I’m trying to read the Shakespeare books that I already
own before purchasing more. But of course I’m always finding interesting books
and wishing to possess them. Lately, I’ve been revisiting certain plays,
reading different editions.
The Tempest by William Shakespeare –
This time around I read the edition from the series titled
A Case Study In Critical Controversy, which digs into the
controversies surrounding the play, mainly regarding colonialism. The book was
edited by Gerald Graff and James Phelan and contains several essays regarding
the play, aimed at college students. The book begins with some pages on
Shakespeare’s life and works, including mention of those ridiculous creatures
who believe someone other than Shakespeare wrote the works attributed to him. The
text of the play itself is from David Bevington’s edition of
The Complete Works Of Shakespeare,
published in 1973. At the beginning of the chapter titled “Sources And
Contexts,” the editors write, regarding Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of The
Cannibals”: “Montaigne’s argument that the natural state in which cannibals
live is superior in virtue and innocence to the condition of civilization is
echoed in Gonzalo’s speech on the innocence of nature in
The Tempest, 2.1 Montaigne’s meditation on cannibals may have also
suggested the name ‘Caliban’ to Shakespeare” (p. 116). Ronald Takaki, in a
piece published in 1993, writes: “
The
Tempest, the London audience knew, was not about Ireland but about the New
World, for the reference to the ‘Bermoothes’ (Bermuda) revealed the location of
the island. What was happening onstage was a metaphor for English expansion
into America. The play’s title was inspired by a recent incident: caught in a
violent storm in 1609, the
Sea Adventure
had been separated from a fleet of ships bound for Virginia and had run aground
in the Bermudas” (p. 146). Later in that same piece, Takaki writes, “The
theatergoers saw Caliban’s ‘sty’ located emblematically at the back of the
stage, behind Prospero’s ‘study,’ signifying a hierarchy of white over dark and
cerebral over carnal” (p. 156). Frank Kermode writes, in a piece published in
1963: “
The Tempest has much spectacle
and music; it has also a more general resemblance to the masque. Prospero is
like a masque-presenter, and the castaways wander helpless in an enchanted
scene under his spell, until he chooses to release them, drawing back a curtain
to display a symbol of aristocratic concord, Ferdinand and Miranda at chess”
(p. 177). Reuben A. Brower, in a piece published in 1951, writes: “References
to similar wakings and sleepings, to dreams and dreamlike states, abound from
here to the end of the play, where the sailors are ‘brought moping… even in a
dream,’ and the grand awakening of all the characters is completed. But up to
that point confusion between waking and sleep is the rule, being awake is never
far from sleep or dream. In
The Tempest
sleep is always imminent, and more than once action ends in sleep or trance”
(p. 187). Deborah Willis, in a piece published in 1989, writes, regarding
Antonio: “The play does not fully endorse Prospero’s construction of himself as
Antonio’s absolute opposite, however. As Brown notes in passing, Prospero’s
language in his narration of the past also makes visible his own abdication of
authority. If Antonio possesses an ‘evil nature,’ is trust the appropriate
strategy of the ‘good parent’? Such trust, we are told, ‘Awak’d’ Antonio’s evil
and ‘did beget’ his falsehood. By representing their relation in terms that
suggest cause and effect, Prospero’s own metaphors hint at a greater
responsibility than he ever acknowledges openly. His actions later in the play
do indicate he has assumed some responsibility, however” (pages 262-263).
Meredith Anne Skura, in a piece published in 1989, writes: “Moreover, Caliban
was not alone when Prospero arrived. Ariel either came to the island with
Sycorax or was already living on the island – its true reigning lord – when Sycorax
arrived and promptly enslaved him, thus herself becoming the first colonialist,
the one who established the habits of dominance and erasure before Prospero
ever set foot on the island” (p. 297). In a footnote later in that same piece,
Meredith Anne Skura writes, “Might the brothers’ definition by opposition
perhaps have influenced Shakespeare’s choice of names:
Prospero and
Antonio?”
