Thornton Academy Postscripts Alumni Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 13

them in chronological order or the order they were
written in. Ultimately, for my own reasons, I decided to
teach them in the order they were written."
"I was really interested to see what I would discover
about Shakespeare's ability to handle history and
structure it to make it entertaining."
Again, he chuckled, and said that it must have worked
because many of the people
who signed up for his initial
class have continued on with
him.
closely, almost even word for word."
He said his class spends time discussing the work
and attempting to better understand how and why
the plays were created, and what effect they may
have had on society and their audiences.
Queally said that now, like when he was teaching
at Thornton, his students come from all walks of
life and some of them had little
or no exposure to Shakespeare.
"I feel like I have fulfilled
a role that I like"
Queally explained that he
thought Shakespeare was
trying to see if he would be successful. If the first play
flopped, he would not have gone on to write the other
history plays.
"In some ways, it's likes the movies," he said. "If Star
Wars had flopped, there wouldn't have been any more
produced."
Queally went on to explain that Shakespeare left no
known journals, diaries or other written clues about
the writing process, but as students, "we know what his
sources were because he followed some of them very
1623.
Queally then went on to quote
from a letter that appears in the
preface to Shakespeare's first
folio, which was published in
Always the teacher, he explained that John
Heminge and Henrie Condell were business
associates of Shakespeare's and after his death,
they passed on this advice.
"Read him, therefore; and again, and again: and if
then you do not like him, surely you are in some
manifest danger, not to understand him," Queally
said and paused to let the words resonate for a
moment.
Chris Queally shares a smile with his
granddaughter Alivia Sobey '18 while
in London studying Shakespeare .
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