Reading complex matter is a bit like riding a horse at a high speed. Any misunderstood word can become an obstacle, and lead to an unplanned dismount. We have a tendency to think of reading as simply passing our vision through a series of words, and that after doing so, we'll "get it". But this isn't accurate. To improve at anything requires that we slow down and exaggerate the process. In terms of reading, this means that we must build the meaning of the material one piece at a time - letters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. And because Shakespeare is both the most demanding and the most substantial literature, it is the best place to build these skills. Its complexity forces everyone to read like a beginner.

Love's Labour's Lost is known for its wordplay and the complexity of its syntax. This fits in with one of its primary themes: language itself, its use and misuse. For example, many of the characters speak in ways that are intended to hide their true natures, and much of the play's abundant humour comes from these discrepancies and watching them be found out. But there is a lot of work to be done to get to it - fortunately - as it is the most intellectually rewarding work to be found.

One of the most fascinating moments in Love's Labour's Lost, a play that concerns the place of scholarship in a productive life, is Berowne's seemingly simple question: "What is the end of study?" Berowne, along with two other young noblemen, has agreed to join the King of Navarre in making his court "a little Academe" by studying hard and living ascetically for a three year period - "plain living and high thinking", in the words of Wordsworth, but he finds the terms increasingly frightening as the day approaches:

So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,

That is, to live and study here three years.

But there are other strict observances;

As, not to see a woman in that term,

Which I hope well is not enrolled there;

And one day in a week to touch no food

And but one meal on every day beside,

The which I hope is not enrolled there;

And then, to sleep but three hours in the night,

And not be seen to wink of all the day—

When I was wont to think no harm all night

And make a dark night too of half the day—

Which I hope well is not enrolled there:

O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep,

Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep!

To which the King's reply is essentially: Too bad, you already agreed (I'm paraphrasing, of course; here's the full scene: http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=loveslabours&Act=1&Scene=1&Scope=scene). And then comes the question above, which not only hovers over the rest of the play, but can haunt an audience member for some time afterward. More on this tomorrow.

Last night, I saw Love's Labour's Lost in a splendid production put on by the drama students of Dawson College. The performances were exuberant, filled with discovery and humour; I can't remember the last time I heard an audience laugh out loud so frequently during a play. And what a funny play it is, in both common senses of the word. It's not one of Shakespeare's most popular, I think it's safe to say. In fact, William Hazlitt once wrote, "If we were to part with any of the author's comedies, it should be this". I learned of this unfortunate moment (in an otherwise fine career), and much more about the play's history and contents, in H.R. Woudhuysen's excellent introduction to the Arden Shakespeare edition (1998), which I'll be writing about in the next couple of posts. For now, let me recommend this: the next time that you hear of a student production of a Shakespeare play - go see it. I wish William Hazlitt had seen this one.

I ended yesterday's post by using an unacknowledged quotation from Hamlet. (By the way, it seems as if Shakespeare is the only writer whom it's OK to quote without citation - otherwise we'd be swimming in footnotes.) It's from Ophelia's mad scene, and it's another fascinating example of how some of the passages containing the greatest wisdom come from some of the most unlikely sources: in this case a character who has gone mad, and who beforehand, had revealed of herself very little, and certainly not this kind of philosophical depth. The exact line is this: "Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be", and it is often overlooked because it's hidden between two lines more in keeping with our perceptions of how a mentally troubled person would speak: "They say the owl was a baker's daughter" and "God be at your table!". But just as Lear's madness brings out his most sane reasoning - as opposed to the beginning of the play when he's technically sane but his actions are the opposite - so does Ophelia's. For the first time in the play, she understands the horrific results of the ambition, treachery and violence that have infected the court and her life. And although it is too late for her, she passes from the play with words and actions "no stronger than a flower", but which have retained their beauty and depth in the imagination of everyone who has read or seen the play.

While preparing for my upcoming lecture on Romeo and Juliet (next Wednesday at 11 am at the Atwater library), a realization came to me regarding Shakespeare's use of poetry. It occurred to me that no other form of writing could contain all the complexity of life - its changes and ambiguities, the fact that we have to search and think to find meanings in events, our psychological upheavals and lack of inner consistency, the way that words and objects can have meanings far beyond themselves - all of these are best expressed, and perhaps only expressed, through poetry. Shakespeare, the "Chief Poet", as Keats called him, allows us to see the workings and potentials of our minds through the unwavering quality of his poetic writing. And even his prose is poetic, as you know from this justly famous passage: "What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" Shakespeare shows us not only what we are but also what we may be.

The final quality that should be considered in poetic diction, according to John Ciardi and Miller Williams' How Does a Poem Mean? (1959), is that "a word is a picture", by which they mean that the origin of most words can be found in some sort of poetic image. Shakespeare's work provides thousands of examples of this for two main reasons. The first, as we know, is that he created so many words himself. The second is that he never settles for a tired expression in his writing, and thus the reader is constantly surprised by its contents. For example, when Iago tells Roderigo his age, he doesn't say, "I'm twenty-eight years old", but instead, "I have looked upon the world for four times seven years", which gives us an entirely new way of considering the nature of existence. And for an example of pure imagery, have a look at this passage from Antony and Cleopatra (3.6), during which Octavius reacts angrily to being surprised by his sister Octavia's arrival. She's married to Antony at this point, we must remember, so Octavius is looking for reasons to be offended. But my point here doesn't regard the plot, rather it's the way the words evoke the power and splendour of Rome through the use of words as pictures:

Why have you stol'n upon us thus! You come not

Like Caesar's sister: the wife of Antony

Should have an army for an usher, and

The neighs of horse to tell of her approach

Long ere she did appear; the trees by the way

Should have borne men; and expectation fainted,

Longing for what it had not; nay, the dust

Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,

Raised by your populous troops: but you are come

A market-maid to Rome; and have prevented

The ostentation of our love, which, left unshown,

Is often left unloved; we should have met you

By sea and land; supplying every stage

With an augmented greeting.

The third of John Ciardi and Miller Williams' four sections concerning the nature of words (from their 1959 handbook, How Does a Poem Mean?) begins with the heading, "A word is a history", and goes on to explain why poetry has always played an inordinate role in the development of languages: "With a few exceptions every word traced back far enough is either a metaphor or an onomatopoiea." Therefore, the poetic concept itself is responsible for the creation of many words. Of course, Shakespeare is renowned for the number of words and expressions that he invented, but even more importantly, he set the template for the evolution of English into the world's most expressive language. And he is its de facto figurehead because of his way of working, which is at once deeply informed by writing of the past (and not only in English) as well as infused with creativity, flexibility and inclusiveness. To put it plainly, I really can't see how it is possible to have a serious appreciation for English without having the same for the works of Shakespeare. In fact, without them, it is very unlikely that the language would still be in use.

One of the most thrilling experiences that one can have as a spectator is to see a Shakespeare play acted and directed with intelligence and passion. Watching an actor explore the inner workings of his or her character, and then conveying these discoveries to the audience - and making them share in the emotions - is unforgettable. One of the biggest reasons that Shakespeare is the holy grail of actors is that his language allows so much room for their thoughts and projections. This brings me to the second of John Ciardi and Miller Williams' four characteristics to be considered by a poet making decisions regarding diction (from their 1959 book, How Does a Poem Mean?): "2. A word involves the whole body." This refers to the fact that spoken words require the human body to be produced, and interpreted, and that there is a purely musical or sonic aspect involved in each of them. And of course, this aspect is particularly important in poetic drama, where the words are the canvas on which the actors paint. So lines like the following (from Hamlet's first soliloquy, in act one, scene two) need to be spoken aloud, with real emotion, to be truly felt:

Within a month,

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears

Had left the flushing in her galled eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not, nor it cannot come to good.

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue!

Try it. I think you'll find that the sounds themselves play a large part in getting the content across.

The first of the four considerations that enter into word choice, according to John Ciardi and Miller Williams' How Does a Poem Mean? (1959), is: "A word is a feeling". The main point here is that there is an emotional component in a word, its "connotation", as opposed to its literal meaning (i.e. dictionary definition) or "denotation". Thus, the word choice informs the reader about the attitude (or tone) of the writer, or speaker, in the case of drama. Let's take an example from King Lear. In act four, scene one Goneril (the daughter who swore her great love to him in the first scene) is in the process of starting a conflict with with the king, and as she accurately deduces, the best way to do so is to attempt to remove some of his royal trappings, in this case the hundred knights who follow him. And she also realizes that to take a formal and patronizing tone will help with it as well. Here is part of her lecture:

I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright.

As you are old and reverend, you should be wise.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;

Men so disorder'd, so debosh'd, and bold

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust

Make it more like a tavern or a brothel

Than a grac'd palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy. Be then desir'd

By her that else will take the thing she begs

A little to disquantity your train,

And the remainder that shall still depend

To be such men as may besort your age,

Which know themselves, and you.

Note the condescending and distant (almost chilling) tone and how almost every word is calculated to achieve maximum emotional impact. "A word is a feeling" indeed.

I want to try to learn a bit more about what Shakespeare's thought process might have been in terms of diction. And for that purpose, I'm going to refer (again) to John Ciardi's highly useful handbook entitled How Does a Poem Mean? (1959). In Chapter Four, "The Words of Poetry", he points out that words have four qualities and that they should all be considered when making a decision regarding their use. I'm going to summarize Ciardi's points and give Shakespearean examples of each over the next few posts, but for now these are the headings unadorned:

1. A word is a feeling.

2. A word involves the whole body.

3. A word is a history.

4. A word is a picture.

And here, as an example of Shakespeare's diction, is a passage from act three of Henry V, in which the chorus asks us to imagine the English Navy's voyage to France:

CHORUS

Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies

In motion of no less celerity

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen

The well-appointed king at Hampton pier

Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet

With silken streamers the young Phoebus fanning:

Play with your fancies, and in them behold

Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;

Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give

To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,

Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,

Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow'd sea,

Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think

You stand upon the ravage and behold

A city on the inconstant billows dancing;

For so appears this fleet majestical,

Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow:

Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,

And leave your England, as dead midnight still,

Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,

Either past or not arrived to pith and puissance;

For who is he, whose chin is but enrich'd

With one appearing hair, that will not follow

These cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

One of the most interesting critical comments that I've read recently comes from the book that I mentioned in last Tuesday's post: Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000, edited by Russ McDonald, and more specifically the essay entitled Rabbits, Ducks and Henry V by Norman Rabkin. The puzzling title is entwined with its premise, as it refers to a piece of op-art which "we can see as either a rabbit or a duck". Rabkin argues that the two possible interpretations of the character of Henry V (either as a great leader and king or as a vicious war criminal) are almost impossible to mentally compromise, and that this was done intentionally. Here is how he puts it: "I am going to argue that in Henry V Shakespeare creates a work whose ultimate power is precisely the fact that it points in two opposite directions, virtually daring us to choose one of the two opposed interpretations it requires of us." This strikes me as being both revolutionary and accurate, and it brings me back to a point I argued in an earlier post - that Shakespeare's primary interest was not the characters in his plays, but rather the people in the audience. The spectator (or reader) is the true protagonist of a Shakespeare play. She or he is the only real battleground.

Style in writing can be seen as the result of decisions made in two areas: syntax and diction, in other words, word order and word choice. This may sound like an over-simplification but I don't think it is, because both are extremely complex in nature, and they can be influenced by a very wide range of factors. However I do believe that it's helpful to recognize that the matter can be distilled to this point, and to keep the concept in mind when reading any writer. Of course Shakespeare is unequaled in both categories, and analyzing his work for the causes and effects of his decision-making in these regards leads to all kinds of interest.

For an example, consider the first words spoken by Claudius in Hamlet (2.1). He is in the delicate position of simultaneously mourning the death of his brother (hypocritically, of course) and announcing that he has married the widow, Gertrude. His psychological state and the difficulty of his task both contribute to the circuitous wording of a relatively simple statement:

Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother's death

The memory be green, and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief, and our whole kingdom

To be contracted in one brow of woe,

Yet so far hath discretion fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime sister, now our queen,

Th' imperial jointress to this warlike state,

Have we, as 'twere with a defeated joy,

With an auspicious, and a dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral, and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,

Taken to wife...

The passage works like an overture to his story, which is one of a man conflicted between desire, ambition, guilt and extreme awareness of how he is perceived publicly. And it's just another glittering example of Shakespeare's style and substance, and how they're inseparable.

Shakespeare was a writer whose technique was advanced to such a point that he could transcend the rules (or conventions, if you prefer) that usually govern what can be done in written English. Therefore, his work is the best possible place to learn about syntax, grammar, sentence construction, poetic metre, rhetoric, and figurative language. A multitude of examples of each of the above are available for study and discussion, and the best thing is that all of it was done to create a combination of dramatic art, poetry and philosophy that still hasn't been surpassed. In other words, Shakespeare contains style and substance, both of which are necessary to engage young minds.

In Saturday's post, I promised that I would write about how Shakespeare provides starting points for learning about the many areas of study related to the English language. Well, either I forgot or got sidetracked, because a few days have gone by and here I am following it up now. Sorry about that. But anyway, here we are now.

OK, let's start with the wide picture: the humanities. Wikipedia's article on academic disciplines breaks down the humanities into seven fields: history; languages and linguistics; literature; performing arts; philosophy; religion; visual arts. I think it's clear that reading Shakespeare can begin a student's interest in any or all of them. Even the least obvious of the group, the visual arts, critical as they are to performance through costume and set design, can have a seed planted by the study of Shakespeare. And then of course, there is Sonnet 24 with its delineation of what it is that painters actually do, and how their work is not at all different in nature with that of poets (as Leonardo da Vinci put it: "Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."):

Mine eye hath play'd the painter and hath stell'd

Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;

My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,

And perspective it is the painter's art.

For through the painter must you see his skill,

To find where your true image pictured lies;

Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,

That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.

Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:

Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me

Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun

Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;

Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art;

They draw but what they see, know not the heart.

I've just started reading Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1945-2000 (Russ McDonald, editor) from 2004, and it looks like it's going to be splendid. McDonald has selected representative essays from each of the schools of criticism that were (and are) prevalent in the recent study of Shakespeare and given each a brief but thorough introduction. I'll be writing more about the book as I make my way through it in the days ahead, but for today's post I'd just like to share my wonder at how a body of work written 400 years ago can stand up to being viewed from perspectives as diverse as those contained in the fourteen chapters of this book (have a look at the table of contents: http://www.amazon.ca/Shakespeare-Anthology-Criticism-Theory-1945-2000/dp/0631234888) and still not be exhausted in terms of meaning. I'd like to see any of the literature proposed as its replacement in the curriculum do the same.

In Macbeth: New Critical Essays (2008), edited by Nick Moschovakis, Michael David Fox has a fascinating piece entitled "Like a poor player: audience emotional response, nonrepresentational performance, and the staging of suffering in Macbeth" that brings out a very important aspect of the play: the concept of nonrepresentational performance, which to give a brief definition, is any aspect of the play that is designed to bring the audience into emotional or psychological contact with the actors as human beings, rather than as the characters that they're playing, and to therefore break through the theatre's "fourth wall" at certain points. This effect is achieved in the play's frequent use of asides (where the actors address the audience directly), its emphasis on the decision-making process during soliloquies, its use of sound effects such as the knocking at the gate and the alarum bell, its pervasive atmosphere of fear, its scenes involving the air-drawn dagger (where the audience's gaze is focused, along with the actor's, on an empty space) and the sleep-walking of Lady Macbeth. The essay helped to sharpen my response to each of the film versions that I've watched recently, and it reminded me once again of why criticism is of crucial importance in appreciating these multi-layered plays.

The darkest moment in Macbeth, a very dark play, is the murder of Macduff's wife and children. It can be considered an illustration of what happens when a tyrant begins to feel threatened - that atrocity usually follows. The scene (4.3) during which Macduff is told the news (at the time he is gathering forces in England with which to oppose Macbeth) is very moving and thought-provoking. Malcolm repeatedly intercedes, hoping to convince Macduff to "let grief convert to anger", and we may feel torn, like Macduff, between the two. Particulary when we realize that Malcolm may be thinking rather more politically than empathetically - he needs Macduff to help him to reach the throne. At one point Malcolm tells Macduff to "dispute it like a man", and Macduff's reply is the following:

I shall do so;

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were,

That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,

And would not take their part?

