A place where I'll post up some thoughts and ideas - especially on literature in education, children's literature in general, poetry, reading, writing, teaching and thoughts on current affairs.
Wednesday, 2 March 2016
Discovery! Shakespeare was a teacher!
Not many people know that Shakespeare was for a while a teacher and found the whole language thing very problematic. In an old manuscript a draft of one part of the Witches' song from Macbeth has been found with Shakespeare's signature on the bottom:
Word of moth, phrase or label
Verbal nit and tongue of Mabel
Letters’ talk and this term’s pip
Wizard’s gag and omelettes’ quip
For a charm of powerful trouble
Like a well-goth, mix and muddle
Huddle, huddle, in the puddle
Why this term is such a muddle...
[Punctuation and spelling modernised]
Note: It's believed that Mabel was Shakespeare's lover from the Nag's Head in Shoreditch.