Where Timon Loses It

Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not all that fun to read.

As a curiosity, it's all right. That's how I read it. But it's a pretty horrible story.

Timon was a hero of Athens and made himself rich. The early part of the story--first couple acts--he is popular, holding dinners and events, giving his guests not only fine food and drink but gifts, like jewels and other nice things. He also pays high prices for paintings and artwork to support the artists. His man of business keeps trying to warn him that he's overextended, that he has debts himself, but he doesn't listen. Then, flat broke, with creditors demanding payment, he asks his friends for help, and they all tell hm no. He is ruined and flees Athens, cursing it, after one final banquet where he serves his false friends stones and water--then throws the stones at them.

His cursing is so severe it's almost funny:

...Slaves and fools,
Pluck the grave wrinkled Senate from the bench
And minister in their steads!
...Bankrupts, hold fast:
Rather than render back, out with your knives
And cut your trusters' throats! Bound servants, steal!
...Son of sixteen,
Pluck the lined crutch from thy old limping sire,
With it beat out his brains!

That's only part of it. He's pretty upset.

In the last acts, he lives in a cave, digging for roots, and finds gold. Instead of rejoicing and making himself rich again, he gives the gold to thieves and prostitutes and asks them to do even more than they've been doing, to undermine Athens with their immorality. One of the bandits he talks to this way is a little disturbed and says that Timon "has almost charmed me from my profession by persuading me to do it." You're freaking me out, man, and I don't think I want to be a bandit anymore.

This isn't, in my opinion (and who cares what I think?) a very good tragedy. He's supposed to have a tragic flaw--like anger, or pride, or something equally reprehensible--but it seems like his flaw was to be too generous and believe his fellow man was better than he turned out to be. I suppose you could argue that he was always an angry misanthrope, but that part of his personality wasn't revealed as long as he had spectacular good luck. Once tested like Job, he becomes a hater, instead of revealing patience or humility or something.

I dunno. Maybe that's convincing. I think he was just embittered by having literally everyone desert him after he had done so much for them, and it's pretty extreme, but you can sort of see how he got there. His end was tragic, but not really in the classic sense.

IMO.

Anyway, it's somewhat entertaining. It's clearly not as well-rounded a play as many others, as smarter people than me say about it. For completion's sake if nothing else, it's worth looking at.

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Where Titus Loses Everything

Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For me, the play is a 4, but the edition is a 5. That's what I'm scoring here.

I expected to kinda hate this. I put off reading this particular play for years because of the reputation it has. Specifically, one of my early teachers maybe 50 years ago described it in a very unflattering (but humorously horrible) way. I remember being told about a character (Lavinia, as it turns out) having to take a severed hand in her teeth to get it offstage when there is a scene change. There's no curtain, so you've gotta get the characters to remove all the props, so I get the need, but it does sound ridiculous. And I'm not sure that scene really works, but having read it now I don't think it sinks the play, either. It isn't that different from the rest of the play.

Is the play itself bloody? Yeah. Was Rome bloody? Well, yeah. Did Roman Empire nobility have terrible values? IMO, yeah. Slave-holding, empire-building, people-oppressing, misogynistic... Pretty bad. And that's how they are in the play. Shakespeare just presents their bloody heads in all their gore and horror.

The story is horrible, but I found it entertaining as long as I embraced it as representing people living in a terrible, brutal system. Imagine a father who has lost almost all of his sons in war and is just fine with it. And is willing to kill one of his sons and deny him proper burial for opposing him. Titus is horrible because he's almost the perfect Roman general.

The vengeance story, Titus and his family against those who framed his sons and killed them and raped his daughter, is mostly satisfying. I was pretty okay with almost everything--except Titus killing his mutilated daughter. After all his errors and seeming redemption, why did he do that? Grrrrr. Just more misogyny on display, I guess. It's better for a raped daughter to die than live to remind him of her shame, they believed. Horrible.

But accepting the ugliness as part of the story, part of the social critique, part of the satire--which maybe requires taking a step back from pure suspension of disbelief--the play is biting and the language often brilliant, and the revenge is absolute. A lot of bad stuff happens, to good guys and bad guys (they're all bad guys, but go with it) but the final son of Titus Andronicus outlasts the villains. It's like a football game where both teams are wiped out except for a single running back on one side, and he limps off the field alone at the end of the game. Where he becomes the new emperor. (Something seriously wrong with that simile...)

I liked it and enjoyed reading it. I hate the horrors, naturally, but I think the play hates the horrors, too, so we're not really on opposite sides there. I'm definitely glad I finally read it.

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Where Edmund Takes on Canute

Edmund Ironside by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I really liked it. The handful of other readers on goodreads didn't like it. Huh.

