Quiz: Which Shakespearean Item Are You?

Hi Ben, this was a fun survey: it says I’m letters! Yeah. It’s funny, I’ve been working on a chapter for my book (Shakespeare’s Auditory Worlds, co-edited with Laury Magnus) which deals with the letters in Twelfth Night. All of those letters do make it to their intended recipients, but the delivery systems are flawed. The delivery is interrupted and then the letter is read out by someone else which reinterprets the intent. Of course, it’s more complicated than that, but Alan Stewart’s book on letters in Shakespeare is a good start. And just for the record, I think that there are four letters in Twelfth Night; he says three.
Thanks for the diversion!

You are a funny fellow. Far too many buttinskis plague me. I shall refer them to your post.

Letters! Perfect! I have given decades of service as an archivist and manuscripts curator.

Beatrice and Benedick exchange letters, don’t they? And the news isn’t bad. I am happy to be letters!

Desdemona’s handkerchief! “Everyone wants a piece of you.” Man, I’m learning that in my new position at work! Ugh!!

Of course I’m letters–Maria drops the letter, after all.

I was intrigued to see your comments on letters (Walter Cannon), but disappointed to see you limited it to the one play. I have been teaching Hamlet for a number of years to my English students and am fascinated by the three letters sent by Hamlet late in the play. One is to Horatio and that is read out loud; the second is to Claudius and that too is openly read; however, the third is to the Queen and it is not read out. My theory is that it is the reason Gertrude suddenly deserts Claudius, but I have seen no research that speaks to it, albeit I have not looked very carefully. I would love to see what others think.

“What treasure, uncle?”
“Tennis balls, my liege.”

Regarding the letters in Hamlet. I just played Claudius in a production in Elsinore- when the messenger brought the letters and said “these for your majesty, this for the Queen.”, I took them all. That rat , ahem, fat bastard Hamlet was not going to communicate anything to Gertrude that I didn’t know about.
In retrospect, as Claudius’ next line is “Laertes, you shall hear them”, I think the implication is that Claudius got more than one letter, unless the second was the one word post script “alone”.

Letters. May be problematic in the contrived situation of a play; but in Life….

Yorick’s skull. I’m going to have to think about that.

I got Yorick’s skull. Spot on!

The Purple Flower!

Tennis balls! Very amusing, sire. The quiz was indeed.harder than I thought it would be.

Well, I’ve never been called a tennis ball before. However, now I think about it, I can see a resemblance.

Purple Flower? It’s my favorite color but not sure an introvert like me can be called the “life of the party”