Shakespeare and the Naming of Bears

Abstract

Further to his enquiries into ‘Shakespeare and the Three Bears’ (NTQ 106), Nick de Somogyi here turns his attention from Harry, Hunks, and Sackerson to another celebrity triumvirate of fighting bears at Paris Garden, likewise stabled some few hundred yards away from the playhouses Shakespeare knew. Jeremy, Sampson, and Daniel may have bequeathed a lower profile to posterity, but the endurance implicit in their Old Testament naming lends perspective to the enigma of Bankside's parallel entertainments – between blood sport and high art. In particular, it is argued here that the briefly documented life of Sampson-the-Bear enduringly informs the ‘ancient grudge’ with which Romeo and Juliet begins. A Contributing Editor to NTQ since 2003, Nick de Somogyi gained his PhD at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and works as an independent scholar, textual consultant, freelance editor, and illustrator. The founder editor of both the Globe Quartos and Shakespeare Folios series for Nick Hern Books (1997–2015), he has lectured at Cambridge University, the Museum of London, and for the Rose Trust, and has curated four exhibitions at Shakespeare's Globe (2003–16). His publications include Shakespeare's Theatre of War (Ashgate, 1998), Shakespeare on Theatre (Nick Hern Books, 2011), and (as Consultant Editor) Shakespeare in 100 Objects (V&A, 2014).