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The Annotated Shakespeare: 3 Volumes in 1 [37+5]
Contains 42 works:
PLAYS (37)
All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Henry IV. Part 1
King Henry IV. Part 2
King Henry V
King Henry VI. Part 1
King Henry VI. Part 2
King Henry VI. Part 3
King Henry VIII
King John
King Lear
King Richard II
King Richard III
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Romeo and Juliet
Taming of the Shrew
Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter’s Tale
POEMS (5)
Lover’s Complaint
Passionate Pilgrim
Rape of Lucrece
Sonnets
Venus and Adonis
PLAYS (37)
All’s Well That Ends Well
Antony and Cleopatra
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Henry IV. Part 1
King Henry IV. Part 2
King Henry V
King Henry VI. Part 1
King Henry VI. Part 2
King Henry VI. Part 3
King Henry VIII
King John
King Lear
King Richard II
King Richard III
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Macbeth
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night’s Dream
Much Ado About Nothing
Othello
Pericles
Romeo and Juliet
Taming of the Shrew
Tempest
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter’s Tale
POEMS (5)
Lover’s Complaint
Passionate Pilgrim
Rape of Lucrece
Sonnets
Venus and Adonis
2462 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1623
About the author
William Shakespeare
20.9k books44.8k followersWilliam Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
Shakespeare was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part-owner ("sharer") of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men after the ascension of King James VI and I of Scotland to the English throne. At age 49 (around 1613), he appears to have retired to Stratford, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive; this has stimulated considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, his sexuality, his religious beliefs, and even certain fringe theories as to whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
Shakespeare produced most of his known works between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories and are regarded as some of the best works produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until 1608, among them Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth, all considered to be among the finest works in the English language. In the last phase of his life, he wrote tragicomedies (also known as romances) and collaborated with other playwrights.
Many of Shakespeare's plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime. However, in 1623, John Heminge and Henry Condell, two fellow actors and friends of Shakespeare's, published a more definitive text known as the First Folio, a posthumous collected edition of Shakespeare's dramatic works that includes 36 of his plays. Its Preface was a prescient poem by Ben Jonson, a former rival of Shakespeare, that hailed Shakespeare with the now famous epithet: "not of an age, but for all time".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,108 reviews
February 8, 2017
I did it.
38 plays, 2 long poems, and 154 sonnets in 2462 onion-paper pages. I read them all. ALL. I think I deserve a self-congratulation for this. Yes. Good job!
It took me more than two months of intense reading that toughened my wrists and arms from reading it on the train standing, hardened my heart with stony indifference against people's perplexed and peering gazes thrown at me even to the point of leaning in from the side to see what the hell I'm reading, and made me utterly fearless against any future reference to Shakespeare.
From the end of January to today, April 5th, it was a long journey during which time I came out of Shakespearean depths only once to take a quick breather for five days and read one contemporary book. It was a long, long read indeed.
So what do I think of his works? Amazing. If you speak English, read them.
My favorite comedies are The Comedy of Errors, The Midsummer Night's Dream , All's Well That Ends Well, and of course, my absolute favorite, The Merchant of Venice. As for histories, Henry IV part 1&2, Henry V, and Richard III were fascinating and beautiful in myriad aspects. It seems like I'm drawn to wicked villains like Richard III, Shylock, and Barabas (Marlowe's The Jew of Malta), though I didn't absolutely love Iago from Othello for some reason.
And tragedies. Oh man. I read Macbeth and Julius Caesar in high school and middle school respectively, but I can say I understood less than 10% of their artistic merit now that I read them again. Macbeth is just a short, sweet, and wicked play with enchanting poetry, and the speeches in Julius Caesar are just mind-blowing in their poetry and rhetoric.
Romeo and Juliet definitely belongs to one of his greatest works. It's got the engaging story, beautiful language, and comic scenes all rolled in one - everything that makes a work of art entertaining and satisfying to people from all walks of life. Cymbeline is also awesome. The ending just so unrealistic that it's unbelievably satisfying. Hamlet is like a given and I don't think I need to say anything about it other than that it rocks.
Oh and I really liked this minor play, Titus Andronicus, considered by many critics to be one of his inferior plays. Granted, the beginning is just absolute shit at least plot-wise, but man, it's AWESOME with all that bloody murders and plotting and hatred and violence. It may be poetically inferior to other tragedies, but story-wise, it holds its own among his corpus.
I did it!
38 plays, 2 long poems, and 154 sonnets in 2462 onion-paper pages. I read them all. ALL. I think I deserve a self-congratulation for this. Yes. Good job!
It took me more than two months of intense reading that toughened my wrists and arms from reading it on the train standing, hardened my heart with stony indifference against people's perplexed and peering gazes thrown at me even to the point of leaning in from the side to see what the hell I'm reading, and made me utterly fearless against any future reference to Shakespeare.
From the end of January to today, April 5th, it was a long journey during which time I came out of Shakespearean depths only once to take a quick breather for five days and read one contemporary book. It was a long, long read indeed.
So what do I think of his works? Amazing. If you speak English, read them.
My favorite comedies are The Comedy of Errors, The Midsummer Night's Dream , All's Well That Ends Well, and of course, my absolute favorite, The Merchant of Venice. As for histories, Henry IV part 1&2, Henry V, and Richard III were fascinating and beautiful in myriad aspects. It seems like I'm drawn to wicked villains like Richard III, Shylock, and Barabas (Marlowe's The Jew of Malta), though I didn't absolutely love Iago from Othello for some reason.
And tragedies. Oh man. I read Macbeth and Julius Caesar in high school and middle school respectively, but I can say I understood less than 10% of their artistic merit now that I read them again. Macbeth is just a short, sweet, and wicked play with enchanting poetry, and the speeches in Julius Caesar are just mind-blowing in their poetry and rhetoric.
Romeo and Juliet definitely belongs to one of his greatest works. It's got the engaging story, beautiful language, and comic scenes all rolled in one - everything that makes a work of art entertaining and satisfying to people from all walks of life. Cymbeline is also awesome. The ending just so unrealistic that it's unbelievably satisfying. Hamlet is like a given and I don't think I need to say anything about it other than that it rocks.
Oh and I really liked this minor play, Titus Andronicus, considered by many critics to be one of his inferior plays. Granted, the beginning is just absolute shit at least plot-wise, but man, it's AWESOME with all that bloody murders and plotting and hatred and violence. It may be poetically inferior to other tragedies, but story-wise, it holds its own among his corpus.
I did it!
October 20, 2023
Ya'll already knew this was coming because I did the same thing for Oscar but these compilations of my reviews are so damn satisfying to me.
The Comedies
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love’s Labour’s Lost
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• A Midsummer Nights’ Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• The Taming of the Shrew
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Tragedies
• Coriolanus
• Titus Andronicus
• Romeo and Juliet
• Julius Caesar
• Macbeth
• Hamlet
• King Lear
• Othello
• Antony and Cleopatra
The Histories
• King John
• Richard II
• Henry IV Part 1
• Henry IV Part 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI Part 1
• Henry VI Part 2
• Henry VI Part 3
• Richard III
• Henry VIII
The Late Romances
• Cymbeline
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Tempest
• The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Problem Plays
• All’s Well That Ends Well
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• Timon of Athens
• Troilus and Cressida
• The Winter’s Tale
The Poetry
• The Sonnets
• A Lover’s Complaint
• The Narrative Poems
It took me four years to finish Willie's entire body of work, and even though there were some ups and downs, ultimately, I am more than happy that I followed through with this project. I learned so much along the way (about literature, about England, about myself, about reviewing books, about researching and doing secondary reading). Willie's works are truly a treasure.
The Comedies
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love’s Labour’s Lost
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• A Midsummer Nights’ Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• The Taming of the Shrew
• Twelfth Night
• Two Gentlemen of Verona
The Tragedies
• Coriolanus
• Titus Andronicus
• Romeo and Juliet
• Julius Caesar
• Macbeth
• Hamlet
• King Lear
• Othello
• Antony and Cleopatra
The Histories
• King John
• Richard II
• Henry IV Part 1
• Henry IV Part 2
• Henry V
• Henry VI Part 1
• Henry VI Part 2
• Henry VI Part 3
• Richard III
• Henry VIII
The Late Romances
• Cymbeline
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Tempest
• The Two Noble Kinsmen
The Problem Plays
• All’s Well That Ends Well
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• Timon of Athens
• Troilus and Cressida
• The Winter’s Tale
The Poetry
• The Sonnets
• A Lover’s Complaint
• The Narrative Poems
It took me four years to finish Willie's entire body of work, and even though there were some ups and downs, ultimately, I am more than happy that I followed through with this project. I learned so much along the way (about literature, about England, about myself, about reviewing books, about researching and doing secondary reading). Willie's works are truly a treasure.
August 18, 2024
Blame It On West Side Story…
It was nearly the ending of summer, and I was then still eleven. Was playing basketball with my brother and friends. Came into the house for a cold drink and a snack.
Heard my sister and her friends making happy sounds.
Decided I should investigate. They were watching a movie called “West Side Story.”
I heard lots of fun music, saw lots of fun dancing. Although covered in dirt and smelly with sweat, decided to invite myself in and squeezed between two people.
Heard about a song called Maria, Jet Song, Tonight, America, Gee, Officer Krupke, I Feel Pretty and others.
There was the beautiful Maria (who, strangely enough, didn’t look Puerto Rican). There was a gorgeous man named Bernardo. My tomboy days were over.
Dear mother noticed my happy obsession and told me about two young teenagers named Romeo and Juliet. A play written by William Shakespeare. Two kids in love with love 💕.
I devoured the book (in between countless views of West Side Story), repeatedly. Time to move on to more Shakespeare.
I fell in love with Macbeth and Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice. Henry V and Henry IV, Parts I and II.
Sonnets and more sonnets, more dramas, more histories and more comedies. With a multitude of clever quotations, I am definitely still in Shakespeare heaven.
Now, if you are reading this review and want to read this book, I will tell you that it is definitely worth the money. Lots of books are claiming to have his complete collection, but they always have something lacking.
This is very organized and put together very well. The table of contents list EVERYTHING!
There’s a section on the plays that are disputed as not written by Shakespeare. A chapter on his life and times. A chapter on his descendants (there aren’t any). A chapter on his rewriting of famous plays from other countries.
There is a good biography on him, and loads of research material. Anything you want is probably right in here.
Thanks for stopping by my way to read this review. I hope that you have enjoyed your view. I know that you will definitely enjoy this book. $1.99 on Amazon and iBook.
Fabulous five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It was nearly the ending of summer, and I was then still eleven. Was playing basketball with my brother and friends. Came into the house for a cold drink and a snack.
Heard my sister and her friends making happy sounds.
Decided I should investigate. They were watching a movie called “West Side Story.”
I heard lots of fun music, saw lots of fun dancing. Although covered in dirt and smelly with sweat, decided to invite myself in and squeezed between two people.
Heard about a song called Maria, Jet Song, Tonight, America, Gee, Officer Krupke, I Feel Pretty and others.
There was the beautiful Maria (who, strangely enough, didn’t look Puerto Rican). There was a gorgeous man named Bernardo. My tomboy days were over.
Dear mother noticed my happy obsession and told me about two young teenagers named Romeo and Juliet. A play written by William Shakespeare. Two kids in love with love 💕.
I devoured the book (in between countless views of West Side Story), repeatedly. Time to move on to more Shakespeare.
I fell in love with Macbeth and Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew and The Merchant of Venice. Henry V and Henry IV, Parts I and II.
Sonnets and more sonnets, more dramas, more histories and more comedies. With a multitude of clever quotations, I am definitely still in Shakespeare heaven.
Now, if you are reading this review and want to read this book, I will tell you that it is definitely worth the money. Lots of books are claiming to have his complete collection, but they always have something lacking.
This is very organized and put together very well. The table of contents list EVERYTHING!
There’s a section on the plays that are disputed as not written by Shakespeare. A chapter on his life and times. A chapter on his descendants (there aren’t any). A chapter on his rewriting of famous plays from other countries.
There is a good biography on him, and loads of research material. Anything you want is probably right in here.
Thanks for stopping by my way to read this review. I hope that you have enjoyed your view. I know that you will definitely enjoy this book. $1.99 on Amazon and iBook.
Fabulous five stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Want to read
February 15, 2019I plan to read many Shakespeare plays this summer. I won’t complete the full works, but finishing them all is one of my major reading goals. It might take me a few years to do it, but I shall get there eventually!
Here’s where I’m up to at the moment:
1 Two Gentlemen of Verona
2 Taming of the Shrew
3 Henry VI, part 1
4 Henry VI, part 3
5 Titus Andronicus
6 Henry VI, part 2
7 Richard III
8 The Comedy of Errors
9 Love's Labours Lost
10 A Midsummer Night's Dream
11 Romeo and Juliet
12 Richard II
13 King John
14 The Merchant of Venice
15 Henry IV, part 1
16 The Merry Wives of Windsor
17 Henry IV, part 2
18 Much Ado About Nothing
19 Henry V
20 Julius Caesar
21 As You Like It
22 Hamlet
23 Twelfth Night
24 Troilus and Cressida
25 Measure for Measure
26 Othello
27 All's Well That Ends Well
28 Timon of Athens
29 The Tragedy of King Lear
30 Macbeth
31 Anthony and Cleopatra
32 Pericles, Prince of Tyre
33 Coriolanus
34 Winter's Tale
35 Cymbeline
36 The Tempest
37 Henry VIII
38 Sonnets
There's so may greats on this list that I have to read soon!
Here’s where I’m up to at the moment:
1 Two Gentlemen of Verona
3 Henry VI, part 1
4 Henry VI, part 3
6 Henry VI, part 2
8 The Comedy of Errors
9 Love's Labours Lost
10 A Midsummer Night's Dream
13 King John
14 The Merchant of Venice
17 Henry IV, part 2
19 Henry V
24 Troilus and Cressida
26 Othello
27 All's Well That Ends Well
28 Timon of Athens
29 The Tragedy of King Lear
32 Pericles, Prince of Tyre
33 Coriolanus
34 Winter's Tale
35 Cymbeline
37 Henry VIII
There's so may greats on this list that I have to read soon!
