The Merry Wives of Windsor is not only one of the least respected plays in the canon, it's often openly derided, particularly by commentators who have taken a personal liking to Falstaff the character. It seems as if they find it hard to watch him suffer at the hands of the title characters, their husbands and other various pranksters. Some even question whether it's the "real" Falstaff who appears in the play: Harold Bloom calls this one, "pseudo-Falstaff". I find this a bit much. In fact, the Windsor-based Falstaff has several lines that rate with his funniest, including one from the opening scene, wherein he answers the accusations of Justice Shallow in his inimitable way:

FALSTAFF

Now, Master Shallow, you'll complain of me to the king?

ROBERT SHALLOW

Knight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and

broke open my lodge.

FALSTAFF

But not kissed your keeper's daughter?

ROBERT SHALLOW

Tut, a pin! this shall be answered.

FALSTAFF

I will answer it straight; I have done all this.

That is now answered.

I'll be writing more about this under-appreciated play in posts to come.

I've mentioned several times the excellent Shakespeare: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory: 1945-2000 (2004), edited by Russ McDonald, as recently as Monday, in fact, and it came to mind again as I was looking through Harold Bloom's Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998) for yesterday's post. Yesterday, I quoted Bloom in regard to the critical position appropriate to working with Shakespeare. Today, I'll quote his thoughts on some of the various critical schools that have sprung up over the last fifty years of Shakespeare study:

"Explaining Shakespeare is an infinite exercise, you will become exhausted long before the plays are emptied out. Allegorizing or ironizing Shakespeare by privileging cultural anthropology or theatrical history or religion or psychoanalysis or politics or Foucault or Marx or feminism works only in limited ways. You are likely, if you are shrewd, to achieve Shakespearean insights into your favorite hobbyhorse, but you are rather less likely to achieve Freudian or Marxist or feminist insight into Shakespeare. His universality will defeat you, his plays know more than you do, and your knowingness consequently will be in danger of dwindling into ignorance."

Not subtle, I'll grant you, but not wrong.

I ended my December 24, 2010 post with the following: "And so the question remains: What is the proper stance for a writer to take vis a vis Shakespeare?" The subject of the post was Frank Kermode's The Age of Shakespeare (2004), and more specifically his statement that his admiration for the playwright, though great, was, like Ben Jonson's, "this side idolatry". A critic who is very much on the other side of the fence, a "proud bardolater", is Harold Bloom, the renowned Yale professor and literary critic. And recently, in having another look at his Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human (1998) I came across the following answer to the question above (and in my opinion, the definitive one):

"Literary transcendence is now out of fashion, but Shakespeare so transcends his fellow playwrights that critical absurdity hovers near when we seek to confine Shakespeare to his time, place, and profession. These days, critics do not like to begin by standing in awe of Shakespeare, but I know of no other way to begin with him. Wonder, gratitude, shock, amazement are the accurate responses out of which one has to work."

Another aspect of what Harold Bloom calls the "Shakespearean difference" is the refinement found in his figurative language. By refinement, I mean precision and uniqueness. Put plainly, his imagery is, in my opinion, the best to be found in literature. A couple of examples came to mind today: the first is from the "This royal throne of kings" speech, spoken by John of Gaunt in Richard II (2.1). It's more famous as a patriotic speech than for anything else (although its real subject is how recent financial mismanagement has led to national shame), but there is one phrase that I hadn't previously appreciated to its deserved level. It's the description of Jesus (and remember: this is a character speaking of his faith, not the author) as "the world's ransom".

The second is from The Merchant of Venice, the scene in which Bassanio is making his selection from among the three caskets (3.2), during which he comments on how people can be misled by appearances (or "ornament", as he calls it). The lines that I find particularly striking in this passage are the last four:

So may the outward shows be least themselves:

The world is still deceived with ornament.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,

But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,

Obscures the show of evil? In religion,

What damned error, but some sober brow

Will bless it and approve it with a text,

Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

There is no vice so simple but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his outward parts:

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false

As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins

The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars;

Who, inward search'd, have livers white as milk...

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.

Between yesterday's post and the present moment, I came across a far more elegant rebuttal to Tolstoy's attack on Shakespeare (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27726.bibrec.html) than I could ever write. It's by George Orwell, so no shame there. Here's the link: http://www.george-orwell.org/Lear,_Tolstoy_and_the_Fool/0.html

Further to this, two things: 1. Tolstoy's opinion seems to come partly from the position that I tried to describe yesterday: the idea that literature should be used to some end, or to instruct. I don't concur, and I don't think Shakespeare did either. (By the way, yesterday's post also stated that commentators are getting into hazardous terrain when they try to figure out Shakespeare's motivations. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be attempted, I often do it myself - I think it's important to try, but we have to remember that Shakespeare is always going to be out there ahead of us, to paraphrase Harold Bloom.) 2. Tolstoy was almost certainly the type of critic that T.S. Eliot was referring to in his essay entitled "Hamlet", i.e. the "most dangerous type of critic: the critic with a mind which is naturally of the creative order". Either that, or he was bonkers, as a commentator, anyway. Have a look at the two pieces above, and decide for yourself.