01/05/2016 Songs of Praise


01/05/2016

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BAND STRIKES UP

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Hello! If you've ever said,

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"I must be cruel to be kind" or "I'm in a pickle"

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or "on a wild goose chase",

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you've been quoting the great man himself.

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In the week that the country has been

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celebrating 400 years of William Shakespeare's legacy,

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I'm here in his hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, to

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search for the religious influences

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that may have shaped his work.

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I decipher medieval wall paintings...

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glimpse a 16th-century Book of Common Prayer

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believed to have belonged to him...

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And look for answers in the inscription on Shakespeare's

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final resting place.

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All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.

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And we join Shakespearean actor Simon Callow as he reveals

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what it's like to perform the great Bard's work.

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"Music oft hath such a charm to make bad good

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"And good provoke to harm",

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wrote Shakespeare in Measure For Measure and today, we have no

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shortage of music to inspire you, with hymns

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from across the country,

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including a special performance of one of the Bard's own sonnets

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performed here at the church where he was both baptised and buried.

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But we begin with a joyous hymn

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that Shakespeare himself would have known,

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sung for us now in London, where the Bard wrote most of his plays.

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BELL TOLLS

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It's a historic day here in Stratford-upon-Avon as 20,000

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people have gathered to commemorate William Shakespeare,

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400 years after his death.

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But it's not all sorrow and tragedy.

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-Hip, hip!

-ALL:

-Hooray!

-Hip, hip!

-ALL:

-Hooray!

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-Hip, hip, hip!

-Hooray!

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LIVELY JAZZ

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In a dramatic twist,

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both his death and his birth are marked on the same date.

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He is the most celebrated playwright in the history

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of the theatre.

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It's quite hard to overstate the influence his work has

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had on language and culture,

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so it's no wonder his hometown is putting on quite a show.

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But although his works are well known,

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his personal faith is more difficult to uncover.

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Perhaps the first clue lies in the town's Guild Chapel

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that was well known to Shakespeare's family.

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As Dr Paul Edmondson explains, the young Shakespeare grew up

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in a time when Catholic imagery was suppressed.

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It was a turbulent time for religion.

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The state had moved from Protestant to Catholic to Protestant again

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and it was a time surely of

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psychological trauma for the people.

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Shakespeare has a direct connection to this very chapel, doesn't he?

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He does. When his father was Chamberlain for the borough council,

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John Shakespeare ordered the whitewashing

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and the defacing of the medieval images here.

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So this wall painting

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that we can still sort of see is important, then?

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The Last Judgment in this chapel was also known as a "doom image"

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and in Macbeth,

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when Shakespeare's conveying just how awful

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the image of the murdered King Duncan is, he talks about it being

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like "the great doom's image",

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perhaps thinking of paintings like this one.

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And in Hamlet, when he mentions Purgatory,

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a Roman Catholic belief, he also mentions

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the death of 20,000 men who go to their graves like beds.

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When you see what this picture was like and the souls are rising

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at the last judgment, it looks like they're just climbing out of bed.

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So it's becoming clearer and clearer that Shakespeare was heavily

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influenced by religious iconography of his time.

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I think so and he's really been brave in the way he's able to

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remind people of religious issues, but he wasn't allowed

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to refer to them explicitly, because of censorship.

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But he could allude to it and as the wall paintings had vanished,

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they're re-emerging in these vibrant, bold,

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brave images on stage.

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DRUMS

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Shakespeare is undoubtedly Stratford-upon-Avon's most famous

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son, but of course he spent most of his professional life in London.

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And it's from the capital that Shakespearean actor Simon Callow

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shines a little more light on the Bard's relationship with the church.

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"All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.

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"They have their exits and their entrances

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"and one man in his time plays many parts,

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"His acts being seven ages."

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Famous words from As You like It,

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and surely the way Shakespeare saw the world.

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We're all actors in this "wide and universal theatre", as he puts it.

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I've been enchanted, enraptured by the works of William Shakespeare

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since I was five years old.

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I've acted in his plays, I've written books about them,

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I've done a one-man show to try

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to find out who the man was who wrote these plays.

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He gives incomparably the greatest account of what it is to be

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a human being, but what of the spiritual dimension of his plays?

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This is Southwark Cathedral.

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In Shakespeare's day, it was St Saviour's Parish Church,

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just a short walk from the Globe Theatre.

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We obviously don't know how often

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Shakespeare will have come to church here,

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although there was an expectation

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and a legal obligation upon people at one stage to go to church.