I'm probably right. ;)

Though officially anonymous, some people say this is an early play by Shakespeare. [which people? citation needed] [JK--it was E. B. Everitt, Eric Sams, and Peter Ackroyd. They point to language, mostly.] And I wouldn't be surprised if they were right. It's got nicely regular iambic pentameter; unrhymed except for the odd couplet at the end of a scene or the last time we see a character; the comic relief servant speaks in regular prose; many nicely dramatic scenes with a very Iago-like villain... Sure, all those things are Elizabethan, but to my terribly untrained eye it seems like it could be an early work.

Besides, it's very fun. Good action, both offstage and on. Memorable characters. This is when the crown of England was passing back from Danes to native-born Englishmen (then back, then back again) a generation or so before the Normans arrived. It makes good use of the best sources of history at the time, even to using the language of the sources (Holingshead and Grafton).

I've read a few dull plays recently and tried to like them; this one I liked without effort. Should be fun to see on stage. So--recommended. Whether it's Shakespeare or Mr. Anonymous.

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Where He Called Dibs On the Princess

The Two Noble Kinsmen: William Shakespeare (Drama, Plays, Comedy) [Annotated] by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Attributed to--and correctly so, as far as I know--Shakespeare and John Fletcher.

I found this pretty entertaining. It's more straightforward than some Shakespeare plays, having just one main plot and a minor secondary plot. Well, sorta two, I guess. This makes it more comprehensible on the first read than many of his plays. Besides, the original story comes from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, so there's a good chance you already kind of know the plot.

Set in Thebes and Athens, if Thebes and Athens were in East Anglia or something, it's the story of a pair or noble cousins who fall in love with the same woman who they just happened to see at a distance at almost the same moment, and it comes between them. There are a lot of hurdles between them and Emilia, as they are stuck in jail and she's the daughter of the king. But yadda yadda yadda they both end up free and, at the command of Athens' king, must do battle, with the loser dying and the winner marrying his daughter. The sweet young woman likes them both and wants nothing to do with a duel, but she has no say.

In many ways, this is a sad story, with many tragic elements. It starts with a war against a cruel king who would not allow widowed queens to bury their husbands, and it ends with a life-and-death battle between good friends. Lots of death and grief and separation. But it ends happily enough, which is a saving grace for me.

I think this would be fun to see. I'm curious about the parts with the jailer's daughter who goes crazy for love of Palamon but is cured by sleeping with her lover playing at being him. This could be poignant and touching or it could be played for laughs; I'm not sure how it would come off.

Supposedly, the easier sections were written by Fletcher, and the parts with denser language were Shakespeare's. I dunno. It all seemed like one thing to me. I liked it fine.

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Where Imogen's Play Is Named after Her Dad

Cymbeline by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not angling for any hot takes or anything, but Cymbeline has become my new favorite Shakespeare play. I liked it. I enjoyed reading it. I would like to see it performed.

And I'm maybe the only one.

First of all, it's a very entertaining story, based mostly on one of the tales from the Decameron, where a dude bets a guy he could seduce his love and then cheats (lies and produces stolen evidence) to prove that he did it. Then the supposedly-injured man despises his love... and after that, hijinks ensue. Lots of "kill her!" and "No, second thought, don't kill her!" and "Oh no, I hope you didn't actually kill her!" Also: lots of people in disguise and lots of secrets coming out.

A subplot is about the courtier falsely accused of treason who is banished 20 years before the start of the play; he kidnaps the two princes and raises them in the wilderness, just in time to enter the story as noble young Aragorn types.

Then there's the evil queen stirring up shit between the Britons and the Romans, along with her evil son.

Altogether, it makes a pretty good Romance-style story, one that could have been 500 pages of beautiful prose from the pen of Sir Walter Scott. And best of all--for me, because this is what I like--it's a comedy with a happy ending. Imagine Othello, but where he learns the truth BEFORE he kills Desdemona, and instead of murdered wife and murderer husband they live happily ever after. (Don't @ me. I taught that play many years in school and I contemplated changing the ending every time. Don't kill that sweet woman! Stop! Horrible ending.)

(Jesus, Grandpa! What did you read me this thing for?)

I was curious to see if others took to the play like I did, and it doesn't look like it, but it's hard to say. In numerous articles purporting to list the "best" plays in order (which is not what I was looking for, but I peeked), Cymbeline ends up in the middle, or a bit closer to the end. In the one article I found listing "most popular" plays, which actually measured whether people knew it or not, it ends up second to last, just ahead of Pericles. (Which I also liked, btw.) Neither answered the question of what people like. Most people don't know it because it's seldom used in classrooms; scholars don't rank it very high because they don't like fun things. But that doesn't really tell us what regular people (which I think I am, thank you) *would* think of the play if they saw it or read it.

I think they'd like it.

