Category: Hamlet

PTS 04/023: Is that you, baby?

BH bruce springsteenOr just a brilliant disguise?

… as The Boss might remark. A guy who, perhaps appositely in the light of this post, I admire for his authenticity as much as his music.

The Taming of the Shrew: Act III

By now, I wonder if anyone is who they say they are in this play. Poor old Christopher Sly‘s been conned into thinking he’s a Lord with a young, beautiful wife, remember: and that was BEFORE the play properly started … When I see the Stage Direction:

“Enter LUCENTIO [as Cambio], HORTENSIO [as Licio] and BIANCA”

(who I suspect is not as pure, dutiful, or even as nice as she seems), my heart sinks a little.

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PTS 04/021 Boorish, Brusque, Bonkers …

The Taming Of The Shrew:  Act 1

BH Petruchio

Boorish, brusque, bonkers …

… but brilliant!

It’s been a while since I expressed some mild distaste at the prank played on the admittedly unsympathetic Christopher Sly at the beginning of this play.

(the reading continues to schedule, by the way, but I can see myself having to catch up on the act-by-act commentaries over the summer holidays)

Doing a bit of research – perhaps on the back of my reluctance to engage with the comedies, I found that the play has plenty of detractors, but I’ve seen it once – several years ago, at the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival – and enjoyed the performance.  The casting certainly seemed to back up Robert Atkins’ views:

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Who would Shakespeare vote for?

BH polling station
Something for your dog to ponder as you leave him outside tomorrow

[SPOILER ALERT] There’s a UK General Election taking place tomorrow …

Setting aside my own lefty, ‘soft’ eco-warrior credentials, and using mostly contextual information or material from the plays (because, as Bill Bryson gently reminds us over the course of 200-odd pages, we know next to nothing about the man) I thought it would be fun to see how Shakespeare might have voted.

And, regardless of my – or your – political beliefs, for the love of God, please VOTE tomorrow, if you’re entitled to.  Never mind the hackneyed cliché: ‘people died so you could‘ argument – you have absolutely no right to complain about what happens over the next 5 years if you didn’t even make the smallest effort to effect a change …

Anyway, I visited isidewith, and tried to answer the questions as someone who died 401 years ago … here’s a selection of the conundrums I was faced with, plus the (firmly tongue-in-cheek) result …

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PTS: 03/019: There can be only one

BH highlander
Don’t make me chop your head off …

Henry VI part III (Act IV)

Edward V, like Edward II, like Richard II, like Macbeth, maybe even like Richard III, seems to think that the crown’s enough.  Whilst there can be only one, physical possession of the golden round really isn’t a given.  Everyone else has to believe you’re king – not just you!

They are but Lewis and Warwick; I am Edward,

Your King and Warwick’s and must have my will. (IV.i.15-16)

That’s all very well, but if it that attitude couldn’t save Julius Caesar:

‘I rather tell you what is to be feared / Than what I fear: for always I am Caesar’ (CAESAR, Julius Caesar I.ii.210-211)

– and he was a dozen times the man you are – then your goose is cooked.  You have married in haste, and now you’re going to repent at leisure.  Frankly, if Richard says so, it’s good enough for me:

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You don’t read Shakespeare. Shakespeare reads YOU.

BH reading shakespeare

Whilst it sounds trite, I’m increasingly beginning to believe this.

Part of this comes from the Pony Tail Shakespeare project, I’m sure. With a gap of 400+ years now between the works and our readings, we’re constantly confronted with attitudes which are at a variance with ours.  Example?  This month it’s The Taming of the Shrew, with some ‘interesting’ ideas about marriage, domestic violence, and ‘men vs. women’.

Mostly, though, it comes from being a teacher of Shakespeare …

Continue reading “You don’t read Shakespeare. Shakespeare reads YOU.”

PTS 02/013: The Force is strong in you, young Skywalker

BH anakin
What country, friends, is this?

subtitled:  The Middle Child, and Darth Vader

It seems an eternity since that I fell into this play, full of fears for my adopted country, and so it has been. My views on how work has impacted on my ability to blog over the last month or so probably need to wait until I’m not feeling as ‘wasp stung and impatient’ as Harry Hotspur. Anyway, as we hit the end of this play my fears for England have receded, at least. In fact, I’m struggling to feel fearful at all. I’m a spectator, but a fully engaged one.

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PTS 02/011: Small curs are not regarded when they grin

BH dog surfboard
Subtitled:  You gonna bark all day, little doggy?  Or are you gonna bite?

Henry VI part II: Act III

‘Small curs are not regarded when they grin’ (QUEEN MARGARET III.i.18)

Act III starts where Act II left off: the smell of blood in the water; fins thrashing as a pack of ruthless hunters circle our hapless king; bites being taken from the already-doomed Gloucester.

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PTS 02/009: England – A Nest of Hollow Bosoms

BH HVI II Eleanor and Margaret
This country ain’t big enough for the two of us … bitch!

 

What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,

Were all thy children kind and natural!

But see,thy fault France hath in thee found out,

A nest of hollow bosoms.  (CHORUS, Henry V:  II.0.18-21)

Henry VI II:  Act I

It’s a strange thing, patriotism. 

I’ll try to make this the final time I mention how I don’t feel especially patriotic towards England as opposed to Britain, but the beginning of the play causes me to examine my attitudes again.  It probably says something about my pedantic nature that I can’t simply conflate the two.  Or maybe it’s simply the fact that my Welsh girlfriend would probably dump me!  Either way, I suddenly became acutely aware of an inchoate fear for the country.  Ye-e-es, there was some fear for Henry, about to be eaten alive by his Queen like a hapless spider, but the sympathy I felt for Henry as a child effectively evaporated in the white heat of his ineffectuality.  It facilitated of the betrayal of my new Shakespearean heroes, the Talbots, and so isn’t easily forgiven or forgotten.  So it wasn’t what Margaret might or might not do to Henry that worried me.  It was how she might treat England …

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Though his actions were not visible …

VARIOUS
Mary Shakespeare glued young William to the wall until she had properly read his school report …

Though his actions were not visible, yet

Report should render him hourly to your ear

As truly as he moves (Pisanio, Cymbeline)

When next you hear about – or indeed deride, yourself – the fabulous, wholly unjustified level of holidays enjoyed by teachers, spare a thought in particular for this poor English teacher …

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PTS01/003: Open your ears! For who could possibly block them when loud Rumour speaks?

bh-office-romance
Forget the English attack – are they doing it or not?

Henry VI 1: Act 2 the act with that scene …

No, not the one in the garden.  Surely, there’s only one thing worth talking about … in the words of Joe Jackson:

Is she really going out with him?

Is she really gonna take him home tonight?

Is she really going out with him?

Cause if my eyes don’t deceive me,

There’s something going wrong around here.

… are the Dolphin and La Pucelle an item or not?

Continue reading “PTS01/003: Open your ears! For who could possibly block them when loud Rumour speaks?”