The last readathon just ended for me, and now I intend to casually participate in another, starting right now through midnight tomorrow.
Cassandra at Literary Stars is hosting this one in celebration of the end of her school term. I know all about school holidays and can think of no better way to celebrate than by having a readathon – unless it’s by watching an Austen movie or visiting a Margaret Mitchell site, or engaging in a good healthy jump on a trampoline while screaming – “I’m FREE!”
I started this book a few days ago, and I’m not far in. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I’m actually reading a copy illustrated by Tasha Tudor, which my grandma gave me several years ago. She always gave me books for Christmas, but I was too busy running and playing to read them! I’m really happy I finally decided to slow down and settle in with this one.
From the first chapter, I was hooked. Little Mary is a rich British girl living in India, who doesn’t know what to do with herself when her beautiful mother and her father the British captain, along with the rest of the household, die of cholera. She’s all alone, and spoiled little nine-year-old that she is, only wonders why no one is serving her. Mary has never really known love — only money and servants.
When she’s carted away to live with her uncle in England, she doesn’t know what to expect. The Yorkshire servant who tells her about him paints him as distant, cranky and unsociable. He takes her on because she’s a relative, but it doesn’t sound like he really wants her. His wife died ten years earlier, and death seems to hang all over his enormous house. There are a hundred rooms, but most of them have been locked up. There’s also a secret garden — one that has been barred from visitors. Apparently it was his wife’s garden, and no one is allowed to enter it.
Mary “Quite Contrary” of course sets out to find this garden, because being told that she is not allowed to enter it is encouragement enough for her to want nothing more than to barge upon her dead aunt’s garden and see what’s so secretive about it.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far.
I love the way the story explains what a Yorkshire accent sounds like. I wouldn’t have understood the problem, but the story makes clear how garbled it would sound to Mary’s ears. I feel like I’m there in the story! I’m curious to meet little Dickon, the boy who owns his own pony — who has tickled Mary’s curiosity. And I love no-nonsense Martha the maid, who thinks Mary ought to learn to dress herself.
This book definitely has me wanting to read A Little Princess. I’ve seen it on a lot of people’s TBR lists, but I never knew what it was about. There’s a description on the back of my copy of The Secret Garden, and it sounds really good.
I’ve been reading Mrs. Dalloway for about a week, and I’m halfway through it. It’s my first novel by Virginia Woolf.
Posts like this one made me think I’d hate it, or that it would be terribly difficult to read, but I actually find it beautiful, like staring at a piece of art. The story centers on Mrs. Dalloway but follows a handful of characters on a single day, who think out the process of their lives while attending to errands or sitting about on benches observing their world and the singing of an elderly woman on the street who either strikes them as necessary to the day’s traversing — or not. All of this to the intermittent chiming of Big Ben, which reminds them, I think, that life is constantly progressing them forward to death. Death seems a central focus in the novel.
Mrs. Dalloway is fixated on her party, which must go on. Septimus is a survivor from World War I — a war that exists as a sort of intrusion in the midst of previous England, England as it was before the war, a party being played out or a monarchy uncontested — or something. Septimus is, I think, a foil for Mrs. Dalloway’s views on life. He is the other England, the one emerging or perhaps the one that was killed, when war came to England.
Anyway, just to say I’m currently reading this one and liking it very much. I knew I’d like Woolf’s novels when I read her short story “A Haunted House” and then “met” her the writer in A Room of One’s Own. I own To the Lighthouse and am curious about reading it, too, eventually…
As much as I LOVED embracing Shakespeare all last month (and into February!), I admit it exhausted my brain a bit. So I’ve been pushing the books around this week, thinking I “should” read Dickens because I said I would, and instead picking up Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, reading half, watching The Hours, wanting to read The Hours, reading some of The Secret Garden, (love, love, love it), and playing hide-and-seek with Dickens.
This morning the urge for some Dickens has returned!
Today I’m going to try to make a dent in A Tale of Two Cities. I’ve already read the first two chapters, and oh my! It’s not like Oliver Twist, which made me struggle for the first two-thirds. There’s such a feeling of tension and Gothic atmosphere, right from the start. I love the parallels depicted in the famous opening, between the French and the British in 1775, when the book opens:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way–in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
And passages like this one such make me tingle with excitement:
A Wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them?
That writing is so rich! I want to read and re-read it, both for the artistry in the words, and because the passage provokes me to contemplation. THAT is writing!!
Dickens annoyed me throughout much of Oliver Twist, for being so heavily present in the tale and over-playing (in my opinion) the sympathy factor with Oliver. I don’t get the same feeling at all with A Tale of Two Cities. He’s there, making Dickens atmosphere as only Dickens can, but the tone is so much more realistic and serious, perhaps because it’s a later work. The parallels make me feel immediately that there is a magnetism between the characters and their situations — as if they’re all being pulled to the center.
I’m VERY excited to make a dent in this one today.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott - A novel about four sisters growing up during the American Civil War while their father is away in the fighting. I cried the most for this one! And I still cry every time I see the movie, whatever version.
Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott - Louisa May Alcott’s true and gruesome account of her experience as a war nurse at a military hospital in Washington, DC. There is a particular scene in this book that is excruciating, especially since I know the soldier depicted was a real man who really spoke the words as written.
Villette by Charlotte Brontë - Lucy Snowe is a quiet woman who keeps her life before the novel begins silent, telling of her travels to Villette, France to teach at a school where she meets a surly Frenchman. You’d have to read the whole book to understand the tears.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffeneggar* – A time traveler is forced to flit in and out of his wife’s life, from her childhood to the end of his own life. The novel tells of their love story as her memory of meeting him when he’s an older man visiting her girlhood home catches up with his first encounter of her when she’s a young woman, long after she’s fallen in love with him. I think this is the first book that ever made me cry.
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White - A spider hatches a plot to save the life of a pig who will be slaughtered by the farmer who owns the barn where they live if she can’t make him see the value in the pig’s life. I didn’t cry at this when I was a kid, but I did on re-read.
Atonement by Ian McEwan - A little girl in England accuses her older sister’s boyfriend of molesting their cousin during the eve of the Second World War. TEAR. JERKER.
Mark Twain by Geoffrey C. Ward - The tragic life story of one of America’s finest authors. I cried and fell for Twain, when I read this. I had no idea who he was, behind the satire.
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery - A little girl from Novia Scotia is adopted by a Canadian family who wanted a boy. All who’ve read this know why I cried — and where!
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - The daughter of a Southern plantation owner in Clayton County, Georgia is thrust into the American Civil War. I cried in so many places. Scarlett is incredible. And since I know much of the narrative was drawn from the author’s life, I couldn’t help but feel for Margaret Mitchell, too.
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller – An Italian woman in 1960s Iowa falls in love with a National Geographic photographer while her family is away at the fair. Okay, I’m a bit sappy to cry at this one. But I did!
In the epilogue for Fargo Rock City, Chuck Klosterman writes:
“It’s always been my theory that criticism is really just veiled autobiography; whenever someone writes about a piece of art, they’re really just writing about themselves.”
Do you agree?
My answer:
I find it difficult to answer this question because I have almost zero experience with literary analysis. That in itself tells me that analysis is autobiographical, because in order to analyze this question, I must have prior knowledge of the topic.
“Autobiographical” suggests that the critic is telling the story of his or her life through the literary critique. I find this to be an interesting suggestion, since literary criticism is usually praised for its objectivity. It’s supposed to focus on art for art’s sake, right?
Not necessarily. One must have some prior knowledge of feminism and its effects and causes to be able to critique a work of literature through a feminist lens. Yet to critique with a feminist lens doesn’t necessarily mean the critic has personally experienced feminism; he or she may have simply read about it.
Criticism can point out the different parts of a work of literature and discuss what makes it effective, but can one say what is “effective” without drawing on a store of prior knowledge/experience with literature? Can one recognize what is effective without comparing it to other works of literature and one’s own life or writing experience? Can one really be wholly objective? Is something inherently valuable, or is it valuable because we can recognize its value?
Quality work might offend a person in whom it triggers a memory; that doesn’t mean the work isn’t artistically solid – rather, that it effectively created emotion in the reader. (A sign that it is likely quality.)
Is a personal reaction to a work as “bad” or “good” any more or less autobiographical than a measure of a work’s merit by literary rubric? (Which draws upon past knowledge and experience?)
Some people disparage biographical criticism because the book’s author doesn’t belong in the middle of an analysis of his or her work. These analyzers would say the same about the reader: he or she doesn’t belong in the middle of the work. Reader response theorists would say: of course readers belong in the middle!
So is Klosterman talking about reader response critics? Feminist critics? Formalist critics? It’s hard to say, since I’m not getting Klosterman’s quote in context. But taken on it’s own, I’d say literary criticism is really far too broad a topic to fit itself to such a blanket statement.
- “Thinking of readers and the way they make sense of literature has led to what has been called ’reader-response criticism’, which claims that the meaning of the text is the experience of the reader (an experience that included hesitations, conjectures, and self-corrections). If a literary work is conceived as a succession of actions upon the understanding of a reader, then an interpretation of a work can be a story of that encounter, with its ups and downs: various conventions or expectations are brought into play, connections are posited, and expectations defeated or confirmed. To interpret a work is to tell a story of reading.” ( – p. 63. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introductionby Jonathan Culler)
In which I indulge in a minor soap box moment:
I’ve noticed somecontentionamongbloggers lately — about what is a “real” review, and what doesn’t belong in the literary conversation. (And what is a “professional” review, and what isn’t.) It’s hard for me to have a valid place in this conversation, since most involved in the discussion tend to review contemporary literature, and most of what I read is classic literature. Still, I have seen in some places the suggestion that “I” has no place in the discussion of literature, and it jolts me, every time I read it. The suggestion in some instances is that posts involving “self” are a waste of cyber space and nothing more than an indulgent airing of one’s personal baggage. The notion of “self” intertwines with this month’s Literary Blog Hop question, which also discusses the connection between self and the books we read, and whether or not “self” defines or should define the way we talk about them. (Above.) In some cases, though, self is becoming tangled with emotion, and both are being dismissed as indulgent, in reviews.
I’m not experienced in the world of literature yet. I’ve only been doing this for two years. But I know wrong when I read it. I know pigeon-holing and group think – and I know that literature isn’t and shouldn’t be something that is only analyzed.
But this is vital: books have the potential to ignite imagination, to inspire personal reflection and make readers feel they have “returned home” upon visit and revisit. Literary analysis is just one avenue through which one can experience literature, and I think to overlook (or worse, belittle) the discussion of self and emotion in response to literature is a mistake.
So often, I see personal reflections about literature belittled by questions like, “What are you arguing?” I see people “afraid” to post on literature because they don’t know how to analyze — when if they’d only write what they feel, they might find literary talk embraces them, and that analysis is something that can be slowly learned, as we become closer to literature.
When people discuss books, they aren’t always “arguing a theory.” Sometimes they’re sharing, expressing, exploring literature; asking questions of it rather than pronouncing answers; posting to make the solitary activity that is reading a more social one. It’s mind-boggling to me that this could be scorned – but I realize the scorn is very likely due to a misinterpretation of the purpose of these posts, and perhaps an understandable impatience with the blurring definition of a “book review,” which does sometimes head posts which are less critique than they are reflection.
