Aussie Readers discussion

This is a thread to discuss the plays of The Bard of Avon, whether it is just to mention what you are currently reading/going through, versions you have seen on stage or screen, textual analysis/comments on individual plays or anything else related to Shakespeare's about 38 plays.

Glad you did this Ernest, now perhaps if you could pick up the posts from the other thread and put them in here...I'd hate all that to be lost;)

As I commented in the original thread which started this thread (http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...), I'm currently very slowly working my way through The Complete Works. For completeness, I'll quote my original post:

"Amongst the many books I'm currently reading, the one that is taking the longest time is The Complete Works. I'm very slowly working through his plays. As I find plays difficult to merely read on a page, I'm trying to properly understand them by first getting an overall plot in my head, then reading the play, reading at least 1 play analysis (Cliffnotes or similar versions are great for this) and then try to find a film version so I can actually see what it looks like.

As you may imagine, this is a slightly lengthy task :)"

I'm currently going through The Merry Wives of Windsor. I'll admit to finding it somewhat of a tough read (especially compared to some of the other plays I've read/seen a version of). I can see how the plot would be humorous, but it currently isn't totally coming through off the page. I think it is also different going through this play now by myself as compared to where I studied some of Shakespeare's plays in high school for English/English Literature.

If you have a students' edition, it would really help - SS is very obscure in his poetry at times, and a prose rendering of it in drama form against every page would be especially helpful.

To follow Brenda's suggestion of picking up the related posts from the previous thread, I'll just copy and paste them here.

Brenda: "Sounds like hard work Ernest, but as long as you are enjoying it:)"

Phrynne: "I'm kind of glad I went to school in England and read most of his plays for A level literature. It was easier with a teacher to explain them for us!"

Ernest (i.e. me): "I figured that if I just read the plays as is, they wouldn't make much sense, especially since plays are written to be performed. So, I might as well try to see at least a performance of it, even if it is in film.

I did a few plays for high school, but it is different going back to them now some years later."

[I now should clarify that when I wrote ‘did a few plays for high school’, I meant studied them in English/English Literature, not performed them. The height of my acting ability peaked when I was 12 in what I can assure everyone was not a Shakespearean role.]

Bette: "Excellent that you are tackling such important works of literature. You're taking such a sensible approach. Simply reading the play is a lot different than properly understanding them. Good on you!"

Tango: "I feel inspired. This might be a good retirement project one day. How long does each play take?"

Sally: "Ernest, I am incredibly impressed and frankly quite excited to see you tackling Shakespeare's entire oeuvre. I am a card- carrying Bardophile and would love to discuss the plays with you and offer what help I can, if you want to add me as a friend or just discuss things here. Shakespeare can be an acquired taste, but I was lucky enough to have an excellent English teacher in high school who introduced us to the Bard by intensively and creatively studying Romeo and Juliet, one of the easier plays to understand. It wasn't until we went on a class excursion to actually see the play performed by the Bell Shakespeare Company that I really 'got it'. So you are being very smart to look for performances of the plays, rather than just reading them. I also studied several Shakespeare units in the course of my BA, and without fail, the opening statement made by every lecturer in those units was, 'The most important thing to keep in mind is that Shakespeare never intended for his plays to be read, he intended for them to be PERFORMED.'

FYI, in case I can be of assistance, Hamlet is the play I know best, I also know a fair bit about A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice , Romeo and Juliet and Othello. I am somewhat acquainted with King Lear (one of the most difficult plays to fully understand) and The Tempest, and have read but failed to fully understand The Taming of the Shrew and The Winter's Tale.

There are so many excellent and important books to read in order to fully understand the context and scope of the plays. First and foremost, the Norton Critical Editions of each individual play are by far the most useful editions to read, as they include a detailed introduction to help you understand, plus primary sources that Shakespeare would have drawn on when writing the plays (with only one or two exceptions, none of the plots of Shakespeare's plays was original, they were usually retellings of popular folk stories and oral histories), contemporary critiques of the plays by Shakespeare's peers, plus later critiques by famous writers such as TS Eliot. Of the plays I've read on my own, outside of the academic system, I feel like the only one I really got a good grasp of was The Tempest, because I read the Norton edition of that.

Other books that I highly recommend for understanding the context of the plays are:
Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare
Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human
The Elizabethan World Picture
Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard (this is SUCH an easy to read introduction to the stagecraft and other elements of performing the plays, in Elizabethan times and today)
Shakespeare's Daughters (also very easy to read, about the recurring theme of father-daughter relationships in the plays)
The Wheel of Fire

And the list could go on, LOL. But I think that's enough for one day!"

Lit Bug: "Sally's recos are wonderful, and almost a must-read.

For online free notes, I'd also suggest www.sparknotes.com

And do read what T. S. Eliot has to say on Hamlet - it is an amazing essay.

