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April 2008
Puzzle Corner: Shakespeare
For a man credited with adding an estimated 1,500 words to our lexicon, William Shakespeare lived a life whose details remain remarkably mysterious. Scholars do agree he was born in April 1564 and died April 23, 1616; they also (generally) credit him with writing 38 plays and 154 sonnets. But plenty more remains unknown, and four centuries after his death we pass along three challenging questions for those who may think they know the Bard.
- Why did Shakespeare's will leave his wife "the second-best bed"?
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Which play turned into a film was the first of Shakespeare's works to win an Academy Award?
- As of April 2008, which of the following figures most closely indicates the number of Web sites referring to the Bard?
(a) 450,000 (b) 4,500,000 (c) 45,000,000
Answers:
- Nobody knows for sure. Perhaps it was a private joke in Shakespeare's family, or perhaps it was the bed Mrs. Shakespeare preferred. As the modern scholar Samuel Schoenbaum says, whichever view a person takes is a choice between "cynicism and sentiment."
- 1935's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream featuring young Mickey Rooney as Puck was nominated for Best Picture and won Oscars for its cinematography by Hal Mohr and editing by Ralph Dawson. (In 1948, Laurence Olivier's production of Hamlet won Best Picture.)
- (c) Actually, a Google search of "Shakespeare" yielded 44,800,000 hits. "The Beatles" produced 61,300,000 and "The Bible" 136,000,000.
(Quiz questions and answers for #1 and #2 courtesy of Coined By Shakespeare: Words & Meanings First Penned by the Bard, by Jeffrey McQuain and Stanley Malless.)
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