More thoughts on Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John
Well, it's been a couple of months, but I haven't given up on Shakespeare! I did, however, lose my Kindle, on which I did all my Shakespeare reading. As mentioned earlier, I read the footnoted versions of Shakespeare, with the main text on my Kindle and the footnotes in the Kindle app on my phone. So, losing the Kindle threw a real wrench into that. I tried reading a bit of Richard II with just the phone, switching back and forth between the main text and the footnotes whenever I read a confusing passage, to see if there was a footnote about it, but this was quite awkward and made for slow going. But I've now got a new Kindle and I'm picking back up on it again. I've now finished Edward III and Richard II and am poised to dive into the Henries.
But first, my promised insights into Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John. Unfortunately losing my Kindle means I've also lost all my highlighted passages in these plays (apparently I hadn't synced them to the cloud in a while), but here's what I can remember.
Romeo & Juliet: This time I was much more aware of how frivolous Romeo & Juliet's relationship was. They speak of being transcendentally in love with each other, but the entirety of the play from their meeting to their death is literally five days. And at the start of that period, Romeo is pining away over his equally transcendent love of an entirely different girl, who he completely forgets when he meets Juliet. And indeed, other characters in the play talk about how shallow and new their love is as well. The friar, for instance, only agrees to marry them because he sees it as an opportunity to end the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.
The other interesting thing I learned about this play, is regarding Juliet's age. Somewhat famously, she's only 13 (nearly 14) when the play takes place. When I was taught this play in 8th and 9th grades, the teachers stressed how this was a normal age at which to marry at the time (looking back, perhaps this was an attempt to get a classroom of 13 and 14 year olds to connect with the play). But according to the introduction by Stanley Wells (no relation) in my Penguin annotated edition, Juliet was 16 in the Arthur Brooke poem that Shakespeare based his play on. Wikipedia mentions this too, and goes on to say that in Shakespeare's England "the vast majority" of brides were 19 or older, with only "about one in a thousand" marrying at age 13. Wells and Wikipedia both mention that this could partly be to make Romeo and Juliet, who are Italian rather than English, seem even more exotic to the Elizabeth English audience. Wells also speculates that Shakespeare lowered Juliet's age to heighten the dramatic tension in the question of whether young children should be able to choose their own spouses rather than take arranged marriages. Wikipedia suggests it could be because women in Shakespeare's theater were portrayed by young men, and a young man's build is more like a 13 year old, but I find this idea unlikely (otherwise all of Shakespeare's heroines would be 13).
Midsummer Night's Dream: I really enjoyed this play, but I can't recall many of my insights into it. I liked the interlacing of the multiple plots, and I was somewhat amazed at how the bare dialogue actually did evoke a feeling of magic as I read it.
It's also got a prominent example of one of Shakespeare's "flexible" time-schemes. In the opening of the play, Theseus says he'll decide Hermia's fate on the day of his wedding, four days in the future. But then the events of the play until his wedding take up two or three days, depending on how you interpret the time between scenes. Also, it's meant to be a new moon on the day of his wedding, but Lysander expects to be able to escape by moonlight just days before. Somehow, though, these time problems never seem to really affect the quality of the play, no doubt because they get lost in the flow of prose.
The Life and Death of King John: Having finished Midsummer Night's Dream, I dove into the histories, beginning with the historically earliest, the Life and Death of King John. Sadly, it was the least interesting of all the Shakespeare plays I've read so far. The plot felt like a random assemblage of events, lurching from one disconnected scene to another. I thought perhaps this was because the plot was dictated by history rather than by Shakespeare's dramatic sensibility. Still, he did his best, and there are some good characterizations, and Robert the Bastard has a few excellent lines.
The scene that most stuck in my mind was the rather humorous way King John tries to drop a hint to his friend Hubert that he wants him to kill the child Arthur, a rival for the English throne:
KING JOHN.
Do not I know thou wouldst?Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eyeOn yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,He is a very serpent in my way;And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,He lies before me: dost thou understand me?Thou art his keeper.
HUBERT.
And I'll keep him soThat he shall not offend your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Death.
HUBERT.
My lord?
KING JOHN.
A grave.
HUBERT.
He shall not live.
KING JOHN.
Enough!-I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
This dialogue makes me picture Master Shake from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force portraying King John, pretending to cough as he says "Death", "A grave". Later, after some of the nobles accuse the king of arranging Arthur's death, he equally humorously denies having ordered it. When Hubert shows him the hand-written order he says, well, I wouldn't have ordered him dead if you hadn't walked by, looking like such a murderer:
KING JOHN.
Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty causeTo wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
HUBERT.
No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?
KING JOHN.
It is the curse of kings to be attendedBy slaves that take their humours for a warrantTo break within the bloody house of life;And, on the winking of authority,To understand a law; to know the meaningOf dangerous majesty, when perchance it frownsMore upon humour than advis'd respect.
HUBERT.
Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
KING JOHN.
O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earthIs to be made, then shall this hand and sealWitness against us to damnation!How oft the sight of means to do ill deedsMake deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,This murder had not come into my mind:But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;And thou, to be endeared to a king,Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
So, those are my thoughts about Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John. Next up, Edward III and Richard II.
