I’m continuing my study of Shakespeare, as I expect I
will do for the rest of my life. There are plenty of books to keep me going.
Here are notes on those I read in the last several weeks.
Compete Sonnets by William Shakespeare
– I picked up this copy of the sonnets recently from a box of free books
outside a book store. It’s part of the Dover Thrift Editions, and the price
printed on the back cover is one dollar. So you won’t be surprised to learn
that it doesn’t contain a lot of notes. There is a one-page introduction that
gives a bit of information on the sonnet as a form and about the publication of
Shakespeare’s sonnets. And there is a two-page glossary containing words whose
meanings have changed over the years. The book was edited by Stanley Appelbaum,
but basically presents the sonnets without editorial comment. This book was
published in 1991.
Shakespeare, An Island And A Storm by
David F. Raine – This book delves into the question of why William
Shakespeare wrote about the specific shipwreck that inspired
The Tempest. Part of the author’s
interest in this story comes from the fact that he was living in Bermuda where
the shipwreck occurred. In the first chapter he gives the history of the event
of the shipwreck. In the second chapter, he mentions the reason behind the
spelling: “Shakespeare unashamedly included several obvious and direct
references to those isolated Atlantic islands, which various of the play’s
characters describe as ‘The Bermoothes’. The spelling is flagrantly in keeping
with that widely used throughout the late Elizabethan Period for those islands
known as ‘The Bermudas’” (p. 7). As for the reason for Shakespeare to choose to
write about this shipwreck, Raine writes: “William Shakespeare had direct
connections with the Ill-fated ‘Sea Venture’. Indeed, he had ties to this
particular vessel which were not only extensive, but were significantly more
personal than he had ever had with any previous incident of shipwrecking” (p.
13). He goes on to write: “He had enjoyed, for example, a long-standing
professional relationship with William Strachey – the Virginia Company’s designated
Secretary to Jamestown. Strachey was one of the ship’s passengers” (p. 13). He
goes on to detail some of the history of their connection. Raine also gives
information on George Somers, and in fact he had previously written a biography
on him. This book focuses on possible personal connections between Shakespeare
and those associated in one way or another with the ship. Raine does not get
into the play itself, into specific scenes or lines that might have been
inspired by the shipwreck. He does include a section on the ridiculous question
of authorship, which seems largely unrelated to the book’s theme. There is a
serious of illustrations at the end of this thin volume.
Shakespeare, An Island And A Storm was published in 2000.
Macbeth by William Shakespeare –
This is a volume in the Cambridge School Shakespeare series, and was edited by
Rex Gibson. The text of the play is on the odd-numbered pages, while thoughts,
activities and definitions are on the facing pages. In a suggested activity regarding
Duncan, Gibson writes: “But his action in naming Malcolm as his successor has
sometimes been interpreted as suggesting that Duncan is devious. It is a sign
he wishes to establish his own dynasty rather than follow the established
custom by which a small group of noble kinsmen elected the king” (p. 20). In
another of the suggested activities, Gibson writes: “Banquo develops an
elaborate metaphor as he describes nests of house martins (‘loved mansionry’)
under every convenient ledge (‘jutty, frieze, Buttress,…coign of vantage’). He voices
the belief that martins choose healthy situations to raise their young (‘pendent
bed’, ‘procreant cradle’). But in Shakespeare’s time ‘martlet’ (or martin)
could mean someone deceived by appearances, a ‘dope’ or ‘dupe’” (p. 26). Later
the book draws comparisons between Lady Macbeth’s taunts and Macbeth’s own
taunts toward the murderers: “Just as Lady Macbeth had questioned Macbeth’s
manhood, he now similarly needles the Murderers” (p. 70). The book also offers
this group activity: “The three Apparitions are invitations to exercise your
imagination. Talk together about what each might symbolise: for example, ‘an
armed Head’ might forecast Macbeth’s eventual fate at the hands of Macduff, ‘a
bloody Child’ the death of Macduff’s children, and ‘a Child crowned, with a
tree in his hand’ Malcolm’s victory. In Shakespeare’s theatre they probably
appeared through a trapdoor” (p. 102). At the end of the book, there are
sections on the play, the characters and witchcraft. In the section on
witchcraft, Gibson writes, “Accused witches were examined for the ‘Devil’s mark’:
a red mark on their body from which Satan had sucked blood (some of Shakespeare’s
audience might interpret Lady Macbeth’s ‘damned spot’ as evidence of the Devil’s
mark)” (p. 168). There are also photos from various production of the play throughout
the book. This book was first published in 1993. The second edition came out in
2005, and my copy is from the eleventh printing, in 2012.
