Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

1) A question that was on my mind, this morning:
Has the world really become more cruel in recent years, or am I just more aware of it?

2) I often think of Act Four, Scene One of the "Winter's Tale," and how it's a brilliant example of stagecraft, even though I have a hard time reading through it, and most often skim the middle, and just race ahead to the action bits of the scene. But then again, Shakespeare wasn't writing the scene for me; he was writing it for an audience that would only see the play once. And he basically turned that whole scene into a music/dance concert where the audience was invited to join in and sing along. So rather than simply watching the characters on stage have a party, the whole audience became guests at the party. So when the hosts' lives were threatened by the king at the end of the scene, the audience was emotionally invested, and cared about what happened next.

It doesn't work for modern audiences, because we come to a "Shakespeare Play_[TM]" with a whole different set of expectations. But it's a brilliant bit of Audience Wrangling on Shakespeare's part, since he probably realized that half the people in the theater that day were only there to see the live bear run across stage. And he didn't want them to lose interest and leave right before the plot comes to a head.

3) I have a (relatively) new favorite flavor combination (as in: within the last few months): Chocolate, Coffee, & Ginger. The spice just brightens everything up.

4) Ever since I started thinking through my theory that Ophelia was murdered, rather than died by suicide, I've had a quite obsession with Hamlet running almost constantly in the back of my mind. I've come to the conclusions that a) the traditional typecasting for the title character has been all wrong, most of the time, and instead of being cast as the Romantic Lead, Prince Hamlet should be cast as the slightly out-of-shape, nerdy sidekick-to-the-Hero type, and b) it should be played for laughs as often as possible* )so that the truly tragic ending comes as much as a surprise to the audience as it does to the characters on stage.

5) If I had a working Time Ship, and the skill to fly her, the ethically dubious thing I would try to do is rescue the breeds of dog that were native to the Americas, that are now all extinct. Just saying.

There has been a half-complete version of post under a "Private" filter (my eyes only) here since 9 December, 2018, just waiting for me to get the energy and mental focus to write an essay outlining all the textual evidence in Act 4, scene 1 (Ophelia's "madness" scene). But at this point, I don't think the required energy for that will ever come -- at least, not for the long essay format.

So I'm just going to post my conspiracy theory Thesis Statement here:

Ophelia did not commit suicide -- she was murdered. By Queen Gertrude (probably).

And I can't help but wonder how this play would be taught and performed if this interpretation were the standard one.

Here's a bit of a presentation by Shakespearean actor and scholar, Ben Crystal, on his interpretation of the "To be, or not to be?" soliloquy, and how he no longer thinks Hamlet was suicidal at that point in the play, either (though he was, earlier on): Ben Crystal talks about Original Pronunciation, 20 July 2017 (it's at a point about 40 minutes in to the whole thing).

So what if suicide is not a recurring theme of the play? How does that change things?

One: I really feel like I ought to get in the habit of posting here, alongside / before my Tumblr.

Two: When I'm feeling down, I find myself seeking refuge in thinking about Shakespeare. I've been thinking about him a lot, this week. As usual, I end up wishing I could chat with his wife and daughters, 'cause I have a whole passel of his words to engage with. And the women in his later plays are a whole lot more complex, and drive more of the story, than the women in his early plays. He must have gotten his inspiration from somewhere.

Three: If humans ever colonize Mars, the different environment probably means the colonists will evolve into a new species within a handful of generations. If so, they'll be the first newly named species (after us) who'll have a say in what they should be called.

Four: Speaking of Shakespeare, Ben Crystal -- my favorite contemporary Shakespeare scholar -- did a TEDx talk on what he's learned from using the methods of theater from Shakespeare's time: Original Practice -- Shakespeare's craft (17 minutes). I've watched it three times, and each time, I get misty-eyed, and lumpy-throated.

Five: Have you seen the (apparently) recent trend of "unicorn" cakes? Two or three layer round cakes with a cartoon set of eyes and vaguely horsey mouth drawn on one side, and a fondant rainbow horn sticking out the middle of the top. One of my mutuals on Tumblr rightly described this as unicorn body horror. I recently got an idea for a more subtle unicorn cake:

Frost the whole thing in chocolate ganache, and after it's cooled and thickened, imprint tiny cloven hoof marks in a "trail" over the top. Brush those hoof marks with edible silver luster dust, and then cover the top (and sides, if desired) of the cake with candied mint leaves (or other herbs) to be the dew-covered foliage of the forest floor. That's the magic of unicorns.

Thank you for your patience. It's taking longer to write each of these posts than I anticipated.

And this post is turning out to be longer than I expected, so I've decided to split it in two ...

