The Western Canon: "Living with Shakespeare - Essays by Writers, Actors, and Directors" by Susannah Carson (editor)

My long time fascination with Shakespeare started a long time ago when I was attending the British Council. I won’t dwell on it again.

In this “Living with Shakespeare” I didn’t get much on Hamlet, but I kept thinking about Hamlet's five soliloquies; the humour and poignancy of Kent's words in King Lear; the horror of what happens to Gloucester and the heart-rending ending of the same play. The mixed emotions of the finale to Macbeth. Mark Antony's speeches in Julius Caesar. Iago's words in Othello. Shakespeare gave the world a literary water-fountain around which to gather when engaging with the great issues of each passing generation. His heroes and villains, his comedies and his tragedies make up an unerringly eloquent compendium of human frailties/motives as the world changes - and yet nothing changes. And I've hardly scratched the surface of how Shakespeare's words have the power to move and shock and create laughter like no one else has been able to before or since. The naysayers should take the time to experience a play performed live or, at the very least, watch a film version. It will hopefully change their minds. And he is not just for 'middle class snobs'! Shakespeare's for everybody. After having finished this book, I'm reminded of Harold Bloom's comments about Marlowe in 'The Western Canon', when he says that Marlowe the man 'can be meditated upon endlessly, as the plays not'; sometimes the writer's life - especially with Marlowe - can be even more interesting than their work. If the story of Shakespeare's life was that good he would have written a play about himself... maybe that is what he did with "The Tempest". I remember watching a video of the play "Cheapside" at The British Council in the 80s, wherein David Allen's brilliant play about Richard Greene has Shakespeare darting on occasionally as a sharp-eyed (upstart?) magpie always on the lookout for gleaming lines and plots to lift. In the closing scene he lets himself into the dead Greene's room and rummages surreptitiously through the half-finished manuscripts. "'Story for a Snowy Night'" he muses to himself. "Mmm.... A Winter's Tale?'" It's such a cheeky cameo - lovely stuff.

Shakespeare remains relevant because his understanding of universals was profound, and his language remains piercingly fresh. He was a genius living at a time when the English language was still wonderfully malleable. It was an age in which the known world was expanding with the discovery of the Americas, when England was a centre of growing prosperity and technological advance - and the headiness of living in a country in such flux is palpable in the texts too. That Shakespeare was a brilliant literary innovator just isn't in doubt; you have only to read Spenser, Marlowe and Jonson to see it. They are all stupendous in different ways (I recently reread Jonson's “The Alchemist” and was astonished all over again), but the acuity of Shakespeare's phrases, the penetrating psychological insights in Macbeth, Lear and Hamlet, the sheer beauty and strangeness of the language and the thinking set him apart. To say Shakespeare remains an icon for English-speaking people all over the world contradicts the well-known idea that Shakespeare is a 'universal soul'. All of my friends whose first language is not English regard Shakespeare as a great. The poet transcends not only time but culture and language.  I've always wondered how it can be possible to translate Shakespeare into modern foreign languages, especially languages which are linguistically remote from English like the Portuguese Language, yet people do it, amazingly. As Ian Dury once wrote - 'There ain't half been some clever bastards'.

Politicians have done much to undermine a common set of values among us human beings. Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" comes to mind. In the Bard we find touchstones that are timeless and inform our basic values - simply as people. In many situations the words Macbeth, Brutus, Cordelia, Shylock or Malvolio are all that is needed to set the tone or the scene. Good point about politicians. People get suckered by them, child-like, time after time. I'm sure Shakespeare had something to say about gullibility. Must check it out when Benfica’s team is not on...

NB: We should not overlook Shakespeare's influence on the development of German drama via the translations of Gottfried Herder. But Herder to Goethe in a letter: "Shakespeare hat Euch ganz verdorben"! The same happened to some Portuguese people...

Weird Ideas: "Falstaff: Give Me Life” by Harold Bloom

Published 2017.

“What makes us free? What makes me free is the capaciousness of Shakespeare’s soul. He is the knowledge of what we were and of what we have become.”