December 27, 2017
January:
1. Two Gentlemen of Verona (1589–1591) - January 1, 2017
2 The Taming of the Shrew (1590–1591) - January 5, 2017
3 Henry VI, Part 2 (1591) - February 1, 2017
February:
4 Henry VI, Part 3 (1591) - February 3, 2017
5 Henry VI, Part 1 (1591–1592) - January 21, 2017
6 Titus Andronicus (1591–1592) - February 9, 2017
March:
7 Richard III (1592–1593) - March 4, 2017
8. The Comedy of Errors (1594) - March 11, 2017
9. Love's Labour's Lost (1594–1595) - March 27, 2017
April:
10. Richard II (1595) - April 7, 2017
11. Romeo and Juliet (1595) - April 12, 2017
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595) - April 21, 2017
May:
13. King John (1596) - May 3, 2017
14. The Merchant of Venice (1596–1597) - May 8, 2017
15. Henry IV, Part 1 (1596-1597) - May 20, 2017
June:
16. The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) - June 20, 2017
17. Henry IV, Part 2 (1597-1598) - June 24, 2017
18. Much Ado About Nothing (1598-1599) - June 25, 2017
July:
19. Henry V (1599) - July 5, 2017
20. Julius Caesar (1599) - July 10, 2017
21. As You Like It (1599-1600) - July 26, 2017
August:
22. Hamlet (1600-1601)- August 12, 2017
23. Twelfth Night (1601) - August 15, 2017
24. Troilus and Cressida ((1600–1602) - August 29, 2017
September:
25. Measure for Measure (1603-1604) - September 6, 2017
26. Othello (1603-1604) - September 15, 2017
27. All's Well that Ends Well (1604-1605) - September 12, 2017
October:
28. King Lear (1605–1606) - October 19, 2017
29. Timon of Athens (1605–1606) - October 20, 2017
30. Macbeth (1606) - October 28, 2017
November:
31. Antony and Cleopatra (1606) - November 17, 2017
32. Coriolanus (1608) - November 23, 2017
33. The Winter's Tale (1609–1611) - November 25, 2017
December:
34. Cymbeline (1610) - December 11, 2017
35. The Tempest (1610–1611) - December 12, 2017
36. Henry VIII (1612–1613) - December 16, 2017
Other:
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1607–1608) - November 21, 2017
The Sonnets (1609) - December 19, 2017
The Two Noble Kinsmen (1613–1614) - December 19, 2017
The Narrative Poems (1593-1594) - December 23, 2017
February 9, 2017
Reflecting on the oeuvre of Shakespeare, I can’t shake a perverse idea: the Bard is underrated. And I think this feeling is tied to the contradictory knowledge that he is enormous, creating the master shadow in which all others dissolve. He’s the Platonic Form that has made possible, via subsequent authorial study and unconscious absorption, so many of the variations of what we consider the best in literature. The introspection and characterization of Woolf. The zaniness in Melville, Pynchon, and David Foster Wallace. That ‘disease’, love, in Proust. The soul-searching and linguistic proficiency of Joyce. The paradoxical mix of nihilism and hope in McCarthy. The exuberant wordplay of Nabokov. The tragicomedy of Faulkner. Dostoevksy’s meditations on evil, ambition, and the horrifying acts of which we are capable. It’s all there, centuries prior, in the great prolepsis that is Shakespeare.
LOVE
Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.
-Cymbeline
What you do,
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so, and, for the ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing, in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
-The Winter’s Tale
Troilus: This is the monstruosity in love, lady: that the will is infinite,
and the execution confined: that the desire is boundless, and the
act a slave to limit.
Cressida: They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able,
and yet reserve an ability that they never perform: vowing more
than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth
part of one.
-Troilus and Cressida
But to be frank and give it thee again;
And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep: The more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
-Romeo and Juliet
So in considering what Shakespeare anticipated and achieved, the underrating is almost inevitable. But I also think it’s related to the perception that reading Shakespeare is the literary equivalent of forcing yourself to eat healthier, to drag yourself to the gym, to decline a night out in order to guarantee adequate sleep. It’s good for us, so let’s get on with it (or, more often, not). Likely this sense of unpleasant edification is instilled in grade school, at which time most of us are confronted with a confusing combination of experiences upon being assigned a Shakespeare play: that of hearing the Bard’s work extolled to impossible heights by our teacher, and the disappointment of the actual, difficult, strangely-worded reading experience.
But are most of Shakespeare’s plays even edifying? And if so, edifying in what sense? Aesthetically, the answer is unequivocal, but as with the imbibing of Dostoevksy’s Underground Man, the absorption of many of these plays* with their nihilistic and misanthropic aspects can lead to feelings of deep disquiet and a heightened awareness that seems at once empowering and exquisitely desolate. For me, there’s something almost unhealthily addicting about Shakespeare; it’s as if he’s holding up a fun-house mirror in which I can see life as it almost is, or could be, or would be if it weren’t for certain social pressures or any number of complicating aspects that Shakespeare can and does control in his plotting. Or maybe it even shows life as it actually is, and me as I really am. And so I can’t turn away, seeking ever for a clearer, deeper, more complete vision of what I can’t help but feel is true and painful and intoxicating and sick and erotic and poignant and disappointing.
* e.g. Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Measure for Measure, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, et al.
DEATH
This world’s a city full of straying streets,
And death’s the market-place, where each one meets.
-The Two Noble Kinsmen
If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride
And hug it in mine arms.
-Measure for Measure
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
-Richard II
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth
In spite of the depravity he often shares with us in his plays and in spite of what has historically crept into criticism, Shakespeare is anything but moralistic. Redeemed characters generally remain problematic, and most of the wedded endings leave the audience with more discomfort than joy, aware that these relationships are doomed based on five acts of intimation. Shakespeare’s not out to steer us toward or away from something; rather, he shows us the abyss into which, being born, we all must sink—an abyss lined with delights, sparse and temporary as they may be, that encourage us to say with Falstaff: “Give me life.”
LIFE
I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life;
which if I can save, so: if not, honour comes unlooked for,
and there’s an end.
-Henry IV, Part I
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our
virtues would be proud if our faults whipp’d them not, and our
crimes would despair if they were not cherish’d by our virtues.
-All’s Well That Ends Well
Shallow: Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight
and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
Falstaff: We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
-Henry IV, Part II
‘Tis still a dream: or else such stuff as madmen
Tongue and brain not: either both, or nothing,
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I’ll keep, if but for sympathy.
-Cymbeline
“You can’t really sum that geezer up, really, in a nifty sentence. Because everything about him is contrary.” This is Noel Gallagher on Morrissey, but it could very well be describing the genius of the Bard, whose ostensible breadth of human knowledge and internal experience is nonpareil. Socrates’ unexamined life may not be worth living, but internalizing Shakespeare would certainly seem to satisfy the requirement. His plays and sonnets give the impression of containing the full range of human emotions and motivations, of existing as the Hegelian Absolute that comprises all dialectical opposites (or “contraries”, to stick with the Morrissey comparison). Reading Shakespeare, as with Proust’s novel, has been one of those impossibly rewarding experiences, provoking endless reflection on the world, on existence, on others, on myself. And yet, having finished the complete writings, I already know that Nabokov was correct in insisting that "curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it."
LOVE
Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.
-Cymbeline
What you do,
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,
Pray so, and, for the ord’ring your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, move still, still so,
And own no other function. Each your doing,
So singular in each particular,
Crowns what you are doing, in the present deeds,
That all your acts are queens.
-The Winter’s Tale
Troilus: This is the monstruosity in love, lady: that the will is infinite,
and the execution confined: that the desire is boundless, and the
act a slave to limit.
Cressida: They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able,
and yet reserve an ability that they never perform: vowing more
than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth
part of one.
-Troilus and Cressida
But to be frank and give it thee again;
And yet I wish but for the thing I have.
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep: The more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.
-Romeo and Juliet
So in considering what Shakespeare anticipated and achieved, the underrating is almost inevitable. But I also think it’s related to the perception that reading Shakespeare is the literary equivalent of forcing yourself to eat healthier, to drag yourself to the gym, to decline a night out in order to guarantee adequate sleep. It’s good for us, so let’s get on with it (or, more often, not). Likely this sense of unpleasant edification is instilled in grade school, at which time most of us are confronted with a confusing combination of experiences upon being assigned a Shakespeare play: that of hearing the Bard’s work extolled to impossible heights by our teacher, and the disappointment of the actual, difficult, strangely-worded reading experience.
But are most of Shakespeare’s plays even edifying? And if so, edifying in what sense? Aesthetically, the answer is unequivocal, but as with the imbibing of Dostoevksy’s Underground Man, the absorption of many of these plays* with their nihilistic and misanthropic aspects can lead to feelings of deep disquiet and a heightened awareness that seems at once empowering and exquisitely desolate. For me, there’s something almost unhealthily addicting about Shakespeare; it’s as if he’s holding up a fun-house mirror in which I can see life as it almost is, or could be, or would be if it weren’t for certain social pressures or any number of complicating aspects that Shakespeare can and does control in his plotting. Or maybe it even shows life as it actually is, and me as I really am. And so I can’t turn away, seeking ever for a clearer, deeper, more complete vision of what I can’t help but feel is true and painful and intoxicating and sick and erotic and poignant and disappointing.
* e.g. Troilus and Cressida, All’s Well That Ends Well, The Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Measure for Measure, Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth, et al.
DEATH
This world’s a city full of straying streets,
And death’s the market-place, where each one meets.
-The Two Noble Kinsmen
If I must die,
I will encounter darkness as a bride
And hug it in mine arms.
-Measure for Measure
I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.
-Richard II
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
-Macbeth
In spite of the depravity he often shares with us in his plays and in spite of what has historically crept into criticism, Shakespeare is anything but moralistic. Redeemed characters generally remain problematic, and most of the wedded endings leave the audience with more discomfort than joy, aware that these relationships are doomed based on five acts of intimation. Shakespeare’s not out to steer us toward or away from something; rather, he shows us the abyss into which, being born, we all must sink—an abyss lined with delights, sparse and temporary as they may be, that encourage us to say with Falstaff: “Give me life.”
LIFE
I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life;
which if I can save, so: if not, honour comes unlooked for,
and there’s an end.
-Henry IV, Part I
The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together; our
virtues would be proud if our faults whipp’d them not, and our
crimes would despair if they were not cherish’d by our virtues.
-All’s Well That Ends Well
Shallow: Ha, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight
and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?
Falstaff: We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.
-Henry IV, Part II
‘Tis still a dream: or else such stuff as madmen
Tongue and brain not: either both, or nothing,
Or senseless speaking, or a speaking such
As sense cannot untie. Be what it is,
The action of my life is like it, which
I’ll keep, if but for sympathy.
-Cymbeline
“You can’t really sum that geezer up, really, in a nifty sentence. Because everything about him is contrary.” This is Noel Gallagher on Morrissey, but it could very well be describing the genius of the Bard, whose ostensible breadth of human knowledge and internal experience is nonpareil. Socrates’ unexamined life may not be worth living, but internalizing Shakespeare would certainly seem to satisfy the requirement. His plays and sonnets give the impression of containing the full range of human emotions and motivations, of existing as the Hegelian Absolute that comprises all dialectical opposites (or “contraries”, to stick with the Morrissey comparison). Reading Shakespeare, as with Proust’s novel, has been one of those impossibly rewarding experiences, provoking endless reflection on the world, on existence, on others, on myself. And yet, having finished the complete writings, I already know that Nabokov was correct in insisting that "curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it."
April 1, 2018
Have I read this book? Only part of it.
Even so, why argue about that rating?
See bottom of review for a list of the plays in order
What follows is little more than the GoodReads description of the edition pictured. But I feel I can do that, since I wrote the description.
This tome includes all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, as well as his poems and sonnets. It was produced "for college students in the hope that it will help them to understand, appreciate, and enjoy the works for themselves. It is not intended for the scholar ..."
Two-column format throughout.
Introductory Material (90 pages):
1. The Universality of Shakespeare
2. Records of the Life of Shakespeare
3. Shakespeare's England
4. Elizabethan Drama
5. The Elizabethan Playhouse
6. The Study of the Text
7. The Development of Shakespeare's Art
8. Shakespeare and the Critics
9. Shakespearean Scholarship and Criticism 1900-1950
Plates:
16 full-page Halftone Reproductions
6 full-page Line Cuts
9 pages of Notes on the Plates
The Plays:
Generally in order of writing.
Each play has its own Introduction
Footnotes at the bottom of the columns. This makes them both handy and unobtrusive. Liked by this reader.
Appendices follow The Poems:
30 Appendices in about the same number of pages; these deal with a wide variety of topics, everything from "The Melancholic Humor" to "Cuckolds and Horns" to "Hawks and Hawking".
I don't know how it compares with other editions of Shakespeare's works. It is the one I have.
Here are Shakespeare's 37 plays, in the order presented in this edition. This is the best guess (at the time the edition was printed) of the order in which they were written, when on my no-longer-young journey I read the play, and links to my review. (It will take several years for this quest to be completed.)
1. The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
2. The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
3. The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
4. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third _2017_Apr.
5. The Comedy of Errors
6. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
7. The Taming of the Shrew _2017_Apr.
8. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
9. Love's Labor's Lost
10. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second _2016_Aug.
11. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream _2014_Feb.
13. The Life and Death of King John _2016_Apr.
14. The Merchant of Venice
15. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
16. The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
17. Much Ado About Nothing _2016_Jan.
18. The Life of King Henry the Fifth
19. As You Like It _2015_Feb.
20. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar _2017_Oct.
21. Twelfth Night; or What You Will
22. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
23. The Merry Wives of Windsor
24. The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
25. All's Well That Ends Well _2015_June
26. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
27. Measure For Measure
28. The Tragedy of King Lear
29. The Tragedy of Macbeth
30. The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra
31. The Tragedy of Coriolanus
32. Timon of Athens
33. Pericles _2016_Oct.
34. Cymbeline
35. The Winter's Tale
36. The Tempest _2017_July
37. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Once and Future King T.H. White's Arthurian fantasy
Random review: King John Wm.Shakespeare
Next review: Understanding Power Noam Chomsky
Previous library review: Verbivoracious Festschrift Vol. 3 The Syllabus
Next library review: Shakespeare: The world as stage Bill Bryson
Even so, why argue about that rating?
See bottom of review for a list of the plays in order
What follows is little more than the GoodReads description of the edition pictured. But I feel I can do that, since I wrote the description.
This tome includes all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, as well as his poems and sonnets. It was produced "for college students in the hope that it will help them to understand, appreciate, and enjoy the works for themselves. It is not intended for the scholar ..."
Two-column format throughout.