[Boilerplate Intro]

---

This truly is my favorite Shakespeare play -- or, at least, it's tied for "favorite" with King Lear. I'd argue it is also the most underrated play in the Shakespeare Canon, going by the imbalance between the play's native merit and its fame (or lack thereof).

Therefore, consider this fair warning: I am going to be spamming you all with this topic. In order to restore the balance, I'm making several shorter posts instead of one massive one, with at least the following posts -- and possibly more, as the mood strikes:

Part One: Synopsis ("Once upon a time...").

[Note: I've corrected a detail of the plot since I first posted this, and I've also added a footnote with Shakespeare's character and place names]

Part Two: Major Themes and Context, with quotes (Conflict between personal conscience and the law, women as the keepers of moral authority, and questioning the limits of an hereditary, theocratic, monarchy).

Part Three: Secondary Themes (The relationship between parents and children, the passage of time, and watching children grow up).

Part Four: Plot and Character Crafting

Part Five: Links to other people's interpretations

---

Shakespeare is taught in school in the first place because he's held up as an example of High Culture[tm]. He got that reputation during the Restoration (before that, he was popular culture). And this play was, according to Wikipedia, ignored back then. So it's (largely) ignored today. Also, according to literary and pedagogical tradition, Shakespeare's final play was The Tempest, and this was 'only' his second-to-last.

So The Winter's Tale ends up being one of the siblings at a crowded table that can't get a word in edgewise. So this post is me, saying: "C'mon, Guys! You need to listen to this!"

---

[Note: I didn't realize until after I started this that all of the key scenes I'm talking about take place in the court of the City King (Leontes), in Sicilia. While the next post -- the secondary themes -- will more likely be split evenly between the two kingdoms (The other being Bohemia). But there you go...]

( Thoughts (from an enthusiast, but not expert) )

Tir'd with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.

---

You know, as of today (17 January, 2017), the top three (American) Google auto-complete results for “Shakespeare Sonnet” are:

• 116
(Let me not to the marriage of true minds),

• 18
(Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) and

• 130
(My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun).

I predict this one will rise in the rankings over the next four years.

Last night, with an ear-craving, I combed through YouTube for readings of Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 ("My Mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"). And I came away quite disappointed.

The most common reading that had been uploaded was one by actor Alan Rickman, and for the occasion, he'd put on his "Listen-to-Me-I'm-Reading-Shakespearean-Love-Poetry" voice -- slow as a dirge, and fairly dripping with seductive intent -- completely missing the point that Shakespeare was mocking those romantic conceits to shreds.

*sigh*

I just needed to vent.

But it came out "bletch!"

For the sake of the folks on the LiveJournal side:
(Text, with stylized quill pen and paper: "an honorable retreat though not with bag and baggage, yet scrip and scrippage")

--
I wanted to use a prettier font, but with so many words, only the "small fonts" font would fit...

It's from As You Like It the play that got me in love with Shakespeare,* from the specific scene that got me in love with the play.

The heroines, Rosalind (pseudonym: Ganymede) and her cousin Celia (Pseudonym: Aliena) have found some ludicrously bad love poems in honor of Rosalind, and are itching to talk about them, so when they ask for privacy, their jester leads the local shepherd away, saying these words, hands full of the bad poetry.

*(BBC production, with a very young Helen Mirren in the lead role -- a very poor video quality version of the entire play is here: http://youtu.be/D3Q_OcaRxfE [2 hr. 33 min])

For those on the LJ side:

(multicolor text on black: "quips and sentences and paper bullets of the brain")

And yes, indeed: it's from the play of my infatuation of the moment: Much ado. I figure I can use it whenever I post about things I'm reading, or lexicography, or things I'm writing, or my go-to Shakespeare icon. So yeah, it might get a lot of use... ;-)

(Well, the subtitle of my DreamWidth Journal is "The songs that get stuck in my head," so ... you know. At least you can't accuse me of false advertising)

First, Shakespeare, himself:

One of my favorite ironies in life, is that William Shakespeare, Esq., our modern world's icon of eloquence, kept returning to the idea that eloquence is inversely proportional to passion and sincerity.

( Examples of this from 'King Lear', 'Hamlet', and 'As You Like It' )

In Much Ado, this notion is articulated first in the scene where Leonato gives his blessing to the marriage between Claudio and his daughter Hero:

( quoted lines )

---
This, of course, leads to Beatrice and Benedick -- the two characters defined most strongly by the ease and glibness with which they speak.