(p. 318). Ann Thompson, in a piece published in 1991, writes, “It is notable
that the acknowledged, if evil, power of Sycorax is effectively undermined by
the bestial stupidity of her son, rather as the power of Tamora is defused in
Titus Andronicus and that of the Queen
in
Cymbeline” (p. 341). This book was
published in 2000.
The Tragedy Of Hamlet, Prince Of Denmark
by William Shakespeare – This time I chose The New Folger Library edition,
edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Westine. This book contains information on
Shakespeare’s life and the theatre, as well as an introduction to the text. In
in that introduction, the editors write “Yet the present edition is unique in
marking all passages that are found only in the Second Quarto and all words and
passages found only in the Folio. Thus it becomes possible for a reader to use
this book to discover the major and even many of the minor differences between
the Second Quarto and First Folio versions of
Hamlet. This edition ignores the First Quarto version because the
First Quarto is so widely different from the Second Quarto and the Folio” (p.
xlix). The edition is based largely on the Q2. Explanatory notes are included
on the pages facing the text. Regarding Hamlet’s line “Get thee to a nunnery,”
the note reads that “nunnery” “was sometimes used mockingly to refer to a
brothel” (p. 130). Regarding “convocation of politic worms,” the note reads, “perhaps
an allusion to the Diet of Worms, a convocation (council)) summoned at the city
of Worms by the holy Roman emperor in 1521” (p. 196). Regarding the flower symbolism
in the Ophelia scene, the notes read: “fennel symbolized flattery and deceit,”
rue was a “symbol of sorrow or repentance,” daisy was a “symbol of dissembling”
and violets were a “symbol of faithfulness” (p. 216). Regarding the way in
which Hamlet ends up with Laertes’ weapon, the note reads: “This stage
direction, in Q1, reads ‘They catch one anothers’ rapiers,’ which suggests that
Hamlet forces the exchange through a contemporary method of disarm called the ‘left-hand
seizure” (p. 278). Textual notes are at the end of the play, rather than placed
as footnotes. The book also contains a piece by Michael Neill. Neill writes, “The
surprising thing about Shakespeare’s
Hamlet
is that it barely glances at the ethical argument raised by a hero’s taking
justice into his own hands – an argument central to
The Spanish Tragedy” (p. 311). And then: “Turning away from the
framework of ethical debate, Shakespeare uses Saxo’s story of Hamlet’s
pretended madness and delayed revenge to explore the brutal facts about
survival in an authoritarian state. Here too the play could speak to
Elizabethan experience, for we should not forget that the glorified monarchy of
Queen Elizabeth I was sustained by a vigorous network of spies and informers”
(pages 311-312). Regarding Polonius, Neill writes, “Polonius is the perfect
inhabitant of this court: busy policing his children’s sexuality, he has no
scruple about prostituting his daughter in the interests of state security, for
beneath his air of senile wordiness and fatherly anxiousness lies an ingrained
cynicism that allows him both to spy on his son’s imagined ‘drabbing’ in Paris
and to ‘loose’ his daughter as a sexual decoy to entrap the Prince” (p. 313).
Neill also writes: “The play is full of such unfinished, untold, or perhaps
even untellable tales, from Barnardo’s interrupted story of the Ghost’s first
appearance to the Player’s unfinished rendition of ‘Aeneas’ tale to Dido’ and
the violently curtailed performance of
The
Murder Of Gonzago. In the opening scene the Ghost itself is cut off, before
it can speak, by the crowing of a cock; and when it returns and speaks to
Hamlet, it speaks first about a story it cannot tell” (p. 321). This book was
published in 1992.
Shakespeare: Hamlet edited by John Jump
– This book is a volume in the Casebook Series, containing a selection of
critical essays, focusing on pieces that were originally published between 1949
and 1964, presented in chronological order. But first, to get readers up to
speed, there is a section of earlier criticism, spanning the time from 1710 to
1945, just brief excerpts. In one of those early pieces, H. A. Taine writes: “What
his imagination robs him of, is the coolness and strength to go quietly and
with premeditation to plunge a sword into a breast. He can only do the thing on
a sudden suggestion; he must have a moment of enthusiasm; he must think the king
is behind the arras, or else, seeing that he himself is poisoned, he must find
his victim under his foil’s point. He is not master of his acts; occasion
dictates them; he cannot plan a murder, but must improvise it” (p. 34).
