I've read nearly four hundred books related to Shakespeare, which of course is just a small fraction of the books that have been published. Here are the ones I've read in the last several weeks:
King Henry VIII, or All Is True by William Shakespeare - I think this was only the second time that I read this play. This time I read the Oxford World's Classics edition, edited by Jay L. Halio. The introduction gets into the historical sources, as well as the authorship question, regarding which parts John Fletcher might have written. Regarding the play's title, Halio writes, "The Folio editors evidently changed the title to make it consistent with those of the other English plays" (p. 17). That is, it was changed from its original title
All Is True to
The Life Of King Henry The Eighth. Regarding the play's themes, Halio writes: "Knowing oneself is another important theme and relates closely to the knowledge and use of power. For without knowing oneself, one is powerless" (p. 29). Halio also writes: "Though his presence is invoked by others talking about him, Henry does not appear in Act 4. As elsewhere in Shakespeare's plays -
Richard II,
Romeo and Juliet, and
Hamlet, for example - when the protagonist remains off-stage for a considerable time, his absence prefigures a change" (p. 35). At the end of the introduction, Halio writes, regarding the undeserved neglect this play receives: "Every age is political, of course; but at a time when media seem to control the presentation of information, if not also its flow, and the availability of information has become essential to both the governed and the governing, Shakespeare's drama has particular relevance. What Henry knows or does not know, the means he uses to discover or confirm the truth, and finally the action he takes based on that truth, have an immediacy comparable to that of our morning newspaper or the evening telecast" (p. 61). All notes for the text are included at the bottom of each page. This book was published in 1999. It was first published as an Oxford World's Classics paperback in 2000, and was reissued in 2008.
The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth by William Shakespeare - I love this play. To me, it's the funniest of Shakespeare's plays. It's crazy that I have yet to see a live performance of it. I've seen productions that have combined this with the second part, and even this with the other three parts of the tetralogy, the Henriad, but never this play on its own. Anyway, this time I read the volume from The Kittredge Shakespeares, but the newer edition with the introduction and revisions by Irving Ribner. This volume is based on the Q1 text of 1598. Ribner writes, in the introduction: "Nor is Falstaff merely Vice. He also stands for the richness and variety of life, for the simple joys of the lower classes, and the common foibles of humanity - all of which Hal must learn to forego if he would assume the awful burden of kingship. It has often been suggested that in regjecting Falstaff, Hal must reject a portion of his own humanity as well. Falstaff serves also as comic commentary on the austere world of kings and nobles" (p. xvi). Ribler also writes, "Opposed to Falstaff is Hotspur, whose courage is foolhardiness and whose honour consists ultimately in reputation rather than true worth" (p. xvii). There are notes on the text at the bottom of each page. Regarding the letter that Hotspur is reading at the beginning of Act II Scene iii, a note reads: "Shakespeare does not inform us who was Hotspur's correspondent. The last few lines of the speech suggest that he was Dunbar, the Scottish Earl of March, for Holinshed says that he urged the King to attack the rebels before their forces should 'too much increase'" (p. 33). The note on Falstaff's "honour" speech (written by Kittredge) reads, "Here Falstaff begins to speak in the tone and manner of a person catechizing a boy; and, in the answers, he imitates the boy who speaks mechanically, having learned them by heart" (p. 102). The original edition of this book was published in 1940. The second edition was published in 1966, and renewed in 1968.
King Lear by William Shakespeare - If forced to choose,
King Lear is my favorite play. I think I've read more editions of this one than of any other Shakespeare play. This time around I read the Plays In Performance edition, edited by J.S. Bratton. In the play's introduction, Bratton writes, "The conflict basic to drama, between order and disorder, is explored in it on levels from the intimately private and personal, through the domestic, the social and the political to the transcendental" (p. 3). Regarding the Fool, Bratton writes, "His jokes modulate and change with the audience's advancing relationship with Lear, from expressing indignation at Lear's deeds of cruelty and stupidity to the point where, when Lear gets the answer to his riddle - 'because they are not eight?' - the audience's relief and empathy rushes out to Lear as a fellow human being, understanding the same jokes" (p. 10). Notes on the text are located on the opposite page from the text itself, apart from a glossary, which is at the end of the play. What really sets this edition apart from others is that the notes focus on how particular scenes were acted in various productions throughout the years, what different productions cut, what was changed, and so on. The editor does not include notes on his own choices regarding the text. For example, he includes the line from the Quarto "If not, I'll ne'er trust poison," rather than the Folio's "If not, I'll ne'er trust medicine," without comment. So we just have to accept the text as given, for this volume is really about how the play was performed in different centuries. Regarding the first entrance of Edmund, Bratton notes: "In this introductory scene the figure of Edmond is clearly related to the Vice of the medieval stage, who was not only a boisterous source of mischief, but also a manager of events and mediator between audience and action, introducing himself and other figures" (p. 79). Regarding Lear's lines "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are,/That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm..." in Act III Scene iv, Bratton writes: "When Queen Victoria went to see Macready's Lear in 1839, he deliberately pointed this speech at her, a fact of which she was uncomfortably aware. In doing so the actor was following a practice which, it has been suggested, was Shakespeare's intention, and a convention of the Elizabethan stage: the actor shifted the focus of his delivery from the scene to the spectators, where it was, as in this case, appropriate to generalise the comment he made" (p. 143). Regarding the moment where Edgar claims to have led Gloucester to a cliff, Bratton writes: "Derek Peat makes an interesting suggestion. Shakespeare, he says, is exploiting the expectation of his audience that scenery should be created by words of the actor, in order to set up tension through uncertainty: Edgar paints a scene, and Gloucester cannot confirm or deny it; the spectator must decide whether it exists" (p. 175). And regarding the stage direction "Enter Lear" in Act IV Scene vii, Bratton writes: "The folio direction ensures that this scene is visually an echo of the first, over which Lear presided from his throne; these powerful overtones are lost when he is discovered at the opening of the scene on a bed or couch, and conducts his reunion as if recovering from an more ordinary malaise. That arrangement underlines the pathos of the scene, and was normally preferred in the nineteenth century" (p. 189). This book was published in 1987.