Recommended

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Where Pericles Heroically Runs Away

Pericles by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Not gonna lie--I didn't even know there was a play called Pericles written by Shakespeare until just before I bought it. Didn't expect much, but I liked it.

Okay, the first couple acts were written by someone else, and they were, ya know, fine. I don't hate on them like some people. But the rest was genuine Shakespeare, and it's pretty fun to read, which is why it makes sense that it was a longtime favorite in Shakespeare's time and after. It's a good story with lots of different settings and a number of surprises.

Of course, the Tyre and Ephesus and Mytilene and Antioch of the play don't feel very Asian or Mediterranean, and could probably have been replaced with a variety of European cities, since that's what they feel like. The only thing that makes it feel like the ancient world near the Middle East is the way that communication between the cities is slow to nonexistent. The story requires poor communication for the separations and reunions to work as well as they did.

The story relies a bit on coincidence and deus ex machina (with the goddess Diana appearing to Pericles in a vision, telling him where to go), but that's not a big drawback here. It would be nice to see Pericles taking action somehow to solve his problems, the way a modern story is usually told, but instead we see how Pericles proves himself to be a good man, sacrificing himself for the good of others and showing generosity to neighboring cities, so he earns his happily ever after indirectly. His wife and daughter do the same. All remain morally upright, so all remain deserving and are able to benefit from the intervention of the gods in the end.

Good story, happy ending--it works. I liked it.

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Where Prospero Pulls the Strings

The Tempest by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've never seen this play staged, but I think it would be a lot of fun. And I think, with all the spectacle in the story, it'd especially be entertaining to a 16th or 17th century audience.

But IMO it would have been way better if there had been a plot. Any plot. How did I not notice this?

I last read this at ASU back in the 80s in Professor Doebler's class. (I see he died in the 90s. A shame--he was a fun teacher, actually, and he was a true Shakespeare scholar.) And I didn't really understand yet how to approach reading a Shakespeare play. Thought I did. I didn't.

Well, I halfway understood the play then, and I'm maybe 3/4 of the way now, and this is my opinion: some of it is funny, and some of it is cruel (poor Caliban), and the story arc is actually pretty awesome--Prospero gets a little revenge and gets his place back, all while providing a decent husband for his sweet daughter--but the play itself has almost no significant action or plot. It's rather like A Midsummer Night's Dream, where a bunch of stuff happens, but it's not very important, because nobody is confronting a genuine conflict and fighting through it. Everything is made to turn out. A plot generally needs the outcome to be in doubt, and we don't get that here.

If we had seen Prospero fight to survive on the island and perfect his art, and if we saw him use his power to create the tempest in the title that brought his enemies into his power, it would approximate modern storytelling. But all of that happens even before the first line. In the actual play, though, Prospero is entirely in control; he's in no danger, the result is mapped out, and nothing is left to chance. He's basically putting on a little play for himself, using Ariel to move the characters around the stage. As a result, there's no real dramatic tension at all.

(Mind, I offer these thoughts more as a matter of interest than criticism. I'm not here to enforce rules. Shakespeare has somehow succeeded without my notes!)

Of course, story is not the only aspect worth talking about. This has some fine language and some interesting themes to follow through the acts and scenes. There are reasons why we still study and stage these plays. I just find it interesting that some of what I didn't understand as a teenager or assumed I overlooked somehow turns out to be stuff that is mostly absent. It's like looking for Waldo on a painting that never had a Waldo. No wonder I couldn't make sense of it... :)

I can see how it would still be cool to watch. Imagine all the magic in the various scenes, and Ariel behaving as if invisible, and spirits wandering about, blowing people's minds. Pretty fun. I can see how it would work.

Speaking for myself again, it was fun to return to this and improve my acquaintance with the play. I may even revisit it before too long so that I can linger over some of the finer language and some of the more quotable lines. Shakespeare did remember to include that for us.

Recommended for interested readers. Probably a good one to start with, in fact.

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Where Shakespeare Collaborated with Some Dude

Henry VIII by William Shakespeare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Since this probably is a collaboration between Shakespeare and another writer (John Fletcher, who I don't know) I feel justified in only giving 3 stars. I didn't find this a very entertaining read, unlike most of his other history plays, and it doesn't sound like it'd be much fun to see on stage. I could be wrong, but in the mind's eye it seems kinda meh.

For the most part, this play is just a series of unconnected scenes from the life of Henry VIII, without leading much toward anything except maybe the praising of Queen Elizabeth at the end, spoken as if in prophecy when she was a baby. The work overall feels more like a pageant, a parade, a spectacle, than a true play. There are many scenes of processions, like the entrance of Anne Boleyn, or trials and confrontations, like with Buckingham and Queen Catherine and then Wolsey, and there are lots of horns and rich costumes. Maybe that'd be fun to see, but it doesn't feel much like a story.

