Shakespeare
MoEML - Map of Early Modern London
The Ring
Michael Best, Shakespeare scholar
The Ring
Hanging out in Shakespeare’s ‘hood
The Ring
Shakespeare Reaches New Heights Online
Media release
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You could walk across London of the 1500s in about 20 minutes. And now, thanks to the survival of a 450-year-old woodcut map, Shakespeare’s world can also "open up to us like a
Google map,” says Dr. Janelle Jenstad (English), project director of UVic’s constantly evolving Map of Early Modern London (MoEML).
Dr. Michael Best enters the room in an energetic flurry, five minutes late, but eager to get started with the interview. He shakes off his jacket and sits down. Filling out the
pre-interview papers, he mumbles to himself.
Frequent in the plays of William Shakespeare and his contempories are references to the playwright’s “neighbourhood,” the teeming 16th-century streets of London. For years UVic
English professor Janelle Jenstad struggled with how to make these references more relevant to her undergraduate students. Then she discovered the solution in a 450-year-old woodcut map in
London’s Guildhall.
Shakespeare fans, scholars, students and actors will soon be able to access a new, powerfully-enhanced version of the Internet Shakespeare Editions (ISE) — a University of
Victoria-based website.