Listings for Reader:
John Robert Clynes
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William Shakespeare : Twelfth Night
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Robert Clynes Print: Book
William Shakespeare : Julius Caesar
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Robert Clynes Print: Book
William Shakespeare : A Midsummer Night's Dream
'Shakespeare provided a political script for J.R. Clynes, the son of an Irish farm labourer, who rose from the textile mills of Oldham to become deputy leader of the House of Commons. In his youth he drew inspiration from the "strange truth" he found in Twelfth Night: "Be not afraid of greatness". ("What a creed! How it would upset the world if men lived up to it, I thought") Urged on by a Cooperative Society librarian, he worked through the plays and discovered they were about people who "had died for their beliefs. Wat Tyler and Jack Cade seemed heroes". Reading Julius Caesar, "the realisation came suddenly to me that it was a mighty political drama" about class struggle, "not just an entertainment"... Elected to Parliament in 1906, he read A Midsummer Night's Dream while awaiting the returns'.