Introductory Material (90 pages):
1. The Universality of Shakespeare
2. Records of the Life of Shakespeare
3. Shakespeare's England
4. Elizabethan Drama
5. The Elizabethan Playhouse
6. The Study of the Text
7. The Development of Shakespeare's Art
8. Shakespeare and the Critics
9. Shakespearean Scholarship and Criticism 1900-1950
Plates:
16 full-page Halftone Reproductions
6 full-page Line Cuts
9 pages of Notes on the Plates
The Plays:
Generally in order of writing.
Each play has its own Introduction
Footnotes at the bottom of the columns. This makes them both handy and unobtrusive. Liked by this reader.
Appendices follow The Poems:
30 Appendices in about the same number of pages; these deal with a wide variety of topics, everything from "The Melancholic Humor" to "Cuckolds and Horns" to "Hawks and Hawking".
I don't know how it compares with other editions of Shakespeare's works. It is the one I have.
Here are Shakespeare's 37 plays, in the order presented in this edition. This is the best guess (at the time the edition was printed) of the order in which they were written, when on my no-longer-young journey I read the play, and links to my review. (It will take several years for this quest to be completed.)
1. The First Part of King Henry the Sixth
2. The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth
3. The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth
4. The Tragedy of King Richard the Third _2017_Apr.
5. The Comedy of Errors
6. The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus
7. The Taming of the Shrew _2017_Apr.
8. The Two Gentlemen of Verona
9. Love's Labor's Lost
10. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second _2016_Aug.
11. The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
12. A Midsummer Night's Dream _2014_Feb.
13. The Life and Death of King John _2016_Apr.
14. The Merchant of Venice
15. The First Part of King Henry the Fourth
16. The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth
17. Much Ado About Nothing _2016_Jan.
18. The Life of King Henry the Fifth
19. As You Like It _2015_Feb.
20. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar _2017_Oct.
21. Twelfth Night; or What You Will
22. The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
23. The Merry Wives of Windsor
24. The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida
25. All's Well That Ends Well _2015_June
26. The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice
27. Measure For Measure
28. The Tragedy of King Lear
29. The Tragedy of Macbeth
30. The Tragedy of Anthony and Cleopatra
31. The Tragedy of Coriolanus
32. Timon of Athens
33. Pericles _2016_Oct.
34. Cymbeline
35. The Winter's Tale
36. The Tempest _2017_July
37. The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Previous review: The Once and Future King T.H. White's Arthurian fantasy
Random review: King John Wm.Shakespeare
Next review: Understanding Power Noam Chomsky
Previous library review: Verbivoracious Festschrift Vol. 3 The Syllabus
Next library review: Shakespeare: The world as stage Bill Bryson
March 22, 2016
Celebrity Death Match Special: The Complete Works of Shakespeare versus Deep Learning
Ubergeek Andrej Karpathy had the bright idea of training a recurrent neural network on the complete works of Shakespeare. It produces remarkably good output for an algorithm which not only knows nothing about Shakespeare, but can't even tell a noun from a verb! Here is the first of the two samples he gives:
PANDARUS:
Alas, I think he shall be come approached and the day
When little srain would be attain'd into being never fed,
And who is but a chain and subjects of his death,
I should not sleep.
Second Senator:
They are away this miseries, produced upon my soul,
Breaking and strongly should be buried, when I perish
The earth and thoughts of many states.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Well, your wit is in the care of side and that.
Second Lord:
They would be ruled after this chamber, and
my fair nues begun out of the fact, to be conveyed,
Whose noble souls I'll have the heart of the wars.
Clown:
Come, sir, I will make did behold your worship.
VIOLA:
I'll drink it.
____________________
The Karpathy article is excellent, and if you're at all geeky yourself I strongly recommend looking at it. The examples are impressive: the random Shakespeare is good, but the random algebraic geometry and random Linux kernel code are even better.
Ubergeek Andrej Karpathy had the bright idea of training a recurrent neural network on the complete works of Shakespeare. It produces remarkably good output for an algorithm which not only knows nothing about Shakespeare, but can't even tell a noun from a verb! Here is the first of the two samples he gives:
PANDARUS:
Alas, I think he shall be come approached and the day
When little srain would be attain'd into being never fed,
And who is but a chain and subjects of his death,
I should not sleep.
Second Senator:
They are away this miseries, produced upon my soul,
Breaking and strongly should be buried, when I perish
The earth and thoughts of many states.
DUKE VINCENTIO:
Well, your wit is in the care of side and that.
Second Lord:
They would be ruled after this chamber, and
my fair nues begun out of the fact, to be conveyed,
Whose noble souls I'll have the heart of the wars.
Clown:
Come, sir, I will make did behold your worship.
VIOLA:
I'll drink it.
____________________
The Karpathy article is excellent, and if you're at all geeky yourself I strongly recommend looking at it. The examples are impressive: the random Shakespeare is good, but the random algebraic geometry and random Linux kernel code are even better.
February 8, 2017
Simply put, When you have The Complete Works of William Shakespeare you have one of the best works of literature ever written. I would definitely place it in the top 10 best works of literature of all time. I bought this book at special price from here:
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works...
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works...
February 3, 2018
Edward III
For anyone saying, "Huh?" right now, let me say that EIII is one of the "Apocryphal Plays" that have been credited wholly or in part to Shakespeare at one time or another but that do not have conclusive proof of authorship by Big Bill Rattlepike. In the Second Edition of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works, the whole text of all plays the editors are convinced Shakespeare had a hand in is printed. This means that they have made the brave decision to include Edward III, convinced as they are that Shakepeare wrote up to four scenes in the play. The text has undergone every stylistic and vocubulary test known to scholarship and there is a growing consensus that Shakespeare wrote some, at least, of this play. Now, I don't know anything about these tests, but if you'd asked me which scenes stood out as the best, I'd have picked the four that the present editors claim were by Big Bill the Bard.
The play is a straightforward history, showing Edward the III first having trouble with the Scots then invading France, where his son gets caught, massively outnumbered, in a valley surrounded by hills...Cue ridiculous triumph-against-the-odds...
Between the two are some scenes where the King meets an exceptionally attractive member of the Nobility and woos her, despite being already married himself. These scenes raise the bar in terms of the language used and feeling expressed and are reminiscent of numerous similar scenes by Shakespeare - I could easily believe he wrote them. Later, the Prince of Wales, pensive before apparently insurmountable odds of battle, finds courage whilst meditating on the inevitability of death. Once again these passages are reminiscent of other famous Shakespeare scenes.
The plot is reminiscent of Henry V and I can easily imagine that Shakespeare took this play and used it as the model for that later, greater and entirely solo effort.
What Edward III lacks are depth of characterisation, depth of feeling conveyed by the language (outside the four scenes mentioned above) and a unity in the whole. The early part with Edward's attempted adultery seems disconnected from the subsequent invasion of France.
Even taken alone, Henry V eliminates all these problems.
This play illustrates to me the genius of Shakespeare: he was able to take a populist form that demanded a continuous supply of fresh material that allowed little time for rehearsal and create work that showed such psychological and dramatic insight in such glorious language that it transcended his era to the extent of him being widely considered the best Britsh playwright ever to have lived, 400 years later.
The Merchant of Venice
Well that was - short! Also, fun. It's a mess of a play in some respects - the plotting and structure are a muddle. The dramatic crisis occurs in act 4, leaving the entire last act over to the kind of banter and romantical silliness typified by As You Like It's forest scenes, which could feel anti-climactic if not played up to the hilt in performance, because when it come down to it,this play is dominated by Shylock. So much so that it ended up also popularly known by the alternative title The Jew of Venice and, in an era when actors dominated performance decisions, frequently curtailed at the end of act 4 when Shylock's part is over and the dramatic crisis is resolved.
This seems typical of the comedies, where much of the plot is an excuse to get a bunch of people into romantic shenanigans and the women into disguise as men, with little of the concern for pace or structure that we tend to demand of an genre of film these days. It's not that he couldn't do it - Richard III and Hamlet, even if bloated in places, certainly show how to organise things and Henry V doesn't even have much excess verbiage. MacBeth (aided no doubt by Middleton's many interventions) is superbly constructed and never slow - hence I conclude that Shakespeare was all about the laughs in his early comedies and never mind the preposterousness or the plots that go away for three acts.
There is no escaping the fact that Shylock dominates this play; his character is the only one developed to any real depth and the fact that the debate rages to this day as to whether Shakespeare and his contemporary audiences would have seen him as sympathetic or merely a pantomime villain testifies to this. Because a case can be made either way, villain or victim it seems plain to me that what we have is a sympathetic antagonist - not a monster everybody loves to hate but a human whose flaws in the end bring his own downfall in the very definition of Shakespearean Tragedy. He's abused and railed against for doing what Christians won't whilst at the same time being patronised by the very same people because he is fulfilling an essential function in a market economy and earning a living from it. When the opportunity arises he must have revenge, not the moral high ground of magnanimity and mercy - there-in lies the seed of his destruction.
It's hard not to compare this with Jonson, given that they were contemporaries and I recently finished a five play volume by one of the men said to have drunk Shakespeare into the fever that killed him. The contrasts are in fact stronger - Jonson being more prosaic, less witty in banter and more prone to showing off his learning, especially by quoting Latin and more concerned with "ordinary" folk than the rich and powerful. Shakespeare here also shows his mastery of character (if only in the form of Shylock) whilst the best of Jonson is much more in the way of caricature.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
This play doesn't seem to have enjoyed much popularity in my (adult) lifetime - I can't remember hearing about, let alone actually seeing, any film or stage production of it - and I can't understand why. It's ripe with opportunities for visual humour, has everybody's favourite character from Henry IV, much wit and punning, a more coherent plot than many another Shakespeare comedy and even offers wide scope to set and costume designers. I'd love to see this, filmed, or, even better, live on stage.
For those not in the know, the play revolves around an episode from John Falstaff's life prior to his association with Prince Hal, in which he attempts to cuckold his neighbours. There is a subplot regarding who will marry one Anne Page, from three suitors, leading to a typically Shakespearean ending with (implied) happy marriage.
In one sense this is a-typical Shakespeare - despite ostensibly being historical - set in the reign of Henry IV - it could, if you changed the characters' names, not be identified as anything other than contemporary with the author. It also deals not with the high-born and rich but with professionals and labourers - and rogues and thieves - making it very Jonsonian.
Julius Caesar
My first exposure to Shakespeare was this play, read in English class, when I was 13. Apparently it is a very popular choice in schools because it has no "bawdy." This wasn't any concern of my teacher, though, as he had us reading MacBeth later the same year.
Julius Caesar didn't go down very well; it was terribly confusing. Caesar dies half way through having done and said very little. What was that all about? The only bit that I remember liking was Antony's great rhetorical swaying of the plebians. The way he achieved that was fascinating.
My second encounter with the play was an outdoor performance in the courtyard of Conwy Castle, my main memory of which was having a sore bum because of inadequate cushioning from the courtyard floor (sat as I was on a couple of camping mats placed directly on the flagstones). So not much joy there either. And the whole structure was still confusing - it isn't about Julius! This fact was never explained by my teacher. But there is an explanation: the play is based on Classical dramatic models where-in this type of thing happens quite often. The central figure of the title is an enigma around which the real action revolves - the motive force for chaos and tragedy more by other people's responses to him than by his direct actions. And that's what we have here. Shakespeare writing a play after the fashion of the Latin dramatists he was familiar with from school, who in turn were following the fashion and subject matter of the Greek plays of antiquity.
Now, having learned this and also having come into contact with some of that ancient drama, I re-read Julius Caesar and find that it does in fact make sense, structurally if looked at this way. There is no central character except Caesar, despite him being conspicuous by his absence. There have been attempts to re-cast (and re-name) it as the Tragedy of Brutus but these are distortions or adaptations. The fact is that Cassius, Antony and Brutus are all compared and contrasted with each other and with Caesar and this is a necessary thing for understanding the character of each. Cassius's worldly motivations and ready perception of character are the opposite of Brutus's lofty ideals and inability to recognise that he is being used. Antony is motivated as much by will to power as by revenge; Cassius is aware of this. Brutus is a fool politically but is the superior general it turns out; they ould have won if Cassius had been more careful on the battlefield and Caesar - he's a greater figure than all of them put together, though he's just a man, with human frailties as Cassius points out, remembering how he saved Caesar from drowning in the Tiber. Greater - but for reasons not clear, not ever expressed - and the eye of the storm.
It's a fascinating mess and everybody ends up dead except Antony who walks off with the power and all the best lines in the play, back in that crucial "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." scene that forms the bulk of Act 3. The bit I liked even when I didn't have a clue about the rest - still the best part, even with the rest suddenly making sense.
Troilus and Cressida
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare mentions that early 19th Century critics were "baffled" by this play. I have some sympathy with them; I don't really know what Bill was trying to do with this one. No contemporary writer worth the name would plot the final two acts this way, for a start. Now plotting was never Bill's strongest suit but we aren't talking about one of his daft comedies where you can ignore plot development in exchange for extreme verbal and physical comedy down in the woods tonight and go home chuckling at what you've seen and heard and not really caring about the absurdity of it all. Nor is this Romeo and Juliet 2.0, despite the set up in the first three acts where we start with a lot of wit and word play and silliness but get progressively more serious as time goes on, ending up with a full-on Tragic denouement and a bold statement about the destructive nature of feuding and partisan violence within respectable society that is alarmingly relevant 400 years later. Here, if there is a Tragic figure at all it is Hector, sadly too naively trusting in others' honour because his own is impeccable, rather than Troilus or Cressida, let alone both. And the play, despite having two endings, never really resolves the issue of the Troilus-Cressida-Diomedes love triangle at all. It's a mess.
Apparently more recent criticism has focused on Shakespeare's treatment of sexuality in the play but I don't really find the idea that people can be fickle and inconstant and driven by other people's looks all that profound or interesting, though I find it believable that Bill might have been aiming at a discussion of it.
So what I'm left with is a play that starts humourous then becomes amusingly chaotic and diverting in the final act (alarums and excursions abound) but stops rather than really concludes and suffers horribly in comparison with the Iliad's treatment of all the characters they have in common - a comparison that, at least while reading off the page, is unavoidable to anyone who has previously encountered Achilles' rage as described by Homer.
And on we go to Sir Thomas More, a play for which Shakespeare wrote probably only one or two scenes.
