Portland Public Library will Host Shakespeare’s First Folio Exhibition in 2016 – dates to be announced in April 2015.
Portland Public Library in partnership with USM Libraries and Maine Humanities Council has been selected as the host site for the state of Maine for First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, a national traveling exhibition of the Shakespeare First Folio, one of the world’s most treasured books. The Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring a First Folio of Shakespeare in 2016 to all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.
Many of Shakespeare’s plays, which were written to be performed, were not published during his lifetime. The First Folio is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death. Two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors compiled 36 of his plays, hoping to preserve them for future generations. Without it, we would not have 18 of Shakespeare’s plays, including Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, Antony and Cleopatra, The Comedy of Errors, and As You Like It. All 18 appear for the first time in print in the First Folio, and would otherwise have been lost.
The Folger Shakespeare Library holds 82 copies of the First Folio, by far the largest collection in the world and more than a third of the 233 known copies in the world today. It is believed that 750 copies were originally printed.
The Shakespeare First Folio is one of the most valuable printed books in the world; a First Folio sold for $6.2 million in 2001 at Christie’s and another one for $5.2 million in 2006 in London. It originally sold for one British pound (20 shillings)—about $200 today.
When the First Folio arrives in Portland, its pages will be opened to the most quoted line from Shakespeare and one of the most quoted lines in the world, “to be or not to be” from Hamlet. Accompanying the rare book will be a multi-panel exhibition exploring the significance of Shakespeare, then and now, with additional digital content and interactive activities. During the exhibition, Portland Public Library is planning numerous programs for the public and families around the First Folio exhibition.
Final touring dates for First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare will be announced in April 2015.
“Loosely based on the Greek myth of Geryon, a winged creature with a human face, Carson’s novel is about that particular flavor of love that is so easily tangled up with shame, loneliness and fear, that infatuation we are especially prone to as young people. It’s about being a monster and falling hard.” -Hazel
A favorite quotation from Junot Diaz’s stories of love:
“You must learn her.
You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there.You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to.You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept.
And, this is how youkeepher.”
-George
You can find more fiction recommendations on love here, including Emma Hooper’s fantastic new novel “Etta and Otto and Russell and James,” James Baldwin’s classic “Giovanni’s Room,” Louise Erdrich’s “The Painted Drum” (on healing, and mothers and daughters, and loving oneself), Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood,” and Ali Smith’s myth-retelling, bright-light-of-a-love-story, “Girl Meets Boy.”
“The unlikely love story, set on a clothesline, of a delicately embroidered nightgown made in France and a pair of red long johns (irregulars) purchased in an Army/Navy surplus store.”
“I ‘love, love, love’ More More More Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams. Love abounds and play is paramount when ‘babies are caught up in the air and given loving attention by a father, grandmother, and mother.’ Colorful, multicultural, and diverse, this book is perfect for sharing with your favorite preschooler.”
“A bit of mystery, a pinch of romance, a dash of class intersect with a deeply flawed prince, a beloved uncle, a fae race enslaved in this story about a girl who becomes quintessentially herself as she grows up. Amid poison, slavery, murder and politics, this surprisingly lighthearted growing-up tale focuses on a girl and her sister as they become the adults they wish to be.”
“Man-eating horses that come out of the ocean are not romantic. But two young teens betting everything on a deadly race while simultaneously falling for each other IS romantic. This book is tender, magical, and empowering, and the writing is superb. The audiobook is also superb (and a treat for fans of British accents).”
“There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all.That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from possession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you.”
—Albus Dumbledore
“I memorized this quote when I first read the book.
Love, the most powerful magic of all.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learned from Albus Dumbledore.”
“I don’t often say this but, when it comes to Shopgirl, I liked the movie even more than the book. In this 2005 adaptation of his own novella, Steve Martin plays one part of a love triangle along with Claire Danes and Jason Schwartzman. The story plays out some insightful differences between personality types and how each character’s love is a wholly different feeling. While diehard Martin fans may grumble that this is not the Steve they used to know, he has only traded a little bit of his nonsense for a dose of reason. A far cry from another, more pointed, comedy that we have all come to love- Roxanne- this is still a worthy film for Valentine’s Day.” -Zeb
“I drink tea,/ fingers curved around the cup. Impossible/ to duplicate these flavours…it’s your surprised body,/pleasure I like. I can even say it,/though only once and it won’t/ last: I want this. I want/this.” -From the poem “There is Only One of Everything,” Brian’s pick from Margaret Atwood’s book of poetry.
