Shakespeare (Elizabethan Lit related)
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
I just read some Shakespeare for the first time in my life. (Not counting 8th grade.)
Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Much A Do About Nothing.
The fool could write.
These were a good start, comedytragedyromance, tragedy, comedy.
Who rides?
What do recommend I read next?
Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Much A Do About Nothing.
The fool could write.
These were a good start, comedytragedyromance, tragedy, comedy.
Who rides?
What do recommend I read next?
Comments
You've hit a couple of the main dramas and one of the best comedies. Plenty more in those genres, but I'm a huge fan of the history plays:
King John
Richard II
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 2
Henry V
Henry VI, Part 1
Henry VI, Part 2
Henry VI, Part 3
Richard III
Henry VIII
I hope you're reading annotated versions, as a lot of the falconry/armor/etc. wordplay is definitely lost without a good set of footnotes.
Although, when in doubt, you can just assume it's sexual innuendo. Dude loved dick jokes.
Seriously. I am not joking.
The Tempest is an archtype of the modern "stuck on a desert island" type deal. Sprites floating around with advice like a gay BFF, and some retarded troll threatening to knock the resident hottie up. Kind of reminds of Lil' Wayne. Populating the island with little ugly babies, oh, that Caliban.
Twelfth Night was interesting. Double timing and cross dressing. Midsummer kind of flew over my head. I remember putting my feet up on the basket under the chair of the guy in front of me. He turned around and shouted "I love thee not so pursue me not." The teacher told me to stop pursuing him.
Hamlet is the precursor to all family-directed angst stories. Really emo and whiny. I bet Eminem reads Hamlet everytime he writes another album. Enough cultural references about Hamlet out there anyway. You've already got the gist of it.
Othello is kind of juicy. White girl hooking up with a Moor (black dude, although I bet he was more olive-toned) and everyone making a huge deal out of it. Worth it for the euphamisms for the word "sex" (devil with two backs, for instance).
I read the Pelican versions.
Sometimes foot notes get tiring. (Sword = penis, dagger = penis)
I don't even know if I am really a fan, but The Taming of the Shrew, R+J and Othello were taught to me with such gusto and love, that those are my favourites.
Hamlet, some sonnets and King Lear were plodded through like assembly-line work and so they are still dry and flat to me today.
Macbeth is on my list to revisit.
Dick joke?
Mind if they use that on the back cover blurb for the next printing of "Complete Works..."?
b/w
Macbeth is where it's doth at.
So true. Which prompted one classmate in a Shakespeare class I took in college to ponder if Kevin Smith movies will be considered the highest of high art (no pot joke intended) in a couple centuries.
Also: Reading his stuff out loud will help you catch the rhythms and the poetry. Seemed like odd advice, but it turned out to be good advice.
Yes!
.. i know that's some yackward-bass logic, but it's true. there are so many archetypal shakespearean characters throughout the duration of the series it's staggering. mad tragicomedrama's yo.
And dick jokes.
it's the old joke, that of the new reader of shakespeare looking to the teacher and saying, "but it's full of cliche's and stock characters", such has been the subsequent re-telling and re-appropriation of his stuff in modern drama that people are probably more familiar than they realise.
I was just about to post about the same thing but it got all rambling and jumbled with how not knowing the Bible has hindered my ability to catch (underlying) imagery and meaning in Western/Christian art and literature.
But anyway!
I am not sure what the Wire's writers would say about the role it played, but obviously Shakespeare's influence runs deep enough that one can use his styles and techniques without realizing it or meaning to.
The thing that stood out for me was how there are no 'minor' characters; everyone is important to the story. One character with a couple of lines who shows up in one episode and never again can enhance and/or shift the whole plot.
Scenes a plenty. NSFW - Language
We just finished watching the (incredible) first series of "House of Cards", which pulls visual elements, quotations, and plot points from Macbeth - somewhere between a reworking and a running joke.
Although a lot of his plays were re-tellings and re-appropriations of previous dramas...
Even before I read Shakespeare I could see Shakespearean references in the Wire, but not as much as Western references. Quickly thinking about Westerns they do not seem to Shakespearean to me. Very little in the way of family dynamics.
Of course, a tradition that goes right back to the likes of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus.
Yep, maketh Macbeth your next one.
This is my favourite Macbeth-related movie. It's a distant relation, but it's there.
Did the required reading in school but spent an entire summer reading every play one year, never regretted it. Definitely read the Scottish Play. I am also partial to the Tempest and Richard III.
As for references, Issac Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare is an awesome resource for understanding obscure references in the Bard's works. Yeah, this guys was a SciFi writer, but his non-fiction contributions are just as good if not better than his fiction.
And for complete silliness, a rap battle between M.C. Shakespeare vs. Dr. Suess: