Had to listen for my english class😭😭

While Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on South Africa's Robben Island, one of the other political prisoners managed to retain a copy of Shakespeare's complete works, which was secretly circulated through the group. At that prisoner's request, many of the others—including Mandela—signed their names next to their favorite passages.

As Shakespeare scholar David Schalkwyk, also a South African, explains to interviewer Rebecca Sheir, there is something special about "a book that had passed through the hands of the people who had saved my country."

Schalkwyk shares some personal history and reveals what Shakespeare might have meant to the men who signed the Robben Island Shakespeare.

David Schalkwyk is Professor of English at the University of Cape Town and, beginning in 2009, has served as Director of Research at the Folger Shakespeare Library and editor of "Shakespeare Quarterly." He is also the author of "Speech and Performance in Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Plays," "Literature and the Touch of the Real," and "Shakespeare, Love and Service." His most recent book, "Hamlet’s Dreams: The Robben Island Shakespeare," was published in February 2013.

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From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved.

Produced for the Folger Shakespeare Library by Richard Paul; Garland Scott, associate producer.


The Robben Island Shakespeare

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Galway Kinnell, who died in October of 2014, wrote poems that snuck up on you—starting from their titles to opening lines, they often put the reader right in the middle of a circumstance, conversation, or event. Kinnell read here at the Folger on March 24, 2008. Listen to his poems “Everyone Was in Love” and “How Could She Not?” 

Kinnell published several volumes of poetry, including "Strong Is Your Hold"; "A New Selected Poems"; "Imperfect Thirst"; "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone"; and "Selected Poems", for which he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.

Kinnell was the recipient of the 2010 Wallace Stevens Award for proven mastery in the art of poetry by the Academy of American Poets. His other honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 2002 Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, the 1974 Shelley Prize from the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. 

Published September 4, 2018. ©Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. This recording was produced by Hayden Arp and Teri Cross-Davis. The music is ""Retrograde" by Hayden Arp. Ben Lauer is the web producer.

Galway Kinnell reads at the Folger

Home to the world's largest collection of Shakespeare materials. Advancing knowledge and the arts. Discover it all at www.folger.edu. Shakespeare turns up in the most interesting places—not just literature and the stage, but science and social history as well. Our "Shakespeare Unlimited" podcast explores the fascinating and varied connections between Shakespeare, his works, and the world around us.

The Robben Island Shakespeare

Folger Shakespeare Library

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