Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote ‘King Lear. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner from The New Yorker gives us an imagined quarantine journal… Support our news coverage by subscribing to our Kindle Nation Daily Digest. Joining is free!
Day 1: Quills lined up. Nibs sharp. Parchment ready. No death knells yet this morning. You are going to write “King Lear”!
Day 2: No pressure. Fine to spend the first day brainstorming. There’s no such thing as a bad idea. Nibs still sharp. You can do this!
Day 3: You know what was a great play? “Julius Caesar.” Re-reading it. “How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over / In states unborn and accents yet unknown!” Damn.
Day 4: First draft doesn’t have to be perfect. The scribe will always go over it later. Shoot for a sloppy copy.
Day 5: Actus Primus, Scæna Prima. Or is it Actus Primus, Scænus Primus?
Day 6: Ben Jonson must have written, like, six plays by now.
Day 7: No competition. You do you. Who wrote “Titus Andronicus,” bitch?
Day 8: Are those plague sores? They’re kind of reddish.
Day 9: They’re definitely plague sores.
Day 10: Does rubbing your body with a chicken actually work?
Day 11: They’re not plague sores. Phew! Back to the old quill and parchment.
Day 12: Sharpen nibs.
Day 13: You’ve been wearing the same doublet and hose for two weeks.
Day 14: The muse strikes! If Cordelia and the Fool never appear in the same scene, that new apprentice can play both of them. Save one actor’s wages, times six performances (optimistic, but why not?), for a total of thirty pence. Can you say “new doublet and hose”?
Day 15: I miss Burbage.
Read full journal on The New Yorker