Two things that I feel must be made clear:
There is literary criticism, and there is a personal journey through literature. One is about the book, and one is about the self in reaction to the book. Self cannot be excluded from a personal reaction to literature, and self is necessary only to a point, in literary criticism.
“I” posts among literary critics evoke a lot of criticism about emotion not belonging in literary analysis, which creates a message that those personally traversing through literature are trite and unnecessary in the literary conversation.
In literary criticism, we’re using the self to explore the literature. Self is only a tool through which we critique something outside ourselves, and since self is separate from the thing being critiqued, it is excluded as much as possible from the analysis. My view of an epilogue might be different from another reader’s view of an epilogue, but the epilogue itself is unchanged, and that unchanged quality is what is discussed in literary analysis.
In a personal journey through literature, we’re using the literature to explore ourselves and the world, and our place within the world. The literature is a tool through which we explore people, us and the world before and after us. And since self is the center thing exploring and being explored, it’s necessary to give self center stage. This is where “I feel,” “I wanted,” and “I loved” creeps into a post. Because the post is not a critique of the book; it’s a work of self-expression.
I think that these are two vital discussions that are not always recognizable to the other, so literary expressers find the analyzers dry and unfeeling and wonder why they aren’t expressing their emotion about literature, and literary analyzers find the expressers analytically inferior and wonder why they aren’t being less biased in their reviews.
I think it’s a miscommunication between two different modes of thinking. Speaking as an expresser, I can’t imagine removing self from a contemplation of literature, but I can absolutely understand why self would seem to be beside-the-point to an analyzer, whose emotions do not generally serve as their primary mode of analysis.
To analyze a piece of literature is to see beyond its story: to see that Hamlet isn’t just a story about Denmark — it’s about the breakdown of the Elizabethan order, or men’s fear of feminine sexuality, or (more here.) If one can see all of that in literature, certainly one can see truths about self in literature — and thus, in some cases, literary critique is absolutely autobiographical, and posts about self are mandatory for a full interpretation of the text.
To dismiss a discussion of self in literature as “veiled autobiography” or “an airing of one’s personal baggage” is to suggest that true literary critique can only happen by a prescribed set of instructions that is considered “professional” or, in other words “the way literary discussion has always been done.”
From what I understand about the world of literature at this point, until the advent of the Internet, pretty much the only time one saw in print a reaction to a book was either in a book club’s newsletter (I’ve never seen one, so I’m only assuming there is such a thing), in a student’s literature paper, or in a “professional” review in a newspaper or journal. Now people can react to literature from their bedroom or living room in their pajamas, and this new influx of voices is perhaps a culture shock to the elite few who used to claim the literary airwaves.
Book-blogging is a developing science, and it’s still pretty new and rusty. Whether or not a personal reflection about literature can be considered a “book review” is certainly something that needs further discussion. My personal feeling is that literary reflection/expression requires its own label — something that can distinguish it from analysis and that makes more clear that it’s an introspective look at literature rather than an attempt to critique the divergent parts of the book from a distance. I think ratings on sites like Goodreads and Library Thing need to be separated to reflect what is truly being rated: the book’s aesthetic/artistic quality in the opinion of the reviewer, or the reader’s personal enjoyment when contemplating the book. (Two very different ratings.) Most importantly, though, I think education and respect needs to be focused on both literary perspectives, in the book-blogging world as well as in the classroom. Analysis is as important as passion in literature — but not more important. Literary discussion should be encouraged, not pigeon-holed.
This is a left-brained world. I’ve had to deal with that fact all my life. Math class is vital; art class is voluntary. Imagination and personal reflection are often belittled in the “intellectual” world as invalid, subjective and unimportant, while to be able to imagine is the very life of the writer whose work is being critically (objectively) analyzed. Let us not turn literature into a left-brain-only exercise. The right brain, though often unrecognized, really can speak a few truths in its inspection of literature. Analysis when it is most effective is a combination of both brain and soul. The self, experience, imagination and personality advances the brain beyond computing into expression – the gift that is humanity and that is made immortal by art and literature.
Don’t let poetry be a mere object of mechanical dissection. Not to fully read it. Feel it, question it, tear it apart. Learn from it, not how to beat out a rythm to its meter — but how to be human. How to be awake and alive. That’s literature. It echoes nature itself. It’s man’s contribution to the sunrise. If analysis helps you question that, then question it through analysis. But don’t go through analysis blindly. Do it your own way. Be your own professor.
Hours later: I just read this post, which says so much of what I want to say, very well. READ it.
“Miss Elizabeth Bennet” from the Elegance of Fashion is hosting a Period Drama Advice Event in which characters from literature of her choosing post letters asking for advice, and characters from literature of our own choosing offer feedback by return letter.
I saw some posts about this event last week, and it sounded like such a fun idea I knew I’d have to stop by and answer at least one letter. I don’t know if I’ll have time to do more, but I’ll definitely be keeping up with the game. It looks like fun!!
Today the first letter was posted by Jane Eyre, who seeks advice about what to do now that she’s falling for the master of Thornfield Hall.
Her letter is posted below, followed by my response, by Scarlett O’Hara:
Dear Period Drama Advice Column,
Miss Eyre writing her letter.
I am the governess at Thornfield Hall, the home of Mr. Rochester. When I first met him, he seemed to be very harsh, eccentric, and unconventional, but I now find myself falling in love with him. He has been the only person who I could talk to as an equal. I had not intended to love him: I tried to fight it. He made me love him without looking at me, but he is to be shortly married to a Miss Ingram, a beautiful but subconscious person. I cannot help but love him. I’ve said that my pupil, Adele, should go to school and that I should seek a new situation, but I cannot bear to leave Thornfield: I have not been trampled on there; I have not been petrified; I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. What shall I do?
Sincerely, Jane Eyre
Dear Janie -
Scarlett O'Hara receiving the letter.
Fiddle-dee-dee! You don’t go around telling him all that, do you? That you’re “in love” and all that twaddle? I never heard of such bad taste.
Sugar, I can hear the grey dripping off you like paint off a dull old Leonardo something-or-other. You’re about as lively as a bowl of butter beans.
Here’s what you do: cover up that grey with a pretty red frock. Something lively and daring that’ll make all the girls in your county green with envy. Don’t say things like “glimpse of communion.” You sound like you have both boots in the grave, and anyhow, men don’t want to think that you’re smarter than they are. When you get with your Mr. Rochester (who I must say sounds mighty manageable), tell him you think he’s just about the bravest thing you ever saw. Don’t get him too vain. A vain man is ornery and not a lot of fun, once he gets to drinking. Just flatter him enough to make him notice you, and then act like you hate him. Yes! Act like you’d rather hear anything from anybody so long as it isn’t him. That’ll heat him up something fierce. And once he’s good and jealous, play like you’re homesick or something. Stand by the piano, and try to look sad and frail next to Miss Ingram. The idea is to make her look twice your size and mean as a grizzly. Once Mr. Rochester comes over to soothe you, good grief, liven up quick! Tears are only bait, child – if you overuse them, Miss Ingram will start looking lively and you’ll look as pale and mealy-mouthed as you are.
Once you see that he’s peaked, be sure to laugh at something he says – it doesn’t matter what. Just laugh and tell him he’s the smartest and handsomest thing you ever met. And then start to feel better and tell him he’s the reason you feel better, and if he weren’t around to make you feel better, why, you just don’t know what you’d do. Then get him to turn the conversation around on himself. Tell him you expect you’d fade plum away, if not for his company and clever conversation. Then when he’s getting all puffed up, get angry at him for not asking to fill your dance card, or whatever it is you people do out there in England. When he apologizes and asks you to dance, tell him you don’t know, but you expect you might have time to dance with him in a week or so – if your other beaus don’t get too jealous.
Here’s where you leave Mr. Rochester there stunned, while you flirt with all of the other boys in the room. Act like you don’t even notice him, until the last moment, when everyone is heading home. Then start crying and tell him you can’t believe he left you all alone and never once asked you to dance or sing a duet together. When he proposes (and he will), tell him you’ll have to think about it, but give him an encouraging dimple – something to let him know you will eventually come around to him, but right now you’re so overwhelmed and have had so many other offers, you’re just not sure which to choose. And great balls of fire, Janie – don’t look desperate! Only a sad owl accepts the first proposal. Keep it light and act like you haven’t got a care in the world. Say something evasive like “how wonderful you are!” to let him know you’re having the time of your life, and you don’t care two pins who you marry. That’ll keep him hot. Let him propose a few times in the next couple weeks, then eventually succumb, but not until he offers the greatest and best diamond in the county. You want that Miss Ingram to bleed envy.
And sugar, do try hard not to be so dull. Men don’t like a dull grey girl steeped in melancholy. Try to be a bit livelier, or Mr. Rochester probably will marry Miss Ingram, who I must say sounds like she’s playing the field with a sharper hand than you are.
Opening lines: “William Shakespeare ranks as one of the finest writers in the history of the world. Since his death in 1616, no other writer has surpassed his ability to capture the human soul in words; and no other writer has been more read, more written about, and more debated…”
My thoughts:
“Friends! Romans! Countrymen! Lend me your ears.” (Ha! Now I know what that means.)
I’m curious to see where they’ll fit into my favorites lists. I know now, having read a handful of plays and poured through the guide I’m about to describe, that I prefer the tragedies to the comedies, and that it’s very likely I’ll prefer the histories to the comedies. Whether I’ll prefer the histories over the tragedies, remains to be seen.
Shakespeare: A Guide to the Complete Works has convinced me that I definitely want to read Shakespeare’s complete works. The book is so useful and was an awesome accompaniment to my reading last month. Not only did it help me understand the plays I was reading, it filled in a lot of the mystery about what I can expect, as I explore Shakespeare’s canon. Having read it (and it is a big, heavy book), I feel almost as if I’ve experienced Shakespeare. Obviously I haven’t read most of his canon yet, but this book takes me through Elizabethan England, Shakespeare’s life, and his entire works. Being a right-brainer, I need to see the whole picture before I can begin to see the details, so experiencing a summary and synopsis of every play makes me feel confident to begin exploring the actual plays on my own. I’m not sure it was designed to be read before the plays.
Some people might prefer to simply read the plays and reference this book after. I’m really glad I read it first. It makes me so excited to keep reading!
The book is divided into several sections. I hopped all over the place, depending on my mood, reading first about Shakespeare’s life and era, then about his poems, and finally about his plays, beginning with the ones that most interested me (the ones I intended to read pretty soon), and ending with the histories, which I didn’t realize would end up being the most intriguing to me!
The discussion of each play within the guide includes the dates of compsition and performance when it’s known, the play’s setting (including the historical setting, if the play is based on real people), a breakdown of the characters, a description of the type of play it is (tragedy, comedy, history, tragicomendy, problem play, Roman play), Shakespeare’s probable sources for each play, a plot summary (usually about four to eight pages, with passages discussed within), a breakdown of the themes, discussion of the climax, extra information (ie: why Hamlet didn’t inherit the throne in Denmark when his father died, and how old he was in the play, etc), fascinating facts, historical notes, and study questions. The sections for each play averaged 6-12 pages:
Introduction:
Briefly discusses Shakespeare’s life, genres, language & verse, censorship in his day, the four periods of his plays (early, balanced, overflowing, and final), allusions to mythology, the Elizabethan age, the way Shakespeare likely prepared manuscripts (quill pen, lamp/candlelight, without dictionary.) Also it lists purposes for using verse as opposed to prose within a play, and vice versa.