One thing you can see in this play is how terribly bad they were at getting at the truth or offering anything like justice in that era. Justice, whether it's destroying Buckingham or divorcing Catherine or trying to ruin Cranmer, is capricious and unreliable. The whims of power and the convincing lies of conspiracy decide the fate of characters (and real people, presumably) in this story.

The disjointed nature of the plot, without any sign of a unifying conflict, makes it especially hard to read with real comprehension. (Henry wanted an heir, and that's pretty important here, but it doesn't feel like it's the central conflict. One of many.) Just one damn thing after another. I'm not surprised to read that it's seldom staged.

I found the rewards of reading this particular play pretty modest. Others may find more to like. For me, it's on to the tragedies that I haven't read before. Fingers crossed.

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Where the Bad Guy's the Star of the Show

Richard III by SparkNotes
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm almost through reading Shakespeare's history plays, and my consistent experience has been that they're pretty entertaining, more than I expected. Same with Richard III.

It still presents challenges in a light reading. This isn't study; I'm not taking notes or re-reading parts or drawing diagrams of who's who. (Maybe a little, sometimes.) Mostly, I'm just reading, so some of it gets confusing. Too many damn Edwards over a few generations. Too many people known by their titles when titles are passed to their descendants. I get them mixed up. But it's not crucial to keeping up with the action, and there's pretty good action.

"My kingdom for a horse" is in here. I've been waiting to read that line. And we have the murder of the princes in the tower--that's pretty famous stuff. Still sad all these years later. And old Queen Margaret, throwing out real curses at Richard and everyone still supporting him. That's bound to be awesome to see performed. She was pretty nasty, in a great way.

The ending is most fun, of course. (No spoilers to worry about 400 years after publishing.) The ghosts visiting Richard and then Richmond, cursing the former and blessing the latter, are pretty fun. I would have liked to ask how that was staged, with both tents visible at the same time even though they were in different camps, but it's okay; I figure it out, sorta. Then the fighting stuff is always fun. Though the final battle between them is all stage directions and no dialogue, and it's pretty terse: "Alarum. Enter Richard and Richmond. They fight. Richard is slain." That might look good on stage, but it's subpar reading.

I'd also like to see the bit where Richard woos Anne not long after killing her husband, convincing her to marry him. She curses him and spits at him for pages, then gives in. It's hard to believe, so my hope is that good acting makes it make sense. And convincing the mother of the dead princes--Queen Elizabeth, Edward IV's wife--that he should marry one of her daughters to make right all the wrongs he had done them... Well, that's just nuts. Unless they're all Machiavellian schemers with no human feeling whatsoever. But maybe a good bunch of actors could make it work. I dunno.

Lots to think about. Interesting to read. English history is crazy. Good play, though, so this is recommended to anyone left who hasn't read it or watched it. :)

Just Henry VIII yet to go. It's in the mail, so I've gotta wait.

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Where Whoever Wins Last Is King

King Henry VI, Part 3 by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Man, there's a lot of plays about kings named Henry.

At least they're entertaining. This one was. I suspect I'd like it better as a movie than a play (so that you can see all the stuff that Shakespeare has take place offstage, like the fighting) but no matter how you consume it you need a book of who's who. A thousand given names to choose from and yet everybody's either Henry or Edward.

Sheesh.

If this were a novel, I'd say the author should have streamlined the plot. Too much back and forth, up and down. No one would ever believe it. He's on the throne, he's off the throne, he's on the throne, he's back off...

A lot of the message is muddied, I feel, by the randomness of the outcomes. It feels like every moral lesson is contradicted by the next act. Nobody is right; everybody is wrong. Might makes right? No. Power is transitory? Maybe. Treason is punished? Sometimes. But one sure thing: the people suffer no matter what the mighty do. One of my favorite scenes in this is in the third act, when Henry has been deposed and is in disguise in the north of England. A pair of gamekeepers recognize him and go to arrest him. The king wonders about their loyalty, since he had once been king and they had sworn allegiance to him.

King Henry: I was anointed king at nine months old;
my father and my grandfather were kings,
And you were sworn true subjects not me:
And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?

First keeper: No; for we were subjects but while you were king.

King Henry: Why, am I dead? Do I not breathe a man?...

First Keeper: We are true subjects to the king, King Edward.

It's clear that the opinion of the people, who they favor and who seems to have true authority over them, matters in the story; it's part of the political calculation that the schemers take into account. But just a part. Other factors can still outweigh their collective power. And individually, the people are nothing. In the end, whoever can get the power is king, and the common folk--powerless nobodies--can only be loyal to the power. That's their only choice. Anything else is too great a risk for them. So, if there's a new king, Hurrah! Long live the new king!

And it looks like the winners get fancy meals. That's what the crown will buy you.

