Is USC’s ‘Shakespear’ statue an ode to the past—or a misspelling?
The University of Southern California was recently called out by rival UCLA for omitting an ‘e’ at the end of the Bard of Avon’s name.
“To E, or not to E?”
That was the question University of Southern California asked after students at rival UCLA put it on blast after USC unveiled a statue at the center of its $700 million campus improvement project.
The statue depicts Queen Hecuba.
Hecuba was commissioned as a female counterpart to Tommy Trojan, the popular life-size bronze of a Trojan warrior that stands in the center of campus. Unveiled in 1930, Tommy Trojan has become a mascot of sorts to a school whose sports teams are the Trojans.
“This is our commitment to all of the women of the Trojan family,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias said at Hecuba’s unveiling.
It also features a quote from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”—but it’s missing something.
UCLA official student section, The Den, tweeted:
USC. The only place in America that can unveil a statue as the centerpiece of a $700 million project and manage to misspell Shakespeare pic.twitter.com/FGsJUyF3Di
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