The Plays:
Hamlet
The notes make obvious how much I missed the first time I read this play!! The gap in Hamlet’s age? Ophelia’s death might have more significance than I noticed the first time. I need to reread!
Macbeth
I loved the section about witchcraft in Macbeth’s time, and the historical notes about the characters.
King Lear
The summary DEFINITELY makes me want to read this one — soon!!
Othello
I had no idea this was a play involving racism. The summary made me want to read this one quickly. (And I did.)
Romeo and Juliet
This one includes a very long plot summary. I read this play in high school but barely remember it. I actually appreciated the note on the historical setting most in this play. I had no idea it was set in the 1300s, Italy!
Julius Caesar
I read this one in high school, too. The historical information on this play makes it sound SO interesting. I didn’t really have a clue what was happening, last time I read it. Looking forward to it!
Antony and Cleopatra
What? This is right after Julius Caesar, and Mark Antony is in both plays? Again, the historical notes were fascinating!! I don’t own this play, but I really want to read it.
Coriolanus
This one takes place in Rome about 450 years before Antony and Cleopatra. (Thanks for the correction, Amanda!) I had never heard about this one, so I definitely loved reading about the history that inspired it.
Timon of Athens
What I remember most about this one is the comparison to Dickens’ Scrooge, and the fact that Timon was a real man, who started out rich and happy and ended up horrible and bitter. Curious!
Titus Andronicus
I hurried up to read the passages on this one because o says I should read it. It’s a bloodbath!
Troilus and Cressida
This one’s about Troy!! And because I read about it, I was able to answer a Jeopardy question the other day. I wish I owned a copy so I could read it with Homer & Virgil later this year.
The Merchant of Venice
Again, I didn’t realize this was about racism. This is probably the #1 play I want to read when I move past the books I own. I love Portia’s speech — and Shylock’s.
As You Like It
I read this right before I read the play. It definitely helped me understand the actual text.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Again, I read this section right before I read the actual play, to better understand it. I was actually dreading reading this one, but the summary made me think I might like it. I had no idea it was set in Athens!
Much Ado About Nothing
I think I’m going to like this story of Benedict and Beatrice! The Shrew idea extended?
Love’s Labour’s Lost
Oh, how interesting! There’s supposed to be a second half to this (a sequel), but it’s lost.
Measure for Measure
An eye for an eye play! I am intrigued. This is another one I really want to read after I get through the books I own.
The Taming of the Shrew
I really appreciate the way this set up the play for me before I read it.
Twelfth Night
I laughed hysterically at the summary, but when I read the play, I didn’t find it very funny. I’m thinking on this one I should have just read the play and checked out the summary after! But it was one of the early one’s I read, and I was afraid I wouldn’t understand it.
The Tempest
Oh! The island they’re shipwrecked at might be America, says this book. I am QUITE intrigued.
Two Gentlemen of Verona
This is one of Shakespeare’s early plays. The description does not sound at all interesting to me, but I don’t tend to go for the comedies really. I’ll still read it.
The Winter’s Tale
The plot of this one reminds me of the debate between sense and sensibility! Because the king’s emotions overtake him. Curious to explore this one!
The Merry Wives of Windsor
This is one I very, very, very much want to read! Apparently Elizabeth I requested Shakespeare write another play with John Falstaff from Henry IV in it. Shakespeare came up with this, set in Elizabethan England with a feminist edge. Want. To. Read.
All’s Well That Ends Well
For some reason, the premise of this one feels like Jane Austen. I need to read it to see if I feel like that after. Sounds great though.
The Comedy of Errors
*sigh* – more mistaken identities and confusion. I don’t really look forward to this. I don’t find the mistaken identity thing funny, especially since I already read it in Twelfth Night. I hope Shakespeare proves me wrong!
Cymbeline
This one again reminds me of Jane Austen for some reason (though it’s set way earlier!) It makes me think “aw!” so I can’t wait to read it.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre
Shakespeare’s “Job”? I think this one could be good.
The Two Noble Kinsmen
This reminds me too much of Two Gentlemen from Verona, though it is cool to see the characters Theseus and Hippolyta from A Midsummer Night’s Dream revived. I just don’t care for the comedies that much. Prove me wrong, Shakespeare! This one was written jointly with John Fletcher and is described as “lackluster.” It sounds it!
King John
Here’s where I get intrigued!! This sounds like such a great play. I wrote in my book, “This would be an awesome movie!” This one’s a history that talks about the feud between England and France in the 11th century.
Edward III
A play that focuses on the causes of the 100 Years War between France and England. It sounds SO GOOD. I can’t wait to read it!!!
Richard II
A play about how Henry IV becomes Henry IV. Yes, still movie-worthy!
Henry IV, Part I
The story from above continues. We meet Prince Hal and John Falstaff. (Elizabeth I’s favorite character, apparently.) Intrigued!!
Henry IV, Part II
The above story continues, only Prince Hal is older and more mature. I STILL say I’ll love the histories most!
Henry V
Prince Hal is now king. This one is supposed to be very patriotic, with a lot of Henry’s speeches still repeated by students today. (I wouldn’t know if that’s true, since I don’t live in the UK.) Anyway, this one is again, awesome sounding. More war with France and a brave king.
Henry VI, Part I
Henry V dies, and his little boy becomes king. Lots of scheming and treachery behind the scenes. This one features the burning at the stake of Joan of Arc!! I didn’t know she was in a Shakespeare play!
Henry VI, Part II
Young King Henry gets married, and the War of the Roses begins. Need I say again that I’m intrigued?
Henry VI, Part III
Beheadings and war! Henry’s wife betrays him and he’s imprisoned in the Tower of London. The War of the Roses continues, ripping England apart.The House of York and the House of Lancaster vie for the throne.
Richard III
Richard of the House of York usurps the throne from his brother Edward, who usurped it from Henry VI. He becomes power hungry and a bloodbath ensues. (This is one I’m especially looking forward to. Richard III is supposed to be an incredible character study of a psychopath. I LOVE the opening soliloquy.)
Henry VIII
Anne Boleyn and Catherine of Aragon? Yes, please!!
The Poems
I read through these in detail. I’ve already read the sonnets, but I plan to return to this section when I read Shakepeare’s other poems. Each is given some good coverage. The section is about fifty pages long.
Authorship Questions
This is a very brief section (6 pages long) discussing the conspiracy theories about who might have penned Shakespeare, and whether or not he’s a plagiarist.
The Theatre
A fifteen page section detailing the Globe Theatre, what it was like to act in Shakespeare’s day, and a list of stage cues and drama terms.
Gallimaufry
A hodgepodge of information about Shakespeare’s childhood, his possible appearance and voice, his schooling, religion (he may have secretly been Catholic), wedding, possible taverns in his area, the Gunpowder Plot, Medicine and the Four Humours in the Elizabethan era, feudalism and castles, the rank of royalty and nobility, and 12 fascinating facts about Shakespeare.
Final thoughts:
This book was incredibly useful, and SO fun to read, especially when I got to the histories! I learned so much.
Would I reread Shakespeare: A Guide to the Complete Works?
I will MOST DEFINITELY be referring to it in the future, as I pour through the actual texts!
- “Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?”
Quick synopsis:
Macbeth is an ambitious general in Scotland in 1040. He impresses Duncan I, king of Scotland from 1034 to 1040, when he and a fellow general, Banquo, fight valiantly against the Norwegians in war, and Macbeth single-handedly defeats a traitor.
Three witches meet Macbeth and Banquo on their way to the king’s castle to inform Macbeth that he is not only about to be named Lord of Cawdor (in place of the turncoat), but he will also one day become king of Scotland – and after him, Banquo’s descendants will take the throne. A lot of them.
Macbeth is intrigued but a little jealous that he only gets one reign while Banquo’s descendants reign for centuries. He doesn’t exactly believe the witches, but he’s not opposed to picturing himself on the throne and hurrying along the process. He writes to his wife to tell her the news.
Meanwhile, he arrives at Duncan’s castle, where he is named Lord of Cawdor (as predicted.) King Duncan invites himself to Macbeth’s castle to celebrate. Macbeth arrives home first. His wife, Lady Macbeth, convinces him to kill King Duncan in his sleep that night, so Macbeth can hurry up and take the throne. (Apparently she doesn’t trust fate.) Macbeth is hesitant about her plan, his wife mocks his manhood, he goes through with it. They frame the servants, Macbeth is named king, and ambition becomes a monster on Scotland’s throne.
Lots of blood. Lots of killing. Etc.
This tragedy was probably super scary for the Elizabethans, many of which very much believed in witchcraft. The late 1500s had seen a crazy “Are you a witch? I’m going to burn you alive!!” phase, so Macbeth? Probably had them clinging to one another in terror.
My thoughts:
Oh. My. Goodness. This play.
I absolutely loved it!! I’m lukewarm to the comedies compared to the tragedies, and until I reread Hamlet, I’m going to have to say Macbeth is my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies so far. (Though I loved Hamlet. I just don’t think I was mentally ready for it last year. I need to revisit.)
Macbeth is the first play I’ve read by Shakespeare where I was leant forward in my chair the entire time, eager to find out what would happen next. The way he writes guilt!! And craziness!! And the atmosphere of Scotland!! I felt like I was watching a movie!
I love the way Shakespeare employs a hypnotic rhyme whenever the witches are on-stage:
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
Often when evil is being planned on-stage, the rhyming begins. And when Shakespeare plays characters who are innocent rather than scheming, he resorts to prose that doesn’t rhyme.
That’s intriguing!! The way he uses the rhythm of the words to create atmosphere!
The three witches that start the play are basically a representation of fate. So the way Macbeth goes in and toys with fate creates a pretty heady message. Banquo’s fate, as predicted by the witches, came true without his intercession. Macbeth couldn’t rely on fate itself to see that he became king. Hearing that he was to become king instigated a bloodbath in pursuit of fate. One could read this play simply for entertainment, or one could puzzle over Shakespeare’s apparent message: Should we mess with fate? Can we mess with fate? Is everything predestined?
If Macbeth had done nothing, would he have still become king of Scotland?
“Fair is foul and foul is fair.”
The witches say this at the start of the play, basically suggesting that there is no good in humanity — nothing distinguishable between good and evil. Macbeth starts out the play basically good, but he becomes a murderer who leaves a bloodbath in his wake. Shakespeare seems to be asking — is humanity naturally amoral?
He poses the question through Macbeth and his wife, but he offers an answer through Malcolm, the good prince of Scotland (son of Duncan) who values life and practices honor and kindness, and through Banquo, the foil to Macbeth, who is offered an incredible fate and chooses not to tamper with it, despite the temptation that ambition offers him.