King Edward: And now what rests but that we spend the time
With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,
Such as befits the pleasure of the court?
Sound drums and trumpets! Farewell sour annoy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.

I'm not sure it's worth all the scheming and fighting in the rain and murdering of old men and kids only to get feasts that you probably could have had as a duke or earl anyway. But that's just me.

I read this without the benefit of the side-by-side retelling you find in No Fear Shakespeare, and I felt the lack of it. But I don't have a test to take or an essay to write, so just reading it for general comprehension is good enough for me. I liked it and I may take another look at it in the future, maybe straighten out a few more of those Edwards and Henrys.

Now on to Richard III.

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Where It's Good but Chewy

King Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Okay, so, here's the thing--I kinda liked reading this; it was fun in places; some good action... But I couldn't explain it to anyone. I missed so much. A plot summary is just about beyond me.

I often read Shakespeare in the "No Fear" versions, and that usually keeps me in the game when it gets a bit tricky, but couldn't find a copy for this, so instead of reading with help I've been flying solo. Just me and the bard. And tbh, I did NOT do a good job keeping the various factions straight, who was on who's side, and boy I had trouble knowing what was going on as a result. Except for this: plotting plotting lying plotting threatening running plotting.

Lying.

The bits I did understand were thanks to spark notes... :)

The witchcraft scene would have been fun to watch, and the part where Gloucester is murdered was horrible and dramatic and compelling. Come to think of it, the part with pirates was good. Hardcore and cold, but good. You know what, I do remember some of the stuff that happened...

The scenes with the commoners rebelling was entertaining. I was rooting for Cade, and I kinda liked him, but I knew there was no King Cade in English history, so he was gonna stumble eventually. I think it's rude that everybody else speaks in blank verse, presented on the page with lines that look like poetry, but Cade speaks in paragraphs of right-justified prose like a dummy. I know that's a convention, but it seems just a bit classist. (That is meant as ironic understatement, so don't come at me.) However, he *is* allowed to make a good case for their rebellion. I was convinced. Things weren't fair. He was an idiot, probably, but he wasn't wrong about that.

Just look. His ideas for just government seem very sensible:

Jack Cade. ...Your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer; all the realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,—
All. God save your majesty!
Jack Cade. I thank you, good people: there shall be no money; all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.

Yeah, it probably wouldn't work. But it sounds awesome.

(His co-conspirator is the one who uttered the famous line, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." It was the law that oppressed the working people, and the lawyers who upheld the law. Cade ran with the idea, though the guy who proposed it had been heckling him throughout his speech.)

York is coming for the king, so they had to bug out, running back to London. I guess we find out who wins in the next play.

Hard to explain why I still liked this, despite my struggles to track some of the characters and their motivations. I did like it, though. I was glad to pick it up each morning to see what was next. But it wasn't a good way to read Shakespeare; as an old English teacher, I really should know better. Imma have to read up on the history before I open up Henry VI part 3 and before I get to Richard III.

Don't be lazy don't be lazy don't be lazy

I'll probably just dive in.

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Where I Liked Joan Best

Henry VI, Part 1 by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As with other of Shakespeare's history plays (none of which did I read until recently) I found this an entertaining read. I'm not sure what it'd look like on stage, but there's lots of drama and movement and strangeness. I liked it.

This is the one with Joan of Arc, and although we're supposed to hate her, I thought she was a cool character. The most memorable, for sure. And the scene where her personal demon friend blows her off and refuses to help her anymore would probably be the most fun to watch in the whole play. It's a shame she had to be a villain for the English to be heroes; I would have rather seen her be awesome as well as entirely heroic, but I don't think Elizabethan audiences were ready for seeing their enemies as people like themselves...

The battle stuff is pretty fun, and the heroic death of Talbot and his son is very affecting. To some degree, he was the hero of the story, and Joan was the antihero. We could have had a whole play about either one of them. Young Henry VI wasn't all that central. As a result, with the Talbots dead and Joan martyred at the stake, we're left looking for an ending with someone else. The story kind of peters out, though it at least concludes with wedding plans, which feels like an ending.

None of the histories, IMO, have a really strong or straightforward story arc, owing to the reluctance of nature to provide us with neatly planned rising action and major crisis and falling action and denouement the way we'd like it to, the way my 10th grade teacher laid it out--but the story is sorta told that way, and I think it works. I have read that some consider this Shakespeare's weakest play, and all I can say is that there's a bunch I liked less, so go figure.

On to part 2.

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Where I Saw the Play in my Head

Henry V by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What do you picture when you read a Shakespeare play?

Usually, I picture something more like a movie, with real people in real settings. But reading this one, I definitely pictured actors on the stage in the Globe theatre. When I realized this, I had to backtrack to see why, and it's definitely because of the prologue, the opening "O for a Muse of fire" bit where the chorus asks the audience to imagine the fields of France:

... But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?...
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass...