Emotions and questions such as these continue to follow disasters to this day, and will continue to do so as long as injustice exists. My point with all of this is as follows: If we are trying to move toward a world without violence, treachery and dictatorship, wouldn't we have a better chance of doing so if young people get the opportunity to read Macbeth?

Another argument made against the use of Shakespeare in the high school curriculum is that English has changed greatly since Shakespeare's time and that therefore a good percentage of the verbal content of the plays is no longer useful. My response would be that, yes, there have been changes, but not as many as one might suppose, and that compared to Chaucer's Middle English (200 years before Shakespeare), not many at all. Isaac Asimov, in his very useful book entitled Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare (1970), argues that it was Shakespeare's work that slowed down the language's rapid evolution, as if it would've been too great a cost to move too far away from the ability to read it without relative ease. And to go a little further with the argument, it becomes clear that the body that exerts the greatest gravitational pull on English itself, its de facto source of direction, is Shakespeare. No other writer comes close to providing as many starting points for learning about the language itself. More on this tomorrow.

I've quoted the American poet John Ciardi several times before, and I'm about to do so again: "Poetry is like vodka;" he once wrote, "it has to be diluted". I bring this up because in trying to make my case for Shakespeare being at the center of the high school English Language Arts curriculum, one of the greatest attributes that the study of his work entails is the fact that it requires peripheral reading. Just as we would not visit a distant country without reading about it first, the same is required to understand and appreciate poetic literature. Criticism, history, philosophical parallels, performance practices, etc. are all areas of further, and necessary, study in trying to grasp the width and depth that Shakespeare contains, and this is precisely what schools should be encouraging. And, to put it simply, there isn't a better way to do it.

I suppose wisdom could be considered an antonym of delusion. In Macbeth, the title couple are infected by the latter to such a degree that the normal courses of life, its processes and stages, are taken away from them by their lack of the former. There is a telling moment early in the play (1.7) where Macbeth, in considering the nature of his ambition, recognizes that a goal can become so all-consuming that "here, upon this bank and shoal of time,/ We'ld jump the life to come." But it doesn't prevent what follows, and late in the play (5.5) after a series of atrocities and disasters, and the death by suicide of his queen, he speaks the famous lines (which I've come to understand better with time) wherein he describes a world without process and meaningful work towards goals - where time equals emptiness, and actions are futile:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Of course, the subtext (sometimes called the underthought) is simultaneously telling us something quite different, that life doesn't have to be this way, and that wisdom can prevent the errors in judgement that would lead to an end such as this one. Now where could wisdom like that be learned?

A fine example of Shakespeare's sophisticated method of exploring moral issues occurs in 5.3 of Macbeth, where the title character recognizes some of the things that his crimes have caused him to lose:

I have lived long enough: my way of life

Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have; but, in their stead,

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,

Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

Auden, who had great insight into the play, said in his Lectures on Shakespeare: "Usually in tragedy a good person is made to suffer through a flaw in his goodness. In Macbeth this pattern is reversed: it is the streak of goodness that causes pathos and suffering." And now to return to the larger topic begun a few posts back (the importance of Shakespeare in the high school curriculum), this type of subtlety is exactly what is required when raising philosophical issues with young people. Any attempt at top-down moralizing will (rightly, in my opinion) be met with instant derision, whereas the discovery of moments like the one above, which are only found in the greatest literature, will not.

Of all the arguments against the teaching of Shakespeare in high schools, the one that is heard most frequently is probably its perceived lack of cultural relevancy. In other words, the belief goes, students of today will not be interested by characters and situations that took place 400 years ago. In my experience, the time gap is not a drawback - in fact, the opposite is true. Young people are aware of Shakespeare's place in literary history, and want to find out how he got there. Also, the characters don't see themselves as historical characters but as living beings - the same way that we do - and the astonishing amount of overlap that their experiences have with ours is a source of both learning and delight. "Poetry is the news that stays new," is how John Ciardi put it, and that won't change in the next 400 years either.

