The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale was a fresh read for me. I've never seen it performed, I haven't had to read it for a class, and I'd never gotten around to just sitting down with it until now. I had heard good things about it, but I had always been unclear on the plot and the only thing I could really remember was that one of the primary female characters was named Hermione, and there was something about a statue. Now I've read it, and well, wow.

Winter's Tale gets bundled in with the comedies in my Complete Works, though it's not really comic. It has a happy ending, but it's better called a drama or a romance. The story is set at a break-neck pace, though it covers the span of sixteen years, and there are only a very few incidental moments (occurring in the last two acts), unlike with some of the other comedies. The comic subplot is a character whose business is thieving and meddling.

I was tempted to title this post, "The Winter's Tale, or, Pregnancy Makes Men Crazy, Too," because the events of the first three acts happen so quickly and so strangely that I'm half-way convinced Leontes is an early example in English literature of couvade's syndrome. Listen to this:

Leontes, King of Silicia, and his wife, Hermione, are expecting their second child. They already have an heir, Mamillius, a cheeky boy of indeterminate age. Leontes' best friend, Polixenes, king of Bohemia, has been visiting for the last nine months. He announces his intention to go home, Leontes pleads with him not to go, Polixenes stays firm, and then Hermione persuades him to stay. Leontes promptly loses it. He becomes convinced that his beloved wife has been cheating on him with his best friend for the last nine months, and that the baby she's carrying must be a bastard. He assigns a nobleman to murder Polixenes, but Camillo refuses to do it (killing a king, historically, proves to be very bad luck for the assassin), warns Polixenes, and flees with him back to Bohemia. Leontes, however, is still on a murderous rampage. He sends for the oracle of Apollo to testify as to his wife's chastity and has her imprisoned. Everyone thinks he's gone nuts. When she delivers a baby girl who looks exactly like Leontes, he wants to have the baby killed immediately. One of his nobles persuades him to relent, so king decrees that Antigonus, the noble, should take the baby to some remote place and just leave her there (a literary device found in Oedipus Rex, among others, and based on the Greek and Roman practice of exposing an unwanted newborn child to the elements and animals outside the city). Antigonus' wife, Paulina, has argued staunchly in the favour of the queen, but the king refuses to listen to reason.

Then the messengers from the oracle arrive. The decree is that Hermione and Polixenes are innocent, and the king should acknowledge his daughter and have her rescued post-haste, or the kingdom will be in jeopardy for want of an heir. The king, still crazy, shouts that Apollo is a liar and the trial will go on. Suddenly, a messenger arrives with the news that the king's son and heir, Mamillius, has died from grief over his father's actions. Hermione collapses, and suddenly Leontes is no longer crazy. Hermione is taken from the room and Paulina returns to announce her death. The king is stricken with grief--his wife, heir, and daughter are all lost to him.

Meanwhile, Antigonus is attempting to fulfill the king's wishes while preserving the child's life. He lays her down in a remote area with some indicators of her identity, names her Perdita, and then, when he sees his ship sink in a sudden storm, is about to hang it all and just save the kid when a bear (yes, a bear!) appears and pursues him offstage. Perdita is found by a shepherd and a clown. The shepherd adopts the baby.

Sixteen years go by. In Bohemia, Polixenes' son, Florizel, has fallen in love with the beautiful daughter of a shepherd. Camillo, now attendant on Polixenes, brings Polixenes to the sheep-shearing celebration hosted by Perdita and her adopted father to soften his heart towards Florizel's intended. When Polixenes learns that not only does Florizel want to marry a peasant, he also has no intention of informing his father, he grows angry, shouts some rubbish about destroying Perdita's beauty because of her pretensions, and storms off. Camillo convinces Florizel and Perdita to go to Silicia to make amends with Leontes on Polixenes' behalf, sends them off, and heads out to tell Polixenes in the hopes of returning to Silicia and bringing about reconciliations with everyone. Meanwhile, the shepherd and the clown also head out to tell Polixenes about the stuff they'd found with Perdita, in hopes of sparing themselves torture (obviously, they can't read the letters they found with Perdita which establish her identity as the princess of Silicia. Fortunately, Polixenes can).

Perdita and Florizel arrive in Silicia, followed by Camillo and Polixenes. Leontes has been grieving for sixteen years, refusing to remarry to atone for his sins. Paulina extracts a promise from him that he will only marry at her behest and of her choosing, and only a woman exactly like Hermione. The reunion between Polixenes and Leontes takes place off-stage, as does the revelation that Perdita is Leontes' lost daughter. The events are discussed by two other characters.

Then the really crazy thing happens. Paulina invites them all to her house to see a statue of Hermione that she has comissioned. It is recently finished and has just been painted to be exactly as Hermione would be, were she alive now. It is so lifelike that Leontes wishes to kiss it, and begs his wife's forgiveness. And the statue comes to life. Hermione is alive, her daughter is alive, and Leontes and Polixenes are reconciled. It's never made clear whether Hermione was just in hiding all those years, or if she really was restored to life. There's evidence for either reading in the text. The story has a happy ending, though Antigonus and Mamillius are both still dead, victims of Leontes' temporary insanity (and of the lack of safeguards to prevent a king suffering temporary insanity from wreaking havoc).

