Poor Titus Andronicus. Not only does he suffer every possible indignity in the play named for him, but the play itself, actually a very important one in Shakespeare's career (and which is much better than most people realize, incidentally), is usually discussed with open derision. In fact, the dominant critical attitude toward it for the better part of four centuries has been the attempt to somehow prove that either a) Shakespeare didn't write the play, or b) if he did, he didn't really mean to. The primary reason for all of this is, of course, the play's violence, which even by today's standards (which have been "shaped" by the content of popular culture), seems shocking and/or disturbing. Fortunately, a great many commentators have set about trying to explain what Shakespeare was really up to in writing this play (for a long time, the assumption was that he wrote it entirely for profit and thus played up its sensationalism and horror). One of the best pieces that I've read on the subject is Alan Hughes's introduction to the 1994 Cambridge edition, in which he summarizes the history of the play in terms of its writing, performance practices, criticism and (I'm happy to report) its increasing appreciation over the last few decades. Highly recommended. In the next little while (my next post, I should say), I'm going to add my two cents regarding what I consider to be the play's most important characteristic: its importance in terms of Shakespeare's later career, and in particular the tragedies.

One of the very few plays that can stand with those of Shakespeare in terms of life, energy, language and the instigation of thought is Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, which despite its reputation as a frivoulous comedy, was a very serious play indeed and actually one of the most direct challenges to the power structure of its time ever written. It achieved this in an ingenious manner - a plot that seems so ridiculous and superficial that it well hides the serious comments that the characters make, in apparently casual asides, about the class system and so forth. Of course Wilde didn't fool everybody, unfortunately, and it seems quite obvious in retrospect that his open criticism of the powers of the day were the cause of his two-year sentence to hard labour (and the destruction of his health), which had nothing to do whatsoever with any alleged "crimes" committed in his personal life. It occurred to me while reading a most interesting essay on Twelfth Night ("Twelfth Night, Gender and Comedy", by R.W. Maslen, reprinted in the edition on the play from Harold Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages series), that Wilde probably took his cue at least partially from Shakespeare, who often hid commentary of a serious nature in comedic settings. One example in Twelfth Night is of course the role of the fool, Feste, which functions as a tonic to the madness of virtually every other character in the play (with the possible exception of Viola).

Maslen's essay made another point regarding the relation of Wilde to Twelfth Night, and to the sonnets, as well. Rather than try to summarize, I'll quote it (despite its length): "Oscar Wilde supposed that the boy addressed in Shakespeare's sonnets could have been an actor, and there's something profoundly satisfying about the supposition. Boy actors represented a way out of an artistic dilemma created by Elizabethan views on women. Since women were not allowed to perform on the public stage, boys took the female roles in plays. And in doing so they drew attention to the possibility that gender itself might be a matter of performance. As the antitheatrical polemicists pointed out, men could be, or could become, effeminate, and the boy actor's craft showed just how easy it was to accomplish this particular form of gender-bending. Shakespeare's 'master-mistress' in the sonnets, and Viola/Caesario in Twelfth Night, are bodies in transit through time, altering as they move and attracting men and women alike. In them fantasies of maleness and femaleness intersect and mingle, making possible all sorts of relationships - sexual and nonsexual - that were not officially sanctioned within Elizabethan culture. Hence the polemicists profound unease about the effect of comedy on its audiences."

Has any other art form had more transformative influence on human society than comedy? I think we can safely guess what Wilde and Shakespeare would answer.

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will, another of his one-of-a-kind creations, seems to be a comedy example of what Fintan O'Toole wrote about regarding the tragedies in his 2002 book called Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life. Its central premise is that Shakespeare's tragedies get much of their power from the fact that neither the characters nor their stories can be contained by categories, and they are, in fact, about transition, in every way possible. Twelfth Night, although a comedy - and arguably his funniest - is also such a play. But I won't go into details just yet because I'm giving lectures on the subject over the next couple of days (to which you're invited, by the way - tomorrow, Tuesday, April 12 at 11 am or Wednesday, April 13 at 7 pm at the Atwater library).

On another note, I've really come to like the 1996 film version of the play. It's worth seeing for Ben Kingsley's performance alone. His Feste (according to Harold Bloom, the only sane character in the play) is both funny and thought-provoking. I find it touches on the nature of comedy itself, as the play itself does. Of course, Feste has the ability to see through the pretensions of the various characters, and one of the really enjoyable aspects found in re-reading the play is to be able to take the time needed to decipher his coded comments. More on that to come with the next post as well. For today, here's a link to Kingsley singing one of Feste's great songs, "Come Away Death": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1X7kfjvQ4o&NR=1.

