Tags
art, Chaucer, CUSA, literature, London, medieval, Shakespeare, Tennyson
Updating previous post with more detail:
Monday 6/26, we spent all day at the Victoria and Albert Museum. You could spend a week there, but we focused on the Medieval & Renaissance galleries and the special Cult of Beauty exhibition. Among the items highlighted in the tour of the medieval/renaissance galleries: an enormous tapestry depicting a boar hunt similar to that in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The medievalism of the Pre-Raphaelites’ paintings linked with Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Also on display, a copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer.
Tuesday 6/27, the entire group toured Westminster Abbey in the morning, then went to a matinee of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe. Even those who were skeptical ended up enjoying themselves. Especially impressive: just after we took our seats in an upper gallery, the skies opened, and first light, then quite heavy rain came down. The groundlings acquired plastic ponchos, but the actors carried on, occasionally acknowledging the weather when a fortuitous thunderclap emphasized a line. About 3/4 of the stage is covered, but the show went on. Shakespeare FTW!