Wolfgang H. Clemen, in a piece from 1951, writes: “Hamlet’s father describes in
that passage how the poison invades the body during sleep and how the healthy
organism is destroyed from within, not having a chance to defend itself against
attack. But now this becomes the
leitmotif
of the imagery: the individual occurrence is expanded into a symbol for the
central problem of the play. The corruption of land and people throughout
Denmark is understood as an imperceptible and irresistible process of poisoning”
(p. 70). D.G James, in a piece also from 1951, writes, regarding the scene
where Hamlet chooses not to kill Claudius while the man is at prayer: “We are
told that in explaining why he does not there kill the King, Hamlet was
sincere; it was a belief of the time. But it was certainly not universal.
Claudius at least could have told him it was nonsense; Claudius has just made
clear to us what was necessary if he, Claudius, was to win heaven. And could a
Hamlet who half his time believed neither in heaven nor hell, sincerely and
with a whole mind say these things? He leaves Claudius, and goes off to rage at
his mother” (p. 83). In a piece from 1952, Maynard Mack writes, regarding
Hamlet’s return, after an absence from the stage: “The point is not that Hamlet
has suddenly become religious; he has been religious all through the play. The
point is that he has now learned, and accepted, the boundaries in which human
action, human judgment, are enclosed” (p. 104). In a piece from 1963, Patrick
Cruttwell writes: “What really catches him on the raw about this is neither its
incestuousness (though that certainly counts for more than the modern reader is
likely to allow), nor the fact that it is with a man whom he detests, but the
fact that it, and its hastiness, prove Gertrude’s sexuality to be rampantly
alive. When he says to her: ‘You cannot call it love, for at your age The
hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble…’ (III iv 68), he is saying what he
desperately wishes were true, but knows is not true” (pages 190-191). This book
was first published in 1968. The copy I read is the 14th Reprint, from 1990.
– This book follows the story of the play,
focusing mainly on character rather than plot, to gain an understanding of both
the play and Freud. In the first chapter, on identity, Groves writes:
“Especially key to survival is accepting paradox and bearing uncertainty, which
depends on self deception. And that is what in fact Hamlet is doing when we
first meet him – fooling himself” (p. 3). Regarding Freud, Groves writes: “When
he read and reread Hamlet, it gave him a mental laboratory for his studies of
human nature. But more, it offered him a pre-existing plot line about mental
causation already three centuries old, a foundation concept, taken for granted by
the audience he hoped to persuade:
The
clash of contending forces in the dynamic unconscious explains much of the self
defeating inconsistency we see in human behavior” (p. 9). Regarding the
“What a piece of work is a man” speech, Groves writes, “But if he’s deceiving
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it’s to test them by being utterly truthful: He
seems both to hate the world and his life in it
and to love it and relish living” (p. 15). About how only certain
characters see the Ghost, Groves writes, “One belief about spirits in Tudor
England was that the ghost of the murdered person might return to loved ones to
accuse the murderer or warn the next victim, in this case Hamlet, along with
the soldiers to fetch him” (p. 43). Regarding the question of why Claudius
doesn’t react to the dumb show enactment of the murder, Groves writes: “But
Dover Wilson doesn’t think Claudius overmasters his reaction to the depicted
murder; he thinks Claudius
doesn’t even
see it. He ties the king’s non-reaction at the Dumb Show to Polonius’s
theory about ‘mad love.’ It pleases the vanity of the old counselor to think
his daughter is the reason for the madness of a prince. So during the Dumb
Show, Polonius has engaged Claudius in conversation over the ‘country matters’
mentioned by Hamlet, and the King doesn’t actually see his crime pantomimed
onstage. And it is an interpretation that’s used in some productions and seems
to work” (p. 53). Also about Polonius, Groves writes: “Polonius is an amateur
