First (my QotW comes later), a few pithy words from Donald Rumsfeld in February 2007:
‘There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don’t know.’
Something worth bearing in mind as the Ponytail Shakespeare read-through canters on to The Merchant of Venice …
[Warning: you might want to stop reading now, if you voted for Brexit]
Ponytail Shakespeare read-through: King John, Act V
It’s all a bit shabby, isn’t it, at the end of the day?
Act V holds Hamlet‘s ‘mirror up to nature‘ [a]: Shakespeare might be exploring the ‘Commodity’ of the times, but I can’t avoid building synaptic bridges to the realpolitik of the shameful goings on in the UK’s parliament over the past few years. I ought to be far too old for the kind of idealistic rage I feel, but even at a relatively young age, I’m determined to ‘burn and rave at close of day‘ [b] …
Let there be copious amounts of cakes and ale …
Wishing Will ‘happy birthday‘ today would cause an outcry from people who know me and my pedantic ways … Yes, yes, yes, baptised on 26 April, no real proof of birthday, and all that. Get on with it!
Where is the ‘son-in-law’ material in LLL?
Love’s Labour’s Lost: Act IV
My life has been filled with obsessions, and for reasons too complex to go into here, about twenty-five years ago, one of them was Scottish history. With no knowledge ever completely wasted, it’s contributed to where and who I am today, struggling with this play, and especially to find any kind of empathy with its male characters.
Put simply, if I had a daughter, none of these men would be son-in-law material …
Continue reading “PTS 09/055: The Rough Wooing of the Monstrous Regiment”
We only want to be kings because we don’t fully understand what it involves?
Christopher Lee, 1603 (Review: London, 2003)
Not THAT Christopher Lee, obviously!
In class, we’ve seen it in Edward II and, I think, Richard III. There are hints of it for my younger students in Macbeth. But I see it everywhere: in Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI.
In Twelfth Night, Malvolio tells us:
“be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em” (II.v)
Quite simply, the message I consistently get from EMP plays is that greatness – in this case being monarch – is never, ever, all it’s cracked up to be …
The Boar's Head, Eastcheap 