Creepy passage? Lady Macbeth’s plea for evil enough to commit a murder near the beginning of the play. Bone-chilling:
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts! unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top full
Of direst cruelty; make thick my blood,
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
Connection to my heritage:
Before I read this play, I had NO IDEA (which is pretty stupid, probably, given the title of the play) that it was set in Scotland. That in itself kicked this one to the top of my happy list, because my heritage on Mom’s side is Scottish (though not since the 1600s — ha!) My mother’s family has recently been traced from present-day Georgia to colonial Jamestown in 1611-ish, to Kilbirnie (Ayrshire) Scotland for several centuries. My great-great-great (etc) grandfather Sir Reginald Crawford’s sister Margaret married Sir Alan Wallace of Ellerslie. They were the parents of Sir William Wallace.
Until about 700AD, we were in some really weird country that starts with an ‘E’ (I can’t remember the name, but it’s on my ancestry.com page!), which used to be the name of some territory near France. Then we pushed through England and into Kilbirnie as the de Craufords:
The Castle Crawford, home of my Kilbirnie ancestors.
William Wallace - Freedom fighter of Scotland in the 1200 & 1300s, and my cousin.
What’s that? The sound of people not caring?
Too bad! I’m a huge fan of the show Who Do You Think You Are? and watch it whenever it’s new (with my mom, who also loves it!) It’s a show that explores the stars’ roots. I love it when it takes us from The American Civil War to Africa. Or from America to French royalty! My ancestry takes me to England, France and Scotland. So far!
Tracing one’s roots is SO IMPORTANT. I didn’t have a clue where I came from until a couple years ago; now I feel so whole — the same way I feel when I explore literature. The people that came before me fill me up with life and this ecstatic feeling of camaraderie. Like — “We’ve been where you are. You’re part of the chain. Now what are you going to do with your moment in history?”
So! That’s how I felt, opening up Macbeth and realizing it’s set in Scotland. I felt like I was home.
You know. Except for all the horrible bloodshed…
Connection to James I:
Macbeth was a real man. So was Duncan. Banquo’s descendants* really did claim the throne, and they led to King James I, the direct descendant of Banquo. James I took the throne of England after the death of Queen Elizabeth I about two years before Shakespeare wrote this play. (James I is the king who authorized the King James Bible.)
History’s “actual” Banquo helped plot the death of Duncan with Macbeth. Shakespeare apparently thought it best to rewrite this part within Macbeth, making Banquo an innocent foil for Macbeth and allowing James I to proudly experience the play through his own ancestor.
See? Ancestry is awesome.
James I, who believed in witches, wrote a book called Demonologyabout the hidden world of witches. So he was probably all about this play. Elizabeth I? Was all about Sir John Falstaff from The Merry Wives of Windsor and Henry IV, two plays I cannot wait to read.
* I think Banquo was made up by somebody way back in history who wanted to have a cool-sounding heritage, but at the time of this play he was believed to be real and an ancestor of James I. A bit of reading today says that he was later proven a fable. But the other people are real!!
Would I reread Macbeth? YES!! And I DEFINITELY want to see it performed.
“Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble!”
“To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
“Methought I heard a voice cry, Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep, – the innocent sleep;
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care,
The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,
Chief nourisher in life’s feast.”
“I have almost forgot the taste of fears;
The time has been, my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t: I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts
Cannot once start me.”
Since he would have been 200 today, I thought I’d post my answers too.
How were you first introduced to Charles Dickens?
I can’t remember a time I didn’t know the story of A Christmas Carol. The first time I read it, though, was at the end of 2009, for Christmas. I liked it, but I didn’t really LOVE it until I read it in 2010 aloud with my mom. She had never read it either, so it was an awesome experience and a great way to celebrate the holiday. That’s the first time I read Dickens.
Which Charles Dickens novels and stories have you read? Which are your favorites?
The Christmas Books (The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, The Haunted Man)
“The Signal-Man” (short story)
Which Charles Dickens novel(s) do you most want to read?
I want to read the three I’m currently reading, most importantly. (Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, and David Copperfield.) I will hopefully have those read by the end of the month.
But beyond those, I’d say I’m most looking forward to:
Little Dorrit
Bleak House
Hard Times
Nicholas Nickleby
The Old Curiosity Shop
American Notes(travelogue)
What are your favorite Charles Dickens quotes (up to three)?
From works I’ve read:
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!” – A Christmas Carol
“Men who look on nature, and their fellow-men, and cry that all is dark and gloomy, are in the right; but the sombre colors are reflections from their own jaundiced eyes and hearts. The real hues are delicate, and need a clearer vision.” – Oliver Twist
From works I look forward to reading:
“Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.” – Bleak House
Who are your Top 3 favorite Dickens heroines? and why?
I don’t have any yet!!
Who are your Top 3 favorite Dickens heroes? and why?
Ebenezer Scrooge (Ha! I don’t have any others yet in my think bank!)
Which three Dickens villains do you most love to hate?
Ebenezer Scrooge (Ha! Still no others in my think bank!)
Which Dickens characters (up to three) do you find the most funny?
I don’t have any yet.
Oh, wait. Well, I liked Mrs. Peerybingle from The Cricket on the Hearth…
If you could authorize a new film adaptation of one of Dickens’s novels, which would it be and why?
I’d always love to see A Christmas Carol remade!
If you could have lunch with Charles Dickens today, what question would you most like to ask him?
“Which of your books should I make a priority?”
Have you ever read a Dickens biography or watched a biographical film about him?
I’m about halfway through Claire Tomalin’s The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.
Have you seen multiple versions of A Christmas Carol? Which version is your favorite?
Answered above!
Who is your favorite Dickens villain and (if applicable) who does your favorite portrayal of them?
Again, I only have one so far: Ebenezer Scrooge, played by George C. Scott.
Have you seen any musical adaptations of any of Dickens’ stories? If so, which is your favorite song from it?
Nope, none.
Wow. This survey makes abundantly clear how little I’ve read by Dickens!
Well, I have a lot to look forward to! I’m determined to love Dickens’ work, and really excited to get to know him better this month.
Thank you for your words and your time,
Mr. Dickens. Not only for the stories,
but for the very deep passion you gave
to righting the social misfortunes of
your day, for your love of children,
and for the help you offered women in
need. The world wouldn’t have been the
same without your birth. Happy 200th,
and here’s to another century. I hope
you and I become friends this year. x
First, I have to point out the funniest segment of this play:
- ‘Truly, a peck of provender: I could munch your good
dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle
of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.”
Ha! This guy, Bottom, has an actual ass head (yes, really!! a human body and a donkey head!), and he keeps braying like a donkey and craving things like oats while he’s sitting under a tree talking to Titania, a fairy who has been given a love potion that made her fall in love with whomever she first clapped eyes upon. Unfortunately for Titania, she happened to first look at an ass!
Bottom doesn’t know he has an ass head of course. He’s chattering on obliviously while everyone (except a starry-eyed Titania) gazes in horror, unaware that the prankster fairy Puck (to amuse himself) has placed the head of an ass on Bottom’s shoulders, just to freak everybody out.
I think in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Shakespeare is mocking the “dream-like” quality of being in love — the fact that love can sometimes be fickle and illogical, and inspire perfectly sensible people to fail to notice that the people they think they love are, quite obviously to everyone else, asses.
Instead -
- “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath Love’s mind of any judgement taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.”
To frame this dreamlike tale, Shakespeare begins the play with a conversation about the upcoming wedding of Theseus, the duke of Athens, and his bride-to-be, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. (Actual people!) I think he uses these two characters, very calm and matter-of-fact about their upcoming nuptuals, as a sort of foil for the youthful and fervent passion between the couples who are soon to be introduced: Hermia, who is in love with Lysander; Lysander and Demetrius, who are in love with Hermia; and Helena, who is in love with Demetrius.
At the play’s start, Hermia wants to marry Lysander (and he her), but Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius. Stellar duke that he is, Theseus decrees that if Hermia doesn’t choose Demetrius as her father has ordered, she will die. (Totally fair!) So Hermia decides to run away with Lysander. Unfortunately, she spills this secret to Helena before she leaves–who is so in love with Demetrius she can’t not betray her friend to him. So she tells Demetrius Hermia’s plan, and proceeds to follow him (much to his chagrin) through the Midsummer Night woods while he grumbles about her existence in his pursuit of Hermia.
Meanwhile, Oberon, the king of the fairies, is jealous that his wife Titania has a changeling boy and won’t share him. So he decides to sprinkle fairy juice on the eyelids of Titania while she sleeps so she’ll fall in love with whomever she sees first when she wakes. (He’s hoping it will be an animal!)
About this time, grumbling Demetrius and luckless Helena wander into fairy territory, and Oberon overhears their conversation, figuring out that Helena loves Demetrius and that Demetrius doesn’t return her love. So he seeks out Puck (after Helena and Demetrius have ventured further into the woods) to go find a boy in Athens clothes and put the love potion on his eyelids while he’s sleeping so he’ll fall in love with Helena. Unfortunately, Puck gets confused and puts it on Lysander’s eyelids, who suddenly stops loving Hermia and loves Helena instead. And then to correct this problem, he puts it on Demetrius’s eyelids, who also falls in love with Helena, and Helena thinks they’re both making fun of her. Hermia becomes jealous and cat fight ensues.
Bottom and a bunch of his tradesmen friends, meanwhile, are awkwardly attempting to rehearse a play in these woods, which they hope to perform for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. It’s really, really bad, and it’s during their earnest rehearsal that Puck happens along and turns Bottom’s head into an ass head – and just moments after that Titania wakes from her woodland lap with bepotioned eyelids and falls deeply in love with Bottom.
Har! Out of the collection of six plays I read by Shakespeare last month, this is the play that I thought I would dislike. I remember watching it in (kindergarten, I think) performed on-stage. I didn’t remember anything about the storyline — only that people with green leaf halos were prancing around for no apparent reason rhyming, and I didn’t understand them. Since then, I have harbored a loathing of Shakespeare, particularly this play, as nonsense and green-leaf prancing.
Now I love this one!! The fifth act especially had me laughing hysterically, when Bottom and his friends perform their abominable play, and Theseus makes editorial comments throughout. The play, and the comments, were SO FUNNY.
From the death scene of the play within the play:
Thus die I, thus, thus, thus.
Now am I dead,
Now am I fled;
My soul is in the sky:
Tongue, lose thy light;
Moon take thy flight:
Now die, die, die, die, die. [Dies.] <—- Ha!
Just like Twelfth Night was a holiday in Elizabethan England embracing disorder and confusion, and thus the confusion of Twelfth Nightcan be explained by its title, Midsummer Night in Elizabethan England was a night celebrated for its strange dreams, strange happenings, ghosts, fairies and goblins. So all that in the play? Was likely an homage to the holiday.
Anyway, I’ve completely changed my mind about this play. I love it.
Oberon, Titania and Puck by William Blake, c.1785
Would I reread A Midsummer Night’s Dream?
Yup.
Favorite character: Puck, or Robin Goodfellow – a popular mythological character immortalized in this play be Shakespeare
“I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon, and make him smile,
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab;
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her withered dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And “tailor” cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth, and neeze, and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.”
Notable passage:
“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.”
