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Aktualisiert: 01. Oktober 2007 / updated: 01 October 2007

 

The True Face of William Shakespeare. The Poet's Death Mask and Likenesses from Three Periods of His Life (London: Chaucer Press, 2006).

f. Interviews

Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel - Interview in
„Today“, BBC RADIO 4 (23 Februar 2006), 7.35 Uhr
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/zthursday_20060223.shtml

A new book on Shakespeare is claiming that the playwright died of cancer. The book is called ‘The True Face of William Shakespeare’, and the author is Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel, who says she has also solved the mystery of what Shakespeare looks like.

 

BBC: Shakespeare died of cancer. At least that’s the conclusion of research for a new book ‘The True Face of William Shakespeare’. It also claims to have solved of what he looked like. The book’s author, Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel from the University of Mainz, is on the line. Good morning.

HHH: Good morning.

BBC: How did you work out what he looked like?

HHH: Well, we applied several tests of identification, as, for instance, laser scanning, computer montages, photogrammetry and the so-called trick image differentiation technique ...

BBC: This is all portraits ...

HHH: Well, let me say, we now have a wonderful new image, it’s a terracotta bust, by far the most beautiful likeness of the poet, and one that gives us a loftier idea of his personality and his intellectuality than all the other portraits, except the death mask. And this was possible because there was one main precondition, and that is: The artists at the time of Shakespeare depicted their sitters realistically and accurately ...

BBC: But many people say that these portraits that you are using and the bust and the death mask aren’t of Shakespeare in the first place.

HHH: ... We have a perfect basis for examination, and that is the Droeshout engraving and the funerary bust of Shakespeare ... All the portraits and the new bust have been compared to these images, to the death mask, the Chandos and the Flower portrait, and they are all in perfect agreement, they form a perfect match ...

BBC: Professor, you are suggesting as well they all show a lump which you believe to be cancer.

HHH: Exactly, it is the so-called Mikulicz syndrome. That is an illness of the tear glands. ... It affected the whole system. Now we know he suffered from an systemic illness, an inner illness that takes a long course. It leads definitely to death. ...

BBC: Professor Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel. I’m sure, that will get them all going ... Thank you very much.

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