In “Falstaff: Give Me Life” by Harold Bloom

“Weird" is the word that comes to mind after having finished his take on Falstaff. We all know about his fixation on Falstaff. No problem with that. I’ve also a kin interest on Hamlet. So, what? My problem with Bloom lies on a different plane. “Weird Ideas”. That’s Bloom all over. His ideas can be interesting - and, at their crankiest (as in “A Map of Misreading”, Shakespeare: Invention of the Human and his Genius book) quite funny - but there's far too much of Bloom the frustrated bard-oracle in them, which is why they fail to stand up beyond the books in which they appear. Show him a half-decent poet and he'll construct around him a new view of human history centred on an ancient Gnostic text and full of juicy prophetic names for things already perfectly well named (e.g. "The Chaotic Age" for the 20th century). There's an element of trying to out-crazy the crazy totalising schemes of Blake or Yeats. Bloom trying to out-poet the poets, or at least match them in inspired, over-learned nuttiness. That’s why his take on Falstaff seems far-fetched. if you asked me to name some critics that I thought were provocative, well-read, and 'advanced scholarship' I would perhaps list Zachary Lesser, Anne Ferry, Andrew Hadfield, Louis Montrose, Roger Chartier, and Alexandra Gillespie off the top of my head - with some heavy bias in there for the renaissance, given my own reading. While I'd love to see their works being praised (or even read) by those outside of the academy, I'm not sure that they really deal with work, authors, or issues 'popular' enough to attract that attention. I don't begrudge a Bloom or a Vendler their success: academia is going to have to try quite hard to prove its relevance with the big changes to higher education coming. But when their work gets talked about as if they were the only one’s writing, it can get a little frustrating. Bloom wasn't much of an original thinker, borrowing heavily from Northrop Frye in much of his work and, in the case of Anxiety, a book called The Burden of the Past and the English Poet. Basically, Bloom just took Bate's book (which is primarily concerned with the anxieties felt by pre-Romantic writers) and jazzed it up with a bunch of Freudian rigmarole about wanting to kill one's father. This was not a convincing angle to take at all, but it was really the only thing "new" that Bloom brought to the table. Put another way, using his own terminology Bloom was not a "strong" critic. I think the anxiety of influence he described was probably something he personally felt as an academic. My favourite word to describe him is "weird" as stated, but we need some sort of superlative for someone who is a perverse in his judgments as Bloom: Othello never consummates his marriage to Desdemona; Orlando knows all along he is talking to Rosalind in disguise; Parolles is "the spiritual center" of "All's Well That Ends Well"; Portia, like Bassanio, is a yuppie lightweight, while Antonio is Shylock's evil twin; Kate tames Petruchio and dangles him like a puppet. Here's for "Measure for Measure": "It is difficult to decide who is more antipathetic, Angelo or Duke Vincentio. . . . Lucio is the only rational and sympathetic character in this absurdist comedy (except for the superb Barnadine)." Bloom simply announced these findings; he no longer argues; he is too Olympian for that. His notorious misogyny may be the key to many of these ludicrous sallies: Desdemona as castrating intimidator; Kate as emasculating manipulator. Bloom says that Shakespeare invented us, which implies that, as a demigod, he was too elevated to be anxious over much of anything. But surely he was stimulated by an Oedipal rivalry with Marlowe; "two competing young playwrights from strikingly similar origins egged each other on to do better, and more original, work." No, I'm sorry, they were the same age but Marlowe died in May, 1593, by which time Shakespeare, egged on by the supposed competition, had written exactly none of the plays that make him the Bard: had he died the same year, he would be about as famous today as Beaumont or Fletcher. Marlowe was quicker to attain box office success, which is the success that Shakespeare cared about, so Shakespeare copied him shamelessly. That isn't exactly rivalry or competition. Bloom, on no evidence whatsoever, pronounces "Titus Andronicus" a parody of Marlowe. A knockoff is not a parody. Such a genre did not even exist at the time. The audience wanted its pornography of violence straight up, not with a smirk, and the audience was Shakespeare's deity.

Calling Bloom "overrated" doesn't even begin to say it, but the fault is ours, not his: I wouldn't expect him to see himself as we should have seen him.

3 stars for the book due to the quote at the beginning of this post.

Killing Frenzy: "Richard III" by William Shakespeare, Burton Raffel, Harold Bloom

Published 2008.

A typical king;

Killed everybody who got in his way;

A typical fat slob of a king;

Out to get his own greedy needs met;

Uses every individual who crossed his path;

More often than not, slap happy drunk;

Seen on numerous occasion dancing amongst the moon lit paths;

Often times his royal trousers would fall to his ankles causing the King to fall face down.