(I could post so many passages. This play was exceptionally poetic!)
- “For I am he born to tame you Kate,
And bring you from a wild Kate to a Kate
Conformable as other household Kates.”
Summary & thoughts:
Katharina, older sister to the beautiful and much-sought Bianca, is in a fix: she doesn’t like any of the doe-eyed suitors her father Babtista keeps dragging by the house to woo her affections, and (lest she remain a maid forever) he decrees that Bianca will not marry until Katharina marries. Katharina, prone to screaming, throwing and fits, seems an insurmountable obstacle to Italy’s eligible bachelors until the money-hungry Petruchio swaggers onto the scene, eyeing the devil-tongued ”Kate” and saying in so many words, “Yeah, I can take her.”
So begins the tumble, as a startled Katharina verbally wars with Petruchio, hears his marriage proposal, and protests to her father that she isn’t interested:
- “Call you me daughter? now, I promise you
You have show’d a tender fatherly regard,
To wish me wed to one half lunatic;
A mad-cup ruffian and a swearing Jack,
That thinks with oaths to face the matter out.”
As the play unfolds, Petruchio embarks on a quest to kill her with kindness. He makes a point to contradict her at every turn, no matter how trivial the topic, and to do it in such a complimentary way (and at such odd hours) that she goes days without sleep or food, and eventually, yes, it appears she has been tamed, so much so that when Petruchio claims that the sun is the moon, she is willing to relent to his word, and when he calls her a liar for conceding that the sun is the moon, she submits to that point too:
- “God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.”
Now, if I was in Kate’s situation? No way would I actually be tamed. She doesn’t strike me as an idiot, and there are myriad reasons she might become pliable: most specifically that she may be scheming, evidenced by one of the early exchanges she has with her father:
- “What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see
[Bianca] is your treasure, she must have a husband;
I must dance bare-foot on her wedding day
And for your love to her lead apes in hell.
Talk not to me: I will go sit and weep Till I can find occasion of revenge.”
Obviously her father has placed her in an uncomfortable position. She no longer has the latitude to remain single. She is an independent woman trapped in a world that speaks over her as if she isn’t there and interprets her righteous protests against her place in the world as shrew-like behavior. She either has to stay with her father (an increasingly uncomfortable position) or strike out on a new game.
Enter Petruchio: at least he’s more interesting than the other men, and offers her some kind of competition. She seems to docilely submit to his marriage proposal, but I have a feeling that behind that docile face is a scheming mind, no where near tamed. She knows she’s going to have to marry somebody. And here’s this guy who actually wants her, for no apparent reason. Who doesn’t mind complimenting her (which is likely a pretty rare occurrence among the men these days.) And who has guts enough to stand up to her wrath. She has a pretty sweet deal going (given the condition of women in her day.) Because even as he thinks he’s taming her, he is actually himself becoming tame, saying on more than one occasion that he only wants her to be sweet so he can be sweet:
- “Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late.”
The women of history have notoriously been forced into the position of manipulator to attain power. I think this is what Shakespeare is addressing, in The Taming of the Shrew. Kate is not tame! She has merely switched tactics — a silent storm now. She lacks any power at all in her life. Until the arrival of Petruchio, her only power was her ability to outscream. But through Petruchio, I think she is learning that there are other ways to attain power. And once she marries Petruchio, he is trapped. Divorce likely wouldn’t have been possible, back then.
Shakespeare created Richard III. And Iago. And Lady Macbeth. And though he leaves the ending of this play up to his viewers’ perceptions, I highly doubt he envisions a “cured” Katharina. In fact, I have every reason to believe he envisions someone diabolical, who knows that to tame Petruchio, she need only let him believe she is tame.
See, Shakespeare leaves the identity of the shrew in the title up to the viewer. I see Petruchio as the shrew — he is awful, and (it must be said) seems to be falling for Katharina even as he is “taming” her.
Meanwhile, in the background, Shakespeare unfolds the story of sweet Bianca, who’s secret love affair with Lucentio seems docile enough, until you realize that, eventually, Bianca is going to find out that Lucentio is only playing a part as a Greek schoolmaster, in an effort to impress Babtista so he can marry Bianca, and that he actually lives far away, and oops, he has been lying to her.
The play itself is framed by the story of Sly, an Elizabethan Englishman who passes out drunk in the street and is discovered by an impish nobleman who thinks it would be hilarious to put the poor drunk in a bed and tell him he’s been insane for fifteen years and has just awakened to his real life as a rich lord. The unlucky Sly is hard to convince until the nobleman shoves a boy dressed as a girl in front of him and tells him this is his wife. Suddenly liquor-loving Sly believes he is a lord and is interested in bedding his wife.
Appearances are deceiving! this says to me. Men think with their , this says to me. And also? The ego-swelling Sly is not going to stay a lord forever. At some point the joke will be on him, and the nobleman will weary of his prank and tell him to get out of his house, he’s nothing but a drunk. And he who thinks he is a lord will find himself tossed from his throne.
So will Petruchio, I predict. Because appearances can be deceiving, or as the witches say in Macbeth:
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair.”
Elizabeth Taylor as Katharina in the 1967 adaption.
Would I reread The Taming of the Shrew?
Yes!!!!
Favorite character: Katharina
- “She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,
My household stuff, my field, my barn,
My horse, my ox, my ass, my any thing.”
Notable passage:
“Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,
Thy head, thy sovereign; one that cares for thee,
And for thy maintenance commits his body
To painful labour both by sea and land,
To watch the night in storms, the day in cold,
Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe;
And craves no other tribute at thy hands
But love, fair looks and true obedience;
Too little payment for so great a debt.
Such duty as the subject owes the prince
Even such a woman oweth to her husband;
And when she is froward, peevish, sullen, sour,
And not obedient to his honest will,
What is she but a foul contending rebel
And graceless traitor to her loving lord?
I am ashamed that women are so simple
To offer war where they should kneel for peace;
Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,
When they are bound to serve, love and obey.”
- “O beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.”
Othello (the lead character in this AWESOME play) is a black moor in Italy in the late fifteenth to early sixteenth century — and the greatest army general in Venice. Newly married, he seems to have everything going for him: a loving wife, loyal men in his ranks, and a reputation as a courageous and honorable soldier.
Unfortunately, he also faces racial slurs and has married his wife, Desdemona, in secret — a fact that may prove a fatal mistake. It seems that while Othello is indefeatable on the battlefield, he is unpracticed on the field of love. His heart is soft while his muscles are solid — and to one with a keen eye, he is easily manipulated.
When Othello triumphantly returns from defeating the Turks in battle at the play’s open, he promotes a fellow soldier, Michael Cassio, to personal lieutenant, igniting the fury of his seemingly mild-mannered ensign, Iago, the play’s puppet-master, who embarks on a cunning plan to ruin Othello.
Topping off the plan is a late-night visit to Desdemona’s father, Brebantio, who is awakened by an insistent knocking at his door and the crude report from Iago -
“‘Zounds, sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.”
So begins the turbulence. Brebantio is horrified to learn that his daughter is married to Othello. He goes at once to confront him, even as Othello is dealing with a possible invasion of Venice by the Turks. Desdemona stands by Othello loyally, as do Othello’s men, but the damage is done. Othello feels stung by Brebantio’s clear disgust at having him for a son-in-law. Desdemona continues to stand by him, even as she is disowned, but nagging self-doubt is already beginning to crawl into Othello’s happiness. Iago plays the smiling supporter to Othello’s nerves while on the sidelines he convinces a fellow soldier, Roderigo, to use Michael Cassio as prop to convince Othello that loyal Desdemona is cheating on him, in love with Cassio, and intent upon leaving Othello as soon as the gleam of new-marriage fades off her smile. It doesn’t take much to convince Othello that she is sleeping with innocent Cassio.
What I find really intriguing about this play is the topic of prejudice. Othello faces it throughout the play, and it makes him self-conscious and doubtful of his wife’s love. His heritage and age make him question the devotion of one so young and beautiful. But all it takes from Iago is the hint that Desdemona might be cheating on him to send him into a fury. He never asks her — which to me feels like a prejudice against her sex -
“Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!”
Because she is a woman and young, she is naturally going to cheat? That aspect of the play, the potential to question it from various sides, makes it stand out as EXCELLENT, to me.
Iago, too, is fascinating to watch — though a horrific person, certainly. Throughout the play, he justifies his cruelty by reminding himself that he hates Othello, but his personal thrill at reeking havoc is obvious beyond his words. It seems that his jealousy at being passed over for a promotion is only a convenient excuse to behave like a psychopath. He practically rubs his hands together in glee throughout, manipulating the characters around him, and allowing them to be slaughtered by happenstance when they are no longer necessary. This guy fixates upon evil, and clearly enjoys doing it. I get the impression that once he is through ruining Othello, he’ll find someone else to destroy.
Another thing I love about this play is the truth it promotes — that no matter how hard we appear on the outside, we’re all still soft at the soul’s level. That’s a fact that is universal: we want and need to be loved, and while we may seem impenetrable physically, all of us want to believe that we are worth loving. Self-doubt can be a whirlpool that swallows us whole.
Well, I don’t want to go on and on. Suffice it to say I LOVED this play.
I know a lot of people recommend new readers try the comedies first, when they’re starting out with Shakespeare. I would absolutely suggest Othello first — at least from the works I’ve read so far. I think it is so accessible and relatable to today. The story makes you lean forward in your chair to find out what will happen next. And I learned a couple days ago that at today’s Globe, it apparently ends with the entire cast performing a jig, which is doubly awesome! (Don’t click that last link if you don’t want a spoiler!)
Laurence Fishburne and Kenneth Branagh as Othello and Iago respectively, in a scene from the 1995 version of Othello.
Would I reread Othello?
Definitely.
Notable passage:
“Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.”
- “Do you not know I am a woman? when I think, I must speak.”
My thoughts:
You know that saying, “If you got nothing, you got nothing to lose”?
This play reminded me of that phrase. The principle characters are stripped of their things and find joy, not in revenge, but in living the simple life (like Thoreau!) in the forest. And they all seem pretty happy about it.
I LOVED this passage, by the duke who has been banished by his usurping brother, to the Forest of Ardenne with a band of “merry men”:
“Now, my co-mates and brothers in exile,
Hath not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,
The seasons’ difference, as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter’s wind,
Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,
Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say
‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors
That feelingly persuade me what I am.’
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life exempt from public haunt
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones and good in every thing.
I would not change it.” – Duke Senior
I prefer this comedy to Twelfth Night. For one thing, I love the pastoral setting — the idea that the characters had to move to nature to revive themselves. Also, I LOVE the character Rosalind. I love that she speaks for herself, and takes charge. I still can’t imagine why no one seems to recognize her in her impenetrable disguise. But the rather feminist conversations between she and Celia, the hilarious insults she spouts -
“’Tis such fools as you / That makes the world full of ill-favor’d children.”
“I must tell you friendly in your ear / Sell when you can, you are not for all markets.”
- the hippie-like bandit father at home in the bed of nature, all make for a play that made me grin fast, though it still has nothing on Hamlet or Macbeth.