I very much enjoyed the play, though it is much weaker in the last two acts than in the first three, which are absolutely riveting. Most of the sheep-shearing scene is completely irrelevant, and Autolycus, the subplot guy, is pretty superfluous, too. I'd like to see this performed and watch how it works out on stage. The disadvantage of reading Shakespeare is that a play is harder to follow when read than prose. Like a number of Shakespeare's works, Winter's Tale contains a couple of choice female roles: both Hermione and Paulina have some good speeches, especially in the first half of the show, and the story bears them out as in the right.

One thing I keep noticing with Shakespeare is his tendency to sprinkle names throughout the text that don't match up to the locale. Polixenes is from Bohemia. Polixenes is a Greek name. Florizel, also from Bohemia, sounds vaguely Italian. Perdita is Latin ("lost," the root of such lovely words as "perdition"). Leontes and Hermione are both Greek names (and Hermione states that she is the daughter of the Russian Emperor), and Paulina is Latin. I suppose Shakespeare assumed the names were roughly from the same area and thought they sounded good. And it's not as though names can't spread from one area to another, or be old enough for us to forget where they came from. 

And so, with The Winter's Tale, we close out the comedies and move on to the histories. The Life and Death of King John will be our next stop in the Shakespeare canon.

QUOTES

"Be pilot to me and thy places shall
Still neighbour mine." Polixenes, The Winter's Tale, I.2.577-578

"Were I the ghost that walk'd, I'ld bid you mark
Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in't
You chose her; then I'ld shriek, that even your ears
Should rift to hear me; and the words that follow'd
Should be 'Remember mine.' " Paulina, The Winter's Tale, V.1.2897-2901

"Such a deal of wonder is
broken out within this hour that ballad-makers
cannot be able to express it." Second Gentleman, The Winter's Tale, V.2.3130-3132

"If ever truth were pregnant by
circumstance." Third Gentleman, The Winter's Tale. V.2.3139-3140

All's Well That Ends Well

By the time I was halfway through the first scene in All's Well That Ends Well, my eyebrows had hit my forehead. I'm no longer wondering why my English lit teacher in high school did not include this play on the syllabus for the Shakespeare class. That first scene contains an amusing discourse on virginity, how it is lost, and whether it's better to keep or lose it, and how it doesn't keep well (odd to think of that having an expiry date). Needless to say, given that the Shakespeare lit class I did in grade 12 was for homeschooling families, I can't see it going over well with the parents or with some of the students.

The story goes thus: A young woman named Helena is in love with young Count Betram, who has recently departed for the sick and ailing King of France's court. She is an attendant of his mother's, the Countess, and is the daughter of a physician. When the Countess discovers Helena's love for her son, she wishes to encourage it, and so Helena departs for Paris, hoping to gain favour in the King's eyes, and a promise of marriage to Betram, by providing him with some of her father's medicines. When she meets with the King, she offers to cure him. If her remedies fail, then her own life is forfeit, but if she succeeds, the King will arrange a marriage for her with the man of her choice. In the meantime, Bertram and the King's lords are trying to handle a war within Italy which France is involved with.

Helena's medicines work, so the King allows her to choose a husband. When she selects Bertram, he refuses. The King insists, so Bertram marries Helena, then refuses to consummate the marriage and sends her home, intending to head out for Italy the next day. So Helena hatches a new plan. She leaves France and goes to Italy as a pilgrim, where she encounters a woman and her daughter, Diana. Diana has caught the eye of Bertram. She's not happy about it, nor about his promises to marry her once his wife is dead. Helena takes Diana's place in bed the one night she consents to sleep with Bertram, and claims his ring. Then she fakes her death, so Bertram believes himself free to wed another. When Diana turns up at the King's court, claiming Bertram as her husband now that his wife is dead, he disavows her. A friend of his bears witness that Bertram was in love with Diana and had claimed to sleep with her. When Diana claims to yet be a maid, confusing matters more, the King is about to throw her into prison when Helena arrives, revealing that she stood in for Diana and therefore claimed her own husband. Bertram acquiesces to a marriage with her now that she has out-smarted him, and the King volunteers to provide a dowry for Diana, for the work she did in assisting Helena.

This isn't one of the more popular comedies. The ending is dissatisfying because, though Helena triumphs, she has chosen a man who only accepts her once she has proven that she is more clever than he, and that makes her somewhat worthy in his eyes, when before, she didn't matter because she was not highborn. He's not the greatest of men. His friend Lafeu, who provides wise and insightful commentary on the situation throughout the play, is a far better character. I feel like Helena's been cheated, even though she wants Bertram and does get him in the end.

One more comedy to go, and it's the one I've been waiting for: A Winter's Tale!

Quotes
"Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven." Helena, All's Well That Ends Well, I.1.218-219

"If men could be contented to
be what they are, there were no fear in marriage." Clown, All's Well That Ends Well, I.3.370-371

"I am not a day of season,
For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail
In me at once: but to the brightest beams
Distracted clouds give way; so stand thou forth;
The time is fair again" The King of France, All's Well That Ends Well, V.3.2711-2715

Twelfth Night; or, What You Will

Note: Yes, this project went on an unintentional hiatus for a while, but we are getting back on track. The comedies will get finished up this week and then we'll be on to the histories. 

