Saturday Rave: To Shakespeare by Frances Anne Kemble

 

The British actress Fanny Kemble (1809 - 1893) was born into a great acting dynasty, and at the age of eighteen wrote a smash-hit play (Frances The First) that enabled her father to pay off all his debts.

She was a massively popular actress - a famous Juliet, Portia and Beatrice - who enabled her family to continue to keep their heads above water for some years.

As if that wasn't enough, Fanny Kemble wrote poetry, and toured America (she was very interested in railways) marrying American Senator Pierce Mease Butler. She retired from the stage, then, until a visit to her husband's slave plantations shocked her into revulsion, protest, and at last (combined with Butler's many infidelities) divorce.

Her most famous work is her abolitionist book Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation.

After her marriage ended she went back to the stage and made a career as a reader of dramatic works. 

Helpfully, she wrote us a poem to describe her attitude to her new career.

To Shakespeare

Oft, when my lips I open to rehearse

Thy wondrous spell of wisdom, and of power,

And that my voice, and thy immortal verse,

On listening ears, and hearts, I mingled pour,

I shrink dismayed – and awful doth appear

The vain presumption of my own weak deed;

Thy glorious spirit seems to mine so near,

That suddenly I tremble as I read –

Thee an invisible auditor I fear:

Oh, if it might be so, my master dear!

With what beseeching would I pray to thee,

To make me equal to my noble task,

Succor from thee, how humbly would I ask,

Thy worthiest works to utter worthily.

**

A useful example to the world, I'd say.

Word To Use Today: wisdom, The English have been wise for a long time. The Old English version of the word was wīs.