Also read modern criticism on SS (that's how I call Shakespeare) - for a cultural studies analysis of racism, colonialism and other cultural issues in SS's works... "

I haven't read or seen The Merry Wives of Windsor yet, but I do remember a snippet about it from uni - apparently Queen Elizabeth I so loved the character of Falstaff in the Henry IV plays that she personally requested SS write another play (can't remember if she especially requested a comedy) featuring that character. Hence the writing of The Merry Wives.

Sally wrote: "I haven't read or seen The Merry Wives of Windsor yet, but I do remember a snippet about it from uni - apparently Queen Elizabeth I so loved the character of Falstaff in the Henry IV plays that she..."

The Merry Wives of Windsor - interesting bit of information Sally:)

To my shame, while I have read several of the plays, I have only seen two of them performed - I saw Romeo and Juliet on three separate occasions, the most memorable being at a historical (but obviously not Elizabethan-era) mansion in Adelaide. The audience sat just outside the building, where we could look upon a real balcony for the balcony scene.

The other play I have seen performed is A Midsummer Night's Dream, performed at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. It was performed at twilight in mid-summer, and the audience simply sat on the grass and were led by the actors to a new natural stage for each Act. It was pure magic, and made me fall in love with the play completely.

Ernest, have you ever read or been taught about the difference between the concepts of 'comedy' in SS's day compared to our own? While we now equate comedy purely with humour, it had a much deeper meaning in Elizabethan/Jacobean England.

I haven't delved extensively into William Shakespeare, although I have enjoyed reading and watching some of his works. Of the plays I've read so far, my favourites are The Merchant of Venice, The Comedy of Errors and Macbeth. I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night performed, both of which were memorable for different reasons relating more to the situations in which I saw them. But I enjoyed both the actual plays as well!

It certainly makes a difference to see the plays performed. A Midsummer Night's Dream is certainly not my favourite Shakespearean play to read, but I enjoyed the production.

Maybe I'll have to dig out my copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare and have a read through a comedy or two...

Yes, I forgot to include 1 Henry IV and Antony and Cleopatra in the list of plays I've read. How could I forget those?!

Guys, a favour....if at all possible, can you put the link up to the particular book you're talking about here...just so those of us who wish to, can click on it and perhaps join in the discussion? Thanks:)

Oops, sorry, completely forgot! Am on my phone and out and about at the moment but will edit my post once I get home!

I once saw Much Ado About Nothing performed at Stratford-upon-Avon. Judi Dench was in it. Now that was memorable!!!

Sally wrote: "Ernest, have you ever read or been taught about the difference between the concepts of 'comedy' in SS's day compared to our own? While we now equate comedy purely with humour, it had a much deeper ..."

Sally, I don't think so and it look like something to investigate further. The only comedy I studied in high school was Twelfth Night. Is there anything you can enlighten me/us on?

Kathryn wrote: "Oops, sorry, completely forgot! Am on my phone and out and about at the moment but will edit my post once I get home!"

Thanks Kathryn, that's wonderful:)

Ernest wrote: "Sally wrote: "Ernest, have you ever read or been taught about the difference between the concepts of 'comedy' in SS's day compared to our own? While we now equate comedy purely with humour, it had ..."

'Comedy' in Shakespeare's day is well defined by Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the 'carnivalesque' - take a look here for a very poorly written but useful overview, LOL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival.... From Greek and Roman times, societies had celebrated festivals such as Bacchanalia, Saturnalia and Dionysian revels. These kinds of celebrations turned every aspect of the normal social order upside down - classes mixed freely, things normally deemed unlawful or even unnatural were allowed to happen without consequences, things normally separated were allowed to merge, drunkenness and all kinds of sexual practices abounded. It would all appear completely subversive, yet the function of such events was the opposite, it was completely conservative and aimed at preserving the established social order. To put it simply, those in power allowed the masses to have their revels FOR A FINITE LENGTH OF TIME so that they could get it all out of their systems and then go back to toeing the line in normal life.

By SS's day, civilisation had evolved past the full-on orgies of earlier times, although I believe there were a few pagan festivals still being celebrated in milder ways. But there was still a need for that apparently-subversive-but-really-conservative function, and one place where this found expression was in the playhouse, which was one of the main means of entertainment, having a power to influence the masses almost akin to the power of TV today.

And now we finally get back to the nature of Shakespearean comedy (sorry for my verbosity, it tends to happen when I'm talking about Shakespeare!). As you would have gathered by now, the comedies were the vehicle for that contained subversive function. They were meant to turn everything in their world upside down, even make sly jokes about authority ... But then at the end of the play, there was to be a neat resolution and return to the normal social order. This is abundantly evident in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but I'll leave that discussion for another day :-)

I recently read the three Henry VI plays and feel they have been badly overlooked. They are just wonderful, and Margaret of Anjou is, I think, one of Shakespeare's most compelling female characters.

In case those reading/in this thread are interested, there is some good stuff happening on the 'making Shakespeare more accessible front: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24...

