Random Shakespeare thought:
Aug. 24th, 2013 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniIt's often said (or, at least, it had been said often, back when I was in school, and studying the works of Shakespeare formally) that Shakespeare must have had an unhappy marriage because the only happy marriage depicted in any of his plays was that of the Macbeths... (And, indeed, even that relationship falls apart when Macbeth starts keeping secrets from his wife -- so even that doesn't last as a happy relationship).
But I can think of one other marriage, though the couple were secondary characters, so we don't see much of them on stage: Paulina and Antigonus, from The Winter's Tale. Granted, the marriage ends on a tragic note, but that's because Antigonus lacked Paulina's courage, and failed to speak truth to power, and not because of any ill-feeling or deceit between the two of them (Antigonus is the character attached to the most famous Shakespearean stage direction: "Exit. Pursued by bear.").
[Relevant plot synopsis: The king suspects his wife has been having sex with his best friend, so he sends someone to the Oracle at Delphi to discover the truth. The oracle gives the message from the god Apollo that the queen is innocent. But the king still refuses to believe it, and when his daughter is born, at first he orders her killed outright. But Paulina, the queen's lady-in-waiting, argues with the king, and tells him to his face that he is unjust, and not thinking clearly. Swayed ever so slightly by her argument. the king instead orders the girl to be taken to a foreign land, and left in the wilderness to die of exposure. Antigonus, afraid of the king's anger, agrees to do the deed. Apollo, angry that his oracle was ignored, sends a storm to sink the ship that brought them to the foreign land, and drowns all the sailors. Then, he sends a bear to rip Antigonus limb from limb, and eat him alive. ...Then, the baby girl in the chest is discovered by a shepherd, and raised as his daughter]
Anyway, here's the snippet in the play that shows the nature of their marriage:
LEONTES
How!
Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me:
I knew she would.
ANTIGONUS
I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure's peril and on mine,
She should not visit you.
LEONTES
What, canst not rule her?
PAULINA
From all dishonesty he can: in this,
Unless he take the course that you have done,
Commit me* for committing honour, trust it,
He shall not rule me.
ANTIGONUS
La you now, you hear:
When she will take the rein I let her run;
But she'll not stumble.
---
That reads like a happy marriage to me (I think of Paulina as Beatrice twenty years on).
*that is: send me to prison
But I can think of one other marriage, though the couple were secondary characters, so we don't see much of them on stage: Paulina and Antigonus, from The Winter's Tale. Granted, the marriage ends on a tragic note, but that's because Antigonus lacked Paulina's courage, and failed to speak truth to power, and not because of any ill-feeling or deceit between the two of them (Antigonus is the character attached to the most famous Shakespearean stage direction: "Exit. Pursued by bear.").
[Relevant plot synopsis: The king suspects his wife has been having sex with his best friend, so he sends someone to the Oracle at Delphi to discover the truth. The oracle gives the message from the god Apollo that the queen is innocent. But the king still refuses to believe it, and when his daughter is born, at first he orders her killed outright. But Paulina, the queen's lady-in-waiting, argues with the king, and tells him to his face that he is unjust, and not thinking clearly. Swayed ever so slightly by her argument. the king instead orders the girl to be taken to a foreign land, and left in the wilderness to die of exposure. Antigonus, afraid of the king's anger, agrees to do the deed. Apollo, angry that his oracle was ignored, sends a storm to sink the ship that brought them to the foreign land, and drowns all the sailors. Then, he sends a bear to rip Antigonus limb from limb, and eat him alive. ...Then, the baby girl in the chest is discovered by a shepherd, and raised as his daughter]
Anyway, here's the snippet in the play that shows the nature of their marriage:
LEONTES
How!
Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,
I charged thee that she should not come about me:
I knew she would.
ANTIGONUS
I told her so, my lord,
On your displeasure's peril and on mine,
She should not visit you.
LEONTES
What, canst not rule her?
PAULINA
From all dishonesty he can: in this,
Unless he take the course that you have done,
Commit me* for committing honour, trust it,
He shall not rule me.
ANTIGONUS
La you now, you hear:
When she will take the rein I let her run;
But she'll not stumble.
---
That reads like a happy marriage to me (I think of Paulina as Beatrice twenty years on).
*that is: send me to prison
no subject
Date: 2013-08-25 10:21 am (UTC)On the broader subject of trying to deduce Shakespeare's life from his work, I remember reading once that it has been argued both that the legal references in the plays show the author must have had legal training and that the legal errors in the plays show that the author could not possibly have had legal training...
no subject
Date: 2013-08-25 06:28 pm (UTC)Master Shakespeare would not have had access to Wikipedia, if he wanted to insert a detail or two of a subject that he, himself, had no direct knowledge of, but he did have other sources. And, like today's writers, he could and would have cherry-picked "facts" he needed to suit the story at hand -- the key being suiting the story at hand -- whether or not those details were accurate.
Though I do wonder about the minutiae of his daily life when certain details that are not crucial to the story keep showing up, anyway... Such as, in Much Ado, several characters mention how hard it is to be patient and calm when you have a toothache...