Richard Marggraf Turley was invited to speak at the “Redesigning Resilience” workshop at the Myddfai Centre 4-5th July 2017, a two-day event that aimed to examine ancient texts to discover lost knowledge that can inform resilient behaviours and practices for the challenges of the coming century. Here’s the abstract of Richard’s presentation:
Lear in the Hie Growne Field: Historical Scholarship and Public Engagement
It’s tempting to skip over unfamiliar plants in Shakespeare as mere literary backdrop. How many readers think twice about the “hordock” – glossed by Webster’s as “an unidentified plant mentioned by Shakespeare” – that King Lear weaves into his crown of “idle weeds” in Act 4, Scene 4 of the 1605 tragedy? And what about the inclusion in Lear’s crown of “darnel”, footnoted, if mentioned at all, by editors in the vaguest terms as simply “a weed”? Such imprecision has given rise to nonsensical theatrical depictions of Lear’s crown as containing wild flowers, or even bird’s feathers. Shakespeare’s own knowledge of darnel (Lolium temulentum L.), however, was rooted in a specific set of circumstances connected to the politics of food supply in the early modern period. Indeed, Shakespeare’s understanding both of darnel’s psychotoxicity and wider cultural resonance inform a vital part of the meaning of King Lear.
This talk discusses the hybrid methodologies that enabled a research team to recover lost knowledge, specifically knowledge that gave people in earlier ages the potential to be more resilient to changing conditions – including what to do with neglected crops in unseasonable weather. Finally, it reflects on the messaging strategies that helped a collaborative, interdisciplinary project focused on an historical text to communicate its findings to a range of contemporary audiences, and to demonstrate its pertinence to key debates currently animating wider society.