The Book of Sir Thomas More
The editors believe Shakespeare wrote a three page passage in the extant "book" of this play, which was originally composed by Munday. Those pages were included in the 1st Ed. of this volume but, as with Edward III, here in the 2nd Ed. they print the full text of the play. The parts attributed to Shakespeare are higher quality than the rest but some of the material by Munday is almost as good. However, for me the real interests of this play, which overall is disjointed, unbalanced and a second rate work of the period, are twofold and not really related to Shakespeare directly, namely, the portrayal of More and the insight into the politics, censorship and mode of operation of playwrights of the period.
What we have is a playbook originally written by Munday dealing with the rise and fall of Thomas More, which was heavily criticised by the Master of the Revels who read all plays before performance and had the power to demand any alterations he deemed fit or suppress the play entirely. More was a controvercial figure in Elizabethan politics still, being considered a Catholic martyr by many and a champion of the working people to boot. Catholicism vs. Protestantism was inextricably mixed up with the right to the throne and international power politics. Nevertheless, the Master of the Revels didn't ban the play out-right but instead gave copious instructions for deletions and modifications that were written directly on the play-book.
Subsequently various authors, including Chettle, Heywood and Dekker as well as Shakespeare, revised the play, replacing passages and altering existing ones - it's a professional critic's wet dream. The demand for original material for the stage was difficult to keep up with and collaborations between playwrights were commonplace, as were revisions of extant plays. (Middleton appears to have revised two of Shakespeare's plays, for example.) Here we get a good look at an extreme example of attempting to rescue a play because writing a new one from scratch was too long a process, as well as an insight into the role and attitudes of the Master of the Revels, which clearly was considered politically important and taken seriously. Despite all of the effort by nearly everyone, it seems the play was never performed on the contemporary stage.
Which brings me to the character of More himself. Here he comes over as a trickster and humourist who uses pranks to teach more pompous folks and genuine fools various lessons but also a champion of mercy and restraint in keeping the peace between the lower classes and the aristocracy. He goes in humble and brave fashion to his martyrdom, refusing to break with his Catholic principles regarding Henry VIII's divorce.
In A Man for All Seasons More is presented as a much more serious but still saintly martyr who dies for his principles. A biography of William Tyndale that I once read, gives a different picture, by illustrating what some of those principles were: More had a network of agents who spied and informed on anybody connected with translating the Bible from Latin to English or printing or distributing such. Anybody found guilty of said "crimes" were burned alive at the stake - no mercy whatsoever.
All of these authors had a partisan agenda regarding More: Catholic martyr, champion of the unprivileged, murderer of anybody who opposed the Church's control of Christian thought. Could he have been all of these things?
Measure for Measure
The editors believe that this play was adapted somewhat by another writer and additionally that it was Thomas Middleton. The same view is widely held regarding MacBeth, which to my mind loses it's unity of view and expression in the scenes of the witches spell casting and giving cauldrons a bad reputation forever after. Here, though, any adaptation is more subtle and doesn't impair the play at all.
This is also the earliest of what are known as the "problem plays" so called, as far as I can tell, because they do not fit neatly into any of the three conventional genres of the time, namely, comedy, tragedy or history. Earliest problem play does not mean early play, however - we are in the second half of Shakespeare's career by now. This leads me to propose a simple solution to the "problem": By this time Shakespeare was successful and confident enough to dispense with convention and write whatever kind of play he wanted and it seems to me that this is a morality play.
This play attacks everything that was appalling about the status of and attitudes towards women of the period, making it a stark contrast with The Taming of the Shrew. The law that the plot hinges upon is an ass, along with the prevailing obsession with virginity prior to marriage and as some kind of morally pure state that gets you extra bonus points from the Heavenly authorities. The convention of dowries and concomitant "wife as chattel" is also attacked.
There are no really memorable speeches but the play gets its points across successfully and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Henry V
Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be reading King Lear, but the BBC broadcast Brannagh's Henry V film and I thought I'd catch it on iPlayer before it disappears. Go here for the review because there isn't room left here for it all:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
King Lear (Quarto)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Tragedy of Richard III
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Timon of Athens
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
MacBeth
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
All's Well that Ends Well
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Pericles
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Coriolanus
Fierce warrior, great general, total prat.
The Winter's Tale
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cymbeline
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Two Noble Kinsmen
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
For anyone saying, "Huh?" right now, let me say that EIII is one of the "Apocryphal Plays" that have been credited wholly or in part to Shakespeare at one time or another but that do not have conclusive proof of authorship by Big Bill Rattlepike. In the Second Edition of the Oxford Shakespeare Complete Works, the whole text of all plays the editors are convinced Shakespeare had a hand in is printed. This means that they have made the brave decision to include Edward III, convinced as they are that Shakepeare wrote up to four scenes in the play. The text has undergone every stylistic and vocubulary test known to scholarship and there is a growing consensus that Shakespeare wrote some, at least, of this play. Now, I don't know anything about these tests, but if you'd asked me which scenes stood out as the best, I'd have picked the four that the present editors claim were by Big Bill the Bard.
The play is a straightforward history, showing Edward the III first having trouble with the Scots then invading France, where his son gets caught, massively outnumbered, in a valley surrounded by hills...Cue ridiculous triumph-against-the-odds...
Between the two are some scenes where the King meets an exceptionally attractive member of the Nobility and woos her, despite being already married himself. These scenes raise the bar in terms of the language used and feeling expressed and are reminiscent of numerous similar scenes by Shakespeare - I could easily believe he wrote them. Later, the Prince of Wales, pensive before apparently insurmountable odds of battle, finds courage whilst meditating on the inevitability of death. Once again these passages are reminiscent of other famous Shakespeare scenes.
The plot is reminiscent of Henry V and I can easily imagine that Shakespeare took this play and used it as the model for that later, greater and entirely solo effort.
What Edward III lacks are depth of characterisation, depth of feeling conveyed by the language (outside the four scenes mentioned above) and a unity in the whole. The early part with Edward's attempted adultery seems disconnected from the subsequent invasion of France.
Even taken alone, Henry V eliminates all these problems.
This play illustrates to me the genius of Shakespeare: he was able to take a populist form that demanded a continuous supply of fresh material that allowed little time for rehearsal and create work that showed such psychological and dramatic insight in such glorious language that it transcended his era to the extent of him being widely considered the best Britsh playwright ever to have lived, 400 years later.
The Merchant of Venice
Well that was - short! Also, fun. It's a mess of a play in some respects - the plotting and structure are a muddle. The dramatic crisis occurs in act 4, leaving the entire last act over to the kind of banter and romantical silliness typified by As You Like It's forest scenes, which could feel anti-climactic if not played up to the hilt in performance, because when it come down to it,this play is dominated by Shylock. So much so that it ended up also popularly known by the alternative title The Jew of Venice and, in an era when actors dominated performance decisions, frequently curtailed at the end of act 4 when Shylock's part is over and the dramatic crisis is resolved.
This seems typical of the comedies, where much of the plot is an excuse to get a bunch of people into romantic shenanigans and the women into disguise as men, with little of the concern for pace or structure that we tend to demand of an genre of film these days. It's not that he couldn't do it - Richard III and Hamlet, even if bloated in places, certainly show how to organise things and Henry V doesn't even have much excess verbiage. MacBeth (aided no doubt by Middleton's many interventions) is superbly constructed and never slow - hence I conclude that Shakespeare was all about the laughs in his early comedies and never mind the preposterousness or the plots that go away for three acts.
There is no escaping the fact that Shylock dominates this play; his character is the only one developed to any real depth and the fact that the debate rages to this day as to whether Shakespeare and his contemporary audiences would have seen him as sympathetic or merely a pantomime villain testifies to this. Because a case can be made either way, villain or victim it seems plain to me that what we have is a sympathetic antagonist - not a monster everybody loves to hate but a human whose flaws in the end bring his own downfall in the very definition of Shakespearean Tragedy. He's abused and railed against for doing what Christians won't whilst at the same time being patronised by the very same people because he is fulfilling an essential function in a market economy and earning a living from it. When the opportunity arises he must have revenge, not the moral high ground of magnanimity and mercy - there-in lies the seed of his destruction.
It's hard not to compare this with Jonson, given that they were contemporaries and I recently finished a five play volume by one of the men said to have drunk Shakespeare into the fever that killed him. The contrasts are in fact stronger - Jonson being more prosaic, less witty in banter and more prone to showing off his learning, especially by quoting Latin and more concerned with "ordinary" folk than the rich and powerful. Shakespeare here also shows his mastery of character (if only in the form of Shylock) whilst the best of Jonson is much more in the way of caricature.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
This play doesn't seem to have enjoyed much popularity in my (adult) lifetime - I can't remember hearing about, let alone actually seeing, any film or stage production of it - and I can't understand why. It's ripe with opportunities for visual humour, has everybody's favourite character from Henry IV, much wit and punning, a more coherent plot than many another Shakespeare comedy and even offers wide scope to set and costume designers. I'd love to see this, filmed, or, even better, live on stage.
For those not in the know, the play revolves around an episode from John Falstaff's life prior to his association with Prince Hal, in which he attempts to cuckold his neighbours. There is a subplot regarding who will marry one Anne Page, from three suitors, leading to a typically Shakespearean ending with (implied) happy marriage.
In one sense this is a-typical Shakespeare - despite ostensibly being historical - set in the reign of Henry IV - it could, if you changed the characters' names, not be identified as anything other than contemporary with the author. It also deals not with the high-born and rich but with professionals and labourers - and rogues and thieves - making it very Jonsonian.
Julius Caesar
My first exposure to Shakespeare was this play, read in English class, when I was 13. Apparently it is a very popular choice in schools because it has no "bawdy." This wasn't any concern of my teacher, though, as he had us reading MacBeth later the same year.
Julius Caesar didn't go down very well; it was terribly confusing. Caesar dies half way through having done and said very little. What was that all about? The only bit that I remember liking was Antony's great rhetorical swaying of the plebians. The way he achieved that was fascinating.
My second encounter with the play was an outdoor performance in the courtyard of Conwy Castle, my main memory of which was having a sore bum because of inadequate cushioning from the courtyard floor (sat as I was on a couple of camping mats placed directly on the flagstones). So not much joy there either. And the whole structure was still confusing - it isn't about Julius! This fact was never explained by my teacher. But there is an explanation: the play is based on Classical dramatic models where-in this type of thing happens quite often. The central figure of the title is an enigma around which the real action revolves - the motive force for chaos and tragedy more by other people's responses to him than by his direct actions. And that's what we have here. Shakespeare writing a play after the fashion of the Latin dramatists he was familiar with from school, who in turn were following the fashion and subject matter of the Greek plays of antiquity.
Now, having learned this and also having come into contact with some of that ancient drama, I re-read Julius Caesar and find that it does in fact make sense, structurally if looked at this way. There is no central character except Caesar, despite him being conspicuous by his absence. There have been attempts to re-cast (and re-name) it as the Tragedy of Brutus but these are distortions or adaptations. The fact is that Cassius, Antony and Brutus are all compared and contrasted with each other and with Caesar and this is a necessary thing for understanding the character of each. Cassius's worldly motivations and ready perception of character are the opposite of Brutus's lofty ideals and inability to recognise that he is being used. Antony is motivated as much by will to power as by revenge; Cassius is aware of this. Brutus is a fool politically but is the superior general it turns out; they ould have won if Cassius had been more careful on the battlefield and Caesar - he's a greater figure than all of them put together, though he's just a man, with human frailties as Cassius points out, remembering how he saved Caesar from drowning in the Tiber. Greater - but for reasons not clear, not ever expressed - and the eye of the storm.
It's a fascinating mess and everybody ends up dead except Antony who walks off with the power and all the best lines in the play, back in that crucial "Friends, Romans, countrymen..." scene that forms the bulk of Act 3. The bit I liked even when I didn't have a clue about the rest - still the best part, even with the rest suddenly making sense.
Troilus and Cressida
The Oxford Companion to Shakespeare mentions that early 19th Century critics were "baffled" by this play. I have some sympathy with them; I don't really know what Bill was trying to do with this one. No contemporary writer worth the name would plot the final two acts this way, for a start. Now plotting was never Bill's strongest suit but we aren't talking about one of his daft comedies where you can ignore plot development in exchange for extreme verbal and physical comedy down in the woods tonight and go home chuckling at what you've seen and heard and not really caring about the absurdity of it all. Nor is this Romeo and Juliet 2.0, despite the set up in the first three acts where we start with a lot of wit and word play and silliness but get progressively more serious as time goes on, ending up with a full-on Tragic denouement and a bold statement about the destructive nature of feuding and partisan violence within respectable society that is alarmingly relevant 400 years later. Here, if there is a Tragic figure at all it is Hector, sadly too naively trusting in others' honour because his own is impeccable, rather than Troilus or Cressida, let alone both. And the play, despite having two endings, never really resolves the issue of the Troilus-Cressida-Diomedes love triangle at all. It's a mess.
Apparently more recent criticism has focused on Shakespeare's treatment of sexuality in the play but I don't really find the idea that people can be fickle and inconstant and driven by other people's looks all that profound or interesting, though I find it believable that Bill might have been aiming at a discussion of it.
So what I'm left with is a play that starts humourous then becomes amusingly chaotic and diverting in the final act (alarums and excursions abound) but stops rather than really concludes and suffers horribly in comparison with the Iliad's treatment of all the characters they have in common - a comparison that, at least while reading off the page, is unavoidable to anyone who has previously encountered Achilles' rage as described by Homer.
And on we go to Sir Thomas More, a play for which Shakespeare wrote probably only one or two scenes.
The Book of Sir Thomas More
The editors believe Shakespeare wrote a three page passage in the extant "book" of this play, which was originally composed by Munday. Those pages were included in the 1st Ed. of this volume but, as with Edward III, here in the 2nd Ed. they print the full text of the play. The parts attributed to Shakespeare are higher quality than the rest but some of the material by Munday is almost as good. However, for me the real interests of this play, which overall is disjointed, unbalanced and a second rate work of the period, are twofold and not really related to Shakespeare directly, namely, the portrayal of More and the insight into the politics, censorship and mode of operation of playwrights of the period.
What we have is a playbook originally written by Munday dealing with the rise and fall of Thomas More, which was heavily criticised by the Master of the Revels who read all plays before performance and had the power to demand any alterations he deemed fit or suppress the play entirely. More was a controvercial figure in Elizabethan politics still, being considered a Catholic martyr by many and a champion of the working people to boot. Catholicism vs. Protestantism was inextricably mixed up with the right to the throne and international power politics. Nevertheless, the Master of the Revels didn't ban the play out-right but instead gave copious instructions for deletions and modifications that were written directly on the play-book.
