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"Thou currish knotty-pated flax-wench!" ~ Shakespearean Insults Generator. His are always the most cutting: ouch! - http://www.william-shakespeare.org.uk/a1-shak...
they just sound better too :)
- sofarsoShawn ~presque...
Shakespeare quotations to put on a bookmark. Go!
Soup in a TARDIS, LB: #TeamMonique and SAM liked this
Exit, pursued by a bear.
- Catherine Pellegrino
First, we kill all the lawyers.
- DJF
This is for the library portion of World Book & Copyright Day (http://cityofliteratureusa.org/node...). Since it's also Shakespeare's birthday, and since I hate copyright and Shakespeare didn't benefit from it, it seems only appropriate to use his stuff.
- laura x
What do you read, my lord? Words, words, words.
- Mark Kille
How well he's read, to reason against reading!
- laura x
And fitter is my study and my books than wanton dalliance with a paramour.
- Mark Kille
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." (for the copyright part of the equation) ETA: Hamlet
- Kirsten
+++Kristen!
- laura x
I say, there is no darkness but ignorance.
- laura x
Oh! Or: "I like not fair terms and a villain's mind." ETA: Merchant of Venice
- Kirsten
I sure can't draw, but I thought you all might enjoy laughing at my handout for the talk I'm giving tonight.
midsummer.pdf 431 KB
Mickey Schafer, Walt Crawford, Yolanda and 9 other people liked this
LOVE it.
- Steele Lawman
I am so printing that out and giving it to my office manager who played Snout in a recent local production.
- Katie
Fabulous! Is this the first in a series of Sharpie Guides by Laura?
- Galadriel C.
Hmm. It's a thought. The newspaper says I am also talking about Julius Caesar, but I'm not sure I have time to whip that out between now at 7 p.m., since I have to take my mom to the airport in the meantime, and I kind of need to reread the play.
- laura x
I am planning to refer to Demetrius and Lysander as the Ken dolls of Shakespeare.
- laura x
Oh, that's awesome. :)
- Jenica
Katie, please tell your office manager I have nothing against Snout; I just didn't have enough room to draw everyone.
- laura x
You are so nifty! This thing made me grin.
- Marianne
She still loved it :) Her husband played Peter Quince and her daughter played Mustardseed.
- Katie
SERIOUS lazyweb: Anyone want to look up film clips from productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream for me? Or anything else related to the play you think is interesting. Go!
I keep meaning to watch this version, especially as I saw my office manager's theater troupe perform it last weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch...
- Katie
Still, looks useful! Thanks!
- laura x
I am officially giving a talk at the Cody library on A Midsummer Night's Dream (and Julius Caesar, if I want) on July 20. It's the wild west out here for sure.
sofarsoShawn ~presque... to sofarsoShawn's feed, The Shakespeare Project, The Reading Room, The Reading Room
Why I do what I do and one of my favourite sonnets - Sonnet 81 Or I shall live your epitaph to make, Or you survive when I in earth am rotten; From hence your memory death cannot take, Although in me each part will be forgotten. Your name from hence immortal life shall have, Though I, once gone, to all the world must die: The earth can yield me...
First Hamlet tells Horatio "never to make known what you have seen tonight". Later he tells him "to tell my story" If Horatio is anything lake the ancient Roman he clams to be, he must keep his first promise, that he have sworn in heaven. And then we will never have "hamlet"
Well folks, it's 12th night. How's it going? Are people at a point where they're ready to choose a new play?
I'm probably going to sit the next play out, but will hopefully resume after that. I'm also pretty far behind in my reading at the moment.
- lris
Oy. I'm having trouble with this. I want to do it, but evidently not enough since I'm still on Winter's Tale.
- Steele Lawman
Me too.
- lris
Me three.
- laura x
Ditto with the trouble. Can't we add some hours to the day?
- Kirsten
Wow. There's really no middle emotional ground in this play. When people are mad/sad/jealous, they're EXTREMELY mad/sad/jealous. And then two seconds later they repent or forgive completely.
Finally finished All's Well last night. Not a lot of memorable language, though I'll share a few lines I like in the comments. Otherwise, I don't think I can improve on Laura's comment about the album track that didn't make the best-of.
Parolles: Who cannot be crushed with a plot? (IV.iii)
- Steele Lawman
King: I am wrapp'd in dismal thinkings. (V.iii)
- Steele Lawman
2nd Lord: Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is? (IV.i, speaking of Parolles)
- Steele Lawman
That 2nd Lord quote is my favorite from the play, too. It's a good one to think in several social situations, and then smile knowingly at your own snobbish, unspoken joke.
- lris
My favorite lines from Winter's Tale:
Paulina: "'Tis such as you, that creep like shadows by him and do sigh at his needless heavings, such as you nourish the cause of his awaking" (2.3.33-36). [This made me think uncharitable things about a couple acquaintances of mine, I admit. Also, yes, I'm still in 2.3. NO GUILT...mostly.]
- lris
Leontes: "I am a feather for each wind that blows" (2.3.154).
- lris
Yeah, so far she's my favorite character, I think.
- lris
The 22nd is here, and so it's time to set a new goal. This time our extended holiday goal is Twelfth Night by January 2nd [strike that: 5th]. (SURELY that will be enough time for me to finish Winter's Tale and Twelfth Night.)
