Blogs dated January 2011

Workshop 2: Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

For our second workshop at the archives, participants were asked to write a letter to their imaginary ancestor on Adelaide Road and time travel back to when they were alive.

by Adelaide Road Participants  |  9 comments  |  Read this entry

Aoife's blog: Poetry Inspired By RSC

Here's two poems I've written inspired by going to see the RSC's productions of Julius Caesar and As You Like It at the Roundhouse.

by Aoife Mannix  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Workshop 1: Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

For our first workshop, senior archivist Tudor Allen selected a fascinating range of material connected with Adelaide Road for us to use. Each workshop participant was asked to sit down in front of the item they found the most interesting.

by Adelaide Road Participants  |  5 comments  |  Read this entry

Aoife's Blog: Prologue

For memory is neither friend nor foe
but just a path that runs in reverse.
And as a rule it's the one that plays the fool
who makes the best sat nav reader so set
aside your fear

by Aoife Mannix  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Guest Blogger: Geraldine Collinge

An Introduction

How do we think of home when we move around so much and our friends and families are spread across the world? What importance will buildings play in our lives as we face global warming, the government's cuts take hold and the web knits us together in new and exciting ways?

by Geraldine Collinge  |  1 comment  |  Read this entry

The Escorial

As we wander round this humourless mausoleum of a palace, I get a profound sense of death as a central theme in Spanish life. This persistent flavour of mortality gives me a strong sense of the opening of Cardenio where the Duke Ricardo, contemplating his imminent death with a steady gaze, tells his son not to grieve.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Lepanto

Yes, Miguel Cervantes fought at the battle of Lepanto. In fact, as he was suffering from malaria, he should not have fought, and had been told by his captain to stay below. Instead, he positioned himself at the head of twelve men in a fighting skiff, alongside the galley ship, La Marquesa, in a sea tinged red with blood.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Toledo and the Prado

I feel as if I already know Toledo, from the famous painting by El Greco, with its violent menace of sky, which he painted at exactly the time that Cervantes published Don Quixote. And it is his painting of The Burial ofCountOrgaz, in the church of San Tome which I greatly want to see. He called it 'my sublime work'.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Serenatas in Spain

Apparently Andalucians have another expression for characterising ardent lovers with their heads bent to the bars of the grille of their beloved's window, 'mascar hierro' to chew iron. Daviller goes on to include a number of the classic serenatas, or coplas de ventas (window couplets) which are sung on these occasions.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry

Cervantes' birthplace

Across the courtyard landing, in the exhibition room, there are copies of Cervantes' famous novel, Don Quixote, from every intervening century, and in many different languages. I look at the English edition and am astonished to find that Thomas Shelton's 1612 edition is open at the very start of the Cardenio episode. We decide to regard that as a good omen.

by Greg Doran  |  No comments yet  |  Read this entry