“For Love, I recommend ‘The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood,’ by the poet Richard Blanco. It’s a sweet memoir of his childhood growing up with his Cuban immigrant family in Miami, where all his relatives recreate the Cuba of their bittersweet memories. It’s filled with the longings and dreams of his parents and grandparents to see their beloved Cuban homeland again. And it’s the story of young Ricki caught between two worlds—one the world of his ancestors and the other his struggle to find his identity as a gay young man in a culture that refuses to accept such a possibility. This memoir is filled with the love of family, country of origin and the hopes and struggles of young Richard growing up in two cultures.
“Sometimes you just need to face the truth. #toughlove.” -Sonya
Sadly: there are other kinds of love. Unrequited love. Love and loss. Thankfully: you can mine library materials for wisdom and guidance. For hope: there’s bell hook’s All About Love: New Visions, or Cheryl Strayed’sTiny Beautiful Things, which collects her “Dear Sugar” columns on life, love, and relationships. Sugar observes: “You will learn a lot about yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love.”
If Music Be The Food of Love: Play On
Tom W. weighed in for music with Jim Kweskin and The Jug Band’s song “Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me.” Enjoy the tremendously fine spoon, banjo, and fiddle-playing, as well as the poignant lyrics: “The only blues that’s on my mind, they’re the very meanest kind/The blues my naughty sweetie gives to me.” Here’s the band playing live:
“I’ve thought long and hard about all of the epic love stories contained within our collection, but I keep going back to The Velvet Underground whose songs so have so perfectly captured every emotion I’ve ever experienced about love – romantic or not: euphoria, melancholy, heartache, lovesickness, happiness, sadness, desperation, contentment. The library has “Peel Slowly and See” which is comprised of so many of these amazing songs.” -Rachael
Bob Dylan’s song “Not Dark Yet” takes us home. “One of the great songs about love and loss, and no longer being in one’s younger years.” -Wendy
One Last Confirmation
A last quotation comes from Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty, a book so thick with thoughts on marriage, fidelity, friendship, family, and heartbreak that Smith might have easily titled it…On Love. Here, the character Jerome is sitting quietly, mulling over his brother and sister. It’s a brief moment in the book, a beautiful recognition of him and them, their world and their being so strongly and simply together, even in the curl of their hair, in a love that might just always sustain them.
“People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel — before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
Among the Portland Room’s many treasures are five scrapbooks, each one the color of dirty dishwater with a title embossed in gold on the front. The titles are: Cutting, Folding, Sewing, Weaving. (The fifth scrapbook is missing its cover.)
Cover of one of the workbooks
All that we know about these books is that they are called “Kindergarten Teacher Training Workbooks” and that they were created by Marion P. Dana. Once you get past the unassuming covers, there are aesthetic delights inside: brown and yellow paper woven into intricate, geometric patterns in the Weaving scrapbook, simple stitched outlines of shapes in the Sewing book.
Page from the workbook titled “Sewing”
Marion Dana was born in Westbrook. After attending Wheaton College, she taught kindergarten, then went on to obtain both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in education from Columbia University in the early and mid-1920s. She taught for over 20 years at the teacher’s college in Buffalo, NY.
Were these notebooks created for one of Dana’s classes at Buffalo, for her own studies at Columbia, or during her days as a kindergarten teacher? We simply don’t know.
Page from the workbook titled “Weaving”
We do know a little bit about the recommended curriculum for kindergarten students in the early 20th century, thanks to a 1919 booklet published by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Education (http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED541152.pdf). Teachers were expected to explore the following topics with their young scholars: Community Life and Nature Study, Manual Activities, Art, Language, Literature, Plays and Games, and Music. Cutting, weaving, and sewing are among the manual activities discussed. Sewing, for example, “is occasionally introduced for the production of articles which can be used by the child; for example, a pocketbook for the store play, a postman’s bag, etc. The simple overhand stitch is used. … The needs of the kindergarten dolls furnish a most natural and interesting motive.”
Dana’s workbooks are now on display on the Lower Level of the Main branch. When not on display, they are housed in the collections of the Portland Room. If anyone knows more about Marion Dana, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at (207) 871-1700 x747 or portlandroom@portland.lib.me.us.
been selected as the host site for the state of Maine for First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, a national traveling exhibition of the Shakespeare First Folio, one of the world’s most treasured books. The Folger Shakespeare Library, in partnership with Cincinnati Museum Center and the American Library Association, is touring a First Folio of Shakespeare in 2016 to all 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.
The Folger Shakespeare Library holds 82 copies of the First Folio, by far the largest collection in the world and more than a third of the 233 known copies in the world today. It is believed that 750 copies were originally printed.