psychoanalyst, and as the play progresses, he spends more and more of his time
pursuing the source of Hamlet’s ‘ecstasy.’ It eventually costs him his life”
(p. 54). About the soliloquies, Groves writes: “The soliloquies exemplify the
quest for self knowledge in the Renaissance. There was a revival of interest in
classical ethics and a fashionable push for noble conduct. Recipes for moral
improvement were the self help literature of the day, and under the baleful
glare of the Puritans even poetry needed justification” (p. 105). Regarding
Hamlet thinking it might be Claudius behind the arras, Groves writes: “Hamlet
has just left Claudius at prayer, rationally he must know the King is not the
lump behind the arras. But when Hamlet steps into his mother’s bedroom, he
enters the unconscious, and there time is out of joint, past is prologue, and
space obeys the laws not of physics but of wish and fear: Hamlet’s in a
nightmare. He hopes it’s Claudius, and he fears it” (p. 150). Regarding Freud’s
thoughts on why Shakespeare wrote the play, Groves writes: “Freud thought
oedipal motifs in
Hamlet reflected
the playwright’s relationship with his son as well. The play follows by 4 years
the death of Hamnet Shakespeare (1585-1596). Noting the identity of names,
Freud felt there would be guilt in the father over the normal oedipal rivalry,
which would need to be worked through after the son’s death. Freud suggests the
play was what psychoanalysis would come to call grief work. It’s work to
process guilt toward the dead” (p. 190). And about Hamlet’s procrastination,
Groves writes: “Early on they hear the Ghost characterize murder as ‘most foul,
as in the best it is.’ But they don’t consciously register the phrase ‘as in
the best it is,’ to mean
murder, even for
the best reason, is still a sin. That realization develops gradually, so
Hamlet evolves into a morality play.
This is
the central reason for Hamlet’s
procrastination: Deep in his heart he knows revenge is a sin” (p. 202).
This book was published in 2018.
The Tragedy Of King Lear by William
Shakespeare –
King Lear is my
favorite of Shakespeare’s plays, and I tend to revisit it somewhat frequently.
This time I read The Pelican Shakespeare edition, edited by Alfred Harbage. I
had already read a copy of the revised edition of this book published in 1970
(I included some notes from it in a blog post on April 7, 2020). This time I
read the original, which was first published in 1958. The copy I read was a
reprint from 1966. It contains an introduction to the play, as well as a short
section about Shakespeare and his works. This edition closely follows the First
Folio version, and there is an appendix on the Quarto text, listing differences
from the Folio text. Notes on specific words and lines from the play are
presented at the bottom of each page. A footnote regarding Gloucester’s line to
Kent about Edmund “He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again” reads:
“
out away (for training, or in
military service)” (p. 34). A footnote regarding Albany’s line “‘Tis she is
subcontracted to this lord” reads: “
subcontracted
i.e. engaged, though previously married (sarcastic play on ‘precontracted,’ a
legal term applied to one facing an impediment to marriage because previously
engaged to another)” (p. 160).
The Tragedy Of King Lear by William
Shakespeare – While I was at a used book store in Massachusetts recently, a
friend spotted small red editions of three Shakespeare plays. I should have
purchased all three, but bought just one,
King
Lear. It is from The Temple Shakespeare series. The book begins with
Charles Lamb’s thoughts on the play, and contains a preface about the different
editions and the sources of the plot. All notes on the text are contained at the end of the
book, along with a glossary, rather than at the bottom of each page. This
edition uses the lines “Although the last, not least” (p. 5) and “Reverse thy
doom” (p. 8), both being readings from the Quarto, instead of the Folio, but is
a mix of both the Quarto and Folio. There is a note at the beginning of the
book which indicates that “the text here used is that of the ‘Cambridge’
edition.” This volume was originally published in October 1895. The copy I read
is the Seventh Edition, from April 1901.
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