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We do know, however, that he paid for his brother's funeral here,

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and we also know that that funeral had to be

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arranged for the morning so that the show could go on in the afternoon.

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'But the theatre was by no means universally

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'accepted by the establishment.

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'Indeed, when Shakespeare first came to the capital,

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'all productions had been forced outside of the City of London.

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'But I've come to Shoreditch,

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'near the site of the first purpose-built playhouse in London,

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'to discuss with Professor Alison Shell

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'how it wasn't all condemnation.'

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Here in Shoreditch,

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on the foundations of this actual church,

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was the first actors' church,

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so that tells us there was a church which looked favourably on actors.

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Yes, and I think that's partly because

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the techniques of actors,

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erm, were so often used by preachers themselves.

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Both professions of preacher and player were in the business

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of communication and effective, entertaining communication.

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If you really had to, Alison, would you describe Shakespeare as

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a religious man or a non-religious man?

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I've never had the impression that he was somebody who found

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personal piety as important as many of his contemporaries did,

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and the interesting point of comparison here is John Donne.

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You never get away from religion in what Donne writes.

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Yes, by comparison with John Donne,

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who's always thinking about things in eternal terms,

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Shakespeare seems sublimely to connect with human life,

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with what it's like to be a human being.

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Yes, and in an age when Protestant theology was obsessed with

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the sinfulness of humanity, Shakespeare is offering

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a much more positive alternative, celebrating humanity.

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That's a religious perspective, too.

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'The idea of a spirituality rooted in human life is something that

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'appeals to me, whether Shakespeare intended it or not.'

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But what we do know, me and my fellow actors know,

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is that when we open ourselves to his work, we experience

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an extraordinary life force, a kind of profundity of emotion

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and experience which almost amounts to a religious experience for us.

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# Immortal, invisible God only wise... #

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'I hadn't expected to find a shop that celebrates Christmas

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'all year round on my trail through Shakespeare's Stratford,

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'but it's a reminder that the 12 days of Christmas

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'and their festivities were hugely popular in Elizabethan England.'

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It is the perfect opportunity for me

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to tell you about our Christmas card competition.

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It's your chance to create one of ten winning designs that will

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go on sale later this year, with the proceeds going to Children in Need.

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The closing date is May 23rd, so, yes, please, do get designing.

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All the information and terms and conditions you need to enter

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are on our website...

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Now, this Thursday marks 40 days since Easter Sunday,

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which means it's Ascension Day.

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Our next hymn celebrates Christ's ascension into Heaven

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in the glorious setting of St Albans Cathedral.

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# Rejoice, the Lord is King... #

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'I'm looking for clues to unlock Shakespeare's beliefs.

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'His writing was undoubtedly influenced by the Bible,

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'but I've been invited to take a look at another object that's also

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'very precious.'

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-So, Daniel, here it is.

-So, this is it.

-Wow, it's so tiny.

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-Tiny and very, very fragile.

-Yeah, I can see that.

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Let's get this out and put it there.

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-So this is the Book of Common Prayer...

-Uh-huh.

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..and it was first published in 1549,

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and it's really the handbook of the English Church.

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And this is special because it's not just any common book of prayer,

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this could actually be his.

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Yes, it seems so, and what we do is if we open here...

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..we see Shakespeare's signature.

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Wow, has that been authenticated?

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We very much hope this is Shakespeare's personal copy

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-since that would be such a wonderful treasure to have.

-Uh-huh.

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But even if it wasn't his personal copy, he certainly would have

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known the contents by heart, as every worshipper in England would.

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You say he would have known this book by heart, is that because

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he would have had to have read it, or because he would have wanted to?

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Simply because he would have heard it

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repeated on Sundays at every church service, at morning prayer,

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at evening prayer, so simply by repetition and simply by a kind of

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common experience, he would have come to know them.

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How significant is this prayer book

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in understanding Shakespeare's beliefs?

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I think this book is absolutely crucial in understanding both

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Shakespeare's beliefs and his plays

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because it is often the secret hidden ingredient in those plays.

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'I'm intrigued to hear

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'just how Shakespeare uses the prayer book in his work,

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'but first Daniel takes me to

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'the schoolroom that was also a huge influence on his life.

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'Today it's part of King Edward VI School.'

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This is where he would have gone to school between the age of about

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seven and about 14, and he didn't really have much other education.

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He didn't go to university, so this is not only

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-one of his classrooms, this is really his only classroom.

-OK.

