Humanities West presents Shakespeare’s First Folio’s 400th Anniversary

**Some video clips used in the presentation have been removed due to restrictions set by the YouTube platform. Here are the links to the clips for reference: Video clip 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukS7qDd4pDA Video clip 2: TBA Video clip 3: TBA On November 8, 1623, just seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his plays were collected and published in what is now known as The First Folio. It is surmised that half his plays might have been lost if the First Folio had not been created when it was, and Humanities West is celebrating not losing that much literary gold with a 400th anniversary program on Shakespeare’s cultural contributions. Roland Greene will speak on "The First Folio as Cultural Engine." If the Folio had not been published, we would have been left without several famous plays, but also without many other cultural influences that still resonate centuries later. Shakespeare’s plays continue to have such a strong effect on our world today that it is hard to imagine our culture without them. But imagine that; Professor Greene will. Kip Cranna will speak on "Shakespeare in Song: Operas Inspired by the Bard." Shakespeare has been the source of more operas than any other writer. Generations of composers have brought his dramas to musical life in fascinating ways in a vast variety of styles. Cranna will explore some of these intriguing page-to-stage transformations using video examples (with subtitles) that will take you on a brief literary tour of Shakespearean operas. To quote the Bard, “If music be the food of love, sing on till I am fill'd with joy!” In association with Humanities West and the Stanford Humanities Center. Cranna and Greene photos courtesy the speakers; Street art photo by Jessica Pamp / Unsplash January 19, 2024 SPEAKERS Clifford (Kip) Cranna Dramaturg Emeritus (Scholar in Residence), San Francisco Opera; Opera Appreciation Lecturer, the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) at University of California Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and Dominican University Roland Greene Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Stanford University; Director, Stanford Humanities Center; Author, Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes George Hammond Author, Conversations With Socrates—Moderator 👉Join our Email List! https://www.commonwealthclub.org/email 🎉 BECOME a MEMBER: https://www.commonwealthclub.org/membership The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum 📣, bringing together its 20,000 members for more than 500 annual events on topics ranging across politics, culture, society and the economy. Founded in 1903 in San Francisco California 🌉, The Commonwealth Club has played host to a diverse and distinctive array of speakers, from Teddy Roosevelt in 1911 to Anthony Fauci in 2020. In addition to the videos🎥 shared here, the Club reaches millions of listeners through its podcast🎙 and weekly national radio program📻.