1. What have you been working on for the project this month?
Philip and I have been continuing to populate the project’s massive ‘Data Capture’ spreadsheet – 500+ entries, all individual examples of Shakespearean epitaphs. At this point, the vast majority are physical memorials (headstones, statues, etc) though eventually we will be expanding to include printed commemorations as well. Each entry requires us to note (and in many cases, first ascertain) information including fidelity of the quoted passage to the original, biographical details of the deceased, and physical and geographical information about the memorial itself. I am responsible for the UK + Europe entries, while Philip is tackling the rest of the world(!), most notably American examples at the moment.
I am also continuing to make plans for our collaborative work with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, following a great meeting with their staff in November in which we agreed to pursue co-creating half a dozen different types of output materials (lesson content, talks, digital content, and more). This month, that has included making a Gantt chart of all the agreed outputs and their timelines, so I can carefully stagger them to avoid overburdening either their staff or our project team at any one time.
2. What is your favourite or most surprising thing you’ve learned on the project this month?
It’s been fascinating to see Shakespeare even more present than usual in pop culture this month, with the UK release of the Oscar-nominated film Hamnet (based on the 2020 historical fiction novel by Maggie O’Farrell). Like our project, the film (and book) explore the intersection of Shakespeare, grief, and remembrance – the central event of Hamnet is the death of Shakespeare’s only son, Hamnet, at age 11. Despite being an ardent fan of the book, I hadn’t realised until this month – when I came across these two entries in our Data Capture spreadsheet, originally entered by Philip – that Maggie O’Farrell had installed the first ever memorials for Hamnet and his twin sister Judith in the Stratford-upon-Avon graveyard where they are buried (their graves’ exact location is unknown, and they have no headstones). O’Farrell selected the epitaph ‘He is dead and gone, lady, | He is dead and gone; | At his head a grass-green turf, | At his heels a stone’ (from Hamlet) for Hamnet, and ‘How have you made division of yourself? | An apple cleft in two is not more twin | Than these two creatures’ for Judith (from Twelfth Night). You can read more about the memorials here.
3. Have there been any challenges for your work on the project this month?
A very minor challenge, but one I hadn’t anticipated – so many UK churches have the same or similar names! Working through populating the ‘geographical location’ columns in our Data Capture spreadsheet entails looking up the exact addresses and coordinates of each cemetery that contains one of the epitaph entries on our list, and I’ve nearly gotten tripped up a few times by churches with the same name.
4. What are you looking forward to coming up for the project?
I’ve just finalised arrangements to travel to Liverpool in April to be trained in cemetery survey techniques by Dr Anna Fairley Nielsson, which I’m really looking forward to. Anna is an expert in 19th-century cemeteries and community engagement with urban burial spaces, so I look forward to learning a lot from her!