Existing comment:
The Civil War
During the Civil War, Shakespeare was performed by soldiers in camp as well as actors on stage, and his 300th birthday was celebrated with plans to raise a statue to his honor in New York's Central Park.
In 1862, the Union Army's 7th Regiment was camped at Baltimore. Their ‘Amusement Association' acted the Trial Scene from The Merchant of Venice, accompanied by music performed by the Regimental Band and a comic afterpiece, the whole ending with a tattoo (musical performance) by the Drum Corps. (1 & 2)
Two years later in 1864, brothers Junius Brutus, Edwin, and John Wilkes Booth who were normally rivals on stage, teamed up in a production of Julius Caesar to raise money for a statue of Shakespeare in Central Park. (3 & 4) Designed by John Ward, the statue was finally dedicated after the war in 1872. Mrs. Folger acquired a quarter-sized bronze version of the statue from the sculptor's widow in 1911. (5) Poets, inspired by the statue, pointed to Shakespeare's Americanness:
Old World, he is not only thine!
Our New World too has part, . . .
In his stupendous mind and heart.
William Ross Wallace |