Okay, quit synopsis: A girl named Rosalind likes a guy named Orlando, but she gets banished into the forest. Her father should have been duke but his brother banished him to the forest and stole his kingdom (or whatever dukes rule.) Her cousin Cecelia, daughter of the cranky duke, comes with her. Orlando is on the run from his jealous and neglectful older brother, who is trying to kill him. All of them end up in the Forest of Arden, but none recognize quick-talking Rosalind, because she’s dressed as a boy. (An impenetrable costume!! Like Clark Kent’s glasses.) There’s a Fool named Touchstone who makes snide remarks throughout, and a servant who is willing to give all he has to save young Orlando. Etc.
I love the sibling rivalry, reminiscent of Cain and Abel, and the (in this case, life-saving) serpent. It’s a Paradise Found sort of play, with an Adam of its own and just enough serious mixed in with the silly to make the reader (viewer) care about the characters. I love that Orlando’s over-the-top romance (he sticks love poems to all of the trees!) is matched with Rosalind’s straightforward (though cloaked) good sense. The mix between them reminded me a bit of Marianne and her level-headed Elinor.
I’m not saying As You Like It didn’t suffer the same cross-dressing, isn’t-that-a-convenient-coincidence sort of ending as Twelfth Night. (It did!) But I liked it. I wasn’t on the edge of my seat turning pages. (I save that reaction for the tragedies!) But I loved the word play and language. Touchstone is hilarious — I love the meaning behind his name. I love the debate between fortune and nature, and the spotlight that debate must have lit for Shakespeare’s contemporaries. I love Rosalind’s joy and optimism played against Jacques’ negativity. And I really like dear Adam. (I read that Shakespeare may have played Adam in the performance.)
There’s a segment in Act Four where Orlando and Rosalind are verbally dueling. Rosalind is pretending to be a man who is disparaging women, even though she is really herself a fully intelligent and capable woman. Her point is that love is not necessarily as magical all of the time as it seems in the Forest of Ardenne. Women are not constantly beautiful, and she cannot possibly live up to the romantic idea of herself that Orlando has formed. She needs him to understand that she is imperfect:
- “Men are April when they woo, December when they wed:
maids are May when they are maids, but the sky
changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous
of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen,
more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more
new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires
than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana
in the fountain, and I will do that when you are
disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and
that when thou art inclined to sleep.”
Like with Twelfth Night, I think this play misses something in being read and not performed.
I feel like the Forest of Ardenne is like the Garden of Eden, and Orlando, Duke Senior, Jacques, etc, are inheriting “the sins of man.” So when the play plays out, and Rosalind penetrates the woods as a woman willing to speak her mind and speak her truth in its negligent (though merry) woods, it’s like she does the opposite of the original Eve, setting the world right again, and ending up with the Abel who unspells his Cain. That’s a far greater message than the simple comedy that presents itself in the text.
I think As You Like It must have made the original audience grin – which, like I said yesterday, was likely a much-needed relief in plague-worn Elizabethan London. So that in itself wins points from me. I love Rosalind’s speech at the end — she being a he dressed as a she pretending to be a he. It would have been crazy to watch this one live!
A woman who has to pretend to be someone she’s not throughout the play, and ultimately becomes herself to be accepted, though really herself is a boy dressed as a girl – that’s As You Like It.
I don’t think this one will last as a favorite for me, because I honestly do love the tragedies. But I liked it.
Would I reread As You Like It?
Yup. This first read familarized me with the play, but I definitely didn’t appreciate it as I believe I will in time. (The best works ripen like that, I think.) Also, I soooo need to see this performed.
Favorite characters: Rosalind, Duke Senior & Adam
Notable passage:
“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. As, first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.”
- “If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
That strain again!”
Duke Orsino loves Olivia, who is in mourning for her brother and won’t return his calls. Toby Belch is Olivia’s offensive uncle, who enjoys making mischief with the maid Maria. Malvolio the steward wants to climb the social ladder by marrying Olivia. Maria and Toby like to toy with Malvolio because he’s a killjoy and doesn’t like the way they stay up late at night drinking and singing. Viola is an aristocratic girl who thinks her brother has died when their boat is shipwrecked in Illyria. She puts on boy’s clothes at the start of the play to get work at the home of Duke Orsino, with whom she promptly falls in love, agreeing to do his bidding to get Olivia to fall for him, who immediately falls for Viola, giving up her self-indulgent mourning in her quest to win Viola, who she thinks is a boy. Viola spends the play being loved for everything she is not.
Meanwhile, Maria and Toby Belch convince Malvolio that Olivia actually wants to marry him, because it amuses them that he begins to change his personality in his quest to climb. The jokes on Malvolio, though; he is a man and doesn’t stand a chance with Olivia; the maid Maria, however, is a woman and just might be able to woo Sir Toby.
This is a play about how inconvenient it is to be a woman — or a man.
Even though this is the first Shakespeare play I’m discussing this month, it isn’t the first I’ve read. I actually read Hamlet first last year (LOVED it), then The Sonnets (beautiful in places, hysterical in places.) Last month I began by reading the biography I discussed yesterday, then a great bulk of an almost-600-page (very detailed!) guide to Shakespeare and his works, then A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then The Taming of the Shrew. Since reading Twelfth Night, I’ve now also read Macbeth, Othello, and As You Like It.
If my joy of Twelfth Night rests on language alone, Shakespeare wins me. Because his language, every inch of it, is enthralling. But if I’m being honest? I don’t like the comedies nearly as much as the tragedies. It’s not that I think Shakespeare isn’t funny. (He is and I do!) It’s that I’ve now read three of his greatest tragedies, and they are absolutely incredible! Page-turners. Where I read Twelfth Night chuckling a couple times, Macbeth had me sat forward devouring the pages, glued to the psychological tower of it all — and I even knew how it would end!
Here’s my surface take: Viola had to dress like a man to make it in the world she was entering. And Olivia had to fall in love with a woman dressed as a man to find her soul mate. Olivia is told repeatedly not to continue to mourn her brother (emotions being negligent in this world of laughter and mistaken identities), and she couldn’t unloose that emotion until she met a man tinged with femininity. These lovers saw their soul mates but couldn’t make sense of their love or see a way to win it. They only knew that they loved and that all their love was confusion.
Still, I don’t think the play is really about all of those characters. Toby Belch, Maria and Feste (the Fool) lock Malvolio into a cellar near the end of the play because he tells them not to sing so loudly and wake Olivia. (They like to stay up late at night, partying and drinking.) They decide to torture him and try to convince him that he’s mad — after having spent most of the play attempting to convince him that Olivia loves him. They play on his ambition. They leave him in a dark room overnight, trapped, feeding their pleasure by his misery. They insist the room is light, not dark, and that he is simply mad, to which he replies -
“I say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though
ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say, there
was never man thus abused. I am no more mad than you
are: make the trial of it in any constant question.”
The Puritans were trying to shut down the playhouses that were Shakespeare’s livelihood while he was a playwright.So on the one hand, he could simply be mocking them as killjoys. On the other, he could be discussing the unfairness of gender bias through his representation of both Viola and Malvolio. A man who doesn’t want to drink and hopes to marry higher than his station for money? While all the madness is happening around Malvolio, he’s in an earnest quest to climb higher, to better his life, and he’s mocked and teased by the other players, who know he never had a chance. He’s the whipping boy to their boredom. They want to play and he wants to accomplish, but he’s trapped by his position. He can’t climb on his own, and he’s seen as dull and easy fodder for amusement — rather than a man. He alone keeps his head in the insanity. And all the while, mean Maria is winning the very thing he wants — not by keeping to herself, but by abusing Malvolio. “Fair is foul and foul is fair”? (Macbeth.)
The actual Twelfth Night holiday was a holiday commending disorder and confusion — which may be why this play is a play so centered in confusion. (It was performed on Twelfth Night.)
As much as I can’t say I prefer the comedies (so far) to the tragedies, this one did make me laugh in places. I don’t really buy that nobody would have recognized that Viola was a woman, and the happily-ever-after ending was a bit far-fetched, especially considering Orsino and Olivia were very one-dimensional as characters. (What in the world did the ones they end up with see in them?) Still, comedy was surely the right tonic for an Elizabethan world that had decades prior lived through the terror of Bloody Mary and the burning of Protestants, and that daily lost loved ones to plague and smallpox – and probably the common cold. They died at twenty-five years old in the poor parts of London. Maybe they wanted to believe that frolic-some people can love and live happily ever after. And that masks can be stripped away and souls can be seen. Maybe they deserved a good chuckle and the play doesn’t have to mean more than that.
I’m thinking the Elizabethan audiences would have found the Malvolio storyline amusing. His dour shushing of Toby and Maria’s drinking songs probably would have tickled the contemporary theatre-goers who had to pass through swarms of Puritans kill-joying their love of a good rotten-tomato-tossing performance and probably scowling at their bawdy drunkeness during the holiday season.
So for the laughs, the general confusion, and Malvolio, I give this play a thumbs up. (Though I don’t think I got it at all by reading. I need to see this one performed!)
Would I reread Twelfth Night?
Yes, I want to return to it again in a few years, when I’m more familiar with Shakespeare.
Favorite character: Malvolio
“Daylight and champaign discovers not more. This is open. I will be proud, I will read politic authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg, being cross-gartered, and in this she manifests herself to my love, and with a kind of injunction drives to these habits of her liking. I thank my stars, I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised.”
Notable passages:
“She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?”
&
“When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
“But when I came to man’s estate,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut the gate,
For the rain it raineth every day.
“But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain it raineth every day.
“But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain it raineth every day.
“A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that’s all one, our play is done,
And we’ll strive to please you every day.”
Opening lines: “Before he came into a lot of money in 1839, Richard Plantagenet Temple Nugent Brydges Chandos Grenville, second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, led a largely uneventful life…”
(Does that opening sound off topic? The book begins with an anecdote about the discovery of the painting of the rakish looking man with the gold earring that is widely believed to be Shakespeare – pictured at the bottom of this page. Apparently they aren’t even sure it’s him! You can click the photo for more info.)
My thoughts:
A recent professor of mine tried to recruit me into his Shakespeare class, and I bowed out because I was intimidated by the text. I should have taken him up on it! He told me, “No, you’ll be fine! Shakespeare isn’t hard!”, but all the stigma surrounding him made me fear it would be excruciating to wade through his plays.
It’s only since (I think) about the 20th century that Shakespeare has been perceived as so scholarly and untouchable. During the nineteenth century in America, Shakespeare was performed on stage for people of all education levels, seen more as a source of entertainment than a work of scholarly literature. I wish we could get back to that, because he really is hilarious, and something tells me he’d have raised his brow at the snobbery of today. The fact that he didn’t race to publish in print tells me he was more concerned with performing and entertaining — than in being dissected.
If I could go back, I’d take that class though, because the professor was incredible. So energetic and excited about literature! He taught me about the British Romantics. I was the ONLY one in the class to enjoy the texts and lectures, which may be why the professor tried to recruit me to his next class. But more than that, I think I had the thrilled glint in my eye that told him I might be ready for Shakespeare. Since I couldn’t take the class and am between schools right now, I am excited that I got to spend January having my own little course in Shakespeare. I read through six plays and two biographies, the first being Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare.