– I decided
to follow the Cambridge School Shakespeare edition of
Macbeth with the Oxford School Shakespeare edition. This book was
edited by Roma Gill. It contains a synopsis of the play, and then descriptions
and comments on each scene. In the description of the Porter scene, Gill
writes: “His jokes are not so funny today as they were in 1606. In Shakespeare’s
day, his chatter about the ‘equivocator’ might have reminded the audience of
the recent and famous trial of a priest who could ‘swear in both the scales
against either scale’” (p. xvi). About the murderers, Gill writes: “It is a
surprise, to us as well as to them, when a third hired assassin appears.
Macbeth can trust no one, not even the thugs he first hired to murder Banquo”
(p. xvii). The commentary about the apparitions tells us: “They appear in
symbolic form. The first, ‘an armed head’, represents Macbeth’s own head
(wearing a helmet); the ‘bloody child’ that comes next is Macduff, who had been
‘untimely ripp’d’ from his mother’s womb (as he tells Macbeth in Act v, Scene
vii); and the last, the royal child with a tree in his hand, is Malcolm, the
rightful king of Scotland, who approaches the palace at Dunsinane camouflaged
with tree-branches (Act v, Scene iv). Macbeth cannot interpret these symbols,
but Shakespeare expects the audience to understand what is meant” (p. xix).
Regarding Lady Macbeth’s lines “Thou wouldst be great,/Art not without
ambition, but without/The illness should attend it,” Gill writes: “By ‘illness’
Lady Macbeth means ‘evil’, but her metaphor is appropriate: Macbeth ‘catches ‘
evil, as one might catch a disease. The play shows how his symptoms develop,
until there is no hope of a cure, and the man must die” (p. xxiii). Regarding
the text, Gill writes: “The text here shows some signs of revision (perhaps by
Shakespeare himself) and adaptation (probably after Shakespeare’s death).
Certainly one scene (III, v) has been added, and another (IV, i) has been
adjusted, both of them accommodating songs from
The Witch, a much later play of uncertain date by Thomas Middleton”
(p. xxix). Notes in this edition are to the left of the text on each page. The
note about the phrase “cannot be lost” in Act I Scene iii reads, “The witches
could injure human beings, but not kill them” (p. 5). From that same scene,
there is a note about the line “The Thane of Cawdor lives/A prosperous
gentleman” which reads “Shakespeare seems to have forgotten that Macbeth has
just been fighting Cawdor” (p. 7). The note about the knocking reads, “The
offstage knocking is the first sign that the outside world is reacting (without
yet know it) to the crime that has been committed” (p. 28). A note about the
first scene of Act IV reads, “the ingredients of the witches’ cooking-pot are
all items thought by the Elizabethans to be poisonous or unnatural” (p. 61).
The note about Macduff’s line “He has no children” reads, “Macduff may refer
either to Malcolm (who cannot know a father’s feelings), or to Macbeth (who
cannot be made to suffer appropriate revenge)” (p. 80). After the text of the
play, the book includes extracts from Holinshed’s
Chronicles. This book was first published in 1977. It was reprinted
in a new edition in 2004, and it’s that edition that I read.