I've mentioned a few times that it's my opinion that The Merry Wives of Windsor is an unjustly neglected play. Neglected by scholars and critics, I should say, not by audiences, who've always enjoyed its light-hearted fun. A lot of that fun comes at Falstaff's expense, and that has not sat well with some commentators who quite simply idolize the character - there's no other word for it - and thus close themselves off from an even-handed attempt at enjoying the play. And they may be be missing more than fun in doing so. In the introduction to the Oxford edition of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the editor, T.W. Craik argues the play's merits very convincingly, and at one point, in a footnote, actually, Craik quotes from Hugh Hunt's book called Old Vic Prefaces, in which Hunt recalls addressing the cast of a 1951 production of the play that was put on for The Festival of Britain. He asks them to take their work on the play seriously, and to consider the importance of humour: "I have, I think, good reason for insisting on a realistic interpretation, since this is our Festival play and there are some who would criticize the choice of so minor a play as The Merry Wives of Windsor for such an occasion. I would like to justify it by showing the English humour of the play - the merry England which has played so large a part in building our institutions and national character".

Note to regular readers of this blog: Because I'll be working on some other writing projects for the next little while, I'm going to be updating weekly, rather than daily, for a bit. This applies to my music blog (Put Your Ears On, linked on the right) as well.

Having just finished preparing for, and delivering, a lecture on The Merry Wives of Windsor, and finding myself now in the process of getting ready for one on Twelfth Night, I can see the truth in Auden's observation that it's easier to talk about the less popular plays than it is the acknowledged masterpieces (e.g. the former and latter above, respectively). His point was that it's fun to attempt to prove that the neglected ones shouldn't be, and that they in fact contain a great deal of content deserving serious consideration, whereas it's trickier to find original angles such as these when dealing with the iconic ones. This is a problem, no doubt, but knowing it can only be helpful, because it delineates the task in front of those who try to tackle plays such as King Lear or Twelfth Night. And of course the challenge itself can be a lot of fun, not to mention the astonishing material itself. I'll be writing more on Twelfth Night after my lectures on it, which take place on Tuesday, April 12 at 11 am and Wednesday, April 13 at 7 pm at the Atwater Library. (More information is available via the email address above.)

Having just watched a highly entertaining football match (or, as it's better known to my fellow North Americans, soccer, a derivation of "association football"), the fact that the sport's first mention in print occured in King Lear came to mind. It comes as a result of the first meeting of Kent and Oswald in 1.4., when Oswald the steward, having been instructed by Goneril to behave in an insolent manner toward the king in the hope of instigating a confrontation, answers Lear's rhetorical, "... who am I, sir?" with a reply that is all the more insulting because it's the truth: "My Lady's father". This leads to a moment of incredulity from Lear followed by some name-calling and some blows which are met with another haughty reply ("I'll not be struck, my lord"). At which point, Kent (disguised as Caius, the rough-and-tumble servant) knocks him to the ground and says, "Nor tripped neither, you base football player". As first mentions go, it's a bit of an inauspicious one, I suppose, but there you have it: England's national game and the world's most popular team sport first appear in print as part of an insult.

I'm in the middle of reading Stanley Fish's 2011 book, How to Write a Sentence, and enjoying it very much. When I finish, I'll write a post on some of the things I learned from it, but for today, I just want to show you an example of Shakespeare's ability in regard to sentence writing. (By the way, Fish uses a couple of examples from Shakespeare in his discussions, to good effect.) The following comes from 1.3 of Henry IV, Part Two, a scene in which various rebels are discussing how to go about removing the title character from the throne, a task that seems increasingly difficult given the reversals suffered by their side, particularly at Shrewsbury at the end of Henry IV, Part One. Lord Bardolph calls for tempered action based on information and careful planning, and to make his case he compares a military campaign with the planning and construction of a building. Depending on whether or not you consider the semi-colon a sentence-ending mark of punctuation, the passage could be construed as having as few as two sentences. It certainly has no more than four. But any way you look at it, the writing is as carefully put together as what it describes:

When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model;

And when we see the figure of the house,

Then must we rate the cost of the erection;

Which if we find outweighs ability,

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices, or at last desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work,

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up, should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,

How able such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite; or else

We fortify in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men:

Like one that draws the model of a house

Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,

Gives o'er and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject to the weeping clouds

And waste for churlish winter's tyranny.