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Here is where he would have first encountered plays,

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so he would have seen plays here and also acted in school plays,

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so it really is, you know, on both those levels.

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He's learning but he's also figuring out about drama

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and figuring out about the theatre.

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So let's talk more about the Book of Common Prayer

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and its influence on him.

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So, what the prayer book does is

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it gives a kind of structure to human life.

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When we're born, we're baptized, according to the prayer book.

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When we fall in love and marry, we say the words from the prayer book.

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So, really, the prayer book gives a kind of reservoir of things to do

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in times of extreme emotion,

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and I think that's why Shakespeare, as a dramatist, was drawn to it.

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There's a wonderful scene towards the end of Hamlet

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when Hamlet interrupts Ophelia's funeral,

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and because she's committed suicide she's not allowed to be

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buried in church ground, and Hamlet is horrified by this.

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And for me that's the voice of Shakespeare, who believed that these

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church rites were these crucial, emotional, important events.

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So, what's your personal view, then, of his beliefs?

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I think what's amazing about Shakespeare's plays is that

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they're like a mirror, so that whoever looks upon them

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can see him or herself in them.

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For me, personally, the important spiritual lesson that comes from

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Shakespeare's plays is, I suppose, compassion.

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That's the thing I think he truly believes in.

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It's incredible to think that such was Shakespeare's brilliance

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he's thought to have written 38 plays and 154 sonnets,

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one of which was later turned into a hymn.

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So, now, for a special performance of Sonnet 146,

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which is often thought to be his only Christian sonnet.

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And it's performed here at Holy Trinity Church,

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where Shakespeare was baptised and later buried.

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Sonnet 146 is important as it's Shakespeare's

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only piece of work that can be described as overtly Christian.

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But that doesn't make it any easier

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to pin down exactly what Shakespeare believed.

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Dr Anjna Chouhan explains why.

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Now, a lot of people will look at the sonnet and say,

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well, it's profoundly spiritual.

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It's talking about the idea of the soul lasting for ever,

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when the body is going to "perish and be food for worms",

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as he says in the sonnet.

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But some other scholars will actually argue that,

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this could be read as a secular sonnet as well,

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because the focus is on the body.

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There's a lot of talk about earthliness

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and earthly sinfulness and lease and buying and selling,

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so there's quite a lot of commercial language in there too,

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so really you could bring whatever you want to the sonnet.

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But in his lifetime, he definitely identified himself as a Christian?

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Almost certainly, yes, of course a Christian,

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but, you know, ultimately, I think that Shakespeare's work

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means all sorts of things to everybody, no matter what your race,

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gender, where you live in the world, what age you are.

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It's special to everyone.

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As my search nears its end, I wonder if Shakespeare's grave and its

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inscription gives us any final clues to what he personally believed.

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He lies buried close to the altar of Holy Trinity Church.

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"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forebeare

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"To digg the dust enclosed heare

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"Bleste be the man that spares thes stones,

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"And curst be he that moves my bones."

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So, Paul, what clues to Shakespeare's spirituality

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-lie here, on his tombstone?

-He says, "for Jesus' sake", so it's a prayer.

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-Mm-hm.

-It's two rhyming couplets,

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so it's a poem.

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It's a blessing and there's a curse at the very end,

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-"curst be he that moves" his bones.

-Interesting.

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Why that curse at the end?

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He seems really clear that he wants to remain here.

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This is a man who, like the rest of the country,

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said that they believed in the resurrection of the body,

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-week-in, week-out in church.

-Mm-hm.

-There's a theatricality about it.

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There's a sense of doubt that we all feel

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as well as hoping in Jesus' company.

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And that hope is expressed in our next hymn,

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sung here at Shakespeare's church, encouraging us

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to praise God in words and music, both in this world and the next.

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# Angel voices ever singing... #

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Here at Shakespeare's final resting place,

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thousands of people are waiting to pay their respects.

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The church has become the focal point of the commemorations.

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I'm sure the Bard would have appreciated such an audience.

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My time here has shown me that, in life as well as death,

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Shakespeare was such an inspired dramatist

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that he managed to keep everyone guessing

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about the person behind his plays.

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Perhaps because he could only offer more questions

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than answers about life, existence and the soul.

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Next week, Sally's in Belfast

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to mark the centenary of the Battle of the Somme

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and the Easter Rising and their impact on today's Northern Ireland.

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Until then, our final hymn today is a favourite for many of us

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as we continue on the pilgrimage of life.

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Thanks for watching.

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