Was Shakespeare’s Richard any different from some of the politicians we all know so well?  The only difference is that they're not allowed to get away with it as much, what with the paparazzi and all.

I finished reading this, Richard III, prior to go see him in the theatre. Even in Portuguese I felt as if I’d come under a spell. What marvelous language. Everyone knows this. It’s obvious, but does everyone really know it? It’s different to know than to experience. And I’ve experienced, once again, the glory of his language in this story.

Even the fact that he murdered many people, his words still move me. In the beginning this was one of my least favourite plays. Why? I became disgusted with his hypocrisy, but I started to be under his (Shakespeare’s) language spell later on in life and I came to appreciate this play even more. Only language makes Richard III worth reading and seeing.

Thinking about Hitler, we all know the power of a leader comes through the spoken word, and the fire and zeal of the speech. As politicians go, Richard was the greatest of them all. He showed us words are powerful.

Once again Shakespeare kept me on the edge of my seat. Shakespeare, like any good SF writer, carries me to other worlds, make-believe kingdoms; he shows me how a bunch of "mythical" beings can still give me a realistic insight into our modern world.

With his characters, and Richard III is a very good case in point, makes me see human life in its entire nudity, and its joy and tragedy. What do I learn by reading Shakespeare? He draws my attention to how we, as humans, are fragile in relation to the turmoil living within us.

I'm still flabbergasted how he can "reveal" the truth about the fragility of our human existence. By watching and reading Richard III, I can glimpse the inner minds of our politicians...

When I started this quest, one of my main objectives was to make someone interested in reading Shakespeare. Even if someone does not feel an urgent urge to read him, my hope is that my personal experience in reading him will plant the seed. Let these scattered thoughts be traces left by someone, from small Portugal, who has learned a lot by reading Shakespeare.

What does Shakespeare give me? Layers and layers of musings, träumereien, devaneios and knowledge that will stay with me till the day I die. Günter Grass comes to mind with his onion peeling.

If you don't want to have an empty soul, go and read Shakespeare.

NB: Prior to going to see the play, I always like to get fully immersed in the text. That’s what I did by reading the play in my Rowse. Because I thought there was still not enough deep-immersion, I read Bloom’s diatribes in this book for good measure as well …

NB2: SF = Speculative Fiction.

The Englishness of English Literature: “English Literature” by Jonathan Bate

Published 2010.

“Once upon a time, a very long, long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.”

What you get contents-wise:

Once Upon a Time;

What it is;

When it Began;

The Study of English;

Periods and Movements;

Among the English Poets;

Shakespeare and Dramatic Literature;

Aspects of the English Novel;

The Englishness of English Literature?

Last year I read a book entitled: “Why Read?”. There are points of connection between the two books. Bate’s book is more specific, whereas Edmondson’s is more generic. Both give us a fine view of what it means to be a (compulsive/immersive) reader.

Does reading make me “smarter”? I’m not sure I can devise a method to measure my ability to understand the world as it-is or as it-should-be due to my deep immersion in Literature. I’m pretty certain because I started reading in English at a tender age, my ability to understand and be able to talk about English Literature is greater than my aptitude to discuss Portuguese Literature. I usually say I’m not really an example to anyone in this regard, because I neglected reading my own literature in my own mother-tongue at a very early age. I only read what I was compelled to read. When I got older, in college, that’s when I started reading (and discovering) Portuguese Literature. But English literature (or Literature in English if one feels so inclined because it has a wider scope) will always be my first love reading-wise. My English synapses were formed when I was very young, so there’s nothing to be done about it. I am who I am, accept me, reject me, but I'm still me. Later on I discovered German Literature. And nothing was ever the same…

