The three previous posts of this young blog can be summarized thus: 1. It is very important for the reader to make his or her own judgements, and not to be overly influenced by those of others. 2. Making cuts in a Shakespeare play is not a good idea. (By the way, one of the few filmed Shakespeares that includes a complete text is Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet from 1996. It's great to watch with a copy of the play in hand.) Now, for the next few posts, I'm going to focus on some of the things that I've learned regarding the reading of Shakespeare. At the top of the list is the importance of the imagination.

Ideally, the words in a text can be combined into appropriate groups that create images and arguments. It's a challenge to do this with writing as poetic and sophisticated as Shakespeare's. But, that's what makes it fun. There's a lot to be learned about this idea in the prologue to Henry V:

Essentially, the playwright is speaking through a narrator (called a chorus, in those days) who comes out on the stage and apologizes to the audience for the very existence of the play. He says that he wishes that materials appropriate to the subject matter were available, and that a small troupe in a small theatre ("this wooden O") cannot possibly stage a story that treats a war between France and England. Unless the audience uses their imaginations. Then, everything is possible (on the stage and elsewhere):

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,

The flat unraised spirits that have dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object: can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

Into a thousand parts divide one man,

And make imaginary puissance;

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,

Turning the accomplishment of many years

Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

As a reading (or listening) lesson, I've never come across its equal.