Act 3, scene 3 of Othello, where Iago turns the title character from a happy man who loves his wife into a maniac with no thought but murder, is a technical tour de force. Its treatment of time has been written about and studied many times. Its psychological content, the way that a mind can be led a great distance with just a slight suggestion, is remarkable and unfortunately, very true-to-life. Today I'd like to look at one segment just for the power of its poetry. At this point, Iago's work is almost done: Othello is convinced his wife is unfaithful, and he wants revenge. Iago then pretends that he's trying to dissuade him from violence:

IAGO

Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.

OTHELLO

Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontic and the Hellespont,

Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,

Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,

Till that a capable and wide revenge

Swallow them up.

What fierce and frightening power this metaphor contains. It brings to mind Alfred Whitehead's axiom that "language should embody what it indicates". (More on this scene tomorrow.)

Hi. I'm going to use today's post to invite you to a free lecture that I'll be giving this Thursday at 12:30 pm at the Atwater Library (1200 Avenue Atwater, Westmount, Quebec - (514) 935-7344). I'll be speaking about the four Shakespeare plays on the program for next year's Stratford Festival: Titus Andronicus, Richard III, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Twelfth Night. You're also invited to a series of six lectures, on the tragedies, that I'll be giving in the fall, at the same location. These will begin on Wednesday, September 15 and continue on every second Wednesday until November 10 - at which point there will be a three-week gap before the final lecture of the series, on December 1 (please see the schedule below). The cost of these lectures will be $20 each, or all six for $100. You can email me at georgewalllectures@gmail.com for further information, or to get tickets. I'll hope to see you there.

George Wall Shakespeare Lectures: The Tragedies

Wednesday, September 15 - 11 am: Hamlet

Wednesday, September 29 - 11 am: King Lear

Wednesday, October 13 - 11 am: Antony and Cleopatra

Wednesday, October 27 - 11 am: Othello

Wednesday, November 10 - 11 am: Macbeth

Wednesday, December 1 - 11 am: Romeo and Juliet

I keep using words like "useful" and "beneficial", when discussing Shakespeare's writing. I did it again yesterday in fact, while arguing that his work is more concerned with the future than with the past. Well, here's the case in point: The scene which takes place just after Hamlet has killed Polonius and has entered into a long confrontation with his mother, is often bypassed intellectually because we've been told that it shows Hamlet at a low point and reveals his character flaws and similar nonsense, but it actually contains a brilliant insight. First, we have to remember that Hamlet has just told his mother that she is now married to her first husband's murderer, and that she must try to stay away from him as much as possible:

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on.

(3.4)

Paraphrased, this means that human beings are very prone to "custom"(i.e. habit), and that our addictive personalities can either work for us, or against us. And if we get into good habits, we have a much better chance of reaching our potential - which I firmly believe is what Shakespeare was hoping to enable.

“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It's not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.”

- Milan Kundera

There's a lot of truth in this, but I don't think it applies to the greatest people - people like Shakespeare, for instance. I think it's evident that he was concerned with the future, in the sense that the past is not where the real drama takes place. I believe he was writing for the stage itself in an eternal present, and that his work is intended to help us, not in fighting battles of the past, but to guide us into the future. Therefore, the anachronisms, the mixed-up settings, the disregard of the classical rules of drama - all of this was in the service of a higher principle: to tell the most honest, beneficial, and powerful stories that he possibly could. It's up to us, the living, to learn from them.

In the first era of Shakespeare criticism, there were many aspects of his work that were considered to be, well, outrageous. One of the biggest was the way that the three unities of time, place and action, first posited in Aristotle's Poetics, were not only not observed, but flouted. Consider A Midsummer Night's Dream which seems to be set simultaneously in ancient Greece and sixteenth-century England - and that's not including Puck, Oberon and Titania. What about the famous anachronism of the chiming clock in Julius Caesar? And how about Time, who acts as the Chorus in A Winter's Tale, beginning act four by stating that sixteen years have passed? Maybe flouted isn't a strong enough word. Also, there is a great deal of contention around Shakespeare's use of history. Many commentators feel, for example, that Richard III gets a very unfair treatment in the plays in which he appears, and that Shakespeare maligned him to win favour with Elizabeth I, a Tudor (and therefore a descendant of Richmond who takes the crown at the end of Richard III). Others say he did the same to Macbeth, and that this version of history flattered the new king, James I, who also had an interest in the occult, hence the witches, etc. What reasons could Shakespeare have had for these types of decisions? I'll give you my theory tomorrow.

Another concept that must be kept in mind in order to read Shakespeare is anastrophe. The best definition of this word is simply, "changing the normal word order for poetic effect". When we come across examples of this, we may at first find them annoying. Why would someone write, "Came the snow..."? Why not simply, "It was snowing..."? Well, the answer is that it makes us think. One of the reasons Shakespeare has retained so much popularity 400 years on is that his work requires participation and effort. He's not only an example of creativity - he's a cause of it. And it begins at the most minute levels - word choice and word order. Here's an example from Antony and Cleopatra. In this scene, a messenger from Antony is arriving at Caesar's camp - a schoolmaster though, rather than a high-ranking member of the military, as would normally be the case. This could be interpreted as a reference to Octavius' age - and therefore, a subtle but calculated insult, or as Dolabella does, a sign of decline in the number of Antony's followers. Either way, notice the unusual word order, which once understood, gives the lines lasting beauty and interest.

OCTAVIUS CAESAR

Let him appear that's come from Antony.

Know you him?

DOLABELLA

Caesar, 'tis his schoolmaster:

An argument that he is pluck'd, when hither

He sends so poor a pinion off his wing,

Which had superfluous kings for messengers

Not many moons gone by.

(3.12)

One of my students once put it very simply: "Once you get it, you wouldn't change a word."

Further to yesterday, where we considered the role of punctuation in conveying meaning in poetry, here is the Shakespearean example that was promised - the famed opening soliloquy from Richard III. It contains only six sentences, by my count - even though it is over forty lines long. So, clearly it cannot be read with a pause at the end of every line.

Richard III picks up immediately where 3Henry VI leaves off - with the York family triumphant in the War of the Roses and now the sole possessors of the English crown. The eldest of the the three brothers, Edward IV, is the new king. The second brother is George, the Duke of Clarence. And the third is Richard, the Duke of Gloucester - and by Act Four, Richard III. This speech is part recap and part prologue, and I've separated the sentences by alternating italics with standard type. In it, Richard does the following (I'll summarize it sentence by sentence):

1. With a sarcastic tone and meteorological metaphors, he describes how all the bad is now behind his mighty family.

2. He states that the exercises of war have been put away, exchanged for peaceful activities.

3. He personifies war itself as having been turned into a lover.

4. He explains that all of this has left him out. He can't participate because of his deformities and ugliness.

5. So he'll be a villain, instead - and try to achieve the crown by treachery.

6. In fact, he's started already. He's convinced Edward the king, that it has been foretold that he should fear the second brother, George, because of the letter "G" at the beginning of his name. (Apparently he didn't notice that "Gloucester" has the same initial.)

Here it is:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barded steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that 'G'

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here

Clarence comes.

A spectacular opening, even by Shakespeare's standards, I hope you'll agree. (There are several excellent film versions, by the way, including Olivier's from 1955, Ian McKellen's from 1995, and Al Pacino's documentary, Looking for Richard from 1996. Each one interprets the above in a different and interesting way. But of course it's our own that matters most.)