The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.2240  Tuesday, 5 December 2000

[1]     From:   Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 04 Dec 2000 10:04:26 -0800
        Subj:   SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House

[2]     From:   Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 4 Dec 2000 13:06:07 -0500
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House

[3]     From:   Stephanie Hughes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
        Date:   Monday, 04 Dec 2000 08:45:59 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mike Jensen <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 04 Dec 2000 10:04:26 -0800
Subject: Re: Mary Arden's House
Comment:        SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House

Tim Richards wondered

> Why on earth *do* tourists visit the house where Shakespeare's
> mother lived as a child? Would you also make a pilgrimage to
> Einstein's mum's home, or Picasso's dad's kindergarten?

I don't know?  Are they fun places to visit?

I gather you have not taken the tour?  I don't know if people would head
to what was formerly known as Mary Arden's house if it were not part of
the package.  When you buy the ticket to the properties run by the
Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, you visit - if my memory is clicking -
four houses and the grounds of New Place.  You board a bus that takes
you to them, get out and listen to the docents tell you about the
properties, then move along to the next place.  Your sarcasm, if that is
what it was, misses the point, which is marketing.

In fact, it is worth a visit.  The docents do a good, if perhaps not
totally accurate job.  They tell you it is a typical farmhouse of the
era, it is full of furniture from the time, and they try to give you a
sense of what life there was like, including the animal husbandry and
family bathing habits.  I'd complain that it is too slick, maybe a small
step in the direction of Disneyland, let's call it Willie World, but to
me it is the second best value of any of the Birthplace properties after
Hall's Croft.

If the house of Einstein's mum's or Picasso's dad's kindergarten are as
entertaining, I'd gladly visit.

Mike Jensen

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Mari Bonomi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 4 Dec 2000 13:06:07 -0500
Subject: 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House

I would not disagree completely about the stench of this particular
subject, but would prefer to substitute the word "idolatry" instead.

Case in point: my former mother-in-law who came very late to Elvismania.

She spent a vacation flying to Memphis, renting a car, driving to Tupelo
and the Birthplace, and following maps of his childhood peregrinations.

Nuff said :)

Mari Bonomi

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Stephanie Hughes <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date:           Monday, 04 Dec 2000 08:45:59 +0000
Subject: 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.2226 Re: Mary Arden's House

>Why on earth *do* tourists
>visit the house where Shakespeare's mother lived as a child? Would you
>also make a pilgrimage to Einstein's mum's home, or Picasso's dad's
>kindergarten?
>
>There's a quasi-religious whiff about all this...

"quasi" nothing. Harold Bloom says that, to the English speaking world,
Hamlet is the secular Christ. So what does that make Shakespeare?

Stephanie Hughes

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