I think my extreme fondness for Twelfth Night was strongly influenced by the film version starring Imogen Stubbs and Helena Bonham Carter. It's a great production. It rearranges a few things and cuts down some of the speeches, but it's fantastic. I've also seen it staged by Portland's Shakespeare in the Park company. Live outdoor theatre...and my favourite show. I was so into Twelfth Night that my fifteenth birthday party was themed around the play (and yes, yes, I am a geek). To be honest, it isn't as thought-provoking as some of the comedies, but I find the characters interesting and the plot more cohesive than the other comedies which use similar plot devices.

Twelfth Night uses the plot devices of the separated twins (which we saw in Comedy of Errors) and the shipwreck (Comedy of Errors again, and Tempest), but isn't like either of those plays. In this case, the twins are a brother and sister. Each believes the other dead, and the sister, Viola, finding herself without family on a foreign shore, goes for that other classic Shakespearean plot device, cross-dressing. She dresses up as a man. Then she heads over to the local Duke's residence and gets a job working with him. The Duke, Orsino, grows quite attached to his new attendant, and sends her to convince the nearby Countess Olivia to marry him. Olivia's not interested, and has told Orsino so repeatedly, but he is persistent. Viola's pleas on behalf of her master attract Olivia's attention, but sadly, her attention is grabbed, not by Orsino's love, but by Viola's words and appearance. Caught between Olivia's demands and her own love for Orsino, Viola's about ready to pull her hair out when it all comes to a head. Her brother Sebastian, who survived the shipwreck, arrives in town and is mistaken for her by Olivia. He is happily swayed by Olivia's invitations (she's beautiful, she's rich, she wants him) and the two secretly marry. Orsino and his retinue arrive at Olivia's for a visit, Viola and Sebastian come face to face and Viola's gender is revealed. The siblings are reunited, Olivia accepts Viola as a sister, and Orsino proposes to Viola.

The secondary plot involves a number of Olivia's servants and one of her relatives. It involves the overly pompous steward, the drunkard relative, the local fool, the housekeeper, and a few others. The steward, Malvolio, is in need of a comeuppance, and the others decide to give it to him. I love this part of the story, and I think it's a better-structured one than many of the subplots in the other comedies (the ones in Measure for Measure and Two Gentlemen of Verona were so simple as to be nearly non-existent). The practical joke angle keeps it fairly light-hearted when the main plot is dealing with Viola's frustration at loving a man who is eager to confide in her but doesn't know she's a woman, her grief for her brother, and her trying to convince Olivia to stop loving her. As both plots end with at least one wedding, the story's a happy one, though there is some angst in the middle.

And that's Twelfth Night. If you can, get to a production near you, or watch the film. We'll wind up our journey through Shakespeare's comedies with A Winter's Tale  and All's Well That Ends Well before we proceed into the histories.

Favourite Quotes
"O, had I but followed the arts!" Sir Andrew Aguecheek, Twelfth Night, I.3.202-203

"Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we!
For such as we are made of, such we be" Viola, Twelfth Night, II.2.688-689

"A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit: how quickly the
wrong side may be turned outward!" Feste, Twelfth Night, III.1.1246-1248

"And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." Feste, Twelfth Night, V.1.2589

The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew is, naturally, a comedy, but like some of Shakespeare's other comedies, it provides material for thoughtful discussion. It deals with the question of whether marriage should be a marriage of equals or not? Should we have the marriage of true minds? The story of Petruchio and Katharina sheds some light on the question.

The story is framed as a play within a play: the initial scenes bring in a tinker who falls asleep at an inn. A fellow guest, a lord, plays a trick on him. The man wakes to find himself being treated as a lord, and the players helping with the joke offer to perform a show, which then leads us into the main tale. We never go back to the audience or find out when he discovers the joke. Instead, the rest of the play is something else entirely. The basic plotline is fairly simple. A gentleman, Baptista, has two daughters. The elder one, Katharina, is known as a shrew, and the younger one, Bianca, is wildly popular and has many suitors. Baptista is determined to marry off his elder daughter first, which is driving her little sister crazy. One of her suitors suggests to his marriage-hungry friend, Petruchio, that Katharina might suit him. Petruchio's interested in a wife with a sizeable dowry, and is not intimidated by the tales of Katharina's scolding tongue. He and Katharina meet, have an impressive argument, and Petruchio agrees to marry her. Baptista doesn't give his daughter much of a choice, so they are married. Katharina is mortified when her bridegroom arrives in a crazy outfit, and her day just gets worse from there. Petruchio is determined to convince her that she should deal more kindly with him, so he decides to give her a taste of her own medicine, and acts like just as much of a shrew as she has.

In the meantime, Bianca is deciding which of her many suitors should win her hand. The most persistent, Lucentio, disguises himself as a music teacher and woos her under that guise. Near the end of the play, they marry, and Katharina and Petruchio return to Padua for a visit. By this time, Petruchio and Katharina have come to something of an understanding. She finally gives up fighting with him, and consents to agree. Once they've come to agreement, Petruchio makes use of Katharina's new-found meekness to win a bet. He wagers that, of himself and Katharina, Lucentio and Bianca, and their friend Hortensio and his wife, his wife is the most obedient. They, of course, take the bet, and when each woman is summoned, only Katharina appears. Baptista, dumbfounded by the event, adds to their winnings equivalent to Katharina's earlier dowry, since she is so transformed as to be like another daughter. Petruchio and Katharina then retire together, triumphant.