I guess I got it backwards, then; instead of seeing a stage and imagining a world I sat in the world and imagined the stage. In any case, that worked for me. I saw in my mind's eye the play as it would have been performed for audiences 400 years ago, experiencing with them the range of feelings: the anxiety for the outnumbered British forces the night before Agincourt; the aggravation at overhearing the French forces' derision; the soul-stirring approval for the king's patriotic speeches; the contempt for the religious leaders and their venality; the pride in sense of duty portrayed by genuine heroes of the nation; the disappointment in cowards like Pistol; and the upsurge of jubilation at the ultimate victory. No doubt a lot depends on actors and staging, but I can imagine this working very well. Even though I'm anti-war (who isn't?) it worked for me.

I'm not sure the play has a distinct perspective regarding the value or virtue of war. Despite the patriotic support for war found in many speeches, there are also many arguments against it made throughout the play. The clearest expression is the speech by Williams, a soldier speaking unawares to the king in disguise. He argues that the cost of war is high, especially if the cause is unjust:

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left.

That's a stark image. That's the perspective of soldiers with nothing to gain by hazarding their lives in battle. Between this and the St. Crispin's Day speech, it's hard to say what the author really felt. I don't think that's an interesting question, anyway. Or a trivial one. A better question is whether he's done a good job at showing us different faces of war and warriors, and I feel like he has.

Marlowe's Tamerlane plays tapped into a similar action/adventure excitement, bringing the thrill of bigger-than-life action to the stage. It just seems like Shakespeare did a better job of making it a story. For us groundlings, packed shoulder to shoulder, watching over the head of the guy in front of us, that mix of drama and spectacle feels like a blockbuster.

Recommended.

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I'm Not Sure Why I Liked It, But I Did

Henry IV, Part 2 by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This (like all of Shakespeare's histories) is more interesting and entertaining than I expected it would be. Especially reading with aids--for this, I read from the No Fear Shakespeare edition--I could plow straight through and didn't have to spend a lot of time struggling with meaning. That makes it easier to enjoy, for sure. And it's got that great line about "heavy the head that wears the crown" and stuff.

Having said all that, I don't think it's an awesome story; not much actually happens, to start with, and I don't find the funny parts that funny. I understand a lot of people, including theatre-goers of the time, really like Falstaff, and find him amusing, and I sorta get it, but I don't join them. (I bet they sold this as "Falstaff Part II" back in the day.) I would have liked to see him do something good and become a better man rather than still be a jerk at the end, taking advantage of people and being a terrible soldier. But I guess this allowed Shakespeare to show that Henry was a screwup at first, like Falstaff, but pulled it together when he needed to be a leader, casting off the bad influences of his youth. That makes the story largely about his growth, and I bet you could write a pretty good 5-paragraph essay about the way Hal changes. Glad I don't hand out those essays anymore...

Anyway, kinda fun. Kinda disjointed. A bit amusing in places, but for my money not *that* funny. I liked the serious parts best, actually.

YMMV.

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Where Prince Hal Has an Awakening

Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1 by E.A.M. Colman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I expected not to like this (or any of Shakespeare's histories, tbh) and I have been interested to find that I not only like them (and this one in particular), I like them best of all his writing.

I was surprised. But I can't entirely explain.

Most of my experience with Shakespeare is with tragedies (including teaching a couple). My schooling included fewer comedies, and no histories. Since I've lately been reading Shakespeare for my own reasons, I've realized that for me the inequality expression goes this way: Histories>comedies>sonnets>>>>>>tragedies.

(Come at me, bro. I genuinely hate Othello. And Romeo and Juliet. And... well, all of them. I hate tragic endings in any and all media. I don't know what tragedy does for other people, and I don't know why so many people like it or why they think it is a good thing for a story to end with terrible things happening. Catharsis? I never got none of that. That's fine for them, though. Whatevs. But me--it fucks me up. I just really hate it. You know what? Let those other folks try to teach young people about Othello killing his sweet wife, five times a year for many years in a row, and see what they think then. Grrrrrrr.)

(I want Shakespeare's Happy Ending Theater to be a thing--a whole series where every tragedy has a new fifth act, with Romeo and Juliet running away to Paris or something, and Othello discovering Iago's plotting in time to fix things, etc, and then everything turns out happy. I don't care who spins in whose grave. I'd love that.)

Back to Henry IV (though this play is really about his son, which is cool). Young Henry is a mess, hanging around with old thieves like Falstaff, drinking his life away, behaving like a criminal himself, and he has a kind of awakening. Henry Percy, known better as Hotspur, is another young man from an important family, but instead of drinking and hanging out is making a name for himself as a warrior and leader of men. So when Hotspur's family unites with Scots and Welsh noblemen against his father, Henry of Monmouth (eventually Henry V, someday) cleans himself up and leaves his foolishness behind and apologizes to his father and becomes a new man. He brings Falstaff with him, but starts to distance himself from the drunk.

