestown. That is really shakespeares world planting itself in north america. And thats a complicated history. Its part of the history of this country. Its also part of what was good and bad about colonialism. So was William Shakespeare aware of the new world . Yes, he was. When he wrote the tempest, he clearly, pretty clearly read a pamphlet which was about a ship wreck in bermuda. But he makes reference to stories about the new world that were coming back, and so he never visited it. He probably didnt have great information about it. But when he uses a phrase like brave new world, hes saying that theres this place that we havent explored and that is of overturning our expectations about what human beings are like and what nature is like. Thats something that is just kind of firing his imagination. How about one more sure. From the archives here, and then i want to go up to the theater. Good. So this is a copy of the shooting script for henry v. This was Lawrence Oliviers film, 1945. This gives us oliviers notes to how he wanted the, how he wanted this shot. And its interesting because the film, maybe youve seen it, is created during the Second World War. Heres this famous frame from one of the battle scenes. This was viewed as a piece of propaganda during the Second World War because it is so stirring, and so much of this play is quoted in support of the idea that england is going to be triumphant. But thats part of the history that we hold too where the library of were the library of record for shakespeare, so whatever the language, its something were interested in collecting. That means we even have a klingon translation of hamlet. Hamlet has been translated into a lot of different languages. The linguist who created the klingon language said i need to do hamlet, so he did that, and that is also in our collection. Theres one more item i would like to show you because its so important and its, perhaps, my favorite item in the collection. This is a modest copy of shakespeares poems from the 19th century. You can see that its portable. You could keep this in your pocket. Whats important about this copy though is that its the copy that walt whitman kept in his pocket. And this particular book, which was inexpensive when it was purchased, i think represents the direct connection between the renaissance lyric tradition and the kind of poetry that whitman and others were creating as an american idiom in the 19th century. So this is really one of those reasons why the two cultures are connecting. And its an important reason why this collection is here in washington. We very much appreciate your sharing with us and our viewers. Shall we go up to the theater . Is this in any way a Public Institution . S what is your budget, employees, how are you funded . We are a Public Institution, and, in fact, the congressional record ill tell you a story about our kind of birth certificate. When mr. And mrs. Folger wanted to create this library, they had bought the property for this parcel which is across from the future Supreme Court ask next to the jefferson and next to the jefferson building. He learned in the New York Times that the congress was about to take over this whole block for the purposes of another building for the library of congress. And he wrote to the librarian and said i have a collection of shakespeare materials that you could not afford to create. It is the best in the world, and it is my intention to make a gift to the American People of this collection. And so the librarian went to the congress and said we need to exempt that part of the parcel is so that the folgers can build this library. And in the congressional record, it says that the folgers have created an institutioning that is dedicated to institution that is dedicated to the public. And it also says that theyre doing the work that even the library of congress at this point its just in the depression, that they cant do. So we were born as an institution that serves the nation, but whats interesting about us is that we dont have federal funding. Mr. And mrs. Folger created an endowment for us. Its managed by amherst college. But because were not a college or university, we cant charge tuition. And because were not a federal institution, we dont get federal funds unless its a a grant. So that means we have to be selfsustaining. And about half of our 19 million operating budget comes from the endowment, a little more, and then we raise or earn the rest of that budget. So philanthropy, continuing philanthropy is really important. And it gives us the ability to really be the Public Institution that we were created to be. Weve got about 120 fulltime employees. Our building was probably created for a quarter of that, so we really do have space needs, and one of our challenges is how to keep this growing collection here and just share it with the public. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] and booktv on cspan2 is live from madison for the annual wisconsin book festival. Well be back with more is in just a few minutes. For a complete schedule of author events, visit booktv. Org, follow us on twitter, booktv, and on facebook, facebook. Com booktv. [inaudible conversations] heres a look at some of the most borrowed books this week at madison public library, home of the wisconsin book festival. Topping the list is executive director of the equal justice initiative, brian stevensons memoir, just mercy. The late neurosurgeon, paul ca loan by, contemplates mortality in when breath becomes air. In being mortal, the author explores the end of life care. And be Tanehisi Coates gives his thoughts on the current site state of black america in between the world and me. Next on the list of the most frequentlyborrowed books at the madison public be library, j. D. Vance remembers growing up in the ap appalachian region. And the list concludes with cnn host Anderson Cooper and his mother, gloria vannedder built vanderbilts dual memoir. Thats a look at some of the most borrowed books at the madison public library. Heres a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. Next saturday the louisiana book festival is being held in baton rouge at the state capitol. Coming up in november, were live from austin and the texas book festival with authors tim wu and orange is the new black actress diane guerrero. And later that month well be live from the Miami Book Fair on november 19th and 20th. Our coverage includes author discussions and callin programs featuring senator bernie sanders, fox news host dana perino and coulson whitehead. For more information about the book fairs and festivals booktv will be covering and to watch previous festival coverage, click on the book fairs tab on our web site, booktv. Org. [inaudible conversations] and booktv on cspan2 is back live in wisconsin. This is author kathy cramer who will be discussing her new book, the politics of resentment rural consciousness in wisconsin and the rise of scott walker. Booktvs live coverage of the wisconsin book festival continues. [inaudible conversations] hello. Thanks for coming. Im julia, a professor at Marquette University in the department of Political Science, and im here to introduce dr. Katherine cramer, professor of Political Science at uwmadison. Just a little bit of brief biographical information about professor cramer. She received her b. A. From the uwmadisnd