Once I became more experienced in the ways of English, German and Portuguese literature, I knew it fell upon me to begin to light the way for future explorers. That’s why I got into GR, BL, LM, etc.   I’ve written some “literary” works of my own, using words to illuminate my views on the truth about humanity, science, geekery, etc.  Others may decide instead to act as teachers, helping prospective explorers learn to traverse the dense and sometimes bewildering forest of literature they will encounter along their journey.  As the great authors of the past have marked out paths in the wilderness for we who have followed them, so we must serve as guides for those who will come after us. Great books (aka literature) provides us with a window into various aspects of the human condition and a guide to the way we relate to one another and to our cognitive approach to the world.  Books give us a mirror in which to examine our collective reflection as people.  It does not distort the errors of humanity, but exposes them quite openly.  Only the truth is relevant.  The world of books is the reflecting pool into which I can look and see both my own face and the faces of all my fellow humans.  It enables me to not only find the humanity within my own heart, but also to connect me to the generations of other people who came before me. I like to read because I believe there is power in literature. The world of books is both intensely personal as well as a communal experience. Hence BL, LM, whatever. I love examining how words, sentences, characters, plot-lines and tropes reveal who we are as humans (close-reading). The human condition as Harold Bloom uses to say is a complicated thing, and requires an infinite amount of words, concepts, and imagery to describe and analyse. That's the joy of reading books, there is always a new reality to discover. Once I realized that I really loved to look at rhetorical devices, and the use of language, I started to see that, although it still was not science, it was art, and art is the greatest expression of that which makes us human. As I was writing this, I got to thinking about the importance of reading and writing and their differences, not only in terms of mechanical devices, but in terms of what it means to write, and I mean personally. The written word embodies an entire culture. Why? Because it “documents” the collective thoughts of everyone who cared to share them with the world.  Hence, I believe that for me to truly be a part of human society, it’s critical that I take part in the “history” that is literature, even if only in the reading aspect (I’m not taking into consideration my own dabbling attempts at writing…).  Writing carries a grave importance for those who are blessed with the ability to write, as literature simply would not exist in a form accessible to all, and for that reason I believe all who can write should.  I take advantage of the great opportunity to be part of and contribute to the world and society in which I live through writing (at BL, LM, etc.).  I see literature in the sense of an existing conjoint struggle to understand and make the best of the lives that we have all been given.  Literature serves as a way to enrich my soul, and gives me a way to improve the world not only through the beauty of its existence but through the ideas and tangible possibilities it possesses.

After this bland speech, what remains to be said about Bate’s book? Read it. The guy has been writing extensively about Shakespeare, and he knows what he’s talking about. Bate’s focus is wide, shifting from the birth of the English novel and the brilliance of English comedy to the deep Englishness of landscape poetry and the cultural diversity of Britain’s Nobel literature laureates. And then it continues on a more in-depth analysis, with close readings from Shakespeare to Burnette’s “The Secret Garden”, and a series of wonderful instances of how literary texts change as they are transmitted from writer to reader.

“We would not want to read yesterday’s newspaper again and again. Nor the thriller or romance or comic caper that web picked up at the last minute on the airport bookstall. The books that are rad again and again become literature. Sometimes one of them will be a thriller or romance or comic caper. Or a children’s story. A book may be described as a ‘classic’ thriller or ‘classic romance´ when it becomes definitive of its genre. It may be described as a ‘classic‘ pure and simple when it transcends  the limits if its genre – Charlotte Bröntë’s Jane Eyre is more than just a romance – and when it continues to be re-read in generations after its own. Samuel Johnson, in his preface to Shakespeare, said that the only test of literary greatness is “length of duration and continuance of esteem.” Why do we keep on reading the so-called classics (Shakespeare comes to mind)? Shakespeare's perennial appeal is his polysemy and adaptability. Shakespeare never constrains his plays and his characters to one motif - there are always multiple reasons, multiple ways of interpreting and analysing his works, and as a result they are capable of meaning different things, often diametrically-opposed, to different people at the same time. I can read myself in Shakespeare over and over again, as long as I’m able to read, and as a result Shakespeare has continued to have reverberation even four hundred years after the texts were written.

"What do they know of England who only England know" I’m not sure I agree with Bate on the interpretation of this Kipling’s quote. I’ve always read this as we will know ourselves better if we can view ourselves through the eyes of others. Those who know other languages have, in general, a better understanding of English than those who do not. Of course, the word "English" may be replaced by any other, namely, Portuguese, German, etc. I’d be interested in knowing your take on this.

Classics are non-verifiable and non-replicable, meaning no one knows how to produce classics. That’s the beauty of art, and literature in particular.

NB:

GR = Goodreads

BL = Booklikes

LF = Leafmarks

Owning or Not Owning Shakespeare: "Shakespeare - An Introduction (Ideas in Profile)" by Paul Edmondson

To be published on September 2015.

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader's copy of this book directly from the publisher in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own, and no monetary compensation was received for this review.

