Status Updates From The Complete Works of Willi...

Julius Caesar

Against the backdrop of mass slavery, apprehended directly herein only in moments of death scene manumission, the optimate faction proclaims to be defending 'liberty' whereas the populares faction instrumentalize even their own aristocrats and issue proscription bills by fiat. The normal problem of history plays obtains here: the intervention elides much to focus precariously on ethics.

Henry V

Sovereignty as theatre--the corporate personhood of Talbot is here rendered by the prologue as a creature of theatrical imagination, a matter of ideology as disseminated to an audience. Thereafter the ecclesiastics persuade a willing Hal to war so as to avoid a proto-dissolution act in parliament. NB also the concordance of Falstaff with the traitors, plus the liquidation of Falstaff's gang.

Much Ado About Nothing

Tragedy in the vein of Othello is averted when the illegitimate son, a loser in war, seeks revenge through the staging of a play-within-the-play of a protagonist's akrasia but is refuted by a counterplay-wthin-the-play staging her decease. That her interiority is never staged (silence again, a la Bianca and Silvia, et al.) fits the notion that grief is private as noted herein.

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra
Started 05/02/26
Finished 08/02/26
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