There are two scenes in the play where the two of them are alone together (and thus, free from the pressure of keeping up appearances of their old habits, to avoid being teased). The first is in the church, immediately following Don Pedro's and Claudio's public accusation of Hero, where she faints and they leave her for dead. This is the scene where they first confess their love to each other... And it gets me in the gut every time.* It is perhaps worth noting that honor and virginity were as important for women in Elizabethan England as it is today in some communities in Islam -- indeed, Hero says to her father that, if he could prove that she was guilty as accused, he should torture her to death. Honor was equally important for men, and that honor was maintained by alliances with other men. ...So the fact that Benedict chose to stay behind to comfort the family of a disgraced daughter of a governor, instead of following the prince who had been his patron up to that point, is a clue to how much he really does love Beatrice.

I could quote their whole exchange, but I won't. Just this bit:

( quoted lines )

After three full acts of their cleverness and quips back and forth, this simplicity is almost like a splash of cold water -- and just as refreshing. The full scene is here: Act 4, scene i (this exchange starts about two-thirds down the page).

The next scene where they are alone is in Leonato's garden, after Benedick has challenged Claudio to a duel (the assurance of which is what finally convinces Beatrice that he really does love her-- backing up his vows with actions).
(Full scene is here: Act 5, scene ii)

Here, they fall into their old habits of teasing each other... but this time, they do it with much more good humor than in their first exchange:

( quoted lines )

A few lines later, Benedick gives a snarky argument about why it's good to praise your own virtues.... But then, he drops out of glibness, to ask after Hero's, and Beatrice's, health:

( yet more quoting )

...And I don't know. I just find those to be some of the most romantic lines in literature -- the way it's set up, it's clear that he no longer takes himself so seriously, but he does take Beatrice seriously. Sometimes, the kindest thing you can say to someone is "How are you?" ... if you really mean it.

One last thing: at the play's finale, and Benedick proposes to Beatrice, asking whether or not she loves him, she says: "Why no, no more than reason." ... and he replies in kind, when she asks him the same question. At first, this seems like they are just being coy, and a bit disingenuous, in order to avoid public embarrassment. But -- this is basically the same thing that Cordelia says to King Lear, when he has the expectation that her love for him be without bounds...

So... maybe this is something that Shakespeare (and others) truly believed? That love within reason is the best kind?

Just a thought that came to me, while I was typing this up...

*(except in the clip I saw of the David Tennant/Catherine Tate version... which, for some reason, was played with a slapstick vibe.... which... Just. No)

A playlist of 154 short videos, each roughly a minute in length, each nothing but one or two still images with voice-over (really?! that counts as "video?" pffft!)...

Except:

The images are photos of pages from one of the thirteen extant copies the first edition (1609) copy of Shake-speare's Sonnets; this particular volume now residing in the now residing in the British Library. And the voice-over is each sonnet being read aloud.

Dude's reading is a little bland, imnsho. But I still get a little thrill reading along with early seventeenth century poetry, in seventeenth century spelling, and seventeenth century typography, with the lay-out on the page, and all.

Here's the playlist link:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1C16CA27F7D0EF38

I still think sonnet 31:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWhu_wI30Yo&list=PL1C16CA27F7D0EF38&index=31&feature=plpp_video
has ALL THE SAD

( Sonnet 31 )
(Cheer up, Emo!Bard...) Ooh, I just want to hug him into a million tiny pieces ... (don't worry, I wouldn't, really. I might offer him cake).

Sonnet 44:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwM2A7F263Y&list=PL1C16CA27F7D0EF38&index=44&feature=plpp_video
still makes me wonder if Will didn't have the Internet in mind, after all (after all, the Doctor knew him...)

( Sonnet 44 )

I recited Sonnet 130
http://youtu.be/dFlzMqV0EUc
to Audrey, the other day, to illustrate the point how the sonnets are like mini-essays (of the sort we used to learn to write in school: Three paragraphs, each detailing one point in support of your thesis, and than a conclusion, which explains everything you just said: the three quatrains and the couplet). And her comment, when I'd finished, was: "Gee. I hope he had other skills as a lover, besides giving compliments! ha, ha!"

But I dunno: the more I think about it, the more I think 130 is more romantic than the famous: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" one. Because I'm always suspicious of love based on physical beauty (a. Because, yes, beauty fades, and I'd be scared my lover's affections would fade with it, but also, b. as a "monster," I've never fit that beauty script, anyway, and c. every guy who's tried to use that script on me has always turned out to be a sleaze). I'd rather have someone admit that yes, your breath smells bad, but I still love you more than anyone who gargles with perfume three times a day.

( Sonnet 130 )

The closing couplet is the money shot, folks!

(but I'm preaching to the choir, aren't I?)