(The book is due to be published on September 2015; review written 31/07/2015)

I don’t usually compare books, but in this case I’m going to make an exception. I’ve read this volume back-to-back with Erne’s book, and what a difference it was. This is by no means derogatory to Edmondson’s book. They’re just two simply different takes, aimed at different audiences. I loved them both for different reasons. This one is a very short volume, but it’s my kind of book about Shakespeare: It maps Edmondson’s personal history with Shakespeare. It’s not a “technical” book about Shakespeare, like Erne’s. It’s much more fluid and down-to-earth:

"This book is written from within my own reactions to Shakespeare, which have grown and developed over the twenty years I have lived, worked, written and taught in Stratford-upon-Avon."

Edmondson poses and answers the question: "In asking how Shakespeare wrote we might turn the question around and ask ourselves: if we wanted to write like Shakespeare, what would we have to do?"

While reading this, I got wondering whether I could also write "like" Shakespeare...

Puck's epilogue is one of my favorite passage from all of Shakespeare's works. Why? As with Edmondson, it’s all down to our personal history with Shakespeare (I have one too…). At the British Council, during our role-playing sessions, my teacher, Vicky Hartnack, made me recite it over, and over again, until it was as familiar to me as my own reflection. “Owning” Shakespeare is being able to break it apart, and this is a passage from his work that will allow me to truly make it also mine. Even though it feels a bit like sacrilege to change any of Shakespeare's work, I must do it…

For my break/remake, I chose to spin Puck's epilogue in a different way. Rather than a short monologue directed at the audience, I changed it into a conversation between Egeus and Puck told in the format of a (very) short story. Forgive me if it's a bit messy. It’s not easy to rewrite Shakespeare…

“If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended:

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearnèd luck

Now to ’scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long.

Else the Puck a liar call.

So good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.”

in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Act Five: Scene One, Lines 440-455

A couple warnings before you read:

Puck is a girl in my retelling. I've always imagined her that way as I read the play, and it wasn't until I saw MSND on stage for the first time that I even realized Puck was supposed to be a boy.

While I presented Puck as a girl, this version of her was largely influenced by Stanley Tucci's portrayal of Puck in the 1999 version of the film.

The dialogue can be a bit odd at times. It's a mix between modern, formal, and, at the very end, Shakespearean language. It seemed to flow properly to me, but I'm a horrible judge of my own work, so don't take my word for it.

In Victorian times, Hyacinth represented playfulness and mischief.

So, with as much further ado as I can squeeze out, here is my retelling of Puck's epilogue:

            Egeus bolted upright in bed, gasping and clutching at his chest. What a perfectly horrid dream. Faerie queens in love with asses? Meddling sprites with magic flowers? A play so terrible it was wonderful? And his daughter, his precious Hermia, married to that lout, Lysander? Utterly preposterous. “Thank the gods it was only a dream.” He muttered to himself.

            “Ah, but was it just a dream?” A tinkling voice asked from the end of his bed.

            Egeus shouted, startled, and reached for the dagger at his bedside.

            “Well that’s just pointless.” The voice said, half-laughing, half-admonishing. With a loud pop, a young woman appeared on his feet. A hyacinth crown sat on her curling brown hair, and brilliant hazel eyes laughed at him above an upturned nose and a perpetual smirk. If he looked closely, he could just see pointed ears poking through her hair and two small horns holding up her flower crown. “You can’t even see me if I don’t allow it. What makes you think I’d allow you to stab me?”

            “Who… what are you?” He stuttered out, still grasping the dagger tightly in his palm.

            “I’m offended, my pompous little lordling. Am I forgotten so quickly?” Another loud pop sounded, and the woman disappeared off of his feet. Reappearing next to his head, she gave a low bow. “Robin Goodfellow, at your service. Better known as Puck to my friends. You may call me Robin.”

            “Now see here!” Egeus called indignantly. “I am a man of-“

            She waved her hand in his face, cutting off his words. “Pish-posh. Compared to me, old Methusala himself is a lordling.” She gave a laugh and popped onto his feet again. Leaning forward over her crossed legs, Robin snapped her fingers and lit the candles on Egeus’ bedside table. “Now answer my question, oh arrogant one. What makes you think it was just a dream?”

            “What else could it be?” He asked indignantly, yanking the blankets up to cover his cold chest and causing Robin to topple backwards on the bed. “My Hermia is to marry Demetrius, or she shall die. Duke Theseus himself has ordered it to be so.”