The relationship between Petruchio and Katharina could be read in more than one way. Petruchio can be seen as breaking her independent spirit and forcing her into the role of submissive wife. That reading is easily supported by the text, and is certainly easy to convey in a stage production. However, another reading of the story could indicate that Katharina's submission to Petruchio eventually puts them on equal or close-to-equal ground with each other. Her agreement to obey her husband allows them to work together to confound their family and friends. A more nuanced reading of the text would bring out this quality, and this is the one that, I think, comes out in many modern productions of the play. It's certainly the reading found in the musical version, Kiss Me, Kate, where the actors' characters' off-stage relationship mirrors the on-stage relationship between Kate and Petruchio. If you're interested in a fun version of the play, with another plot going on in the background that mirrors the Shakespearean comedy, I'd highly recommend it. The music's fantastic.

So, The Taming of the Shrew: possible misogynistic play demonstrating how to browbeat your wife or a potential vision of companionate marriage. As a bonus, the play includes lots of really naughty lines. I went to see a production once with a friend who was unfamilar with Shakespeare and had a hard time following much of the language, but there were moments...and the look on his face was priceless.

Our next play is All's Well That Ends Well. It's one of the minor comedies, but the first scene is promising (and eyebrow-raising!).

Favourite Quotes
"For you are call'd plain Kate,
And bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst;
But, Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom;
Kate of Kate-Hall, my super-dainty Kate,
For dainties are all cates: and therefore, Kate,
Take this of me, Kate of my consolation" Petruchio, The Taming of the Shrew, II.1.186-191. I'm never sure if it's the 'super-dainty Kate' or the 'Kate of my consolation' that's my favourite bit in this speech.

"Better once than never, for never too late." Petruchio, The Taming of the Shrew, V.1.157

As You Like It

As You Like It. A comedy, where, once again, everyone ends up in the forest. Those forests are popular places. We've seen them in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, and of course, A Midsummer Night's Dream. The forest is a place of imagination where anything can happen. I suppose there's probably some Freudian symbolism in there somewhere, but my background is linguistics, not English lit or psychology. If you're reading this, feel free to comment on forest symbolism and enlighten me.

This play, once again, has one of those fun female roles. To be fair, much of Shakespeare is populated by interesting women (wait until we get to Taming of the Shrew). Rosalind's character is witty, smart, and not afraid to stand up for herself, although she also knows when it is wise to retreat. She ends up dressing as a man for most of the play, since she and her cousin Celia need some sort of chaperone when they are wandering through the forest.

The plot goes thusly: Rosalind's father, the Duke, has been forced into exile by his brother, Celia's father. Eventually, Duke Frederick, Celia's father, decides that his niece must also leave the court, and Celia refuses to be parted from her best friend. So Rosalind disguises herself as a boy and the two leave the court together, accompanied by Touchstone, the court's fool. In the meantime, Rosalind's love interest, a man named Orlando, also flees to the forest to escape his murderous brother. In the forest, the banished Duke also resides.Through a series of convoluted meetings, Rosalind is re-united with her father and wed to her lover Orlando. Orlando's brother Oliver meets Celia, and taking her for a shepherdess, falls in love with her and is willing to renounce his inheritance in favour of Orlando. The brothers are then reconciled, since Oliver no longer wants to kill Orlando. Rosalind also plays matchmaker for a shepherd and shepherdess (although the shepherdess takes a little more convincing, since she's fallen for Rosalind in male guise). Touchstone the fool is paired with a country woman named Audrey, although their union appears to be more about lust than love. By the end of the play, the usurping Duke has also wandered into the forest, where he runs into a holy man who convinces him to relinquish his brother's lands and titles and turn hermit. So everyone has a happy ending, although Touchstone and Audrey are predicted to have a turbulent marriage.

As You Like It has never been my favourite comedy. It's funny, and when staged well, it can be great. But there are so many subplots and lovers that it can be difficult to follow if it is staged poorly. It does have the famous "All the world's a stage" speech, delivered by an associate of the true Duke in Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166. There is also Rosalind convincing Orlando that she will cure him of his love for the fair Rosalind if he shows up and courts her (since he thinks she's a man at that point), which is entertaining. But the story's never captured my imagination, and I don't find much matter in it for discussion. The usurping Duke's about-face in the final scene makes very little sense, especially since his conversion is conveyed by messenger and it doesn't fit with his words and actions in the earlier acts. The part I like the least, I think, is rather unfortunately one of the main devices which drives the plot. The love-at-first sight phenomenon, which plagues the play, rarely convinces me. It's certainly easier to establish in a short amount of time, but it tends to feel unconvincing unless played by very skilled actors.

Well, there's my take on As You Like It. Our next foray into Shakespeare will take us to Padua, in The Taming of the Shrew.

Favourite Quotes
"Invest me in my motley; give me leave
To speak my mind, and I will through ahd through
Cleanse the foul body of th' infected world,
If they will patiently receive my medicine." Jaques, As You Like It, II.7.58-61

"It is meat and drink to me to see a clown. By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for." Touchstone, As You Like It, V.1.11-12

"It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue; but it is no more unhandsome than to see the lord the prologue." Rosalind, As You Like It, Epilogue

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Yes, it's been way too long since I've updated with a play. Let's blame pregnancy brain on it. The baby may be tiny, but apparently it has the ability to take my ability to concentrate and toss it around like a football. I think I owe my readers about 6 plays right now, which should get us through the rest of the comedies in short order. I'm planning for the next update to the Shakespeare Attempt to be on the 22nd of April. 

