Here are a few images sent to me by readers enjoying my book, “Lessons From Shakespeare’s classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric.”

I’m so delighted to see them! The first is from Scott Newstok, whose book, “How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons From a Renaissance Education,” was an inspiration for mine and the subject of a post from a few years ago. I consider it a companion book and another totally absorbing and informative read. The book’s setting, in a box of legos, is a humorous nod to my last chapter, the one on the research: “The Lego Snap of Learning.”

The second picture is from Megan Mathews, one of the most brilliant students I’ve ever had. I’m still so impressed by her and am grateful that she has remained a friend all these years

The third is from Barrie Grenell, one of my oldest friends from childhood and a seasoned editor who pointed out two errors in mine (grrr!), but nevertheless enjoyed it immensely.

I didn’t ask for the pictures. I guess they just know me and knew I would love getting them.

I love my readers!

“Lessons From Shakespeare’s Classroom” is available from Routledge Publishers.

In the spirit of the day, I’m reposting a blog entry from three years ago, posted right on the eve of the epidemic!

Happy Holidays!

Keeping in the spirit, this post is just to tell some of the history of the participation of child actors in the Christmas celebrations from the middle ages through the Elizabethan era. The holiday season provided light and laughter in the dead of winter in villages all over England, in the country manors of the aristocracy, and at the royal court.

During Shakespeare’s day, we know that schoolboys traditionally provided theatrical entertainment in villages, and there is evidence of dozens and dozens of plays presented for the aristocracy by the boys’ companies I’ve written about in previous posts.

The traditions go far back in time, and virtually all of them provided some sort of upending of the customary ways, liberally spiced with hilarity.

Let’s start with the tradition of the Boy Bishop, celebrated all over Europe, dating back to the the early years of Christianity. In English villages the Boy Bishop was traditionally elected on the 6th of December, the feast of Saint Nicholas, and and his authority lasted till December 28, the Holly Innocents’ Day. He and his entourage were usually chosen from the choir boys at the local church. During his rule the real Bishop would, symbolically, step down at the deposuit potentes de sede of the Magnificat (“he hath put down the mighty from their seat”), and the boy would take his seat at et exaltavit humiles (“and hath exalted the humble and meek”). The elected boy would be dressed in full bishop’s robes, complete with mitre and cozier, and his comrades would be dressed as priests. They would travel about the parish blessing the townsfolk and would perform all of the ceremonies at the church except for the mass. It was a solemn rite, but being boys, they most likely had some fun hamming it up. Except for a brief revival during the rule of the Catholic Mary, this custom did not survive the English Protestant Reformation; but it was still very much in evidence all over the realm early in the reign of Henry VIII.  

And then there were the Feast of Fools and the twelve days of Christmas, culminating in Twelfth Night, on the eve of the Feast of Epiphany. During the twelve days of Christmas, traditional roles were often relaxed, masters waited on their servants, men were allowed to dress as women, and women as men. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas revels. The boy king, Edward VI, was especially enamored of this comic Lord, who played a significant role in the Christmas festivities during his reign. Some of these traditions were adapted from older, pagan customs, including the Roman Saturnalia. Shakespeare’s play Twelfth Night was written for festivities  of this kind and delights in the audacity of the servants in the manor houses of Olivia and Orsino.

At court Christmas was also a time of elaborate celebrations including masques, which always included “interludes” performed by boy actors, or “interluders”. Then, of course, there was the music. It is impossible to overstate the role of the voices of boy singers, thought to be the voices of angels. Entire cathedrals were designed as huge acoustical sound boxes to capture the purity of the sound, and that sound was heard throughout the realm during the Christmas season.

So Christmas rituals were a combination of deep solemnity and a raucous inversion of norms. Contemporary celebrations like the carnivals held in South America have their origins in the chaotic social reversals overseen by the Lord of Misrule, but I can think of no contemporary parallel during Christmas that is quite so colorful. Children have always been delighted by the temporary freedom provided by an upside down world. Today what Christmas means for children is presents. In those days it was the sheer joy and freedom of revelry.

https://www.robinlithgow.com/2019/12/

REMINDER:

My new book, “Lessons from Shakespeare’s Classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric,” is available for pre-order and will be sent out at the beginning of January.

https://www.routledge.com/Lessons-from-Shakespeares-Classroom-Empowering-Learning-Through-Drama/Lithgow/p/book/9781032384061

— Scott Newstok, author of How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons From a Renaissance Education

I’m so honored by this endorsement! Scot Newstok’s marvelous book, How to Think Like Shakespeare, totally inspired me to finish mine and get it published. I’ve read it twice, refer to it often, and wrote about it in a post two years ago. I’ve always hoped it would somehow end up as a companion volume, addressing the same topic from a different perspective and, hopefully, inspiring others to broaden the field.

This is from the post referred to above, from early 2021. (It comments on only the first three chapters. I intended to write another post about the other chapters, but Covid happened and the world got very confusing for awhile. I’ll have honor that pledge now!):

What, he asks, are the ends of education? In Shakespeare’s day it was the training of capable and critical citizens  able to function “for the benefit of the commonwealth.” Today it seems to  be test scores. He tells a poignant story about his seven-year-old daughter who, upon being asked if she had learned any new words at school responded, coldly, in a whisper, “Assessment!” He goes on to say, “The reflexive call for educational ‘targets’ in current jargon makes me feel as if we adults have become like William Tell, cruelly aiming arrows at our own children. Our means (passing the test) have overtaken our ends (human flourishing).”  That is to say that if you take the long view of current trends in education, we are, in fact, participating in child abuse.

Bravo! Well said! Spread the word!!!

This is the second of three interviews about my book, “Lessons From Shakespeare’s Classroom: Empowering Learning Through Drama and Rhetoric.” Again, the series “Slow Talk” is well named. I have to apologize constantly because this old lady can’t get words out at the speed she used to, but it was a fun conversation, covering the study of rhetoric as the powerful expression of ideas: style being the vehicle of substance. Next week I’ll post the final interview which wraps it all up.

I’m about to start the final phase of the preparation for publication: indexing! Apparently the galleys are next, and soon we’ll have a publication date. Stay tuned.