            “Technically he ordered her to marry a man who happens to be as equally blind and conceited as yourself, or she’ll be forced to join a nunnery, but we’ll quibble over semantics later.” She giggled, righting herself. “Now think, Egeus. If it wasn’t a dream, what could it be?”

            “It was nothing. A silly trick brought about by too much wine with supper. Just like you.”

            “Of course. That was a dream. I’m a dream. This is all a dream.” She grinned, bouncing a little and making the bed shake. “But let’s pretend, just for a moment,that it wasn’t. Let’s pretend it was a warning.”

            “A warning of what?”

            “Of what will happen if you don’t let go of your short-sighted need to have your daughter obey your every whim, and allow her to marry her true love.” She glanced exaggeratedly from side-to-side. Cupping her hands around her mouth, Robin whispered, “Just to clue you in, that’s Lysander.”

            “I will never-“

            “You will, or everything you just dreamed will come to pass.” Robin interrupted, leaning back on her hands. “Well, maybe not everything. I added in the part about Titania and the ass just for fun, but the rest of it, yeah, that’s a warning.

            “You caused Theseus to make a decision, near the eve of his wedding, when he’s madly in lust with his prisoner bride that follows the law but goes against love. You caused him distress, and, as my king and queen are rather fond of him, you caused them distress. Stupid move, really, but you mortals seem eerily proficient at that sort of nonsense.”

            Egeus eyed her suspiciously. “Thank you.”

            She cocked an eyebrow, giving him a derisive smile. “And to what do I owe those thanks?”

            “This is most certainly a dream.”

            “We’re pretending it’s not, remember?”

            “You just told me that I’ve angered the king and queen of the faeries by petitioning the duke to force my daughter to live under my rule. That would strain even the most inventive man’s imagination.”

            “Wait a few centuries.” Robin said dismissively. “At any rate, still not a dream. I’m real.” She bounced again to prove her point. “I’m here, and your daughter will marry Lysander, one way or another.”

            “One way or another?”

            “You have two choices, Egeus.” Robin said solemnly, her smiling dropping for the first time since she popped into existence on his bedspread. “You can listen to this warning, allow your daughter to marry Lysander, point Demetrius in Helena’s direction once you tell him the engagement is off, and, in doing so, ease the ire of my masters.”

            “Or you’ll use a magic flower to make it happen anyway?” He scoffed.

            She gave him a pitying look. “Or I’ll use a magic flower to make it happen anyway.” She confirmed. “Hermia will still marry Lysander. Demetrius will still marry Helena, not your daughter. You will not get your way, and, by being so stubborn, you’ll earn the everlasting odium of King Oberon and Queen Titania. In ordinary circumstances, putting your own wishes above the well-being of your daughter is a horrid decision. In this case, it may prove fatal. Most faeries are mischievous, but my masters easily blur the lines between ‘harmless fun’ and ‘death by donkey.’”

            “You’re lying.”

            “I am many things, but not a liar.”

            “Marrying Demetrius is what’s best for my daughter.” Egeus sighed, rubbing his forehead. “He’s-“

            “Exactly like you,” Robin provided gently, “but he’s not right for your Hermia. She loves Lysander, and Lysander loves her enough to risk abandoning his home, lands, and title and hiding away with a dowager aunt as long as it means he gets to call her his wife.” She shrugged, the smirk slipping back into place. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. As I said, this will happen, one way or another. The only choice you have is whether or not to allow it to happen with your blessing.

            “So,” she popped off the bed again and reappeared holding her hand out to him, “shall we go wake Hermia and tell her the good news?”

            Egeus stared at her, and her hand, reproachfully, before pointedly turning his head away. Robin let out a long sigh, shaking her head. “So be it. Since we do not part as friends, this Puck canno’ force amends."

            And with a final pop, she was gone.

(Shakespeare's traits: characterisation, dramatic situations, stagecraft and poetic expression are all absent in my attempt...Unlike Bach and Shakespeare, I was never that great at recycling and reinventing other's work...)

When comparing Edmondson to Harold Bloom what can I say? Bloom is very conservative. He is affirmative to a modern form of Bardolatry, treats Shakespeare as a Religion, compares Hamlet to David and Jesus, insists on the curious idea, that Shakespeare did invent the modern concept of personality, he dismisses the work of Stanley Wells in a rude manner and is although merciless with Peter Brook and every sort of Feminist or postmodern Interpretation. Who can withstand the verdict of an angry old man? Nobody. But I really appreciated his judgment regarding "Merchant".