 
I've been very familiar with A Midsummer Night's Dream since I was twelve, when I played one of the fairies in it. I was Peaseblossom, which came with the distinction of getting to say, "An' I!" first. I had other bits of the show memorized, of course, and knew it backwards and forwards. It's a good show to use if you want to introduce teenagers to Shakespeare. The plot is absurd: It involves lots of running around in the woods, and a guy who gets his head turned into a donkey's head. There are also a play-within-a-play, love spells, and several couples to contend with.

The basic story is this: Hermia wants to marry Lysander. Her father wants her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius wants to marry Hermia and doesn't want to marry Helena, whom he's been flirting with. She wants to marry him. Hermia's father takes the debacle to their ruler, Theseus, due to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, in a few days. Theseus tells Hermia she can do what her father says, join a convent, or die, and she has until his wedding to make up her mind.

Hermia, naturally, finds this intolerable. She and Lysander plan to run off together. Helena overhears them, and to get at least some minor attention from Demetrius, she tattles. Hermia and Lysander flee into the woods one night, pursued by Helena, who is in turn pursued by Lysander. There they encounter the fairies who inhabit the wood, there to bless Theseus and Hippolyta's marriage. Oberon, king of the fairies, takes pity on Helena, and orders his servant Puck to charm Demetrius into being in love with her. Puck mixes up the couples, and Lysander falls in love with Helena, followed by Demetrius, when Oberon charms him to be in love. Now no one loves Hermia. After the requisite shouting at each other, they're all charmed to sleep again by Oberon and Puck, who then correct Puck's mistake. When they wake in the morning, discovered by Theseus and Hippolyta's hunting party, Demetrius is in love with Helena and is no longer interested in Hermia. Theseus, pleased to have the problem resolved, tells Hermia's father that she's marrying Lysander, like she wants to, and in fact, they'll have a triple wedding to get all the couples safely married off before anything else happens.

The side-plot tells the story of a group of tradesmen, eager to perform a play at the Duke's wedding celebration. They high-tail it into the woods one night to practice, so no one else will steal their ideas. Puck, wandering by, notices just how much of an idiot one of the men is, and decides it's time for a prank. Bottom, the man, stumbles into the brush and then stumbles back out with a donkey's head instead of his own. His friends flee in terror, leaving him alone. Puck then fulfills his duty to Oberon, who is upset with his wife. He's been ordered to get Titania, queen of the fairies, to fall in love with some hideous monster. Bottom fits that part quite nicely. (Oberon and Titania are in town to bless the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta since, in the past, Oberon's been Hippolyta's lover and Titania's been Theseus'. They're upset with each other, not because of the constant cheating on each other, but because Titania's taken in a child that belonged to one of her worshippers, and Oberon wants the little boy in his retinue). Eventually, Oberon gets what he wants, releases Titania from the love-spell, and then Bottom is released from the spell of having an ass' head, although he does not cease to be one in personality. The team of tradesmen perform the tragic tale of Pyramus and Thisbe (a Romeo and Juliet-like story) at the wedding celebrations, although their interpretation is more comic than tragic. The story ends with the fairies coming to bless the newly established households after the festivities are over.

Midsummer is one of the more well-known comedies. It's goofy, it's fun to perform, and the fairy component means that costuming can be highly imaginative. I have fond memories of just being one of the fairies who barely gets a line. The moral implications of the story aren't terribly great, however. If you and your spouse are having a fight, just drug them until they agree with you (Oberon and Titania). Forcing your daughter into a marriage she doesn't want, and getting the ruler of the city to agree with you is a great idea! (Egeus, Hermia's father). Everything can be solved by running off into the woods (most of the cast). Yes, it's a fun show, but I wouldn't want to take life or relationship advice from it.

Next up: The Merchant of Venice, which is not a comedy, but for some reason, my Complete Works has it filed in that section.

Favourite Quotes

"This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child" Egeus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, I.1.27 (a serious accusation, but a little odd--only her bosom? what about the rest of her?)

"Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd." Helena, A Midsummer Night's Dream. I.1.232-239

"We will meet; and there we may rehearse more obscenely and courageously" Bottom,  A Midsummer Night's Dream, I.2.111-112

"Merry and tragical! tedious and brief!
That is, hot ice and wonderous strange snow.
How shall we find the concord of this discord?" Theseus, A Midsummer Night's Dream, V.1.58-60

Love's Labour's Lost

 
Love's Labour's Lost...or why you shouldn't make an extremely definite resolution to live a life without the opposite sex when a group of women are coming on a state visit.

That's correct. Ferdinand, King of Navarre, decides one day that this is the time for him and his best friends to spend three years as ascetic scholars: much study, little food and some serious fasting, hardly any sleep, and no women!

Unfortunately, this decision coincides with the arrival of the Princess of France, and her ladies-in-waiting. Ferdinand decides that he simply can't have them staying at his home (too much temptation!), and kindly offers her tents in his park.

The best laid plans, of course, go awry. The king and his men fall head over heels for the ladies, and after much sneaking around and sending love letters and trinkets, eventually settle on breaking their vows and speaking frankly with their ladies.

