12 June 1599: Opening Day at Shakespeare’s Globe
Sohmer, Steve
Early Modern Literary Studies 3.1 (May 1997)
Abstract
This essay endeavors to retrieve the identity of the opening day and first play at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in 1599. It briefly reviews evidence about the construction of the Globe and other early seventeenth-century London theaters, then moves on to assess certain historical, astronomical, astrological, and hydrological data for London in 1599. This leads the author to suggest Midsummer as a likely opening day for the Globe. After a concise discussion of the claims of other plays thought to have been written by Shakespeare in 1599, the author proposes that the Elizabethan calendar controversy made Julius Caesar a topical subject for a play. The essay examines the text of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for allusions to the liturgy for 11-12-13 June. In sum, the writer suggests the Roman tragedy was purpose-written to open the Globe on 12 June 1599 by the prevailing Julian calendar. In conclusion, the author draws attention to what appears to be systematic borrowing from Scripture by the playwright.
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