The Second Part Of King Henry IV by William Shakespeare - I figured since I revisited
The First Part Of King Henry The Fourth, I should also revisit the second part. This time I read The New Cambridge Shakespeare edition, the updated edition, edited by Giorgio Melchiori. In the introduction, he touches upon how several of the characters are different in this play than they were in the first part. Melchiori writes: "The extraordinary invention of Doll is the reason for the transformation of the character of the Hostess. Her name, Mistress Quickly, an allusion to professional briskness in
Part One, is no longer appropriate for the pathetically gullible old bawd whose delusions of respectability are reflected in her new language" (p. 20). And regarding language, Melchiori writes: "Falstaff's language is affected by the change of his sparring partners: no longer the prince but by turns the Lord Chief Justice, the Hostess, Pistol, Doll, Justice Shallow, and even Sir John Colevile. His humorous conceits in
Part One, which frequently took the form of paradoxical exercises in formal logic, with ample use of rhetorical questioning, are replaced by the practice of evasion through broad jokes, jocular self-commiseration, games with true or fictitious memories, and lengthy soliloquies in which the criticisms addressed to Justice Shallow or Prince John are in fact half-hearted attempts at self-justification or at keeping up a flagging morale" (p. 23). Regarding theme, Melchiori writes: "The redemption of time promised by the prince is the actual subject of the whole play. Hence the constant attention in it to 'the revolution of the times', from the moment Northumberland announces, in the first scene, that 'the times are wild' to the final rejection of Falstaff, of which we have already noted the significance on the temporal level. What must be underlined, though, is the constant association of the view of time in the play with images of sickness and disease" (p. 30). This edition is based on the 1600 Quarto. Notes are at the bottom of each page. Regarding Falstaff's line "My lord, I was born about three of the clock in the afternoon," Melchiori notes: "A detail omitted in F. Play performances began in the early afternoon: is this a metatheatrical hint, that Falstaff is merely a stage creation, born as he appears there?" (p. 99). This book was first published in 1989, the updated edition in 2007. My copy is from the 4th printing, in 2012.
And:
Two Tudor Tragedies edited and with an introduction by William Tydeman - This book contains
Gorboduc by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, and
The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd. I read this book mainly because I had heard that
Gorboduc was one of the sources Shakespeare used for
King Lear, which is my favorite play. And, yes, there are similarities.
Gorboduc is about a king who, while still living, divides his kingdom between his children (he has two boys, not three girls), and things go wrong. And, like
King Lear, this one begins with a couple of characters having a private conversation before the king announces his decision. In Gorboduc, Arostus says, "First, when you shall unload your aged mind/Of heavy care and troubles manifold/And lay the same upon my lords your sons,/Whose growing years may bear the burden long" (p. 63). Those lines might remind us, as noted in this book, of Lear's "'tis our fast intent/To shake all cares and business from our age,/Conferring them on younger strengths, while we/Unburdened crawl toward death." And, as William Tydeman notes, Gorboduc's "But sith I see no cause to draw my mind/To fear the nature of my loving sons,/Or to misdeem that envy or disdain/Cant there work hate where Nature planteth love" (p. 72) might remind us of King Lear. Tydeman writes, "One might compare the complacency of King Lear in Act I Scene 1 in reposing his trust in the good faith of Goneril and Regan" (p. 275). But that's about it. Tydeman is able to find at least one similarity between
King Lear and
The Spanish Tragedy as well. Regarding Hieronomo's line "Tush, no, run after, catch me if you can" (p. 218), Tydeman notes, "cf.
King Lear, IV. 6. 204-5: 'Nay, an you get it, you shall get it by running...' (both elderly men are 'running mad' at this point)" (p. 329). This book is a Penguin Classics edition, published in 1992.