Subsequently various authors, including Chettle, Heywood and Dekker as well as Shakespeare, revised the play, replacing passages and altering existing ones - it's a professional critic's wet dream. The demand for original material for the stage was difficult to keep up with and collaborations between playwrights were commonplace, as were revisions of extant plays. (Middleton appears to have revised two of Shakespeare's plays, for example.) Here we get a good look at an extreme example of attempting to rescue a play because writing a new one from scratch was too long a process, as well as an insight into the role and attitudes of the Master of the Revels, which clearly was considered politically important and taken seriously. Despite all of the effort by nearly everyone, it seems the play was never performed on the contemporary stage.
Which brings me to the character of More himself. Here he comes over as a trickster and humourist who uses pranks to teach more pompous folks and genuine fools various lessons but also a champion of mercy and restraint in keeping the peace between the lower classes and the aristocracy. He goes in humble and brave fashion to his martyrdom, refusing to break with his Catholic principles regarding Henry VIII's divorce.
In A Man for All Seasons More is presented as a much more serious but still saintly martyr who dies for his principles. A biography of William Tyndale that I once read, gives a different picture, by illustrating what some of those principles were: More had a network of agents who spied and informed on anybody connected with translating the Bible from Latin to English or printing or distributing such. Anybody found guilty of said "crimes" were burned alive at the stake - no mercy whatsoever.
All of these authors had a partisan agenda regarding More: Catholic martyr, champion of the unprivileged, murderer of anybody who opposed the Church's control of Christian thought. Could he have been all of these things?
Measure for Measure
The editors believe that this play was adapted somewhat by another writer and additionally that it was Thomas Middleton. The same view is widely held regarding MacBeth, which to my mind loses it's unity of view and expression in the scenes of the witches spell casting and giving cauldrons a bad reputation forever after. Here, though, any adaptation is more subtle and doesn't impair the play at all.
This is also the earliest of what are known as the "problem plays" so called, as far as I can tell, because they do not fit neatly into any of the three conventional genres of the time, namely, comedy, tragedy or history. Earliest problem play does not mean early play, however - we are in the second half of Shakespeare's career by now. This leads me to propose a simple solution to the "problem": By this time Shakespeare was successful and confident enough to dispense with convention and write whatever kind of play he wanted and it seems to me that this is a morality play.
This play attacks everything that was appalling about the status of and attitudes towards women of the period, making it a stark contrast with The Taming of the Shrew. The law that the plot hinges upon is an ass, along with the prevailing obsession with virginity prior to marriage and as some kind of morally pure state that gets you extra bonus points from the Heavenly authorities. The convention of dowries and concomitant "wife as chattel" is also attacked.
There are no really memorable speeches but the play gets its points across successfully and doesn't outstay its welcome.
Henry V
Yeah, yeah, I'm supposed to be reading King Lear, but the BBC broadcast Brannagh's Henry V film and I thought I'd catch it on iPlayer before it disappears. Go here for the review because there isn't room left here for it all:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
King Lear (Quarto)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Tragedy of Richard III
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Timon of Athens
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
MacBeth
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
All's Well that Ends Well
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Pericles
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Coriolanus
Fierce warrior, great general, total prat.
The Winter's Tale
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Cymbeline
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The Two Noble Kinsmen
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
May 18, 2022
Update as of 2022: Last summer I went to a live production in a castle garden of A Midsummer Night's Dream. I've always thought this play overdone a bit like Romeo and Juliet, it's one of the more popular ones, and I think I finally realize why. Shakespeare, without a doubt, is meant to be seen on stage. I can not stress enough how incredibly brilliant this author is with the written play and seeing it acted out on stage gives it a whole new dimension. This play was fantastic and had me laughing and falling in love with Shakespeare all over again. One of the best classical authors ever. And I highly encourage you to see at least one of his plays in your lifetime.
Shakespeare as classical writing written when I first started reading Shakespeare:
I understand now why I have such a hard time reading Shakespeare. It's not that it's hard to understand. There are enough translations and self help guides to get you through the plot of any of the plays. And once I started reading and translating, I started to get the hang of it, and had fewer words and phrases that I had to look up. No, it's not that. Simply put, it's a play, and not meant to be read. I know there are some who might disagree with me, however, that's my opinion. I revel in the complacency of description and plays don't have it. It is just dialogue. There is nothing to tell you infinitely how a character is feeling or what they're thinking. There's nothing to tell you how the set looks (besides a sometimes small minimalist description). There is nothing to tell how a character looks, are they beautiful? Are they old? Yes, I understand you can infer many of these things from the dialogue which is what you're supposed to do, but to me, there is great room for interpretation, unlike a book, which will describe it for you.
Also, after doing a little reading on Shakespeare and the republishing of his works, it seems there are many different conflicting sources of original text, which is why you often find various works with different scripts. I truly believe that Shakespeare meant these to be seen on stage, not read from a page. It's where his genius is best seen and appreciated. That being said, I plan to read each play, then watch a movie rendition of each one.
I would also like to list the reasons here that Shakespeare's works are classics instead of going into the same points repeatedly as I review each work. They are classics, I can't dispute it, whether or not I enjoy each individual play or not. And I do believe this is the first time that an author has gotten 8 out of 10 of my Definitions for a Classic.
1. Longevity: He's been around through the ages and I have no doubt we'll be acting out his plays on the moon.
2. The magic factor: His stories will pull you in every time. They focus on the aspects of human nature that we all can relate to, so you care about the outcome of the characters.
3. Unique: He has an unusual literary style that has made him popular throughout history.
4. New Style of Writing: Now I'm stretching it with this one, I know, because anyone who has studied literature knows Shakespeare wasn't the first to use Iambic Pentameter, however I believe he was the first to make it popular. You ask anyone to tell you the first author that comes to mind when you say Iambic Pentameter and they're not going to say Chaucer, they're going to say Shakespeare.
5. Huge Following: There isn't a person on the planet who doesn't know who Shakespeare is.
6. Controversial: To say his works are controversial is an understatement. The amount of times he's been banned is enough to put him in this category. The reasons for his censorship are diverse but range from vulgarity, to sex, to politics, to excessive use of freedom. (seriously, what does that even mean?)
7. Underlying themes: Underlying themes run rampant throughout his works and offer a wide variety of human conditions. Anything from betrayal and love to honour and glory can be seen in his works.
8. Substantial Influence: Shakespeare has had influence in every aspect of society from helping to shape the English language (It's all greek to me and tongue-tied - said to have added over 1700 words to the English language) to politics. (Dangers of introducing foreign politics into a city)
Works I've read:
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
Macbeth
Much Ado About Nothing
A Midsummer Night's Dream
King Lear
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
The Comedy of Errors
Shakespeare as classical writing written when I first started reading Shakespeare:
I understand now why I have such a hard time reading Shakespeare. It's not that it's hard to understand. There are enough translations and self help guides to get you through the plot of any of the plays. And once I started reading and translating, I started to get the hang of it, and had fewer words and phrases that I had to look up. No, it's not that. Simply put, it's a play, and not meant to be read. I know there are some who might disagree with me, however, that's my opinion. I revel in the complacency of description and plays don't have it. It is just dialogue. There is nothing to tell you infinitely how a character is feeling or what they're thinking. There's nothing to tell you how the set looks (besides a sometimes small minimalist description). There is nothing to tell how a character looks, are they beautiful? Are they old? Yes, I understand you can infer many of these things from the dialogue which is what you're supposed to do, but to me, there is great room for interpretation, unlike a book, which will describe it for you.
Also, after doing a little reading on Shakespeare and the republishing of his works, it seems there are many different conflicting sources of original text, which is why you often find various works with different scripts. I truly believe that Shakespeare meant these to be seen on stage, not read from a page. It's where his genius is best seen and appreciated. That being said, I plan to read each play, then watch a movie rendition of each one.
I would also like to list the reasons here that Shakespeare's works are classics instead of going into the same points repeatedly as I review each work. They are classics, I can't dispute it, whether or not I enjoy each individual play or not. And I do believe this is the first time that an author has gotten 8 out of 10 of my Definitions for a Classic.
1. Longevity: He's been around through the ages and I have no doubt we'll be acting out his plays on the moon.
2. The magic factor: His stories will pull you in every time. They focus on the aspects of human nature that we all can relate to, so you care about the outcome of the characters.
3. Unique: He has an unusual literary style that has made him popular throughout history.
4. New Style of Writing: Now I'm stretching it with this one, I know, because anyone who has studied literature knows Shakespeare wasn't the first to use Iambic Pentameter, however I believe he was the first to make it popular. You ask anyone to tell you the first author that comes to mind when you say Iambic Pentameter and they're not going to say Chaucer, they're going to say Shakespeare.
5. Huge Following: There isn't a person on the planet who doesn't know who Shakespeare is.
6. Controversial: To say his works are controversial is an understatement. The amount of times he's been banned is enough to put him in this category. The reasons for his censorship are diverse but range from vulgarity, to sex, to politics, to excessive use of freedom. (seriously, what does that even mean?)
7. Underlying themes: Underlying themes run rampant throughout his works and offer a wide variety of human conditions. Anything from betrayal and love to honour and glory can be seen in his works.
8. Substantial Influence: Shakespeare has had influence in every aspect of society from helping to shape the English language (It's all greek to me and tongue-tied - said to have added over 1700 words to the English language) to politics. (Dangers of introducing foreign politics into a city)
Works I've read:
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Hamlet
Macbeth
Much Ado About Nothing
A Midsummer Night's Dream
King Lear
The Merchant of Venice
As You Like It
The Taming of the Shrew
The Comedy of Errors
December 20, 2015
It all ended so fast. I feel like it's just January, but look at the calendar - it's December! You surely remember earlier in the year when I said I had put a challenge for myself. This was the Shakespeare Challenge, in which I had to read all the works known by William Shakespeare. Guess what? I finally read them all!
It started in January. I was bored and I didn't know what to read. One day I went to the library and checked out a book that contained 4 of Shakespeare's best plays. I read it and soon after I told myself I needed to read more of his works. Thus, I got another book: The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. 11 months after, I finally managed to read them all.
The task of reading Shakespeare's works was not as difficult or tedious as it seems to be. It took me long because I was most of the time busy and didn't have time to read, so I read them in-between classes and studying. To my surprise, I loved some of the plays, others disturbed me, and others made me laugh out loud.
The first plays I read were the most popular ones, and were the ones I enjoyes the most. The tragedies worked better for me than the comedies, with the exception of Romeo and Juliet, which I did not despise but didn't love either. My favourite ones are probably Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and A Midsummer's Night Dream.
About the historical plays, I can say they were harder to read because the tone was more serious and they were not meant to entertain, but they were worth reading all the same. I think the best ones here were the ones about Richard II and III.
As for the poems, they were good too. They were beautiful, and this is said by someone who is not used to read poetry.
I tell you, this challenge is one of the best I've put to myself. For next year, I'm not sure if I'll put more aside the Goodreads one because of my studies, but I certainly will read more classics (for example something by Jane Austen).
January 6, 2024
Please note, this is a review of this particular edition of the "Complete Works of William Shakespeare" from 1923. For reviews of various individual plays by Shakespeare, please see my shelves. **
This edition was published by "The Literary Press, London" on fine paper, to traditional standards, with each section sewn into the spine rather than glued. The top edge of the volume is gilt-edged. It has a soft cover with a burgundy leatherette finish, and gold lettering, plus a gold embossed design of the Shakespeare Coat of Arms.
Not many people know that William Shakespeare received a Coat of Arms from the English Government, to signify that he and his family were now a part of the upper class. Unfortunately, since he did not have a son to carry on the honour, the Coat of Arms was not carried on through the family name. Here is a copy of the Shakespeare Coat of Arms:
The motto is in medieval French: "Non sanz droict" translating to English as, "Not without right".
This volume is clearly intended to be a useful compact volume of Shakespeare's complete works. It is subtitled, Containing the Plays and Poems with special Introductory matter, Index of Characters & Glossary of unfamiliar terms. It can be held in one hand, and is comfortable to handle, considering it that it contains so many works. The frontispiece shows an engraving of "The Stratford Shakespeare":
The print, as one would expect, is quite small, but comparatively clear. The "special introductory matter" mentioned, consists of an introduction by St. John Greer Ervine, the Irish writer and critic, and an essay entitled "Shakepeare and Bacon" by the great Victorian English actor, Henry Irving.
There are also just a few double spread colour plates on glossy paper. These are all by classical painters such as the Pre-Raphaelites William Holman Hunt, and Sir John Everett Millais, and the animal artist Sir Edwin Landseer. There is also a painting by Daniel Maclise, a portrait painter and popular illustrator to Dickens's works, and one by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who specialised in classical subjects, particularly of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire. Since there are only eight of them, they are sadly not very noticeable in a volume of over 1000 pages, but they are attractive to come across in context:
A Scene from "Twelfth Night" ('Malvolio and the Countess') - Daniel Maclise
A Scene from "Midsummer Nights Dream" ('Titania and Bottom')- Sir Edwin Landseer
A Scene from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" ('Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus')- W. Holman Hunt
This must have been quite an attractive volume originally. It is still a nice one to have, as it presents all the works in a way which is quick to refer to. It is nicer than an average modern "Complete Shakespeare" volume, and easier to use too. It has some history, but is still not my first choice for ease of reading each individual play. However, it was my first introduction to Shakespeare, as I found it in a church jumble sale for a few pennies when I was a child. I remember the occasion well, being convinced I had found a very important work - a real bargain! It therefore has some sentimental value for me personally. I seem to remember there was a yellow-gold silken ribbon bookmark attached at the top ... but it must have got detached and lost over the years.
As today is 23rd April 2016, and the quatercentenary, (400 years) of Shakespeare's death, it seemed a good time to have a look at my oldest book by him, even though it is not yet quite a hundred years old.
**I have not read all the works in this volume. However, if you would like to read my review of a particular play by William Shakespeare, please see my shelves for these.
This edition was published by "The Literary Press, London" on fine paper, to traditional standards, with each section sewn into the spine rather than glued. The top edge of the volume is gilt-edged. It has a soft cover with a burgundy leatherette finish, and gold lettering, plus a gold embossed design of the Shakespeare Coat of Arms.
Not many people know that William Shakespeare received a Coat of Arms from the English Government, to signify that he and his family were now a part of the upper class. Unfortunately, since he did not have a son to carry on the honour, the Coat of Arms was not carried on through the family name. Here is a copy of the Shakespeare Coat of Arms:
The motto is in medieval French: "Non sanz droict" translating to English as, "Not without right".
This volume is clearly intended to be a useful compact volume of Shakespeare's complete works. It is subtitled, Containing the Plays and Poems with special Introductory matter, Index of Characters & Glossary of unfamiliar terms. It can be held in one hand, and is comfortable to handle, considering it that it contains so many works. The frontispiece shows an engraving of "The Stratford Shakespeare":
The print, as one would expect, is quite small, but comparatively clear. The "special introductory matter" mentioned, consists of an introduction by St. John Greer Ervine, the Irish writer and critic, and an essay entitled "Shakepeare and Bacon" by the great Victorian English actor, Henry Irving.
There are also just a few double spread colour plates on glossy paper. These are all by classical painters such as the Pre-Raphaelites William Holman Hunt, and Sir John Everett Millais, and the animal artist Sir Edwin Landseer. There is also a painting by Daniel Maclise, a portrait painter and popular illustrator to Dickens's works, and one by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who specialised in classical subjects, particularly of the luxury and decadence of the Roman Empire. Since there are only eight of them, they are sadly not very noticeable in a volume of over 1000 pages, but they are attractive to come across in context:
A Scene from "Twelfth Night" ('Malvolio and the Countess') - Daniel Maclise
A Scene from "Midsummer Nights Dream" ('Titania and Bottom')- Sir Edwin Landseer
A Scene from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" ('Valentine Rescuing Sylvia from Proteus')- W. Holman Hunt
This must have been quite an attractive volume originally. It is still a nice one to have, as it presents all the works in a way which is quick to refer to. It is nicer than an average modern "Complete Shakespeare" volume, and easier to use too. It has some history, but is still not my first choice for ease of reading each individual play. However, it was my first introduction to Shakespeare, as I found it in a church jumble sale for a few pennies when I was a child. I remember the occasion well, being convinced I had found a very important work - a real bargain! It therefore has some sentimental value for me personally. I seem to remember there was a yellow-gold silken ribbon bookmark attached at the top ... but it must have got detached and lost over the years.
As today is 23rd April 2016, and the quatercentenary, (400 years) of Shakespeare's death, it seemed a good time to have a look at my oldest book by him, even though it is not yet quite a hundred years old.
**I have not read all the works in this volume. However, if you would like to read my review of a particular play by William Shakespeare, please see my shelves for these.
May 29, 2022
Finished!!
This took me 4 years. I feel like I should get a plaque or be allowed to put this on my resume or something.
--Favorite plays:
Henry V, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
--Favorite lines:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —Hamlet
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. —Macbeth
Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings. —Richard II
Sit by my side and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger. —The Taming of the Shrew
Everyone can master a grief but he that has it. —Much Ado About Nothing
--Favorite sonnet:
#116
This took me 4 years. I feel like I should get a plaque or be allowed to put this on my resume or something.
--Favorite plays:
Henry V, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream
--Favorite lines:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. —Hamlet
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day, to the last syllable of recorded time. —Macbeth
Let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings. —Richard II
Sit by my side and let the world slip: we shall ne’er be younger. —The Taming of the Shrew
Everyone can master a grief but he that has it. —Much Ado About Nothing
--Favorite sonnet:
#116
February 1, 2017
19/10 - I've just started a course on Shakespeare through FutureLearn and the first play that we are studying is The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is one I know absolutely nothing about. So far, I've read about three pages, or to the end of scene one and what I understand is that while I can barely understand the language, I can get the general gist of what's going on (or at least I think I can). There are many instances where God is Got, better is petter, brings is prings, very is fery, good is goot, and w is left off the beginning of a couple of words, all of which makes for confusing and slow reading. I think I understand what was being discussed in scene one - Shallow has accused Falstaff of assault, breaking and entering and poaching of his deer - but it was a little difficult to pull that information out of all those difficult and misspelt words. Professor Bate's (who is the scholar running the course) comment that Elizabethan's weren't concerned with spelling is certainly proven correct by the writing in The Merry Wives of Windsor. To be continued...
At the end of act I, scene III - I don't understand why Falstaff is trying to woo a pair of married women. Is he just being spiteful? Or is he delusional enough to really believe that they 'gave him good eyes'? To be continued...
26/10 - Well I finished it, mostly thanks to www.sparknotes.com. I really had trouble with the language throughout the play and had to refer to SparkNotes at least once a page. I could see where the dialogue might be funny, but I think it might work better as an acted out play rather than a read one. I feel like I would have enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor a lot more if I had been able to imagine what was happening in the scene better.
Our next play to study is A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is one of the plays I studied at school, I think I was in year 10 literature, so about 16. I remember enjoying it and the movie with Calista Flockhart and Kevin Kline, also the Balanchine ballet. I think I might have to make a concerted effort to get my hands on one or both of these, watching the action really does help my comprehension of the dialogue. To be continued...
31/10 - A Midsummer Night's Dream was an easier and much more humourous read. Having read it before and seen the 1999 movie surely made a difference and "Yay!" I've managed to download/rent that same movie through my pay tv service. A movie of this week's play, Henry V, is proving more difficult to acquire. No luck with my pay tv service, iTunes, Hoyts Kiosk, or my library system.
I've heard the quote
"Once more unto the breach, my dear friends..."
many times but had no idea it was Shakespeare's words that I was hearing, or a paraphrased version of it, from sources as diverse as Star Trek to every day use around the office. To be continued...
PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge: A Play
At the end of act I, scene III - I don't understand why Falstaff is trying to woo a pair of married women. Is he just being spiteful? Or is he delusional enough to really believe that they 'gave him good eyes'? To be continued...
26/10 - Well I finished it, mostly thanks to www.sparknotes.com. I really had trouble with the language throughout the play and had to refer to SparkNotes at least once a page. I could see where the dialogue might be funny, but I think it might work better as an acted out play rather than a read one. I feel like I would have enjoyed The Merry Wives of Windsor a lot more if I had been able to imagine what was happening in the scene better.
Our next play to study is A Midsummer Night's Dream. This is one of the plays I studied at school, I think I was in year 10 literature, so about 16. I remember enjoying it and the movie with Calista Flockhart and Kevin Kline, also the Balanchine ballet. I think I might have to make a concerted effort to get my hands on one or both of these, watching the action really does help my comprehension of the dialogue. To be continued...
31/10 - A Midsummer Night's Dream was an easier and much more humourous read. Having read it before and seen the 1999 movie surely made a difference and "Yay!" I've managed to download/rent that same movie through my pay tv service. A movie of this week's play, Henry V, is proving more difficult to acquire. No luck with my pay tv service, iTunes, Hoyts Kiosk, or my library system.
I've heard the quote
"Once more unto the breach, my dear friends..."
many times but had no idea it was Shakespeare's words that I was hearing, or a paraphrased version of it, from sources as diverse as Star Trek to every day use around the office. To be continued...
PopSugar 2015 Reading Challenge: A Play
February 3, 2017
For Harold Bloom*:
Can 35 Thousand Literary Critics and 3 Million Groundlings Be Wrong? Yes.
Taking arms against Shakespeare, at this moment, is to emulate Harry Potter standing up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Simply opposing Lord V-- won't end him. The Shakespeare epiphenomenon will go on, doubtless for some time, as J. R. R. Tolkien did, and then wane. Or so one can hope.
The official newspaper of our dominant counter-culture, The New York Times, has been startled by Shakespeare's plays into establishing a new policy for its not very literate book review. Rather than crowd out the Grishams, Clancys, Crichtons, Kings, Rowlings and other vastly popular prose fictions on its fiction bestseller list, the Shakespeare plays will now lead a separate theatre list. William Shakespeare, the chronicler of such characters as "Hamlet" and "King Lear," thus has an unusual distinction: he has changed the policy of the policy-maker.
Imaginative Vision
I read new dramatic literature, when I can find some of any value, but had not tried Shakespeare until now. I have just concluded "The Comedy of Errors," purportedly the funniest of the lot. Though the play is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "The Comedy of Errors" does not, so that one needs to look elsewhere for the play's remarkable success. Such speculation should follow an account of how and why "The Comedy of Errors" asks to be read.
The ultimate model for "The Comedy of Errors" is "Menaechmi" by Plautus, performed in Ancient Rome. The play depicts the mistaken identity of a set of twins named Menaechmus. But Plautus' play, still quite performable, was a Roman musical, not an Elizabethan comedy. Shakespeare has taken "Menaechmi" and re-seen it in the silly mirror of slapstick. The resultant blend of mistaken identities with cheesy Elizabethan idiocy may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of theatregoers and their parents desire and welcome at this time.
In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of "The Comedy of Errors." But I will keep in mind that a host are watching it who simply will not watch superior fare, such as Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" or the "Tamburlaine" plays of Christopher Marlowe. Is it better that they watch Shakespeare than not watch at all? Will they advance from Shakespeare to more difficult pleasures? One doubts both possibilities.
-----------------------------------------------------
Rest is available at [http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/courses/205...]
-----------------------------------------------------
*This review is a spoof of Bloom's attack on JK Rowling, which can be found here.
I should also mention that I love Shakespeare. I don't think he'll mind me bringing down his 4.75 average rating too much.
Can 35 Thousand Literary Critics and 3 Million Groundlings Be Wrong? Yes.
Taking arms against Shakespeare, at this moment, is to emulate Harry Potter standing up to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Simply opposing Lord V-- won't end him. The Shakespeare epiphenomenon will go on, doubtless for some time, as J. R. R. Tolkien did, and then wane. Or so one can hope.
The official newspaper of our dominant counter-culture, The New York Times, has been startled by Shakespeare's plays into establishing a new policy for its not very literate book review. Rather than crowd out the Grishams, Clancys, Crichtons, Kings, Rowlings and other vastly popular prose fictions on its fiction bestseller list, the Shakespeare plays will now lead a separate theatre list. William Shakespeare, the chronicler of such characters as "Hamlet" and "King Lear," thus has an unusual distinction: he has changed the policy of the policy-maker.
Imaginative Vision
I read new dramatic literature, when I can find some of any value, but had not tried Shakespeare until now. I have just concluded "The Comedy of Errors," purportedly the funniest of the lot. Though the play is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "The Comedy of Errors" does not, so that one needs to look elsewhere for the play's remarkable success. Such speculation should follow an account of how and why "The Comedy of Errors" asks to be read.
The ultimate model for "The Comedy of Errors" is "Menaechmi" by Plautus, performed in Ancient Rome. The play depicts the mistaken identity of a set of twins named Menaechmus. But Plautus' play, still quite performable, was a Roman musical, not an Elizabethan comedy. Shakespeare has taken "Menaechmi" and re-seen it in the silly mirror of slapstick. The resultant blend of mistaken identities with cheesy Elizabethan idiocy may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of theatregoers and their parents desire and welcome at this time.
In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of "The Comedy of Errors." But I will keep in mind that a host are watching it who simply will not watch superior fare, such as Ben Jonson's "The Alchemist" or the "Tamburlaine" plays of Christopher Marlowe. Is it better that they watch Shakespeare than not watch at all? Will they advance from Shakespeare to more difficult pleasures? One doubts both possibilities.
-----------------------------------------------------
Rest is available at [http://wrt-brooke.syr.edu/courses/205...]
-----------------------------------------------------
*This review is a spoof of Bloom's attack on JK Rowling, which can be found here.
I should also mention that I love Shakespeare. I don't think he'll mind me bringing down his 4.75 average rating too much.
October 6, 2020
The Oxford Complete served as my guide through Shakespeare's plays. Its introduction is highly recommended and very insightful. The book itself is rather bulky, so I often restored to Kindle or to paperbacks for some of the plays. The book collects all known Shakespeare plays and attributions including two copies of King Lear, Edward III, Henry VIII, and Two Noble Kinsman all in chronological order with a one-page introduction to each play. I did not really use the Glossary due to the book's bulk and the inconvenience of their having placed it at the end, and there are no notes in the text. This is a blessing (fewer distractions from the text) and a curse (fewer insights into the texts) so your mileage may vary.
As for other versions of Shakespeare, I found that the Folger Shakespeare was more practical (numbered notes on even pages, Shakespeare's original on the odd pages) than the Signet Classics which I had read in high school (non-numbered notes at the bottom of the page). It was fun, however, to see my notes from thirty years ago as I was reading!
I would still recommend the Oxford for its completeness and the quality of the printing for the Shakespeare fan with a hefty bookshelf to store it. Regardless, the Bard is a pleasure in nearly any format.
As for other versions of Shakespeare, I found that the Folger Shakespeare was more practical (numbered notes on even pages, Shakespeare's original on the odd pages) than the Signet Classics which I had read in high school (non-numbered notes at the bottom of the page). It was fun, however, to see my notes from thirty years ago as I was reading!
I would still recommend the Oxford for its completeness and the quality of the printing for the Shakespeare fan with a hefty bookshelf to store it. Regardless, the Bard is a pleasure in nearly any format.
December 17, 2022
Procession of Characters from Shakespeare's Plays
"The sole substitute for an experience which we have not ourselves lived through is art and literature." ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn
The quote above is precisely the reason I enjoy art and literature. I always love when a story takes me on a time traveling trip back to the past like the ones in this book.
After reading it for some months, I'm now more than halfway done with the plays in it. It's been so far so good. I enjoy walking down the memory lane reading them again.
My review here will be about my experience reading Shakespeare's works all these years as well as what I think about this book as a whole by comparing it with the previous edition. Yes, this will be an ongoing review which I'll edit along the way till I'm done reading everything.
So far, my rating hasn't changed yet but we shall see.
Picture credit: Wikipedia.
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Currently reading
January 12, 2021*i didn't actually read this collection: this book is being used as "all shakespeare ever written."*
after finishing a blissful little re read of The Tempest, i hopped over to goodreads to review it... and literally experienced an existential crisis.
why, you may ask? i realized -horror of horrors- i haven't shelved a single shakespeare play on here. and im walking around saying he's my favorite author!!!
so i compiled, firstly, a list of the shakespeare i've read, so i could shelve and review it. let's see.
1. The Tempest
2. Julius Caesar
3. Macbeth
4. The Taming of the Shrew
5. Romeo and Juliet
hm. it feels like i've read more than that. i guess because i've seen them performed or read abridged versions of them. ah.
and that's when i had a ✨brilliant idea!✨ i could make this year *drumroll* The Year Of The Great Shakespeare Tbr!
truly a great plan,considering i already have a huge tbr, am currently in a reading slump, and have school things to read, not to mention im in multiple plays and have a million other miscellaneous things to do right now. and god knows what this year is even going to look like anyways. but i decided to go for it.
here is my grand plan.
☽ read the original versions of ☾
-As You Like It
-Much Ado About Nothing
-A Midsummer Nights Dream
-The Two Noble Kinsman
-A Winter's Tale
-Hamlet
-Othello
-Antony and Cleopatra
-Henry VIII
-The Merry Wives of Windsor
☽ memorize a monologue from ☾
- A Midsummer Nights Dream or Much Ado About Nothing
- The Two Noble Kinsman (there's this great lesbian romance monologue from a bi character i loveeee and need to learn)
-Hamlet or Macbeth depending on what i find and like. then, what with my marc antony speech, i will have a comedic, romantic, historic, and tragic monologue!
*theater nerd moment* heh
anyways. on with the plan:
☽ read retellings of/acquire more knowledge of ☾
-Pericles, Prince Of Tyre
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona
-All's Well That Ends Well
-Titus Andronicus
-The Merchant Of Venice
-All the Henrys (or Henries? Idk)
-King Lear
☽ ignore ☾
-King John
-Corialanus
-Anything I Forgot
and there you are. the grand will-use-up-valuble-time-until-i-forget-about-it-and-it-is-never-seen-again plan!! woohoo!
also, i have a feeling a lot of my "read the original versions of" books will transfer to the last list over time. just to prepare you for that.
tl;dr: im going to try (and fail) to read, memorize, and learn about more shakespeare. despite my busy schedule and already-huge tbr. THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA. KIDS, DONT TRY THIS AT HOME.
after finishing a blissful little re read of The Tempest, i hopped over to goodreads to review it... and literally experienced an existential crisis.
why, you may ask? i realized -horror of horrors- i haven't shelved a single shakespeare play on here. and im walking around saying he's my favorite author!!!
so i compiled, firstly, a list of the shakespeare i've read, so i could shelve and review it. let's see.
1. The Tempest
2. Julius Caesar
3. Macbeth
4. The Taming of the Shrew
5. Romeo and Juliet
hm. it feels like i've read more than that. i guess because i've seen them performed or read abridged versions of them. ah.
and that's when i had a ✨brilliant idea!✨ i could make this year *drumroll* The Year Of The Great Shakespeare Tbr!
truly a great plan,
here is my grand plan.
☽ read the original versions of ☾
-As You Like It
-Much Ado About Nothing
-A Midsummer Nights Dream
-The Two Noble Kinsman
-A Winter's Tale
-Hamlet
-Othello
-Antony and Cleopatra
-Henry VIII
-The Merry Wives of Windsor
☽ memorize a monologue from ☾
- A Midsummer Nights Dream or Much Ado About Nothing
- The Two Noble Kinsman (there's this great lesbian romance monologue from a bi character i loveeee and need to learn)
-Hamlet or Macbeth depending on what i find and like. then, what with my marc antony speech, i will have a comedic, romantic, historic, and tragic monologue!
*theater nerd moment* heh
anyways. on with the plan:
☽ read retellings of/acquire more knowledge of ☾
-Pericles, Prince Of Tyre
-The Two Gentlemen of Verona
-All's Well That Ends Well
-Titus Andronicus
-The Merchant Of Venice
-All the Henrys (or Henries? Idk)
-King Lear
☽ ignore ☾
-King John
-Corialanus
-Anything I Forgot
and there you are. the grand will-use-up-valuble-time-until-i-forget-about-it-and-it-is-never-seen-again plan!! woohoo!
also, i have a feeling a lot of my "read the original versions of" books will transfer to the last list over time. just to prepare you for that.
tl;dr: im going to try (and fail) to read, memorize, and learn about more shakespeare. despite my busy schedule and already-huge tbr. THIS IS A VERY BAD IDEA. KIDS, DONT TRY THIS AT HOME.
October 27, 2023
I challenged myself at the beginning of this year to read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
I have reviewed each play individually and have shelved them here on GR so won’t comment here about any specific play.
I wasn’t sure when I started this that I would be able to persevere and finish. This was indeed a challenge - it took quite a bit of time and dedication to get through all this material in one year. I’m thankful I made the effort.
As a lifelong reader, to me, this is kind of the Mount Everest of reading. It can be difficult to follow the dialogue and plot in many parts. Fortunately, there are numerous resources out there about William Shakespeare’s works. From Cliffsnotes, Sparknotes, Folgers Shakespeare, and Wikipedia to The Shakespeare Network on YouTube, I admittedly leaned very heavily on about every summary and synopsis that I could. I have to give a special shout out to The Shakespeare Network on YouTube. Excellent audio productions of everything Shakespeare - it was invaluable.
Collectively, Shakespeare’s works are epic. Comedies, dramas, historical plays, beautifully crafted poems and sonnets. It’s been a very worthwhile reading challenge.
I read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in this order(credit Benjamin McEvoy for the list - which does well in starting big and allows the reader to get used to Shakespeare which helps on some of the more obscure plays).
☑️ 1. Hamlet - 1/1/23 — 5 Stars
☑️ 2. King Lear - 1/7/23 — 3 Stars
☑️ 3. Much Ado About Nothing 1/14/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 4. Romeo and Juliet - 1/20/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 5. Othello - 1/30/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 6. The Tempest - 2/22/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 7. Macbeth - 2/25/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 8. Richard II - 2/26/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 9. A Midsummer Night's Dream -3/1/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 9.5 - Poem Break - Venus and Adonis - 3/12/13 - 4 stars
☑️ 10. Julius Caesar - 3/16/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 11. King Henry IV, Part 1 - 4/6/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 12. King Henry IV, Part 2 - 4/27/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 13. As You Like It - 5/6/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 14. The Merchant of Venice - 5/10/23 - 4.5 stars
☑️ 15. King Henry V - 5/12/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 16. Twelth Night - 5/20/23 - 2 stars
☑️ 17. King Henry VI, Part 1 - 5/21/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 18. All's Well That Ends Well - 5/28/23 - 2.5 stars
☑️ 18.5 Poem Break - The Rape of Lucrece - 5/28/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 19. King Henry VI, Part 2 - 6/7/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 20. The Winter's Tale - 6/12/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 21. Love's Labour's Lost - 7/3/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 22. King Henry VI, Part 3 - 8/25/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 23. Measure for Measure - 8/27/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 24. King Richard the Third - 9/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 25. The Taming of the Shrew - 9/10/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 26. Coriolanus - 9/13/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 27. Titus Andronicus - 9/20/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 28. Timon of Athens - 9/23/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 29. King John - 9/30/23 - 2.5 stars
☑️ 29.5 Poem Break - A Lover's Complaint - 10/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 30. Troilus and Cressida - 10/3/23 - 1 star
☑️ 31. The Comedy of Errors - 10/5/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 32. Cymbeline - 10/8/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 33. The Merry Wives of Windsor - 10/21/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 34. King Henry VIII - 10/22/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 35. The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 10/25/23 - 2 stars
☑️ 36. Pericles - 10/26/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 37. Antony and Cleopatra - 10/27/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 37.5 - Poem Break - The Passionate Pilgrim and The Phoenix and the Turtle - 10/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 38. Shakespeare's Sonnets - 9/6/23 - 2.5 stars
Perhaps I’ll try this challenge again someday. I’ll at least revisit many of these plays. This was great.
I have reviewed each play individually and have shelved them here on GR so won’t comment here about any specific play.
I wasn’t sure when I started this that I would be able to persevere and finish. This was indeed a challenge - it took quite a bit of time and dedication to get through all this material in one year. I’m thankful I made the effort.
As a lifelong reader, to me, this is kind of the Mount Everest of reading. It can be difficult to follow the dialogue and plot in many parts. Fortunately, there are numerous resources out there about William Shakespeare’s works. From Cliffsnotes, Sparknotes, Folgers Shakespeare, and Wikipedia to The Shakespeare Network on YouTube, I admittedly leaned very heavily on about every summary and synopsis that I could. I have to give a special shout out to The Shakespeare Network on YouTube. Excellent audio productions of everything Shakespeare - it was invaluable.
Collectively, Shakespeare’s works are epic. Comedies, dramas, historical plays, beautifully crafted poems and sonnets. It’s been a very worthwhile reading challenge.
I read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare in this order(credit Benjamin McEvoy for the list - which does well in starting big and allows the reader to get used to Shakespeare which helps on some of the more obscure plays).
☑️ 1. Hamlet - 1/1/23 — 5 Stars
☑️ 2. King Lear - 1/7/23 — 3 Stars
☑️ 3. Much Ado About Nothing 1/14/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 4. Romeo and Juliet - 1/20/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 5. Othello - 1/30/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 6. The Tempest - 2/22/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 7. Macbeth - 2/25/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 8. Richard II - 2/26/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 9. A Midsummer Night's Dream -3/1/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 9.5 - Poem Break - Venus and Adonis - 3/12/13 - 4 stars
☑️ 10. Julius Caesar - 3/16/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 11. King Henry IV, Part 1 - 4/6/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 12. King Henry IV, Part 2 - 4/27/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 13. As You Like It - 5/6/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 14. The Merchant of Venice - 5/10/23 - 4.5 stars
☑️ 15. King Henry V - 5/12/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 16. Twelth Night - 5/20/23 - 2 stars
☑️ 17. King Henry VI, Part 1 - 5/21/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 18. All's Well That Ends Well - 5/28/23 - 2.5 stars
☑️ 18.5 Poem Break - The Rape of Lucrece - 5/28/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 19. King Henry VI, Part 2 - 6/7/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 20. The Winter's Tale - 6/12/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 21. Love's Labour's Lost - 7/3/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 22. King Henry VI, Part 3 - 8/25/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 23. Measure for Measure - 8/27/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 24. King Richard the Third - 9/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 25. The Taming of the Shrew - 9/10/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 26. Coriolanus - 9/13/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 27. Titus Andronicus - 9/20/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 28. Timon of Athens - 9/23/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 29. King John - 9/30/23 - 2.5 stars
☑️ 29.5 Poem Break - A Lover's Complaint - 10/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 30. Troilus and Cressida - 10/3/23 - 1 star
☑️ 31. The Comedy of Errors - 10/5/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 32. Cymbeline - 10/8/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 33. The Merry Wives of Windsor - 10/21/23 - 3.5 stars
☑️ 34. King Henry VIII - 10/22/23 - 3 stars
☑️ 35. The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 10/25/23 - 2 stars
☑️ 36. Pericles - 10/26/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 37. Antony and Cleopatra - 10/27/23 - 4 stars
☑️ 37.5 - Poem Break - The Passionate Pilgrim and The Phoenix and the Turtle - 10/1/23 - 5 stars
☑️ 38. Shakespeare's Sonnets - 9/6/23 - 2.5 stars
Perhaps I’ll try this challenge again someday. I’ll at least revisit many of these plays. This was great.
February 10, 2017
What an exquisite edition of one of the greatest works in the Western canon. Armed with an authoritative editorial team, Professor Jonathan Bate has reworked all of Shakespeare's plays, as well as his poems. The footnotes are extensive and cover all meanings of words (including the more salacious ones that many school texts leave out), while also providing informative historical and contextual information.
This edition seeks to give us every word attributed to Shakespeare (although, as it points out at length, we can't really know what he wrote: all of our current versions come from a variety of sources typeset in his later years, and primarily from the First Folio printed after his death. Any work of the Bard's is distorted in some way). With appendices and footnotes, notable textual errors or areas of debate are highlighted.
There is so much to love here. Epic tragedies - Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear - joined by their lesser, but poetically affecting counterparts like Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare plays with and shuffles around comic tropes in his wide variety of comedies: peaks include The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing.
In his more subdued romances, Shakespeare often seems reduced to more typical characters yet imbues than with layer upon layer of subtlety: Measure for Measure and The Winter's Tale are particularly splendid examples. Some of the tragedies and comedies aren't as startling, and some are challenging - such as his part-satire Troilus and Cressida - but every work brims with characters whose opinions, beliefs and motives are individual, and not simply echoing those of an author. Beyond these plays lies a staggering cycle of love poems in The Sonnets, as well as his other various poetry which always makes fascinating, lyrical reading.
Capping all this is Shakespeare's incredible cycle of English history, which details the country's fate from 1199 to 1533, through the stories of the English monarchs: their battles, their loves, their lives and the effect their squabbles have over countless citizens. The cycle begins with the somewhat talky King John (far from my favourite work, but well presented in the BBC Complete Works cycle) and ends with the autumnal King Henry VIII. In between are eight plays (two tetraologies) which encompass the Wars of the Roses, and they are astonishing. From the private thoughts of the monarch to the most unimportant peasant, Shakespeare captures an age.
The introductions on each play detail cultural successes over the centuries, as well as basic historical information. I've seen people suggest other aspects that could improve this - such as a suggestion of ways to double parts (this is defined as the "actor's edition"). Certainly, I can accept that, but as it stands this is already beyond a 5-star piece of work. A place of honour on my shelf, that's for sure.
This edition seeks to give us every word attributed to Shakespeare (although, as it points out at length, we can't really know what he wrote: all of our current versions come from a variety of sources typeset in his later years, and primarily from the First Folio printed after his death. Any work of the Bard's is distorted in some way). With appendices and footnotes, notable textual errors or areas of debate are highlighted.
There is so much to love here. Epic tragedies - Antony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, King Lear - joined by their lesser, but poetically affecting counterparts like Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus. Shakespeare plays with and shuffles around comic tropes in his wide variety of comedies: peaks include The Comedy of Errors, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing.
In his more subdued romances, Shakespeare often seems reduced to more typical characters yet imbues than with layer upon layer of subtlety: Measure for Measure and The Winter's Tale are particularly splendid examples. Some of the tragedies and comedies aren't as startling, and some are challenging - such as his part-satire Troilus and Cressida - but every work brims with characters whose opinions, beliefs and motives are individual, and not simply echoing those of an author. Beyond these plays lies a staggering cycle of love poems in The Sonnets, as well as his other various poetry which always makes fascinating, lyrical reading.
Capping all this is Shakespeare's incredible cycle of English history, which details the country's fate from 1199 to 1533, through the stories of the English monarchs: their battles, their loves, their lives and the effect their squabbles have over countless citizens. The cycle begins with the somewhat talky King John (far from my favourite work, but well presented in the BBC Complete Works cycle) and ends with the autumnal King Henry VIII. In between are eight plays (two tetraologies) which encompass the Wars of the Roses, and they are astonishing. From the private thoughts of the monarch to the most unimportant peasant, Shakespeare captures an age.
The introductions on each play detail cultural successes over the centuries, as well as basic historical information. I've seen people suggest other aspects that could improve this - such as a suggestion of ways to double parts (this is defined as the "actor's edition"). Certainly, I can accept that, but as it stands this is already beyond a 5-star piece of work. A place of honour on my shelf, that's for sure.
Currently reading
December 26, 2019Read so far:
*The Tempest
*The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 3 Stars (It's been a while seen I've read Shakespeare. Was this one easier, or had I gotten better at old-timey English?)
*The Tempest
*The Two Gentlemen of Verona - 3 Stars (It's been a while seen I've read Shakespeare. Was this one easier, or had I gotten better at old-timey English?)
Read
March 5, 2022This year's goal is to attempt to read all of Shakespeare's work
COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well 27/1/22
As You Like It 22/2/22
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline 1/3/22
Love's Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night's Dream 18/1/22
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night 5/1/22
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
HISTORIES
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
TRAGEDIES
Antony and Cleopatra 22/2/22
Coriolanus 23/2/22-28/2/22
Hamlet 4/3/22- 5/3/22
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
THE COMPLETE POEMS
154 Sonnets
A Lover's Complaint 26/1/22
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
A Funeral Elegy 28/1/22
COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well 27/1/22
As You Like It 22/2/22
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline 1/3/22
Love's Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice
A Midsummer Night's Dream 18/1/22
Much Ado About Nothing
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night 5/1/22
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
HISTORIES
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
TRAGEDIES
Antony and Cleopatra 22/2/22
Coriolanus 23/2/22-28/2/22
Hamlet 4/3/22- 5/3/22
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
THE COMPLETE POEMS
154 Sonnets
A Lover's Complaint 26/1/22
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
A Funeral Elegy 28/1/22
September 21, 2015
If the question is "do you recommend Shakespeare?" the answer would be of course, in what universe would he not be recommended?
So I guess the one that would get any conversation whatsoever would be "would you recommend I read the complete works"? Well it certainly is a ride, a journey, there's quite a bit of stuff in here. One thing I'll say is I'm still not entirely convinced of literature's claim on Shakespeare because when I read these plays there's a yearning for performance, for interpretation, for blocking, for I suppose theatrics. Even so much as reading it aloud immediately transforms it, the wordplay comes to the forefront, sentences that seem to run on too long flow like they were meant for it, everything comes alive. Shakespeare's a theater man through and through. The bit that gets lost in reverse metamorphosis from stage to page is most apparent in the comedies. If I were to dissuade someone from reading this, a few of the comedies would be why. Not only do half of them recycle the same tropes and setups, but the wordplay, the slapstick, the puns, they're placid and lifeless on the page where on stage they would flourish. Though at worst I never thought "this is bad", just that "this isn't grabbing me".
But if I were to recommend this to someone it would be for the surprises, the things you don't think would grab you, the things you might never have read on your own if it weren't part of this whole. For me this was Measure for Measure, and Coriolanus, and the histories which read like one cohesive arc when all read at once, and the sonnets, oh lord the sonnets. The sonnets are a treat after reading the 37 plays, they are the most personal connection to Shakespeare, the most candid thoughts of his that exist in print. He muses on love and death and art and insecurity and even makes dorky puns based off of his name Will, the sonnets humanize him. They flow almost as if meant to be read in the order they're presented and they act as the perfect coda to his other works.
Overall if you feel like making the plunge, I can at least assure I'm glad I did.
So I guess the one that would get any conversation whatsoever would be "would you recommend I read the complete works"? Well it certainly is a ride, a journey, there's quite a bit of stuff in here. One thing I'll say is I'm still not entirely convinced of literature's claim on Shakespeare because when I read these plays there's a yearning for performance, for interpretation, for blocking, for I suppose theatrics. Even so much as reading it aloud immediately transforms it, the wordplay comes to the forefront, sentences that seem to run on too long flow like they were meant for it, everything comes alive. Shakespeare's a theater man through and through. The bit that gets lost in reverse metamorphosis from stage to page is most apparent in the comedies. If I were to dissuade someone from reading this, a few of the comedies would be why. Not only do half of them recycle the same tropes and setups, but the wordplay, the slapstick, the puns, they're placid and lifeless on the page where on stage they would flourish. Though at worst I never thought "this is bad", just that "this isn't grabbing me".
But if I were to recommend this to someone it would be for the surprises, the things you don't think would grab you, the things you might never have read on your own if it weren't part of this whole. For me this was Measure for Measure, and Coriolanus, and the histories which read like one cohesive arc when all read at once, and the sonnets, oh lord the sonnets. The sonnets are a treat after reading the 37 plays, they are the most personal connection to Shakespeare, the most candid thoughts of his that exist in print. He muses on love and death and art and insecurity and even makes dorky puns based off of his name Will, the sonnets humanize him. They flow almost as if meant to be read in the order they're presented and they act as the perfect coda to his other works.
Overall if you feel like making the plunge, I can at least assure I'm glad I did.
February 9, 2017
My first reading of the plays, sonnets, and Venus and Adonis (maybe not Lucrece) was in the Kittredge edition; my professor, in the yearlong course in all the plays, was a student of Kittredge's.
When I came to teach the plays, I used Harrison until this one-volume edition appeared, and definitely improved students' access by modernizing some spelling and punctuation. Since there's evidence Shakespeare punctuated rarely, using the line ends as punctuation (the "D Hand" of the Book of Sir Thomas More) all punctuation proceeds from editors, be they Hemings and Condell, or possibly Florio, etc.
This edition includes clear renderings of the D Hand of Sir T.M, and photographs of Shakespeare's handwriting in that MS, in the most controversial passage. Shakespeare seems to have been given More's speech to the uprising, as the Bard was expert at not offending authorities ready to jail playwrights for public incitements. I used to tell my classes that one of Shakespeare's main accomplishments as a playwright was NOT to be jailed. Contrast Jonson (in his case, not for his writing, but killing a man in a duel), Marston and Chapman.
The D Hand also features many Shakespearean phrases, like :"ravenous fishes," and especially "this your mountainish inhumanity." Note that More addresses artisans uprising to defend poor London craftsmen against foreigners, "strangers" now working in England. (Shades of Brexit?)
In the sixties I first read about the D Hand in Samuel Tannenbaum's 1929 study, at the U Minnesota Library before it had moved across the Mississippi to the great brick pile it now occupies.
Perhaps it's a failure to fill my review of this major edition with such a detail, but it serves to illustrate how useful the volume is throughout, concise in scholarship (separate volume contains scholarly references) but pertinent and readable.
When I came to teach the plays, I used Harrison until this one-volume edition appeared, and definitely improved students' access by modernizing some spelling and punctuation. Since there's evidence Shakespeare punctuated rarely, using the line ends as punctuation (the "D Hand" of the Book of Sir Thomas More) all punctuation proceeds from editors, be they Hemings and Condell, or possibly Florio, etc.
This edition includes clear renderings of the D Hand of Sir T.M, and photographs of Shakespeare's handwriting in that MS, in the most controversial passage. Shakespeare seems to have been given More's speech to the uprising, as the Bard was expert at not offending authorities ready to jail playwrights for public incitements. I used to tell my classes that one of Shakespeare's main accomplishments as a playwright was NOT to be jailed. Contrast Jonson (in his case, not for his writing, but killing a man in a duel), Marston and Chapman.
The D Hand also features many Shakespearean phrases, like :"ravenous fishes," and especially "this your mountainish inhumanity." Note that More addresses artisans uprising to defend poor London craftsmen against foreigners, "strangers" now working in England. (Shades of Brexit?)
In the sixties I first read about the D Hand in Samuel Tannenbaum's 1929 study, at the U Minnesota Library before it had moved across the Mississippi to the great brick pile it now occupies.
Perhaps it's a failure to fill my review of this major edition with such a detail, but it serves to illustrate how useful the volume is throughout, concise in scholarship (separate volume contains scholarly references) but pertinent and readable.
October 3, 2009
Update: Seven plays into my current spree, I'm going to have to put this on hold due to a lack of time. I've now read 17 total- my most severe weakness is the histories (have only read Richard III and Henry IV). When I come back to this project, I think that I will be reading those in order.
1st: Macbeth (finished-review posted)
2nd: Two Gentlemen of Verona (finished-review posted)
3rd: King Lear (finished-review posted)
4th: Merchant of Venice (finished-review posted)
5th: Othello (finished-review posted)
6th: Comedy of Errors (finished-review posted)
7th: Antony and Cleopatra (finished)
Original Post: I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, but as it is Shakespeare's birthday, I've decided that now is the time to start this project. I want to read everything, starting with the plays I haven't read in awhile, or at all, and moving to the ones I'm more familiar with. I'll post individual reviews as I go through.
1st: Macbeth (finished-review posted)
2nd: Two Gentlemen of Verona (finished-review posted)
3rd: King Lear (finished-review posted)
4th: Merchant of Venice (finished-review posted)
5th: Othello (finished-review posted)
6th: Comedy of Errors (finished-review posted)
7th: Antony and Cleopatra (finished)
Original Post: I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, but as it is Shakespeare's birthday, I've decided that now is the time to start this project. I want to read everything, starting with the plays I haven't read in awhile, or at all, and moving to the ones I'm more familiar with. I'll post individual reviews as I go through.
Read
July 12, 2022This year's goal is to attempt to read all of Shakespeare's work
COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well 27/1/22
As You Like It 22/2/22
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline 1/3/22
Love's Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice 20/05/22
A Midsummer Night's Dream 18/1/22
Much Ado About Nothing 19/01/22-21/01/22
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew 20/06/22-21/06/22
The Tempest 24/04/22-25/04/22
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night 5/1/22
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
HISTORIES
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
TRAGEDIES
Antony and Cleopatra 22/2/22
Coriolanus 23/2/22-28/2/22
Hamlet 4/3/22- 5/3/22
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth 08/07/22-10/07/22
Othello
Romeo and Juliet 20/05/22
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
THE COMPLETE POEMS
154 Sonnets 09/06/22-11/06/22
A Lover's Complaint 26/1/22
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
A Funeral Elegy 28/1/22 (less)
COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well 27/1/22
As You Like It 22/2/22
The Comedy of Errors
Cymbeline 1/3/22
Love's Labours Lost
Measure for Measure
The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merchant of Venice 20/05/22
A Midsummer Night's Dream 18/1/22
Much Ado About Nothing 19/01/22-21/01/22
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Taming of the Shrew 20/06/22-21/06/22
The Tempest 24/04/22-25/04/22
Troilus and Cressida
Twelfth Night 5/1/22
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale
HISTORIES
Henry IV, part 1
Henry IV, part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, part 1
Henry VI, part 2
Henry VI, part 3
Henry VIII
King John
Richard II
Richard III
TRAGEDIES
Antony and Cleopatra 22/2/22
Coriolanus 23/2/22-28/2/22
Hamlet 4/3/22- 5/3/22
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth 08/07/22-10/07/22
Othello
Romeo and Juliet 20/05/22
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
THE COMPLETE POEMS
154 Sonnets 09/06/22-11/06/22
A Lover's Complaint 26/1/22
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
A Funeral Elegy 28/1/22 (less)
Want to read
December 13, 2021this is officially the biggest book I own, and it’s actually just a bunch of books/ plays/ poems in one
Read
January 6, 2020Well that was a quick read--for Yale’s recently departed Harold Bloom, who could read 400 pages an hour and recall them with his photographic memory. Long ago I vowed to read all of Shakespeare as I thought it would get easier and more rewarding with age. So I recently bought Longman’s door stop because I liked the binding and it includes 200+ pages of commentary by Shakespearean scholar David Bevington. One of my 2020 New Year’s resolutions is to read at least one or two works a year, so I will be gradually adding entries to this review.
“HAMLET” 5 January 2020
I decided to start with “Hamlet” because I just read a biography of John Quincy Adams and it was his favorite work. At 4000 lines, it is Shaekespeare’s longest play. Harold Bloom considers “Hamlet” to be “the most extraordinary single work of Western literature that I have ever read” (2003 PBS interview).
Reading “Hamlet” cold without brushing up on my Elizabethan English made for tough sledding, but my first reward was discovering that my favorite literary quote came from this work: “This above all: to thine own self be true” (1.3). I still can’t appreciate iambic pentameter, but I know a good couplet when I see it:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (3.4)
To my great surprise, neither of these lines are uttered by Hamlet.
I didn’t find Bevington’s supporting commentary to be as enlightening as I had expected, so I then read Bloom’s 17 pages on Hamlet in “How to Read and Why” (2000). Bloom’s final thought is my favorite, “Whether we ourselves expect annihilation or resurrection, we are likely to end caring about our name. Hamlet, the most charismatic and intelligent of all fictive characters, prefigures our hopes for courage at our common end” (p. 217-8).
I concluded my reintroduction to Shakespeare by watching Lawrence Oliver’s wonderful interpretation and modest abbreviation of “Hamlet” (1948). Pure joy. Let me know if you find a better way to spend 2.5 hours on YouTube!
“HAMLET” 5 January 2020
I decided to start with “Hamlet” because I just read a biography of John Quincy Adams and it was his favorite work. At 4000 lines, it is Shaekespeare’s longest play. Harold Bloom considers “Hamlet” to be “the most extraordinary single work of Western literature that I have ever read” (2003 PBS interview).
Reading “Hamlet” cold without brushing up on my Elizabethan English made for tough sledding, but my first reward was discovering that my favorite literary quote came from this work: “This above all: to thine own self be true” (1.3). I still can’t appreciate iambic pentameter, but I know a good couplet when I see it:
My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (3.4)
To my great surprise, neither of these lines are uttered by Hamlet.
I didn’t find Bevington’s supporting commentary to be as enlightening as I had expected, so I then read Bloom’s 17 pages on Hamlet in “How to Read and Why” (2000). Bloom’s final thought is my favorite, “Whether we ourselves expect annihilation or resurrection, we are likely to end caring about our name. Hamlet, the most charismatic and intelligent of all fictive characters, prefigures our hopes for courage at our common end” (p. 217-8).
I concluded my reintroduction to Shakespeare by watching Lawrence Oliver’s wonderful interpretation and modest abbreviation of “Hamlet” (1948). Pure joy. Let me know if you find a better way to spend 2.5 hours on YouTube!
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