One stop place for a very close reading of Shakespeare's works.
My Purpose
My goal is to read every word known to
be written by Shakespeare, in the order it was written. (Even the ones
I have already read and/or performed in which are marked with an * for
read, and an ** for performed in). Thus my syllabus is:
Henry VI, Part I (1589-1590)
Henry VI, Part II (1591)
Henry VI, Part III (1591)
Richard III (1592) *
Venus and Adonis (narrative poem) (1593)
Edward III (1594)
Titus Andronicus (1594) *
The Comedy of Errors (1594) *
The Taming of the Shrew (1594) **
Two Gentlemen of Verona (1594) *
The Rape of Lucrece (narrative poem) (1594)
Love’s Labour’s Lost (1595) *
Richard II (1595)
King John (1596)
Romeo and Juliet (1596) *
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1596) **
The Merchant of Venice (1597) *
The Merry Wives of Windsor (1597) *
Henry IV, Part I (1597)
Henry IV, Part II (1598)
Much Ado About Nothing (1599) **
As You Like It (1599) *
Julius Caesar (1599) *
Henry V (1599)
Hamlet (1599) **
The Sonnets were probably written in the 1590’s as one of
the first references to them was in 1598 by Francis Meres who
extolled Shakespeare’s “sugared sonnets among his private friends”.
Sonneteering (awesome verb) was huge during the 1590’s, and thus I
tentatively place my reading of the Sonnets at the end of the canon
of the1590’s plays.
Twelfth Night (1602) *
All’s Well That Ends Well (1603) *
Othello (1604) *
Measure For Measure (1604)
King Lear (1605) *
Macbeth (1606) **
Pericles (1608)
Coriolanus (1608)
Timon of Athens (1608)
Troilus and Cressida (1608)
Anthony and Cleopatra (1608) *
A Lover’s Complaint (poem) (publication date: 1609)
Cymbeline (1610) *
The Winter’s Tale (1611)
The Tempest (1611) *
Henry VIII (1613)
The Two Noble Kinsmen (1614)
I
am not going to prescribe myself a time limit to the reading of these
works because rushing it would be like eating a decadent fourteen
course, thousand dollar meal in a hurry—ultimately a waste which you
will feel sick of at the end. I want to indulge in his work, and
explore many angles, taking the lines spoonful by delicious spoonful.
And here begins the many hours’ traffic of this web page.
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Shakespeare is not imprisoned upon the pages of his genius, but he is
as much alive and active in today’s politics, films, art, and human
conception as he was during his own lifetime. He has a ripple effect
that stretches to every corner of our pond and then ripples back—that
which is motion stays in motion—Shakespeare in motion stays in motion. My
first encounter with the Bard of Avon, was when I was four-years-old
and my parents took me to the Lennox Shakespeare Festival in
Massachusetts to see "Romeo and Juliet". I can remember this occasion
only in fragments, the longest strain of which was during act one,
scene one, the civil brawl between the kinsmen of the House of Montague
and the House of Capulet.
Abraham: “Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?” Samson: “I do bite my thumb, sir.” Abraham: “Do you bit your thumb at us, sir?” Samson (aside to Gregory): “Is the law of our side if I say ay?” Gregory (aside to Samson): “No.” Samson (to Abraham): “No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir,but I bite my thumb, sir.”
I found this to be the funniest thing I had ever heard. Perhaps the
actor playing Samson gnawed at his fist in some fantastic way,
something so pantomime and flamboyant that any child couldn’t help but
laugh. However, whatever the reason, I was being so rowdy that my
mother had to pull me onto her lap and whisper in my ear that I would
miss even better lines. I quickly shut up, and as the play moved from
act to act, from scenes of swordplay to those of tender love, I
remained riveted, anticipating a Disney-esque, fairy-tale ending. One
of the greatest things about seeing "Romeo and Juliet" so young was
that the ending had not been spoiled for me. Most people who come to
the script or go to a performance know that it is going to end with a
self-poisoned hero and a heroine using her body as a sheath for her
lover’s dagger. I got to have a completely organic experience, and
since then it has been my prerogative to always see Shakespeare plays
in performance before I read them. It is my firm belief that
Shakespeare’s plays were first meant to be seen, and later read. A
belief that is firmly supported by the historical progression of
Shakespeare’s plays; they were first acted in the years they were
written, and the plays were not compiled into a Folio (a semi-complete
collection) until 1623. However, it must be noted that many plays
during the time period of Shakespeare were written down and sold to
audience members after performances; yet, it is my belief that no one
would buy these single playbooks without having first scene the play,
thus Shakespeare is meant first to be watched then to be read.
Well, back to my first experience of "Romeo and Juliet", I cried the
whole car ride home, cursing Romeo for being too rash, and at school
the next few weeks I got bullied a great deal because I kept biting my
thumb at my classmate enemies, thinking that it was the greatest insult
I could throw at them. The thumb-biting would not prove to be the last
instance of Romeo and Juliet that would make me a subject for scorn in
grade school. In fourth-grade music class we had to bring in a tape of
our favorite songs, most kids brought in Britney Spears and the
Backstreet Boys, the more hardcore boys brought in Korn and Slipknot. I
brought in the 1996 soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s "Romeo and Juliet",
from which I played #1 Crush by Garbage. I admit now it probably wasn’t
the best song a nine-year-old could have picked as the lyrics are more
obsessive than poetic, and, consequently, I suffered for it. The music
teacher turned it off before it was even a minute through and all the
kids (except for my one real friend) told me I was stupid and retarded.
I took the tape and its case into the bathroom stall to cry out my
embarrassment, during which time I read the information on the case and
memorized my first line of Shakespeare, "prodigious birth of love it is
to me that I must love a loathed enemy". This line was perfect at that
moment for I had cast my pearls before swine and they had scorned me
for it. These words comforted me, proving that what we love isn’t
always acceptable, but in that understanding we can have rebellion. And
there, sobbing in a bathroom that smelled of ammonia, I began my love
affair with Shakespeare.
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