Shakespeare is one of the biggest selling authors of all time, having sold over 4 billion copies of his work sold. April is a pretty big month for Shakespeare too; he was born on the 26th 455 years ago and he passed away on the 23rd 403 years ago. This means that the 23rd of April is National Shakespeare Day and I’m gonna chat to you about what I learnt when I recently attended a Shakespeare party with the team from Viking Direct.
Calligraphy
Image by Elouisa Georgiou courtesy of Viking Direct.
I’ve always wanted to give calligraphy a go, so I was dead chuffed when we were given a class by Mathilda from Quill London. Being a bit clumsy I knew I wasn’t going to take to writing all fancy like a duck to water, and I was right but after a few attempts and a little help, ok, a lot of help, I think I got it sussed.
Just look at those skills! I was so proud of myself and I may have brought that piece home to show off to everyone.
I can imagine how hard it was back in Shakespeare day to write entire books in that style font with real ink and quills, so I fully admire the effort they put in. I so wouldn’t have the patience for that! I was kindly gifted a calligraphy set at the end of the event so I can keep practising my skills too!
Sonnet Writing
Image by Elouisa Georgiou courtesy of Viking Direct.
Anyone that knows me will know I love writing, that how this blog came to be, but I also have a Creative Writing degree so it’s dead up my street. I haven’t really spent any time writing outside of this blog since I graduated many moons ago so I ws so happy when we learnt all about sonnet writing with Jacqueline.
The word sonnet means a “little song” or small lyric so a sonnet only has 14 lines, and is written in iambic pentameter. Each line has 10 syllables and it has a specific rhyme scheme to follow when writing them.
We teamed up and wrote a line each from a starting point we were given and some of the outcomes were really good! It got me wanting to be creative outside of this blog!
Romance
Shakespeare was obviously one for romance with writing the likes of Rome and Juliet but at the event, I learnt that Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway when he was just 18 and she was 26 at the time! That’s quite an age gap and to top it all off, she was three months pregnant at the time too! It seems he was quite the romancer in real life and not just on paper!
I loved learning all about Shakespeare and trying my hand at some of his skills, but I do think I really need to keep practising if I’m ever going to sell 4 billion copies of anything I write!
One response to “What have I Learnt from Shakespeare in Time for National Shakespeare Day?”
I'm Squibb Vicious, better known as Haydy!
Happiest with a craft beer in hand, eating til my heart is content or exploring somewhere new.
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I love that you tried calligraphy, i hope all your to-do lists will be written in that style now as you keep practicing! I can’t even imagine how long it would have taken to hand write everything in those days.