Pronouncing Shakespeare: The Globe Experiment

Description

How did Shakespeare's plays sound when they were originally performed? How can we know, and could the original pronunciation ever be recreated? For three days, Shakespeare's Globe presented a production of Romeo and Juliet in original, Shakespearian pronunciation. In an unusual blend of autobiography, narrative, and academic content, David Crystal recounts the unique nature of the experience. He begins by discussing the Globe Theatre's approach to 'original practices', which had dealt with all aspects of Elizabethan stagecraft - except pronunciation. A large section is devoted to the nature of the Early Modern English sound system. There are reports of how the actors coped with the task of learning the pronunciation, how it affected their performances and how the audiences reacted. In this new edition, he reflects on the development of the original pronunciation movement across the world, since the Globe's experiment.

David Crystal is one of the world's foremost authorities on language. He is author of the hugely successful The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (Cambridge, 1987; 3rd edition 2010), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (1995; 3rd edition 2018), English as a Global Language (1997; 2nd edition 2003) and Language and the Internet (Cambridge, 2nd edition, 2006). An internationally renowned writer, journal editor, lecturer, and broadcaster, he received an OBE in 1995 for his services to the study and teaching of the English language. His previous work on Shakespeare includes three books written with his actor son, Ben, Shakespeare's Words (2002), The Shakespeare Miscellany (2005) and The Oxford Illustrated Shakespeare Dictionary (2015).