By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 4-15-09
GREENSBORO, N.C. – Dust off your plumed cap or bodice. And get ye to Jackson Library Friday, April 24, as faculty, staff and students celebrate Shakespeare’s 445th birthday.
Beginning at 2 p.m. volunteers from across the campus and the community will descend on the lawn in front of the library to read all of the Bard’s 154 sonnets. The marathon reading will run about three hours, and the final “act” will include sparkling grape juice, cake and a rousing verse of “Happy Birthday.”
The reading is free and open to the public. Some readers will wear Elizabethan dress.
The event is sponsored by the Friends of the UNCG Libraries. For more information, contact Kimberly Lutz at (336) 256-8598 or kimberly_lutz@uncg.edu.
Dr. Hephzibah Roskelly, a professor of English at UNCG, came up with the idea while reminiscing about her days as a graduate student at the University of Louisville. They would read the sonnets out loud and then celebrate with a party.
“It’s a very modest endeavor actually,” Roskelly said. “You just have to find 40 people willing to give up five minutes or so to read four sonnets. It’s a very easy little party. It brings awareness to the library but it also builds community at our university.”
Shakespeare was born on April 23, but organizers pushed it back to a more convenient day of the week, Friday.
“There’s so much we don’t know about him,” Roskelly said. “He’s a very mysterious figure, and I suspect he would have liked it that way. His life sort of disappears into his work.”
Roskelly confesses she is tempted to put a ruff on the iconic Charles McIver statue outside the library. To ruff or not to ruff? That is the question.
<Clicketh here to listen to a Podcast interview with Dr. Roskelly.>