But first, my promised insights into Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John. Unfortunately losing my Kindle means I've also lost all my highlighted passages in these plays (apparently I hadn't synced them to the cloud in a while), but here's what I can remember.
Romeo & Juliet: This time I was much more aware of how frivolous Romeo & Juliet's relationship was. They speak of being transcendentally in love with each other, but the entirety of the play from their meeting to their death is literally five days. And at the start of that period, Romeo is pining away over his equally transcendent love of an entirely different girl, who he completely forgets when he meets Juliet. And indeed, other characters in the play talk about how shallow and new their love is as well. The friar, for instance, only agrees to marry them because he sees it as an opportunity to end the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets.
The other interesting thing I learned about this play, is regarding Juliet's age. Somewhat famously, she's only 13 (nearly 14) when the play takes place. When I was taught this play in 8th and 9th grades, the teachers stressed how this was a normal age at which to marry at the time (looking back, perhaps this was an attempt to get a classroom of 13 and 14 year olds to connect with the play). But according to the introduction by Stanley Wells (no relation) in my Penguin annotated edition, Juliet was 16 in the Arthur Brooke poem that Shakespeare based his play on. Wikipedia mentions this too, and goes on to say that in Shakespeare's England "the vast majority" of brides were 19 or older, with only "about one in a thousand" marrying at age 13. Wells and Wikipedia both mention that this could partly be to make Romeo and Juliet, who are Italian rather than English, seem even more exotic to the Elizabeth English audience. Wells also speculates that Shakespeare lowered Juliet's age to heighten the dramatic tension in the question of whether young children should be able to choose their own spouses rather than take arranged marriages. Wikipedia suggests it could be because women in Shakespeare's theater were portrayed by young men, and a young man's build is more like a 13 year old, but I find this idea unlikely (otherwise all of Shakespeare's heroines would be 13).
Midsummer Night's Dream: I really enjoyed this play, but I can't recall many of my insights into it. I liked the interlacing of the multiple plots, and I was somewhat amazed at how the bare dialogue actually did evoke a feeling of magic as I read it.
It's also got a prominent example of one of Shakespeare's "flexible" time-schemes. In the opening of the play, Theseus says he'll decide Hermia's fate on the day of his wedding, four days in the future. But then the events of the play until his wedding take up two or three days, depending on how you interpret the time between scenes. Also, it's meant to be a new moon on the day of his wedding, but Lysander expects to be able to escape by moonlight just days before. Somehow, though, these time problems never seem to really affect the quality of the play, no doubt because they get lost in the flow of prose.
The Life and Death of King John: Having finished Midsummer Night's Dream, I dove into the histories, beginning with the historically earliest, the Life and Death of King John. Sadly, it was the least interesting of all the Shakespeare plays I've read so far. The plot felt like a random assemblage of events, lurching from one disconnected scene to another. I thought perhaps this was because the plot was dictated by history rather than by Shakespeare's dramatic sensibility. Still, he did his best, and there are some good characterizations, and Robert the Bastard has a few excellent lines.
The scene that most stuck in my mind was the rather humorous way King John tries to drop a hint to his friend Hubert that he wants him to kill the child Arthur, a rival for the English throne:
KING JOHN.
Do not I know thou wouldst?Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eyeOn yon young boy: I'll tell thee what, my friend,He is a very serpent in my way;And wheresoe'er this foot of mine doth tread,He lies before me: dost thou understand me?Thou art his keeper.
HUBERT.
And I'll keep him soThat he shall not offend your majesty.
KING JOHN.
Death.
HUBERT.
My lord?
KING JOHN.
A grave.
HUBERT.
He shall not live.
KING JOHN.
Enough!-I could be merry now. Hubert, I love thee;
This dialogue makes me picture Master Shake from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force portraying King John, pretending to cough as he says "Death", "A grave". Later, after some of the nobles accuse the king of arranging Arthur's death, he equally humorously denies having ordered it. When Hubert shows him the hand-written order he says, well, I wouldn't have ordered him dead if you hadn't walked by, looking like such a murderer:
KING JOHN.
Why urgest thou so oft young Arthur's death?Thy hand hath murder'd him: I had a mighty causeTo wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.
HUBERT.
No had, my lord! why, did you not provoke me?
KING JOHN.
It is the curse of kings to be attendedBy slaves that take their humours for a warrantTo break within the bloody house of life;And, on the winking of authority,To understand a law; to know the meaningOf dangerous majesty, when perchance it frownsMore upon humour than advis'd respect.
HUBERT.
Here is your hand and seal for what I did.
KING JOHN.
O, when the last account 'twixt heaven and earthIs to be made, then shall this hand and sealWitness against us to damnation!How oft the sight of means to do ill deedsMake deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,A fellow by the hand of nature mark'd,Quoted and sign'd to do a deed of shame,This murder had not come into my mind:But, taking note of thy abhorr'd aspect,Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,Apt, liable to be employ'd in danger,I faintly broke with thee of Arthur's death;And thou, to be endeared to a king,Made it no conscience to destroy a prince.
So, those are my thoughts about Romeo and Juliet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and King John. Next up, Edward III and Richard II.