Edmondson's take is all about the journey: "Shakespeare's language inspires actors to portray a heightened reality, which in turn invites the audience to accompany them on a powerful emotional journey. We know whenever we arrive at a theatre to watch a Shakespeare play that, for the better part of three hours, something significant is about to unfold [ ]."

"No one owns Shakespeare, though anyone can experience a sense of ownership of him." This essentially means that Shakespeare is the conduit through which we can better understand ourselves.

When a balanced account of Shakespeare’s work comes along, like this one by Edmondson, I’m always delighted.

Shakespeare, Great Actors and the English Language: "Great Shakespeare Actors" by Stanley Wells

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader's copy (ARC - Uncorrected Manuscript Proof) of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own, and no monetary compensation was received for this review.

(The book is due to be published on June 23, 2015; review written 06/05/2015)

I’ve always wanted to read a book like the one I’ve just read. Why? Shakespeare, great Actors and the English Language. This is the preferred triumvirate of my liking.

Stanley Well’s aim is an attempt to define what great Shakespearean roles there are, thus inviting greatness of performance. What distinguishes a great performance from a merely competent one? 

I’ve written elsewhere, that in my book a great actor should be defined by the way she/he can stand still in the presence of an audience. (Great) Shakespeare acting needs stillness, i.e., the ability of the Actor to listen and to react in silence. This epitomizes what great acting is (e.g., Hermione’s motionless silence in “The Winter’s Tale” is a good example of this). The other characteristic an Actor needs is to be in full control of her/his acting voice/language. Why is this so? The western human behaves (I’m thinking Bloom here), thinks and speaks quite differently now from the days four hundred years ago when Shakespeare’s plays were contemporary. What’s the difference when I say the words "Take me for a sponge my lord?" now (Incidentally I use this line when someone is trying to sell me some bullshit…) and when someone, maybe Shakespeare, uttered it 400 years ago? 

Such events are still the stuff of Shakespearean theatre as they’re still the stuff of everyday life, but the difference between contemporary theatre and Shakespeare’s theatre lies in the language that it’s used. The crux of the matter is that we’re moving further away from eons of years of oral civilization. The voice in Shakespeare’s time might have been visceral (I’m hypothesizing here) than it’s today. Today’s voice may be deprived of real emotion. Society does not allow us to express ourselves freely. The actor of nowadays, when playing Shakespeare, can only “voice” truthful feelings through our cultural and present Weltanschauung. 

I’ve always thought what distinguishes great Actors from just plain ones is their ability to play the subtext and not the text, i.e., the Actor should embody the action and not just the words. That’s where “Shakespeare” is (“silence” is just one of the artifacts of this acting framework). On the face of this, the prime responsibility of Shakespearean theatre is to show us its own face so that we may reflect upon it. But art also has a responsibility to preserve the past, so that a culture may reflect upon itself in the light of its history. Great art and great performances last, and when the theatre want to re-produce its past, Actors are confronted by artistic demands very different from those posed by contemporary fare.

Well’s book was able to fully demonstrate that no matter what Actor we have in mind when thinking about what a great Shakespearean performance is, what matters is her/his ability to embody the full integration of words, emotions, intentions and actions (e.g., onomatopoeias are used a lot in plays because in Shakespeare's time there was no electricity to produce sounds artificially), because Elizabethan society spoke in a language which had a different “texture” than the one we (almost) all speak today. Hamlet, of course, tells us something about what Shakespeare wanted from his Actors:

“Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.”

What great Actors did Wells “select”? On to the numbers. 39 Anglo-saxon and one Italian:

Richard Burbage, Will Kemp, Robert Armin, Thomas Betterton, Charles Macklin, David Garrick, Sarah Siddons, George Frederick Cooke, John Philip Kemble, Dora Jordan (trivia fact: David Cameron is her descendant), Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready, Ira Aldridge, Helen Faucit, Charlotte Cushman, Edwin Booth, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry, Tommaso Salvini, Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike, Charles Laughton, Donald Wolfit, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Michael Redgrave, Paul Scofield, Donald Sinden, Richard Pasco, Ian Richardson, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen, Janet Suzman, Antony Sher, Kenneth Branagh, Simon Russell Beale.