I happened to chance upon an article regarding Shakespearean pronounciation and how things were originally pronounced - it was a very interesting article: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smart...

I have read Romeo and Juliet and really enjoyed it and since I had read the whole play it was helpful when we studied it in English and had to write an essay based on it.

Its about time another film adaption of Macbeth is in the works. Fassbender and Cotillard in the lead roles, it should be very strong.

For anyone interested Future Learn are running a MOOC on Shakespeare and his world. They are just about to start week 3 but are taking enrolments until March 17th. Week 2 focused on the merry wives of Windsor and week 3 is a midsummer nights dream. Here is the link
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/s...

Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Deb.

I finished reading The Merry Wives of Windsor yesterday. The basic premise of the humour was evident, but somehow something didn’t quite ‘click’ in terms of how it read off the page. I’m wondering whether it is one of the issues I previous identified, in that reading plays is different to seeing them performed (like reading a film script and seeing how it turns out on screen?). I’ll try locate a performance of it to see if the humour visually comes across.

I think I read The Merry Wives of Windsor a long, long time ago Ernest!

Seeing the Roman Polanski version of MacBeth inspired me to want to write. To create something so fantastical and macabre, the dense mist, the witches on the beach preaching of he who will come when the battle's lost and won ... MacBeth!

The stuff of the most delicious nightmares.

James wrote: "Seeing the Roman Polanski version of MacBeth inspired me to want to write. To create something so fantastical and macabre, the dense mist, the witches on the beach preaching of he who will come wh..."

I remember enjoying reading Macbeth - can't remember if I've ever seen a movie...

You must do so! Polanski's MacBeth is a masterpiece.

James wrote: "You must do so! Polanski's MacBeth is a masterpiece."

I see my local library has it, so I'll have to borrow it out sometime! Thanks, James!

No dramas but plenty if you see the film.

I've just started rereading Macbeth (I have a lifetime goal to read all of his plays, but am starting with a reread). I'm just at the end of the first act. I had forgotten how quickly the action starts. I guess that's what sets play apart from novels. The language is, of course, brilliant.

Macbeth is my favourite

I recently finished reading Measure for Measure. There were several parts of the play that I just didn’t ‘get’. If it is meant to be a comedy, I didn’t seem to find it that funny, but as a drama/tragedy, it felt too light; without citation, Wikipedia has some critics referring to it as a ‘problem play’.

Also, what was the Duke hoping to achieve? If he already suspects Angelo, then this seems like a really convoluted way of testing/exposing him. This is also a really poor method for lasting societal change – is he going to pretend to go away every time he wants to test someone he suspects? Perhaps I’m reading both too much into it and from a modern perspective.

I’m trying to find some sort of critical analysis so that I can find out more about the play.

Shakespeare's comedies are tragedies and his tragedies comedies.

Gregory wrote: "Shakespeare's comedies are tragedies and his tragedies comedies."

Interesting thought Gregory - why do you think that?

It may be that comedy is a part of tragedy.

"comedy" in terms of shakespeare does not in fact mean a funny play, it simply means a play that is not a tragedy, has a happy ending and all the rest of it. Light and fluffy compared to the real stuff (tragedy).

I don;t think we are meant to find them plausible or deep. It's often (I think) a silly situation, with a ridiculous plot but Shakespeare's artistry with words is why his work has lasted. Sometimes there might be some sort of "wisdom" in the play (frequently anachronistic though, especially to a modern female reader) but I don't really think they are meant to be read for realism or even deep meaning.

The characters are kind of stereotypes, especially in the comedies.

I can't think of a single plot of a Shakespeare play that isn't a really stupid storyline. But I do like the way the man strings a sentence together (and especially the dirty jokes)

Stef wrote: ""comedy" in terms of shakespeare does not in fact mean a funny play, it simply means a play that is not a tragedy, has a happy ending and all the rest of it. Light and fluffy compared to the real s..."

I agree a happy ending is vital to comedy which is why The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, but it does have tragic elements. Hamlet is a tragedy with comic elements, In other words, the dramatic arts are inseparable.

I recently finished reading Much Ado About Nothing, read over several months (my problem for having so many other interesting things to read!). Somehow, it didn't 'click' on the page - I was just going through it and then 'oh, is that the end?'. I just didn't feel that engaged just in reading.

Fortunately, it looks like the various libraries I've got memberships with have got multiple versions of performances (especially films), so hopefully seeing it will really help bringing it to life.

I just read The Merchant of Venice and whilst it was brilliantly written (of course) the plot and characters seemed to lack the depth and complexity of his other plays. What do others think?

Don't ask me, Tango - it's at least 15 years since I last read it, but it was one of my favourites at the time. I should revisit it and see what I think of it now!

Studied many of the Bard's plays but not this one, sorry. Will be interested to see what others think.

Let's have some of your favourite quotes.

Here are two of mine, both from Romeo and Juliet.

When he shall die,
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Love goes towards love as schoolboys from their books,
But love from love, to school with heavy looks.