Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories

by Charlotte Artese (Editor)

An international collection of the traditional tales that inspired some of Shakespeare's greatest plays

Shakespeare knew a good story when he heard one, and he wasn't afraid to borrow from what he heard or read, especially traditional folktales. The Merchant of Venice, for example, draws from "A Pound of Flesh," while King Lear begins in the same way as "Love Like Salt," with a king asking his three daughters how much they love him, then banishing the youngest when her cryptic reply displeases him. This unique anthology presents more than forty versions of folktales related to eight Shakespeare plays: The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, All's Well That Ends Well, King Lear, Cymbeline, and The Tempest. These fascinating and diverse tales come from Europe, the Middle East, India, the Caribbean, and South America, and include stories by Gerald of Wales, Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, Giambattista Basile, J. M. Synge, Zora Neale Hurston, Italo Calvino, and many more. Organized by play, each chapter includes a brief introduction discussing the intriguing connections between the play and the gathered folktales. Shakespeare and the Folktale can be read for the pure pleasure these lively tales give as much as for the insight into Shakespeare's plays they provide.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Literature, History, Short Stories

391 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 22, 2019

Reviews

[Jacopo Quercia · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who has either read or consulted close to a hundred books on William Shakespeare's life and writing, I must confess 'Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories' is precisely the type of work I wish I had read years ago! Dr. Artese has amassed a wonderful collection of folktales that made their way to Shakespeare's ear and influenced some of this most iconic plays, specifically The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, All's Well That Ends Well, King Lear, Cymbeline, and The Tempest. If you are someone who wants to know more about the Bard's sources or how he wrote, this book is must-read. It is easily one of the two or three best books I have come across on the subject and easily THE best concerning folktales.

I particularly appreciate the numerous incarnations of specific folktales Dr. Artese presented. Some reviewers criticized this decision as unnecessary, but I wholeheartedly disagree. This feature endows the book with an easy and welcome way for readers to trace the folktales' evolution throughout the centuries. Dr. Artese also provides examples of these folktales from nearly every continent, providing welcome worldliness to the predominantly Anglocentric field of Shakespeare.

My only complaint is that the book wasn't longer. I would have loved it if the author dedicated chapters to the Bard's most famous works, namely Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, and MacBeth. However, since such a subject could easily fill several books, let me close by saying 'Shakespeare and the Folktale' is a valuable addition to Shakespearean scholarship that I look forward to Dr. Artese's continued work on.

An excellent book. Entertaining. Encore! 5 stars.

[Emma]

Full disclosure: I did not read this whole book cover to cover. I read the introduction to each play and then picked 2-3 stories to read, depending on the number of themes/motifs.

This book definitely needs a class structure around it, somewhere where you’re discussing the plays and all of the ways that the folk tales tie in to the plays, as well as discussion of influence vs. coincidence/parallel development. I would really have loved to have this as a resource when I was studying Shakespeare, as I think it would add a dimension to analysis that would have helped my understanding of some of the plays. I’m definitely glad to have this knowledge now and it was still interesting to think about how important the idea of oral tradition really is, and how Shakespeare plays fit directly into it. But I think I would have gotten more out of it if I read it in college.

Some other things I didn’t quite like:
-the editor’s resource for the African tales was one that rewrote the tales in “standard academic” English from their original dialects, and I think they would have much more punch if they were left in the dialect ESPECIALLY the one by Zora Neale Hurston in the Tempest, where her original version is accessible in her book
-it really annoyed me that there was not a statement at the beginning of each tale about the time and place origin of the tale. Yes, that info was included in most citation footnotes (keyword: MOST. Not all.), but I think there is a LOT of value in where these tales come from and we’re they around BEFORE Shakespeare was writing or did they appear AFTER.

[S Walker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had hoped that reading this would lead to deeper understanding (ala Joseph Campbell's masterly ability to draw connections between folktales and psychological/cultural explanations) but found myself disappointed. The folktales are stripped of flowery language and reduced to barebones structural event-driven tales which has some advantages--makes reading them shorter but also renders them repetitive so that I felt we could have just as well been served up a chart with columns headed "Stepmother seeks death of stepchild" or "outsider wages to steal wife's chastity" and then have check marks entered. In at least two of the chapters (King Lear and The Tempest) I felt that the folktales did not go to the essence of Shakespeare's telling and were instead tangential plot lines taking the reader further away from the truths Shakespeare was exposing instead of leading closer. If I took anything at all away from reading this it was that stories circulate the world through time and authors regularly dip into this pool for their sources to animate their tales, Shakespeare among them. I also felt this book lacked clarity on the timeline for the various tales and seemed to engage with many of the same sources for exposition: e.g. Bocaccio's Decameron.

[Mythlee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Artese identifies traditional folktale patterns, themes and allusions in eight plays, ranging from Titus Andronicus to King Lear. The work is not intended primarily to illuminate Shakespeare's plays; rather, the plays are used as an organizational principle for a diverse selection of folktales from around the world. As she notes in the introduction, "[w]e cannot know exactly how these stories were told in Shakespeare's day, but we can learn about the story traditions themselves."

Fans may also enjoy episode 138 of the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast, which features an interview with Artese: https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/artese-folktales.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of folktales from all over the world that have connections to several of Shakespeare's plays. The editor does an excellent job of explaining the connections and influences between each folktale and play. However, as multiple iterations of certain folktales are contained within the book, some readers may become bored reading extremely similar stories over and over again. It is a relatively easy read, and great if you enjoy folktales and are interested in how they influence other bodies of work.

[Emily Copeland · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot say enough wonderful things about this book! It combines Shakespeare and folklore (two of my favorite things) in a fascinating and informative way. We wonder how Shakespeare could have been so popular in his time with a language style that wasn't the common tongue and this book does an impeccable job explaining the marriage between the theatre and folklore.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive collection of tales grouped by type and relationship to specific Shakespeare plays.