The ladies have also fallen in love, but feel that the men really deserve some teasing and testing for being such idiots, so when the gentlemen show up for a masked party, the ladies swap trinkets to fool the gentlemen into courting the wrong one, just to show them up. When this is revealed, the ladies finally talk plainly with the men. They aren't really happy with the men for breaking a solemn vow just because they showed up (the sudden avowals of love are rather suspect), but nor do they wish to entirely refuse them. Therefore, they demand that the gentlemen spend a year in seclusion, at a hermitage, and if they still then wish to wed the ladies, then they will say yes. The gentlemen agree, and this comedy ends, but not, unusually, with a wedding.

Love's Labour's Lost (there's a bit of tongue-twister) has a unique twist on the happy ending comedy. The ending is essentially happy, since the lovers are united. However, they are parted for twelve months so that the men may prove their love. It's assumed from the conclusion that the men prove themselves and then wedded bliss follows, but of course, one never knows. It's a refreshing change from the sudden tumble into love, followed by matrimony, which is present in most of the comedies. If the parties are all certain at the end of the year, they may have a better chance of true happiness in marriage. But of course, this is a play, and a comedic one at that. Questions of the future don't typically trouble the characters beyond the final scene.

Next play: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Quotes

"How well he's read, to reason against reading!" Ferdinand, Love's Labour's Lost, I.1.94

"By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rime, and to be melancholy." Berowne, Love's Labour's Lost, IV.3.16

"For wisdom's sake, a word that all men love,
Or for love's sake, a word that loves all men,
Or for men's sake, the authors of these women;
Or women's sake, by whom we men are men,
Let us once lose our oaths to find ourselves,
Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.
It is religion to be thus forsworn;
For charity itself fulfills the law;
And who can sever love from charity?" Berowne, Love Labour's Lost, IV.3.357-365

"Princess: We are wise girls to mock our lovers so.
"Rosaline: They are worse fools to purchase mocking so." Love's Labour's Lost, V.2.58-59

"Berowne: Our wooing doth not end like an old play;
Jack hath not Jill; these ladies' courtesy
Might well have made our sport a comedy.
"Ferdinand: Come, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,
And then 'twill end.
"Berowne: That's too long for a play." Love's Labour's Lost, V.2.882-886

Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing is one of the more popular comedies in the Shakespearean canon. It revolves around two love stories. The first is the conventional story of Claudio and Hero, a couple who like each other fairly well and who are marrying because Hero's father is happy to wed his daughter to Claudio, a favourite of the Duke. The second story involves the lovers Beatrice and Benedick--two characters with witty tongues who tease each other constantly, and, when set up by their friends, reluctantly admit to being in love with each other.

This, like Measure for Measure, is one of the thoughtful comedies. While it is a comedy, and has many moments of absurdity, it also has moments which provoke deep thought. The one that always confronts me is the difference between Beatrice and Hero, who are cousins. Hero's value, both to her family and to her lover, is essentially that of a commodity. She is valued because she is beautiful, lady-like, and virginal, and because she is her wealthy father's sole heir. The moment her chastity is so much as questioned, her value vanishes. Even her doting father briefly turns on her until he is convinced that the accusation is a lie. Her own protestations of innocence serve no purpose until the men who were hired to slander her are found and forced to confess. Her value is then returned, and she weds the lover who had earlier spurned her at the altar because he believed her unchaste.

Beatrice, on the other hand, is valued as a person. She has no parents visible in the story, so she is presumably an orphan. No mention is made of her dowry, and her guardians are her uncles, who would like her to wed, but make little effort to push her in that direction. Her value is found in her character. No one ever dares hint that Beatrice might be unchaste, but her behaviour is far more forward than that of her cousin's. She has nothing to hide, and therefore, everyone admires her. Her wit makes the people around her laugh, and wins her a proposal from the Duke himself, which she kindly refuses. When Benedick is forced to come to terms with his feelings for Beatrice, with whom it has been implied he has already had a relationship, he praises her mind as well as her beauty. When her cousin is slandered by his best friend, he accepts Beatrice's challenge and schedules a duel with Claudio, trusting her judgement more than his. When they decide to wed, it is a mutal agreement and no mention is made of money.

Much Ado serves to illustrate two different views of love and marriage, both of which would have existed in Shakespeare's time. The thought of marrying for love certainly existed, and was idealized, but marriage (particularly among those with property, whose marriages were dictated more by their parents than themselves) was often little more than a business contract. If love came out of it, well and good. If not, well, that was life. One had to have a way to live and a secure position for raising children. Marrying for love is a frequent theme in Shakespeare's work, and indeed, Claudio claims to love Hero when he proposes and in the days that follow. But the moment someone tries to convince him that she's not a virgin, he goes ballistic and publicly shames his bride. He values what she can bring to him, not her as a person. As soon as he is confronted with the truth, he is stricken with remorse and grief, and he makes his apologies, but the fact remains that he was all too willing to turn on the woman he supposedly loved when she appeared less than perfect. Benedict has no such illusions about Beatrice. He knows his own imperfections and hers, and yet loves her all the same, and she feels the same way about him.

I've seen multiple productions of Much Ado: Branagh's film version, a very traditional interpretation from the Ashland Shakespeare Festival, and a delightful production set in post-WWII Texas performed by a Portland theatre company. My favourite one, for setting and characterization, was the Texan-style production. The comic sheriff, Dogberry, is perfect as a Texan sheriff. I am, I admit, also very fond of Branagh's Much Ado. Most of the actors in it are quite good, although I could have done without Keanu Reeves attempting to recite Shakespeare, or Michael Keaton's bizarre interpretation of Dogberry.