Shakespeare's writing is very demanding on the reader. Almost every line, every word even, requires reflection. It certainly isn't easy, but once understood the content is so interesting that no one ever regrets the effort - I've never seen it anyway. But its difficulty is important in itself, because it improves the skills that constitute reading comprehension, which is undoubtedly as important (at least) as any other academic ability.

So there it is: the literature that is the most interesting and the one that produces the greatest increase in academic performance is one and the same. What, you may be wondering, are the arguments against its use in high school? I'll summarize (and try to demolish) them tomorrow.

Objectivity is a quality that is central to the work of a serious dramatist. He or she must be able to present many types of conflict credibly, and to do so requires the imaginative comprehension of contrasting opinions. It is somewhat similar to formal debating, where a team will have to prepare to argue both sides of an issue. This is done for several reasons: for one, there are some issues that may provide one side with an emotional advantage over the other. (It's like changing directions in a soccer game at half-time so that both teams will have the advantage of the wind for a while.) But more importantly, it is to ensure that debaters "shed light not heat", or in other words, that "reason" maintain its "sovereignty", as Horatio put it.

Unfortunately, in political discussions, it often happens that people argue from an entrenched position that will admit no dissent - I've often felt that any position so constructed clearly disproves its viability - and that the party or politician that they support has all the answers, and that the other(s) do all the damage. This type of thinking is obviously flawed, dangerous even, but unfortunately it's frequently brought into classrooms, particularly those where literature has been replaced with social studies, when its opposite is really what should be encouraged.

Enter Shakespeare. One of the most astonishing things about his work is that it is impossible to pin down where it stands on political issues. For example, in the 404 years of Macbeth's existence, it has been seen from innumerable angles and used to support innumerable positions. And there's no end in sight. It will continue to produce thought and discussion of great sophistication - because it's dramatic art of the highest level, and because its author knew far too much to think that he (or anyone else) knew it all.

Over the next few posts, I'm going to try to outline my case for restoring Shakespeare (and poetry and literature) back to its proper place at the center of the high school curriculum. In Quebec (and other places too), instruction in English, over the last decade or so, has moved away from literature and toward what used to be called Social Studies. This, in my opinion, is a serious mistake, and I'll be doing my best to convince you to agree with me. At some points I may reiterate arguments that I've made in earlier posts - I apologize in advance for this - but at the very least I'll try to shape them so as to emphasize their relevance to this issue. I'll start tomorrow.

On another note, there are two lectures left in the 2010 Shakespeare Lectures series: Macbeth on Wednesday, Nov. 10 and Romeo and Juliet on Wednesday, December 1. Both begin at 11 am, and both will be held in the lecture hall of the Atwater library. Admission is $20 per lecture. I'll hope to see you. Also, I'll be announcing the program for the 2011 Winter/Spring Shakespeare Lectures in a week or so.

I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming Henry V, which is being put on by Persephone Productions, and in particular to what their interpretation of the title character will be. He's been staged as everything from a hero to a war criminal - and there's support for both positions in the text - even by Shakespeare standards, he's incredibly complex. Take for example, the scene where he stands outside the gates of Harfleur and warns the governor and the people of the town of what could happen if they don't surrender. It could be read as him trying to prevent the horrors that he's describing, or using them as threats if he doesn't get the capitulation he wants. Here's a link to the entire scene: http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=henry5&Act=3&Scene=3&Scope=scene, courtesy of the excellent Open Source Shakespeare website, and here's a link to the information regarding the production described above: http://www.persephoneproductions.org/. Check out the video at the bottom of the page, where what looks like the entire cast perform the opening prologue.

