Professor Simon Palfrey, a Brasenose College English tutor, has curated a new exhibition at the University central library (the Bodleian) exhibition space, with Professor Emma Smith. Entitled Shakespeare’s Dead the exhibition celebrates the 400th anniversary of his death. It also features several Brasenose College undergraduate English students, who provided voiceovers for the audio installations.
The exhibition and accompanying book explore the central paradox: that death in Shakespeare vividly reaffirms life. There are ghosts, false burials, and returns from the dead; but the exhibition also shows how Shakespeare's comic worlds are framed by death, and how Shakespeare developed ingenious methods to script and orchestrate moments of dying on stage. Again, the life in Shakespeare is discovered through death.
Simon Palfrey comments; “Using the Bodleian’s unique collection of Shakespeare’s folios and other treasures, we created an exhibition that presents a story about the different stages and settings of death in the plays, as well as drawing from other sources. We used death to demonstrate that Shakespeare didn’t produce a facsimile documentary of real life – he was always transforming and mutating reality. Ultimately we wanted to show the death in life and life in death in Shakespeare’s works.”
The exhibition, showing until mid-September 2016, can be found at the Bodleian’s Weston Library, a stunning new public space that includes an exhibition gallery, events area, café and shop. This space opened in 2015 and has proved hugely popular with everyone from local residents to tourists from around the world, and has welcomed more than 800,000 visitors in the last year. Commenting on the significance of the opening of the Weston Library, Simon Palfrey said “it breaks down barriers between the university and the outside world as it’s a free public space in the heart of Oxford where we can communicate ideas, without the baggage of reverence for Oxford University as an institution. In a similar way, we hope our exhibition overcomes any reverence visitors might have for Shakespeare, drawing them in and bringing him back to life – through death. It might also give people an insight into the interesting ways that we teach Shakespeare’s work in our undergraduate degrees.”
Read more about English at Brasenose.