A round-up of stories about Shakespeare in the news this month—a September issue of our own—drawn from the world of art, the plays and poems for readers young and old, and sandwiches (or at least fake ads for them)!
Newly discovered portrait may depict “fair youth” of Shakespeare’s sonnets
Earl of Southampton may have given Shakespeare the portrait by Nicholas Hilliard, which has a defaced heart on its reverse
What can we learn from this new portrait? Could it provide new insights into the relationship between Shakespeare and his patron the 3rd Earl of Southampton? For The Guardian, Dalya Alberge wrote:
The discovery of a previously unknown portrait miniature by one of Elizabethan England’s greatest artists would be significant enough. But a work by Nicholas Hilliard that has come to light is all the more exciting because it has a possible link to William Shakespeare, and a 400-year-old enigma of a defaced red heart on its reverse, suggesting a love scorned.
Hilliard was Queen Elizabeth I’s official limner, or miniature painter. His exquisite portraits, small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand, are among the most revered masterpieces of 16th-century British and European art.
This example depicts an androgynous, bejewelled young sitter with long ringlets, thought to be the earliest known likeness of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd earl of Southampton, Shakespeare’s friend and patron—and possibly the “fair youth” of the sonnets, as some have speculated.
Shakespeare dedicated his two erotic poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, to Southampton, declaring: “The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end.”
Such miniatures were painted on vellum as thin as onion skin that was pasted on to playing cards for a stiff support. This portrait’s reverse reveals a card whose red heart has been painted over with a black spear or spade, seemingly indicating a broken heart.
The newly discovered portrait miniature by Nicholas Hilliard from the 1590s. At right, the miniature’s reverse side with a red heart defaced by a black spade or spear. © The Limner Company Ltd.
The owners of the miniature had asked Dr. Elizabeth Goldring, an honorary reader at the University of Warwick and author of Nicholas Hilliard: Life of an Artist, to authenticate the portrait. Working with miniature portraits expert Emma Rutherford of The Limner Company and Shakespeare scholar Professor Sir Jonathan Bate, they determined that all the evidence and provenance points to the tiny 2.25″ miniature being Southampton as painted by Hilliard dating back to the 1590s.
“Miniatures were inherently private artworks that were frequently exchanged as love tokens,” Dr. Goldring explained in the press release announcing the discovery. The image would likely have been kept in a locket and could be held and cherished in the palm of a hand.
But what of the portrait’s back? “We had never seen a playing card reverse vandalized like this—with the obliteration of a heart,” said Rutherford. “And to get to the back of a miniature in Elizabethan England, you would have to have prised it out of a very, very expensive locket. This feels like a really passionate act.”
The three experts, writing about their research, continued: “The fact that the heart has been painted over with a spade, or spear, inevitably calls to … mind thoughts of Shakespeare, whose coat of arms, drawn up c1602, incorporated a spear as a pun on his surname—though virtually nothing is known with certainty of Shakespeare’s interactions with Southampton.”
Goldring added: “The discovery of this miniature will, I suspect, reignite debate about the nature of the relationship between Shakespeare and his patron Southampton, including the possibility that Southampton may have been an inspiration for some of the sonnets.”
Emma Smith on The Comedy of Errors
Scholar Emma Smith is discussing a different Shakespeare play each month and how we might it approach differently in the 21st century. The new webinar series has her in conversation with the writers of the new introductions for the Oxford World’s Classics series. This month she’s talking about The Comedy of Errors with Ian Burrows of the University of Cambridge.
Watch past webinars
Julius Caesar with Brandi K. Adams (Arizona State University)
The Tempest with Lauren Working (University of York)
Titus Andronicus with Harry R. McCarthy (University of Exeter)
What Hamlet can mean for kids
Katherine Rundell, author of Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne and the YA fantasy novel Impossible Creatures and its sequel The Poisoned King, writes about how Shakespeare’s tragedy—from earlier sources to later adaptations like The Lion King—can show young people that stories are resilient against time and chaos.
Plus…
Shakespeare for children: 10 books to spark their imagination
Just for fun | Improvised Shakespeare Company
Keep exploring
New discoveries about the Shakespeare marriage
Matthew Steggle’s findings about a letter addressed to “Good Mrs Shakspaire” show the couple might have lived together in London at the time that Shakespeare was writing Hamlet and Othello, dispelling certain myths about their marriage.
Shakespeare in the News
A round-up of stories about Shakespeare in the news this summer from theater, film, and science.
The Improvised Shakespeare Company
The Improvised Shakespeare Company has been creating hilarious Shakespearean masterpieces—from an audience suggestion of a title of a show that has never been written—for 20 years. Austin Tichenor shares how they do it.
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