a random and idle thought...

[a_t_rain]

I wonder if it would be possible to visit all of the places where Shakespeare's plays are set (and if so, how long would it take?)

Off the top of my head, I have certainly been to London, Windsor, Warwickshire, Paris, Florence, Venice, Verona, Rome, Vienna, Bohemia, and Illyria. (Also several islands, and since we're never given any specific

Comments

[gehayi]

If you'd been to Glamis Castle, you'd remember it. It's GORGEOUS. I haven't been to Cawdor, though.

Wasn't one of Shakespeare's primary sources for The Tempest an account by a man who was shipwrecked in Bermuda?

Tyre's a city in Lebanon, which doesn't sound any more difficult than Antioch, Troy or Egypt.

[a_t_rain]

Wasn't one of Shakespeare's primary sources for The Tempest an account by a man who was shipwrecked in Bermuda?

Yes, it was! But how you end up in Bermuda by being shipwrecked on your way from Tunis to Naples is something of a mystery, so I'm inclined to think the play is really meant to be set somewhere in the Mediterranean...

[nineveh_uk]

If you've changed trains in Birmingham you've been to the Forest of Arden. But the real question is whether you have been to the coast of Bohemia?

[a_t_rain]

I think we're meant to take it as read that the Forest of Arden is in France, which raises an interesting question: is it possible to do this sort of thing with an author who is notoriously hazy about geography?

I have not been to the coast of Bohemia, but I have seen some of the famous Bears of Bohemia!

[jesspallas]

The Forest of Arden is definately North Warwickshire, the south-east corner of Birmingham and the countryside beyond - it seems odd he would have used that to refer to anywhere else when it's so close to where he grew up! *brace yourself for my ignorance* Which play is it mentioned in?

[a_t_rain]

As You Like It.

[jesspallas]

A programme I saw last week reckoned that The Tempest was set on Stromboli, a volcanic island off Naples. That might just be speculation though!

If you've been to parts of the Cotswolds, Cheltenham, Tewkesbury, the Forest of Dean or any part of England around the bottom end of the river Severn, you've been to Gloucestershire.

Sounds a fun thing to do though! :)

[a_t_rain]

I haven't actually been to any of those places, but upon checking old travel diaries and maps, it does appear that I have traveled from Bath to Manchester by a route which passed somewhere near Birmingham, so I think it's very probable that it would have passed through Gloucestershire as well.

[jesspallas]

If you went up the M5 motorway (ie the logical route from Bath to Manchester) they you definately have. Not its most pretty angle but... :)

[lareinenoire]

You could definitely do a package vacation with some of those--several were on the Eastern Mediterranean cruise J and I took a few years ago (Messina, Athens, Ephesus, Crete). There's a marketing idea: "Shakespeare's Locations." Then you could bring along interesting academics like me to give relevant lectures. ;)

[a_t_rain]

I so want to do that!