Up next: Love's Labour's Lost

Favourite Quotes

"Thou wilt be like a lover presently,
And tire the hearer with a book of words." Don Pedro, Much Ado About Nothing, I.1.316-317

"I was born to speak all mirth and no matter." Beatrice, Much Ado About Nothing, II.1.346

"Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humour?  
No; the world must be peopled." Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing, II.3.262-263

"A miracle! here's our own hands against our hearts." Benedick, Much Ado About Nothing, V.4.91-92 

The Comedy of Errors

The Comedy of Errors. Two sets of twins, a shipwreck, men of a quiet town visiting a crazy city, and chaos ensues.

The story's background is that once upon a time, there was a family on board a ship. They had twin sons. They also bought a pair of twins as slaves for their sons (it's ancient Greece, so that was considered normal). Then they were shipwrecked, the families divided, and the twins separated from each other, each half of the family believing the other half was dead. The twins were named by each parent left to them, who happened to choose the same names. So now we have two sets of twins: two named Antipholus, who were the sons of the family, and two named Dromio, who were the slaves. They grow up and each Dromio serves each Antipholus. Then one day, the Antipholus and Dromio who reside in Syracuse with the father of the family come to Ephesus, where the other Antipholus and Dromio live, with the mother of the family. It takes most of the play for them to sort out the problems caused by having two of the same man running around town, especially when the Antipholus from Syracuse falls in love with his brother's sister-in-law.

It's an insane play, really. When I saw it performed at the Ashland Shakespeare Festival back in 2004, I nearly hyperventilated because I was laughing so hard. My favourite characters in the show are the Dromios. The version I saw used the same actor for the Dromio characters, so they naturally looked exactly alike. The guy was brilliant. Every moment he was on-stage, he was completely in character and every single thing he did was funny and felt spontaneous. Good show, good actors, obviously a good director. I came home from Ashland with a marionette dragon from one of the gift shops and I named it Dromio.

Comedy of Errors isn't so serious as our last one, Measure for Measure. It's more a comedy for the sake of comedy. And why not?

Next up: Much Ado About Nothing!

Favourite Quote

"I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop;
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself" Antipholus (of Syracuse), Comedy of Errors, I.2.35-38

A brief note on quotes: Sometimes I find a lot of quotes I enjoy, but other times, I don't really discover ones that speak to me. I'll include at least one quote per play, but some will have more than others.

Measure for Measure

Measure for Measure is yet another play that I had not read, but unlike Two Gentlemen, I'm quite happy to have read it. It offers such characters as 'Mistress Overdone', described in the Dramatis Personae as "a bawd," and 'Froth', a "foolish gentleman." There is Elbow, prone to malapropisms (not unlike Dogberry in Much Ado About Nothing). And there is Angelo, an extremely strict and moral man who is acting in the Duke's stead while the Duke is absent. Angelo's actions force events which cause the watcher (or reader, in my case) to think a bit harder about the difference between justice which is thoughtless, and justice which is tempered with wisdom.

The story goes thus: The Duke of Vienna has departed the city for a diplomatic meeting (except he's not actually leaving, he has sneaky plans, instead), leaving Angelo and Escalus in charge. Young Claudio has been hauled off to prison for getting his fiancee, Juliet, pregnant, and condemned to death by Angelo. He is somewhat resigned to his fate, while his friends are not. Juliet is being consigned to a convent. Others in the story, including Juliet's cousin Isabella, a novice nun, think that Claudio should simply be instructed to marry Juliet forthwith, and are bewildered by Angelo's harsh decision.

Isabella decides to plead on her brother's behalf and begs Angelo for mercy. She appeals to Angelo's humanity--that he, too, is likely a sinner and as such, should have pity on Claudio. She then attempts to bribe him by promising that the women at her convent will pray for him, to provide "such gifts that heaven shall share with you." Angelo tells her to come again the next day, and dimisses everyone, to rant about how now he has fallen in love with Isabella. He later offers to trade her brother's life for her virtue. She is appalled, and threatens to make known what sort of man he is. He points out that no one will believe her, and she'll be put to shame, instead.

When she tells her brother in prison, the Duke, lurking in the guise of a friar, overhears, and explains that he will aid Isabella and Claudio. Sometime earlier, Angelo had reneged on a betrothal contract with a young woman because her brother's ship which carried her dowry had sank, leaving her with little money. The Duke intends to enlist the woman, Mariana, to help set more than one wrong right. He sends her to Angelo in the guise of Isabella. Angelo sleeps with Mariana and then sends the order for Claudio to be executed anyway. The Duke intervenes and hides Claudio in the prison, and returns as himself in the last act to set things aright. Angelo is forced to wed Mariana, in light of the broken betrothal now ostensibly fulfilled by their union, and when the Duke plans to have him subsequently executed for his crimes, Mariana intervenes on his behalf. The Duke relents, then produces Claudio and Juliet, instructs them to marry, and then proposes to Isabella himself. She does not clearly accept, but it looks as if she will quit the convent to wed the Duke.