It’s through the use of theatre critics that Wells chose to illuminate our understanding of who should be the greatest Shakespeare Actors of all time. It was an advisable decision due to the fact that the first actors did not have the “help” of sound recording and film. Using this transversal approach Wells was able to (almost) put all of his choices on the same footing. This was the only reasonable approach. Nevertheless we can discern, through the cracks, Wells’ preferences (as it should; it’s his book after all), but sometimes a little more restrain would have been advisable (e.g., regarding “The Taming of the Shrew” it’s referred en passant that feminism made the play seem unstylish or something to that effect).

As a side note, Patrick Stewart, Maggie Smith, Mark Rylance (e.g., Richard III), Zoe Caldwell, James Earl Jones, Michael Gambon, Emma Thompson and Christopher Plummer (his Macbeth was superb) didn’t make the cut. I imagine Wells had to draw the line somewhere…Tom Hiddleston and David Tennant are also still too young to be real contenders.

On another side note, I’d include our own Ruy de Carvalho. His King Lear which I saw on stage in 1998 at Teatro Nacional D. Maria II was superb.

On yet another side note, I’m also eagerly anticipating Fassbender’s Macbeth at the end of the year…Next weekend I’m watching Branagh’s Macbeth. It’s time…

Coloured Unicorns: "Allusions in Ulysses: An Annotated List" by Weldon Thornton

(Original Review, 1991-03-18)

I had the good fortune to read “Ulysses” in my late teens without knowing much of its reputation other than that Anthony Burgess, an author whose novels I was enjoying at the time, recommended it highly. I read it as basically a comic novel, sometimes drunk with its author’s learning, sometimes just drunk. Our local library had a book, “Allusions in Ulysses” which ran to several hundred pages, explicating literary, historical, and cultural references in the book – I used it to translate the foreign phrases scattered through the book, but otherwise did not worry about catching the many other references. It wasn’t until after my first reading that I even became aware of the references to the Odyssey in the book (though obviously the title alluded to them) and that scholars had assigned each of its chapters a Homeric title.

Do you laugh at Ulysses? I can’t imagine someone reading the book and sticking with it without regularly cracking a smile or even, as I did, LOL’ing every now and then. From “The Ballad of the Joking Jesus” in the first chapter on through the circumlocutions of the catechism in the penultimate chapter, there’s plenty of humor in there, and even when not explicitly funny, as I don’t recall the closing chapter monologue to be, it is warm and human, with lots of brain, but also an abundance of heart and other organs, at least once Leopold Bloom enters in the fourth chapter.

Perhaps the problem is that I knew the books reputation before I started it. I see Joyce as a steamroller crushing my lesser little mind beneath his. There are places where the richness of the imagery captures the absolute essence of something, though, and that's what keeps me staggering back for more.

Hell yes. I laugh at Ulysses! It may not be right to call it a comic novel but it sure is fun. For what it's worth, the few parts of “Finnegans Wake” that I get and/or enjoy are also pure fun, and I suspect that the many more parts that make me go "Huh?" would also be fun if only I got them. I have a lurking suspicion about Ulysses. Joyce is working at his kitchen table, the rent is due, there's been nothing but stale bread again for dinner, and he thinks, "Okay, right here, an allusion that will keep old Carruthers glued to his Golden Bough for a week - he he he..."

In Ulysses (the Aeoleus chapter, for you scholars) Joyce says, “Sufficient unto the day is the newspaper thereof”; I might state my credo as “Literature was made for man, not man for literature”.

I’m certainly never going to read certain authors (reputation again!) and I can’t imagine sticking with any book I find grueling, not even if Harold Bloom promises me that pastel coloured unicorns will bring me chocolate chip cookies if I finish it. Even beauty of language can carry me, at best, to the end of a sonnet, never through a 700+ page novel. I do stick with things I’m not particularly enjoying once in a while – this year it was “Melmoth the Wanderer” - but after 50-100 pages there has to be some momentum, something enjoyable I get from the book that I want more of. There are probably books whose beginnings are great but that then peter out and disappoint, Melmoth is one and, though it’s been years since I read it, I suspect I feel the same about “Finnegans Wake”, that I will finish for the sake of their beginnings, but if a book seems tedious to me from the beginning, I can’t stay with it.

[2018 EDIT: Some years later, I read Ulysses properly ...]