The contrast between the two settings--the taverns and streets on the one hand, among the criminals and drunks, where they talk nonsense, play pranks and plan petty crimes; and the battlefield on the other, among nobles, serious men of good sense, who discuss strategy and take the big picture, one encompassing the whole nation--is striking, and the juxtaposition of those settings makes both stand out more. Some histories suffer by involving almost exclusively noblemen, giving a narrow view of the world, but here we get both extremes of society.

In addition, there are many parallels between, first, lowlife men of action robbing a rich man and then getting robbed in turn with, second, Bolingbroke usurping the throne from King Richard II and then facing an armed rebellion of his own. Lots to chew on there. I'm not sure what Shakespeare was saying--whether it's satire its opposite. (Since I have no teacher telling me nothing, I can think what I like. So...... I dunno what I think.)

I found the story entertaining and the telling of it clever. I wish there was less difference between Shakespeare's English and our own so that I could read it without referring to helps and supports so often, but at least those helps are available and one can still read pretty fluently. Now I'm ready to start part 2, and when I bought the plays I wondered if I could drag myself through them at all.

Turns out, yes. Happily.

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Where I Fight Through It

Richard II by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Whew. I struggled with this one.

It was interesting, and I liked lots of it, but it was more difficult than the last several Shakespeare plays I've read. The politics, the history, and (of course) the language add up to almost too many stumbling blocks, even with notes in the back and an introduction in the front. Besides, this isn't the kind of story that you sort of know from pop culture, so it's all starting from scratch. For me, this was more like study than reading.

Of course, it also feels more substantial than the comedies that I've been enjoying, which is why I still liked it. The action here matters more than what happens in the forest of Arden or the like. This deals with genuine historical figures in the middle of real life-and-death, history-changing events. The language feels similarly elevated and significant (to my brain, that is) except for the weird bit toward the end (5.3) where the duchess and others start all speaking in rhymed verse for a few pages. (According to the intro, that bit may or may not have been Shakespeare's language. Lots of conjecture about it.)

Anyway, though I liked it, I'm glad to finish it and move on to others. I'm trying to read through the histories in order and I have more interest in the ones that follow.

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Where King John Goes to War

King John by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I think--I might need to double-check--I'm pretty sure this is the first of Shakespeare's histories I have ever read. I've avoided them, TBH.

And yet I liked it. Who knew?

I've read and enjoyed lots of the comedies; I've read--and, in several cases, taught--many of the tragedies; but until now I've never read the histories. Thought I wouldn't like them at all. Surprise!

Without being required to read analytically or critically--reading only for pleasure--I can say that it's enjoyable to read, actually. With a couple exceptions, I found the characters easy to keep track of, and as far as language, it was readable without a lot of effort. I suppose, after enough exposure to the language, it was inevitable that I get to this point, where I understand well without support. (Not quite as easy a read as the No Fear Shakespeare books, which I still champion. The notes in the Folger edition are not organized very helpfully, so I mostly ignored them. And while I'm on the topic, what's with the random artwork on every page? I guess it dresses it up, at least, but I found them more distracting than helpful.) With some of the usual barriers to comprehension lowered, it makes for an exciting read full of war and intrigue and poison. You know. Fun.

Other books and stories have taught me to hate King John, though he comes off pretty good here. However, it was his brother's unacknowledged son (referred to always as Bastard, which was kinda cruel.) that I most liked. He hated the Duke of Austria on behalf of his father, Richard the Lionheart, and in the early scenes is constantly insulting him and baiting the duke:

AUSTRIA What the devil art thou?
BASTARD One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
An he may catch your hide and you alone.
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard.
I’ll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right.
Sirrah, look to ’t. I’ faith, I will, i’ faith!

And he's ready at every moment to go to war and quit talking about it:

Cry havoc, kings! Back to the stainèd field,
You equal potents, fiery-kindled spirits.
Then let confusion of one part confirm
The other’s peace. Till then, blows, blood, and
death!

Badass. I liked him.

I expected this to be boring, but it wasn't, and that was good news. Now I have an interest in seeing it performed somewhere. Someday, hopefully.

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Where a Duke, a Princess, and a Clown Walk Into the Woods

As You Like It by William Shakespeare
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like most of Shakespeare's comedies, this isn't really about anything. Because of *waves hands* reasons, a bunch of people end up living in the woods. Then some of them get married.

Curtain.