The plot of this play is a little more intricate than the last one discussed, and it really only falls into the comedies because it ends, not with executions, as Angelo would have it, but with weddings. There are comic characters, but the overall tone of the show is severe. Measure for Measure may not directly allude to this particular story from the Bible, but it reminded me very much of the story of the woman caught in adultery. The Pharisees haul her before Jesus and demand that he condemn her. He takes a moment, and when they again demand a response, he simply states, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Slowly, the crowd disperses. He doesn't point out that they're breaking Mosaic law by condemning only the woman, and not the man as well. He simply faces them with their own culpability. In Measure for Measure, Angelo, unwilling to face his own wrongs, simply punishes them in others, until he is forced by a higher authority to admit his failings. His repentance is briefly stated, but one would hope that in the future, his wife and the Duke together will keep him truly honest.

I'm waiting for a film version of this to come in at the library, so I can see what it looks like staged. In the meantime, we will proceed from the serious comedy here to The Comedy of Errors.

Quotes
"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall:
Some run from brakes of ice, and answer none,
And some condemned for a fault alone." Escalus, Measure for Measure, II.1.38-40

"Go to your bosom;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault: if it confess
A natural guiltiness such as is his,
Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life." Isabella, Measure for Measure, II.2.136-141

"Love talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love." Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, Measure for Measure, III.2.163-164

The Merry Wives of Windsor

So, we're past Two Gentlemen, finally, and into a ridiculous farce of a comedy. This is a show I've had the good fortune to see performed, and it is hilarious. Merry Wives was written to showcase the character of Sir John Falstaff, whom we will see again in Henry IV, as the friend of Prince Hal. I think he has a bit role in Henry V, too, but as that's one I haven't read, we'll find out when we get there.

Falstaff, frankly, is a pig. And this is the story where his idiocy has consequences. Being a man who thinks much of himself, he sends letters to two different women, propositioning them. They, being friends, get together to rant about this drunken idiot who thinks they'd be interested in an affair, only to discover that the only thing different about each letter was the addressee. Even more insulted, they decide to get even.

They arrange assignations with Falstaff, scheduled at a time when one of their husbands will wander in and Falstaff has to be sneaked out. In one instance, he's carried out in a washing tub by a servant and dumped in a ditch. On another occasion, he's dressed up as a hated female relative who is chased out of the house by a screaming husband while being beaten with a stick.

The husbands are very confused at first. For a while, one thinks his wife really is having an affair, but when they discover what's going on, the husbands and wives team up for a final showdown out in the woods, designed to scare Falstaff out of his wits and pay him back for his misdeeds.

Merry Wives has some of the great elements of Shakespearean comedy: sassy women, slapstick routines, and fun language (a favourite insult from this play is, "You Banbury cheese!"). It's one that you don't see as often, which is a pity. It's ludicrous and a lot of fun. It's not a play with much substance, really. It's just a good time. Falstaff got a play of his own because Elizabeth I liked his character and wanted more, and Shakespeare, eager to please, obliged her. The Bard knew how to play politics.

Our next play is Measure for Measure, which I haven't read in the past or seen before, but I'm looking forward to the adventure.

A few favourite quotes:

"I will marry her, sir, at your request; but if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease it upon better acquaintance, when were are married and have more occasion to know one another: I hope, upon familiarity will grow more contempt: but if you say, 'Marry her,' I will marry her; that I am freely dissolved, and dissolutely" Slender, Merry Wives, I.1.254-261 (not quite a Mrs. Malaprop, but close)

"I love not the humour of bread and cheese" Nym, II.1.139

"Who's a cuckold now?" Ford, V.5.115

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Two Gentleman of Verona is, like all of the first plays I'm reading, a comedy. Basically, there are 2 guys. One's in love, and is staying in Verona because his lady is there. The other one is opposed to love and is headed out on the road. Guess who's going to change his mind by the end?

Gentleman 1, Proteus, finally convinces the lovely Julia to fall in love with him. Then his father packs him off to Milan to visit Gentleman 2, Valentine, who has since fallen for the witty Silvia. Proteus takes one look at Silvia and falls in love with her, and immediately starts plotting against his best friend. He talks Silvia's father into sending Valentine off on an errand back to Verona to get rid of him. In the meantime, Julia decides to dress up like a boy and go to Milan to surprise Proteus, where she discovers his faithlessness.

Silvia, knowing of Proteus' previous attachment, dislikes him, and runs off to the forest to find Valentine, who has since fallen in with a group of kindly outlaws. Silvia is pursued by Proteus and Julia (disguised as Proteus' servant), and when they catch up with her, she berates Proteus for his inconstancy. Julia reveals herself, and Proteus repents, and they all end up engaged to the proper people.

I was probably more irritated with this play than amused. The best scene was when Launce, one of the servants, was debating marrying a girl, and Speed, another servant, read through the list of her faults and virtues and they commented on each item (although, be warned, the scene is quite sexist). None of the main characters were particularly commendable, except for Silvia, who had a mind of her own. Unfortunately, I was so frustrated with the play that I didn't really try to glean more from it.

The next play is The Merry Wives of Windsor, which is much more fun.

Quotes:

"Fire that's closest kept burns most of all" Lucetta, Two Gentlemen, I.2.30

"Speed: For he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose; and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.
"Valentine: Belike, boy, then, you are in love; for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.
"Speed: True, sir; I was in love with my bed." Two Gentleman, II.1.84-91

"What need a man care for a stock with a wench, when she can knit him a stock?" Launce, Two Gentleman, III.1.314-315

"Speed: Item, She hath more hair than wit.-
"Launce: More hair than wit it may be; I'll prove it: the cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the greater hides the less." Two Gentlemen, III.1.369-375