Did I enjoy it? Yup!
Did it tell me everything I might ever want to know about Shakespeare? Nope.
And that’s what I appreciate about it. Well, not that it didn’t tell me everything, but that it didn’t expend the first 195 pages pussy-footing around the fact that it didn’t know everything. Bryson tells readers right from the start that he doesn’t have much to share on Shakespeare’s life, and that biographies about the man are mostly conjecture.
Since this was my first book for the Shakespeare event, I really appreciated his candor! I knew that a lot of what I would learn would be hearsay, so the evidence Bryson provides for what he did know throughout? Was all the more potent.
I started this month knowing NOTHING about Shakespeare. I read Hamlet and The Sonnets last year, but all I’d read about Shakespeare was in the introduction to each. I never knew the images we have are only our best guess of what Shakespeare looked like. Or that some guy white-washed a statue a couple centuries ago that gave (what is believed to be) an accurate representation of Shakespeare’s coloring — now lost to history. Or that he co-wrote some plays. Or that he learned Latin as a child! (!!) I figured he was old, really, really dull, and that he wore one of those paper cone collars (they make me chuckle.)
Right away, Bryson’s discussion of the different pictures we have of Shakespeare (very few, and none of them necessarily accurate), and all the different ways Shakespeare signed (and spelled!) his own name, make clear how very obscure he is. Bryson goes on to discuss the bit we believe we know about Shakespeare’s early life, his years in London, the plays, Shakespeare’s most productive years, his death, the authorship questions, comparisons of some text from a bad quarto play beside the “good” quarto version, and historical detail about Elizabethan England and the Elizabethan theatre (to provide some background about the world in which Shakespeare lived.)
Fascinating to read! Succinct, accessible, interesting. I’ve never read Bryson. Some people commented on Goodreads around the time I started this book (since they and half the blogosphere, I think, were also reading this), that Bill Bryson is funny. That worried me! I rarely find humor conducive to a good biography. It annoys me to feel that a biographer (or non-fiction writer) is “lightening up” the read with wit. I always raise a brow and wish the author would just get to the point. (I’m reading to learn, after all, not attend stand-up comedy.)
Bryson didn’t disappoint me at all. I actually didn’t notice much humor until the final chapter, when he’s discussing all of the theories about who penned Shakespeare. He’s definitely light throughout, but it never feels like he’s dumbing down the read or wandering off topic to “entertain” the audience. He stays entirely focused without ever making the read feel like work. That’s a talent! I felt I was learning the entire time, and for the most part, he stayed out of the way as author. Yet I felt I was being told a story. He’s straightforward and knows how to unroll his information concisely. So (at least with this book) I’m definitely a fan of his writing style. 199 pages of good information is preferable to 300 pages of fluff supported by 199 pages of good information.
An example of Bryson’s humor is in this passage, where he is discussing people’s conjectures about the identity of ”the dark lady” in Shakespeare’s Sonnets:
“The dark lady is no less doubtful. A. L. Rowse–who, it must be said, never allowed an absence of certainty to get in the way of a conclusion–in 1973 identified the dark lady as Emilia Bassano, daughter of one of the queen’s musicians, and, with a certain thrust of a literary jaw, asserted that his conclusions ‘cannot be impugned, for they are the answer,’ even though they are unsupported by anything that might reasonably be considered proof.”
Har! You see how he’s giving you information there without deviating, but the humor still makes you laugh? That’s successful humor in my “quit being funny and give me the facts” reading book.
Some interesting things I know now, after reading Shakespeare:
Spelling wasn’t very consistent in Shakespeare’s day. It seems like he (and others!) just spelled words depending on their mood (mewde / mewd / moode). Thank goodness for Mr. Webster!
The defeat of the Spanish Armada of the Elizabethan era established Britain as a force on the sea! I’m sure I should have known that, but I did not. Apparently before that, people saw England as a relatively insignificant island. (Surprising to me!)
Shakespeare didn’t just whip stories out of the air. He borrowed from his extensive reading. The Merchant of Venice was likely inspired by Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Oh, and Marlowe? DEFINITELY someone I want to further explore!
Apparently this borrowing and remaking of one another’s stuff? Totally acceptable!
Black clothes were a sign of prosperity. Pale clothes meant you were poor.
It was considered fashionable to dye one’s teeth black to make it appear one had rotten teeth — thereby making it obvious the tooth-rotted grinner had money enough for her share of sugar!
The original manuscripts to Shakespeare’s plays might be inside the bust of the bard which is planted near Shakespeare’s grave!! (Okay, people only think that because the words engraved in it sound like a clue. But I say crack it open!)
Apparently we are missing the sequel to Love’s Labour Lost. (Love’s Labor Won.)
Shakespeare was very likely a closet Catholic living in a Protestant Elizabethan England.
Shakespeare could easily have been lost to the plague and disease before he took up the pen for the first time. It’s a miracle of numbers that he lived to write his first line.
Life expectancy in London averaged twenty-five to thirty-five years old.
Anne Hathaway was pregnant when Shakespeare married her.
The Bible was only available in Latin in England until James I came along later in Shakespeare’s life. It took seven years to translate. (Okay, I knew James I was in charge of the King James translation, but it NEVER occurred to me Shakespeare was writing and performing before it was published! I’ve always imagined the KJV Bible being published FOREVER ago.)
The Puritans drank beer! (So did everyone.)
Queen Elizabeth fancied skin bleach.
Plays in Shakespeare’s day often ended with a jig! Ha! Can you imagine that right after Macbeth?
Shakespeare’s plays belonged to the theater company that performed them, not the playwright.
Shakespeare often acted in his own plays. He played the ghost in Hamlet, for example. (To be a fly on that beer-slattered wall!!) He also acted in other playwrights’ plays. He is listed as one of the actors, well into his writing days, in Ben Johnson’s plays.
Elizabethan playwrights invented the mixing of comedy and tragedy in a single play. Classical drama was always either strictly comedy or strictly tragedy.
“Comedy” doesn’t necessarily mean funny when it comes to plays! It just means that the play doesn’t end in tragedy. (Oh!)
Shakespeare’s plays contain some anachronisms and geographical errors. (He was human.)
Shakespeare invented a lot of the phrases and words we use today. I mean, A LOT.
All those sonnets at the start of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which press a youth to father a child so his beauty will live on? They think Shakespeare might have been paid by the youth’s mother to write all that. (She wanted grandbabies – ha!)
The sonnets were published in Shakespeare’s lifetime because they were pirated. The plays would likely have been lost, except that Shakespeare’s friends, John Heminges and Henry Condell (the business manager and an actor from Shakespeare’s theatre company) painstakingly copied eighteen of the originals and had them published seven years after Shakespeare’s death.
The second-best bed? Shakespeare left it to his wife in his will. (And that’s all he left her. And it appeared to be an afterthought, scratched in after he wrote the will.) Pretty shocking, but Bryson points out that beds were very valuable, and that the best bed was likely the guest bed. (So the second-best bed was probably their marital bed.) Anne would have automatically received a percentage of the estate without being mentioned in the will. Shakespeare’s handwriting was very shaky in the will, suggesting that he was quite ill when he drew it up in his final days. He also forgot some of his near relatives’ name, so forgetting to say anything sentimental about Anne? Probably had more to do with his being ill and her being right there to hear all his sappy farewells, than any disinclination to say something pleasant about her. That’s my take, anyway. Bryson’s note that some historical guy criticised the document for not being funny or brilliant ANNOYED me. I mean, come on. The guy was dying. Let him be human.
I remember reading near the end of this biography that it’s believed Shakespeare’s personal papers were lost in the London fire of 1666. I wonder how many of his plays were lost there — or to time? I wonder how many other great writers there were, whose work was lost by the jaws of history? Was there another writer as incredible as Shakespeare, only we’ll never meet him, or know his work existed? What if Judith Shakespeare really had written?
When I was reading The Taming of the Shrew the other day, I was laughing at one of the scenes, and suddenly it occurred to me that all of that life and humor of Shakespeare might have happened on a stage in a theater centuries ago without recognition. What if no one had salvaged the plays? We might have never realized the humor and verbal brilliance and “humanness” that is Shakespeare. It’s crazy to think of all those people ALIVE in the 1600s — and as smart as us, with wit and humor and feelings, believing that “now” was now, not history. That’s surreal and makes me contemplate my own life. It won’t be now forever, will it?
I wonder what else happened out there, that history didn’t salvage. Crazy to contemplate…
Anyway, this book was a great start to the Shakespeare Event, for me. Very fun to read and not at all intimidating. Next I’ll start talking about the plays I read last month.
I might skim through it, but I’d be more likely to read another biography on Shakespeare since I’ve already read this one.
Notable passages:
“It is because we have so much of Shakespeare’s work that we can appreciate how little we know of him as a person. If we only had his comedies, we would think him a frothy soul. If we had just the sonnets, he would be a man of darkest passions. From a selection of his other works, we might think of him as variously courtly, cerebral, metaphysical, melancholic, Machiavellian, neurotic, lighthearted, loving, and much more. Shakespeare was of course all these things–as a writer. We hardly know what he was as a person.”
“We thrill at these plays now. But what must it have been like when they were brand new, when all their references were timely and apt, and all the words never before heard? Imagine what it must have been like to watch Macbeth without knowing the outcome, to be part of a hushed audience hearing Hamlet’s soliloquy for the first time, to witness Shakespeare speaking his own lines. There cannot have been, anywhere in history, many more favored places than this.”
The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin
February celebrates Dickens’ 200th birthday. It seems all the world will be reading Dickens. (And so will I!)
I’ve already read his Christmas stories as well as Oliver Twist. I’ve struggled a bit with him, loving the Christmas books and realizing (near the end of my read) that I value and like Oliver Twist.
Dickens’ style is very hands-on, meaning he’s in there telling you (the reader) what to think, rather than writing in a style closer to realism (the style I’m accustomed to), where the author provides scenes for the reader to contemplate but allows the reader space enough to make of the scene what he or she will, separate from author influence.
When I was reading Oliver Twist, I found Dickens VERY wordy and far too inclined to stand there in the middle of the scene pointing everything out, hyping up the sappy drama, scolding the readers (his Victorian contemporaries, at the time) for their treatment of orphans, etc.
If I can I’d like to read my biography of Dickens this month (The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens by Claire Tomalin.) I loved Tomalin’s biography of Jane Austen, so I’m really looking forward to this one. I WISH I had the latest Tomalin biography on Dickens, which focuses on his life as a whole, rather than the affair itself, but this is the book I own, and I need (and want) to get it read.
I know a lot of people are having trouble right now reconciling Dickens’ personal life with his works. I’m curious how I’ll react. I feel like it will help me to read his works alongside his biography — because they will offer a bright side to a life that may feel very dark to me — and I do want to get to know him. I’m thinking, since David Copperfield is a biographical reflection of Dickens’ own years (as I understand it from the little I’ve read on the novel), it will be interesting to see David the child walking beside Dickens the man, while I read both books.
Eventually, though, I’d like to read a biography that centers on him as an individual life rather than one part of a two-winged affair. (I mean, I’m thinking the biography will be about the two of them, rather than Dickens specifically, and will focus on the affair rather than the life before and after it.)
