...what

[tempestsarekind]

With all that's going on in the world, it feels almost unbearably petty to nitpick this upcoming film (called All Is True, ironically*) where Kenneth Branagh plays Shakespeare, but...who was in charge of the numbers for this thing?

Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench to star as Shakespeare and wife in Oscar-tipped filmRead more... )

Comments

[nightspore]

Hey -- do you really think the sonnets are that early? When he was 28-29? I think they're much later -- stylistically and also imagistically. But I may be totally unaware of a lot of evidence.

As for poor Ham*et, remember that he's a youth at the start of the play, but thirty after a brief sea voyage. That could happen, right?

We went to see -- I don't know where you live or whether this is available to you in any way, but if it tours to where you are, go! -- we went to see the Pushkin Theater's production of Measure for Measure, in Russian with supertitles. It was wonderful, and I think you especially would like it.

[tempestsarekind]

Well, many scholars place some of the sonnets that early, though many scholars also assume that they weren't all written at the same time - and we know that he had to have written a version of sonnet 138 ("When my love swears that she is made of truth") by at least 1599 because it shows up in The Passionate Pilgrim. I think a lot of people place the composition of some of the sonnets in the 1590s because that's when the vogue for sonnet sequences is at its height, and because he's clearly so interested in sonnets in plays of the 1590s like R&J and Love's Labour's Lost. (The predominant imagery of the first 17 sonnets - the idea of procreation to preserve one's beauty for future generations - shows up in Romeo's lament about Rosaline - "For beauty, starved with her severity, / Cuts beauty off from all posterity" - as well as in Twelfth Night, which is usually dated to around 1601, so it's a wide window.)

Heh. Maybe the figure of Time shows up and just ages everyone unexpectedly.

I will have to keep an eye out!

[silbern_drachen]

Hwen I saw "after Hamten's daeth@ and @1613@ in one phrase in news, I was really ... surprised...
But the first sentence of yout post I misread as " in the world where Kenneth Branagh plays Shakespeare it feels almost unbearably petty to nitpick this upcoming film (called All Is True, ironically*)" and it would summize mty opinion on the topic very well)

p.s. by the way, how do you like the new Doctor?

[tempestsarekind]

That too - it seems churlish to criticize Branagh for what is probably a lifelong dream...

I haven't had a chance to watch any of the new season yet! If only it didn't correspond with the beginning of the school year.