I mean, a bad duke and a bad older brother have a change of heart, but it happens offstage and it was not as a result of anything the main characters did. Shakespeare just did a snowplow thing for Duke Senior and Rosalind and Orlando--he cleared out the problems that sent them to the woods in the first place. Imagine if Frodo and the others just hung out in Rivendell until Sauron had a change of heart--and then they all went home.

Just sayin'.

But that's fine. It's not about that part of the plot. It's about Rosalind in disguise as a boy getting her love to call her Rosalind anyway and pretend she is who she really is. It's about grumpy old Jaques being miserable. Orlando's bad poetry. The clown getting engaged to the plain country girl. And they sing songs. For no reason.

It's a play made to look like a story, but it's really just a bunch of set pieces--amusing conversations, songs, characters in amusing situations--masquerading as a story. And, again, that's fine.

My favorite bit of wit is Touchstone's explanation of the seven degrees of a lie:

O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If...

The quip modest and the reply churlish. LOL

I remember hearing this on vinyl back in tenth grade. That "sans hair, sans teeth, sans everything" part brought it back. I definitely didn't like it that time. But I've never seen it performed. I think it'd be pretty funny, or could be.

Someday.



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Where I Think I Get It, Finally

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Possibly the most fun of Shakespeare's comedies--my favorite, anyway--Twelfth Night made so much less sense to me in my second semester of college about 40 years ago. But since then, a couple things happened: first, with years and practice, I got a little better than college me at reading Shakespearean English; and second, I finally realized that, yes, that's all the plot there is. I'm not missing anything.

Here it is, sorta: Viola dresses like a guy for [waves hands] reasons; she falls in love with Orsino, her boss (for no reason I can see); she pleads his case to Olivia, who quite reasonably doesn't care for him; Olivia, meanwhile, falls in love with Viola's male avatar.

That's most of it. Then Olivia's houseguests and serving woman play a trick on her steward just to mess with him. That becomes a sizable chunk of the overall play!

As a young person, I thought his plays were always deep and always had significant plots, but when I was unable to find all that, I was confused. Reading Shakespeare with shallow understanding (no aids, no outlines, no handouts) and finding nothing I expected, I literally thought I was missing it, that the deep stuff resided in the lines I didn't understand. But now I think that, if you just let the play be a goof, a bit of silly fun, it makes perfect sense. (Having additional resources like the "No Fear" books is a big help, too.)

All of the conflicts and troubles are greatest after Viola's brother (the one she thought drowned) returns and looks just like her in male dress. Antonio believes Sebastian has betrayed him and ends up in jail; Malvolio is locked up for a madman; Olivia is betrothed, she thinks, to Cesario, who then denies her; Viola, still dressed as a man, sees her love for the duke frustrated; Maria is about to be in trouble with Olivia for her part in a mean prank; and both Sebastian and Viola think the other is dead. All these are quickly resolved. Viola marries Orsino; her brother marries Olivia; and even Maria gets married, to Sir Toby. And Antonio--I'm not sure what happens to Antonio. I think he gets released...

(But did Shakespeare have to have the two main female characters be named Viola and Olivia? Why not just name all the guys John and all the women Betty?)

Silly story. I like it. Took me a long time to get here.

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Where Puck is the Real Hero

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Just to be clear--3 stars indicates how much I liked reading it. I'm not scoring Shakespeare or making any claims about this play's overall worth.

To me, it's amusing, but not that much fun.

Like everyone, I've absorbed bits and pieces of this story, catching a minute here and there of various productions on cable, seeing references in other books, and so on--and I kinda thought, based on that, that there would be more to it than there was. Nope. It's a very silly plot. Essentially, the fairies mess up everyone's love relationship--and then they fix it. After that, we watch the characters make fun of a lame play (within the play) performed by some workmen.

I get it, though, in a way. In its time, it might have killed. Mostly it's harmless fun with a happy ending, and it includes the finest Elizabethan equivalent of special effects, allowing common people to see and imagine fairies interacting with humans. That part is pure spectacle, and in a time and place where visual storytelling was limited, it was the most convincing and captivating available. It would have been pretty fun, I think.

But to a modern reader, there's not much plot. Not much of an arc. Except for Puck when he fixes his mistake, nobody in the story encounters a conflict that they work toward eliminating. We might have seen Helena woo Demetrius back with kindness or beautiful singing or some kind of trickery, but no. She complains and fusses, but that doesn't succeed at all. Likewise, the other complications that arise are not addressed by the characters themselves. Bottom's head of an ass, Titania's infatuation, and the weird love rectangle of Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius are all solved through deus ex machina. Or Puck ex machina. Nobody had to defeat Puck in a battle of wits to make him solve their problems; nobody captured him and forced him to do it. He just... did it.

Conflict solved. [Brushes hands.]

Anyway, not a great plot. On the plus side, it's pretty comprehensible, IMO. Depending on the staging, it still might be fun. Maybe I'll finally watch the movie.

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