If you are interested in Shakespeare, you will at several points in your travels have to deal with what has become known as the "authorship question". And it can be tiresome and frustrating, because it takes away from the entire point: the appreciation and enjoyment of the work. Sometimes, in fact, an interesting discussion can be marred by its very mention. When I'm asked my opinion, I usually say that if someone is accused of something (in this case, the most egregious example of intellectual theft imaginable), that at some point evidence must be produced, and since nothing of the kind has been, it's time to drop it. But I think that in the future, I'll amend my answer - and quote the following, from the Oxford Companion to Shakespeare (2001):

"The controversy has itself become an object of scholarly attention, as generations of Shakespearian critics have wondered why it should be so much easier to get into print with bizarre untruths about Shakespeare than with anything else on the subject. Many commentators have paid reluctant tribute to the sheer determination and ingenuity which 'anti-Stratfordian' writers have displayed—indeed, have invariably had to display, since any theory suggesting that the theatre professional William Shakespeare did not write the Shakespeare canon somehow has to explain why so many of his contemporaries said that he did (from Heminges, Condell, Jonson, and the other contributors to the Folio through Francis Meres and the Master of the Revels to the parish authorities of Holy Trinity in Stratford, to name only a few), and why none of the rest said that he did not. Most observers, however, have been more impressed by the anti-Stratfordians' dogged immunity to documentary evidence, not only that which confirms that Shakespeare wrote his own plays, but that which establishes that several of the alternative candidates were long dead before he had finished doing so. 'One thought perhaps offers a crumb of redeeming comfort,' observed the controversy's most thorough historian, Samuel Schoenbaum, 'the energy absorbed by the mania might otherwise have gone into politics.'"

After writing yesterday's post on recent television Shakespeare productions, I started to think about the general sense of dissatisfaction that many critics (including very famous ones like Harold Bloom) seem to have regarding the performances that they've seen. Also, certain roles (Cleopatra, Edgar and Iago come to mind) are often considered to be unplayable, or close to it, anyway. I think a big reason for these phenomena is a simple one: an actor has to make a final decision in his or her interpretation of a role, and a reader doesn't. Therefore, there is a finite quality to an actor's art that may not apply to what is done by a commentator and/or educator. We should remember however, that performance is the purpose of the work. Shakespeare wrote first and foremost for actors - he was one himself - and a large part of his genius rests in the fact that he wrote in such a way, and allowed actors so much room, that there never will be a definitive performance of any of his roles. But actors continue to give their all in trying; see the performances discussed yesterday for examples.

Over the last couple of years, PBS has broadcast productions of King Lear starring Ian McKellan, Hamlet with David Tennant and Macbeth with Patrick Stewart. All three were splendid, with inspired performances from the lead actors and thoughtful interpretations by directors and casts. McKellen's Lear, for example, is so intense that at certain points I feared for his safety. It's a daring and exuberant performance, even by his standards. It's still available for online viewing at the PBS Great Performances website: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/king-lear/watch-the-play/487/.

Tennant's Hamlet is equally "wild and whirling", full of humour and originality. Patrick Stewart is excellent as Claudius as well, and it's interesting to compare his work in the role with the one he did thirty years earlier in the BBC production starring Derek Jacobi. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available for online viewing in Canada at this point - if I do find it, I'll let you know right away, but libraries will have it.

Finally, the recent version of Macbeth, with Patrick Stewart in the title role, might be the best filmed version I've seen, which is saying something because this play has been done very well many times over. It's not to be missed: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/macbeth/watch-the-full-program/1030/

Most scholars agree that Othello was written in 1604, a year before King Lear. Yesterday's post was concerned with how Shakespeare used Pliny's Naturalis Historia as a source for a considerable amount of Othello's vocabulary. And he may have retained the content of Pliny's dedication of the work for an important moment in King Lear, as well. Pliny's dedication is an unusual one: it's to nature itself. Here it is:

Hail to thee, Nature, thou parent of all things! and do thou deign to show thy favour unto me, who, alone of all the citizens of Rome, have, in thy every department, thus made known thy praise.

Now compare that with the first words spoken by Edmund, the treacherous half-brother of Edgar, and one of the most villainous characters in Shakespeare. Edmund, who believes in what might be called a dog-eat-dog or survival-of-the-fittest approach to life, is here delineating why his plan to frame Edgar and become the sole inheritor of his father's land and title is from his point-of-view "natural":

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stand in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother?

It certainly seems possible at least that the seed that created this unequaled subplot (the story of Gloucester, Edgar and Edmund) was planted as Shakespeare was reading for his work on Othello.