Antony And Cleopatra by William
Shakespeare – This time I read The Pelican Shakespeare edition, edited by
A.R. Braunmuller. In the introduction, Braunmuller writes: “
Antony and Cleopatra dramatizes a deeply
fraught moment in European history, one especially significant for
Shakespeare’s first audiences: the end of republican Rome, the beginning of
imperial Rome, the confusing and to that audience hateful animosity of the
Roman-sponsored administration in Judea toward Jesus’ parents and their people,
the soon-to-come moment of the Messiah. Cleopatra and her Egyptian monarchy
were strange and threatening and puzzling; so too were the Judea and Jewry of
Herod. History and culture, belief and prejudice make the moment of
Antony and Cleopatra demanding for
Shakespeare’s audiences and later ones” (p. xxxiii). About the two main characters,
he writes, “Cleopatra and Antony are world actors who act foolishly, who
simultaneously play both state tragedy and domestic comedy” (p. xxxvi). He
adds, “Still, it is Shakespeare’s last play in this difficult tragic form, and –
perhaps as an aging artist’s venture? – it is a play whose lover-heroes are
notably middle-aged and aware of time’s passing and authority’s ebb, aware of
wrinkles, of gray hair, of fading sexual attractiveness” (pages
xxxvii-xxxviii). Braunmuller writes, “Throughout the second half of the play,
the interchange of meanings and values, purposes and desires between Cleopatra
and Antony makes them, for themselves and for others, so intermingled that all
find it difficult and perhaps not even necessary to distinguish queen and
triumvir in terms of female and male” (p. xxxix). Notes on the text are included
at the bottom of each page. The note regarding Charmian’s line “I love long
life better than figs” reads, “figs were a slang analogue of penis and
testicles” (p. 9). This new edition was published in 1999.
– This is a volume in the New Casebooks series, featuring essays
by several different authors. John Danby writes: “Throughout the play we are
forced by Shakespeare himself not to take comment at its face value. Judgements
are more personal here than elsewhere. Goneril and Regan discussing their
father’s condition are reliable judges. Caesar, Antony, Enobarbus, the soldiers
Demetrius and Philo, are not – or not to the same extent” (p. 35). Later in
that same piece, Danby writes: “The outstanding achievement of the first scene
is the way in which it begins with the soldiers’ condemnation and returns us at
the end to the same thing – allowing for this side eighteen lines out of the
sixty-two. Yet at the end we are no longer satisfied as to the adequacy of what
Demetrius and Philo say” (p. 40). Danby also writes: “The second messenger
brings news of Fulvia’s death. It is characteristic of the play that what is
hated during life should find favour once it is dead. Later in this scene that
is reported to be the case with Pompey in the popular reaction to him” (p. 42).
Janet Adelman in her piece writes, “Love in Shakespeare almost always creates
its own imaginative versions of reality; and it is almost always forced to test
its version against the realities acknowledged by the rest of the world” p.
59). A little later in that essay she writes, “Throughout, Shakespeare disarms
criticism by allowing the sceptics their full say: the whole play is in effect
a test of the lovers’ visions of themselves” (p. 62). Phyllis Rackin writes, “Cleopatra’s
strategy in love is to present a series of shows, to keep Antony unsure of her
feelings and motivations, but in most of the play, the audience is also unsure”
(p. 83). Terence Hawkes writes: “If man’s communicative system depends,
finally, on two interdependent units, voice and body, the play assigns voice
alone to Rome, body alone to Egypt. Rome is a place of words, Egypt a place of
actions. Rome is where love is talked of, Egypt is where love is made” (p.
112). Regarding Act IV Scene iv, Barbara C. Vincent writes: “Antony is holding
a last supper, at which one of the men present, ‘perchance tomorrow’, will
betray him. He talks of a resurrection of his honour, redeemed with his blood,
of the identification of one man with many men, of masters and servants
changing places, and of being married to his loyal followers” (p. 234). Later
in that same piece, Vincent writes, “In dressing up to die, she plays against
the conventional association in Renaissance drama of death with undressing. The
end of an actor’s role, the dissolution of his identity, is often symbolised by
the removal of costume. Antony removes his amour and is ‘no more a soldier’ as
he prepares to die” (p. 242). Marilyn French writes: “Antony’s suicide is of
the same sort. He performs it – clumsily – after hearing of her death, but if
he had won the battle, if there was a chance of mustering his forces and
re-engaging Caesar and winning a real victory, the chances are most unlikely he
would have done any such thing. Thus, they kill themselves not entirely for
love. What both assert by their deaths is that they will not live in worlds too
severely diminished” (p. 270). This book was published in 1994.