Anyway, beside the biography, I’ll be reading in February:
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
David Copperfield
In that order. I’m especially looking forward to Great Expectations!! My mom has read it and says I’ll love it. A friend of mine was recently reading A Tale of Two Cities and highly recommends it, so I want to start there. (I’m very curious about the French Revolution, too.) David Copperfield, as I understand it, was Dickens’ favorite.
I want to walk away from February, not with a grudging admiration for some of Dickens’ stuff, but with a true enthusiasm for his work. Having tried just a sample so far, it’s no surprise I’m a somewhat-fan right now rather than overly ecstatic. (I am a HUGE fan of his Christmas stuff. The atmosphere!! So wintry! And for some reason, at Christmas, it makes sense to read books where the author is in the middle of the story and everything is very Victorian. Maybe because even the 21st century seems to read/watch the “classic” stuff for the holidays. Which is why I feel like I only need to read and get to know Dickens style OUTSIDE of Christmas, to love it.)
Anyway, I’m slightly nervous and also enthusiastic about this month.
“I really want to make some headway in the western canon books next year, as well as Shakespeare. I hope to have read Austen’s complete works by the close of the year, and to have made a pretty good dent in Dickens and some more of the Brontes. I read 28 books in 2010, and 41 books in 2011. I’m thinking I should go for 50 in 2012. Also, I want to finish all the challenges I start!”
Progress so far in 2012:
I made a huge dent in my Shakespeare progress in January! And at 9 books so far on the year, I’m well on my way to 52 in 2011. Dipping into Dickens this month will definitely contribute to my goal to make headway in the Western canon.
Aside all of the novels I’m reading for this classics project, I also quietly read poetry — generally classic poetry, in an effort to see the growth of literature through poets like Yeats, Frost, Dickinson, Whitman, etc. Often I meet a novelist through his poetry before I read his longer works (ie. Thomas Hardy.)
I’m committed to so many other projects right now, I don’t know if I can devote myself to a monthly post about poetry, so I haven’t signed up for Lu and Kailana’s excellent monthly Read More/Post More Poetry Event. As much as I love poetry, my focus right now is my main literature project, and these fifty-two works for 2012.
But, since I do devote my time to a couple classic poems a day, I thought I’d weigh in with my favorite poet to-date:
Emily Dickinson.
Born: December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Literary influences: William Wordworth, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, William Shakespeare, the Bible, Emily Brontë, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Most productive writing period: The early 1860s saw her greatest output, during a time when she was heavily withdrawn from the outside world.
Publication: Dickinson wrote over 1800 poems; fewer than a dozen would be published in her lifetime.
Interesting fact: By the late 1860s, Dickinson rarely left her home and often conversed with visitors through the closed door. When she was seen, it was almost always in a pristine white dress.
Contemporary reaction: After Dickinson’s death in the mid-1870s, her sister saw to it that her poems were published. While they were a big hit with readers and reviewers, they were also initially edited to make the punctuation and capitalization better match 19th century standards. Some dismissed her work entirely, preferring a traditional meter and rhyme.
Thoughts on her work:
Very often, Dickinson’s poems fixate themselves on death — its mystery, its finality. For me, this isn’t really a focus on death so much as a contemplation of life through an examination of its finite nature. She knew life would end, thus it became precious to her to contemplate its meaning. I think she saw that meaning in the sky, in nature, in birds, in flowers – and valued all of that very much like Thoreau valued it as he contemplated nature from his cabin window (also in Massachusetts) at Walden Pond. I think she became reclusive because she was so deep into that contemplation, and her poetry is — not an effort to sell — but an effort to express that contemplation in compact words, the same way a painter expresses thought through a still life. Her voice happened to be composed of twenty-six letters ordered into art.
I don’t know much about Dickinson’s life or biography, so I may be off-mark in all of the above. But I am fascinated by her work and do intend to further explore her. I don’t know if she will remain my favorite, because I do like Whitman, Yeats, Frost, Blake, Shakespeare and Tennyson very, very much. One of the things I love about poetry is that it is condensed wisdom — like a bullet of intensity that gets into you the same way a novel does, but does it so quickly it often leaves (me) breathless. I LOVE to contemplate the way a poet manages everyday words. Dickinson doesn’t attempt to be flowery. She uses the everyday, and somehow, the way she pauses words creates the sensation of a breath being paused mid-inhale. What I mean is, she controls the words. She immediately draws in the reader, and with only four lines, sometimes, and a total of just sixteen words, identifies fully and completely with the spirit of the reader, so that you and she become one.
I’m fascinated by that! How an author can do that with the very same words that inspire me to utter insignificant observations like this -
“The sky looks like rain.”
- she somehow turns into an experience. Making her nineteenth century feelings present in this very minute, this now. Part of the magic, I think, is her brevity in words. She manages to echo the brevity of feeling.
Here’s what I’ve read of her work since I started this project:
“A Bird Came Down the Walk”
“A Door Just Opened on a Street”
“A Drop Fell On the Apple Tree” – ["And made the gables laugh." Awesome sound and imagery in this one.]
“A Light Exists in Spring”
“A Long, Long Sleep, A Famous Sleep” – [Wow, took me a second to piece together what's happening in this poem. She says so much, in so few words...]
“After Great Pain, a Formal Feeling Comes” – [Yes, I like this. Poetic for the idea conveyed, rather than rhyming words. It's rhythmic, but it's not written for the rhythm. It rhymes, but the message is louder than the rhyme.]
“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass”
“A Thought Went Up My Mind To-day”
“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
“Death Sets A Thing Significant”
“Delight Becomes Pictorial”
“Departed to the Judgment”
“Each Life Converges To Some Centre”
“For Each Ecstatic Instant”
“God Gave A Loaf To Every Bird”
“God Permit Industrious Angels”
“Heaven is What I Cannot Reach!”
“He Fumbles at Your Spirit”
“Hope Is the Thing With Feathers”
“I Cannot Live With You” – [Aw. I liked that.]
“I Died for Beauty”
“If You Were Coming in the Fall”
“I Lived on Dread; to Those Who Know”
“I Had No Time To Hate, Because”
“I Measure Every Grief I Meet” – [Just beautiful. She makes sadness music.]
“I Never Saw a Moor” – [Pretty.]
“I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”
“If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking” – [A favorite.]
“I Found the Phrase to Every Thought” – [I don't understand this one, but I think it's beautiful. Maybe after a revisit in a couple years, I'll see more...]
“I Like to See It Lap the Miles”
“I Had Been Hungry All the Years” – [Wow.]
“I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”
“I’m Nobody! Who Are You?”
“I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed”
“It Dropped So Low in My Regard” – [Awesome. I knoe this feeling.]
“It Is an Honorable Thought”
“I Never Hear the Word “Escape”” – [Interesting. Final line suggests she needs escape and that it's impossible. So much said in so few words.]
“Me! Come! My Dazzled Face” – [I sense sarcasm.]
“My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close”
“Nature Rarer Uses Yellow” – [Beautiful! So much said, in so few words!]
“Nature, the Gentlest Mother” – [I love this one. She speaks the beauty without once elvating the language to accomplish the picture of sunfall's glory.]
“Not in This World to See His Face”
“Of All the Souls That Stand Create”
“One Need Not Be a Chamber To Be Haunted” – [Beautiful.]
“Our Journey Had Advanced”
“Pain Has an Element of Blank”
“Poem 449″
“Poem 1354″
“Presentiment Is That Long Shadow on the Lawn”
“She Rose To His Requirement, Dropped”
“She Sweeps With Many-Colored Brooms”
“So Bashful When I Spied Her”
“So Proud Was She To Die”
“Success Is Counted Sweetest”
“The Day Came Slow, Till Five O’ Clock” – [Wow!!! This one is gorgeous. A favorite by Dickinson, so far.]
“The Dying Need But Little, Dear” – [I like this one but feel a bit dense about the last lines. The color can't perceive, or we can't perceive the color?]
“The Heart Asks Pleasure First”
“The Nearest Dream Recedes, Unrealized” – [Love this one.]
“The Pedigree of Honey” – [I like this. So much said about the simplicity of nature, in just four lines.]
“There’s a Certain Slant of Light” – ["There's a certain slant of light on winter afternoons that oppresses, like the heft of cathedral tunes." Awesome description...]
“The Show Is Not the Show”
“The Sky Is Low, The Clouds Are Mean”
“This Is My Letter To The World”
“‘T Was Just This Time Last Year I Died”
“Wild Nights! Wild Nights” – [Love the last line.]
Some people call Dickinson a “woman beyond her time.” I disagree with this assessment. I don’t think she or any woman was “beyond her time.” Rather, she was a woman unrecognized, who spoke from her soul within seclusion and somehow managed to echo the very feelings we have, in this time, and do it so skillfully and so succinctly that reading her work feels like reading my thoughts in words. Rather than being beyond her time (which suggests she didn’t belong in the time into which she was born), I’d say rather that she reflected time, from the nineteenth century outward.
My favorite by Ms. Dickinson, so far:
There’s a certain slant of light,
On winter afternoons,
That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.
Heavenly hurt it gives us;
We can find no scar,
But internal difference
Where the meanings are.
None may teach it anything,
‘Tis the seal, despair,-
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air.
When it comes, the landscape listens,
Shadows hold their breath;
When it goes, ‘t is like the distance
On the look of death.
If you’re curious about poetry, please check out Lu and Kailana’s Read More/Post More Poetry Event at Regular Rumination to read more posts devoted to poetry from bloggers today.
I adore Louisa May Alcott and have learned so much through Susan and her excellent site that I wanted to offer my voice when she put out a call for guest writers. My post focuses on my idea of Louisa May Alcott, having read her novel once. Please stop over and check out Susan’s blog if you love or are curious about one of our finest American authors, Louisa May Alcott. Susan’s blog is a pleasure to follow; she truly is “passionate” about the Alcotts. Cheers!
Reading Little Women – a guest blog
When Susan asked me to write a guest blog for her lovely Alcott site, I wasn’t sure what I could possibly talk about — though I was keen to contribute a few words, since I’m all about spreading the Alcott love.
Anyone visiting [Susan's] blog has either read something by Louisa May Alcott or is curious to meet her. That’s one of the things I truly love about literature — that potential to unite us. Those of us who have read Little Women share the experience of it. We can exchange glances and know that Jo, that Meg, that Amy and Beth lived their lives within our souls for a while. Louisa’s Little Women has been a shared memory between strangers from all over the world for over a century.
I can’t tell you anything about Alcott that Susan hasn’t already said better. (Indeed, when I have a question about Alcott, I generally seek her out.) I’m certainly no expert on Louisa, or her family, or her century, or Transcendentalism. I’ve read one biography and a couple of her shorter works: Hospital Sketches and “Transcendental Wild Oats.” So I can’t even give you a very thorough review of her library.
Yesterday Miss Dashwood from 
, this says to me. And also? The ego-swelling Sly is not going to stay a lord forever. At some point the joke will be on him, and the nobleman will weary of his prank and tell him to get out of his house, he’s nothing but a drunk. And he who thinks he is a lord will find himself tossed from his throne.
