–submitted by Dave Mollenhoff; photo by Mike Engelberger
“It’s the book that gave us Shakespeare,” explained Joshua Calhoun in a spirited talk to the club. “Just imagine,” continued Calhoun, an assistant professor of English at the UW Madison, “When Shakespeare died 400 years ago, only half of his 36 plays had been printed.” Without the First Folio we would never have known the Comedy of Errors, As You Like It, the Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, MacBeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. Happily, all of these and several more were published in 1623 in one of the most famous books ever printed. And what a book it was! Four pounds, 900 pages, 2 inches thick and about 13 inches high and 9 inches wide. And expensive! In today’s dollars, it would have cost at least $250. Only 750 were printed and about 250 survive.
This rare book is the centerpiece of an exhibit at the Chazen and will be on display until December 11. Accompanying the book is a thoughtfully-curated exhibit entitled “The Globe’s Global in Shakespeare’s time.” The exhibit has triggered a great surge of interest throughout Wisconsin.
Calhoun delights in getting his students to contrast today’s media and technology with Shakespeare’s. “It’s about the power of words,” concluded Calhoun. “It’s about what makes us human.”
Did you miss our meeting this week? Watch the video here.
The First Folio!: The Book that Gave us Shakespeare is on exhibit at the Chazen Museum until December 11. On Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 9, nearly 40 Rotarians of the Special Events Fellowship Group and their guests enjoyed a foray into the life of Shakespeare and the preservation of his works, followed by a social hour at the University Club.
Fellow Rotarian Jackson Fonder—president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Madison—and Bev Thom—chair of the Bethel Lutheran Church homeless ministry board—were our speakers on Wednesday. Jackson led off. He recalled a Christmas Eve in 2015. Scot Sorensen, senior pastor at Bethel Lutheran, was going to have to close the homeless day center at Bethel because funding was ending. The Wisconsin State Journal ran a headline that read “Downtown Shelter to Close.” Somehow, private funding kept the shelter going during the winter. At the same time, Catholic Charities was thinking about what it could do for the homeless. Jackson and Scot, both Downtown Rotarians, met together and entered into a gentleman’s agreement: they would work together to provide day shelter for the homeless. In Madison in January 2016, there were 663 homeless people. Most of them are unseen to the public. Five percent of Madison Public School students are homeless at one time; 40 percent are homeless at some time. It’s a story of people rather than statistics — people who suffer from domestic violence, mental illness or substance abuse. A day shelter can provide a sense of belonging, of trust, of family.
With the enthusiasm of Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel, Professor Jonathan Martin informed and entertained us regarding the unusually severe nature of November storms in the Great Lake States region. He is a member of the faculty of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin and nationally recognized for his studies of mid-latitude atmospheric dynamics.
Rotary Club of Madison, Wisconsin 