Might I suggest January 5?
- Steele Lawman
I was trying to keep it to a weekend. This one didn't seem the greatest, but then then 9th/10th seemed like a long way away. But how's this: we'll say the 5th, and then have a bit of a longer goal for the next one, too, so that we get back to a weekend.
- lris
I suggest we choose just one play to cover the Thanksgiving through New Year insanity. This seems saner (and will give me a chance to catch up on Winter's Tale...). Start thinking about what play you'd like to read.
I was thinking something similar, so thanks for suggesting it.
- Steele Lawman
Ooh, excellent suggestion. Twelfth Night it is.
- lris
I'm already feeling terrible about Malvolio.
- laura x
I saw Twelfth Night at the RSC in 1987. I only realized years later that Malvolio was played by Antony Sher--the actor whose book on Richard III I was recommending. I have the poster from the production that I need to get framed. So yeah. 12th Night.
- Steele Lawman
Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook by Antony Sher | LibraryThing - http://www.librarything.com/work...
lris liked this
This is my favorite book about acting. It's Antony Sher's journal of creating his portrayal of Richard III for the Royal Shakespeare Company in the 1980s (he played him on crutches). It's a great view of how an actor creates a role, and has great autobiographical sections about him as a gay South African actor at the RSC. Plus he sketches himself, his boyfriend, his fellow actors, the sources he draws on for Richard, his other roles and so on.
- Steele Lawman
from Bookmarklet
Thanks, Steve. Looks excellent!
- laura x
As I open The Winter's Tale, I realize that this is one play that I studied in college. My notes are everywhere. But I have no memory of the plot or characters.
The first note at the top of the page informs me that I thought it was an Othello re-write. So, yeah. :-)
- lris
Also, my note next to the character list for Leontes reads "stupider than Othello."
- lris
Please to remember that I was 18 or 19 at the time :-)
- lris
also "stupider?" what kind of a word is that???
- lris
Brief Programming Note: We'd originally set a goal of finishing up All's Well today. I think a couple people have and a couple have not (zero guilt!), so my question is, do we want to choose a new play today or wait for a couple of days? Also, weigh in with votes for a the next play if you have a preference.
Hm. I'm still on act two, and slightly sheepish, though not guilty. I still intend to finish, though perhaps not today.For the next play, I'd like to put in a word for a late romance, like the Winter's Tale or something like that. If we do another comedy, I might prefer one I already know like Twelfth Night or As You Like it. But really anything would be OK.
- Steele Lawman
as a lurker who has not cracked open the book, I say go ahead and choose a new play :)
- maʀtha
I would love to do The Winter's Tale. Or most anything, really.
- laura x
Winter's Tale works for me.
- Kirsten
Ok, Winter's Tale it is, then, with a goal of finishing on or about the 22nd. I'll be consumed with the last few cantos of Inferno for the next few days, but I'm sure I'll catch up.
- lris
Yeah, I haven't been enjoying this very much, actually. It's all very ... dark. Much weeping. Much fainting of terror.
- lris
I love the Inferno. But at my college they only taught it in the spring.
- laura x
Well, I am only reading it in the morning, which is as close as I can come to a counteracting context.
- lris
Shanon said she was using clips of The Tempest with her class from this RSC site: http://www.rsc.org.uk/explore...
I finished, finally, this afternoon, and am struck by a) how out of shape I am in reading Shakespeare (though I trust it'll come back to me) and b) how much this play reads like one of the obscure tracks you hear on a boxed set of some aging or dead musician, and you think, "huh, that has moments of greatness, but I can see why they didn't put it
on the Greatest Hits album.
- laura x
I see a new workout craze coming...getting back in shape to read shakespeare. Cheesy commercial will include harried looking college student staring at the complete works of Shakespeare and a voice over saying something about being out of shape to read? Then the bard himself pops in to start the training program :)
- Sir Shuping is just sir
WBEZ, the main public radio station in Chicago, used to use "exercise your mind" as its slogan, and they had a little drawing of a brain lifting weights to go with it.
- laura x
5.3 reads like general forgiveness of Bertram for a while there, but the production I saw wasn't ready to let him off the hook even for that short time. They cast Lafew's daughter as an incredibly plain spinster, complete with thick glasses, perpetual knitting, and a scowl.
I've known a couple people of whom I've thought, as the First Lord does: "Is it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?" (4.1.44-45).
(I also get a kick out of the gobbledeegook language in that scene.)
- lris
Seriously, though, I think this line sums up the entire dilemma of the play. Helena and Bertram both don't realize that they're dolts, though Bertram is given quite a few hints to this effect. So seeing someone with some self-knowledge STILL carrying on in this fashion is laughable, but also makes me wonder about the degree to which the other characters really don't "know what they are."
- lris
Right. Or in this case, worse.
- lris
AWtEW: Which manifestation are you reading? Show us your item!
I really like these little blue Yale Shakespeare volumes, published in the 1920s and reprinted in the 50s. I own a bunch, but not fo AWtEW, so I checked it out.
- Steele Lawman
I'm going to check out the book this afternoon, so I don't know my print version yet. My backup is the Shakespeare free iPhone app: http://www.playshakespeare.com/news...
- Betsy #TeamMonique
Yes, I may get around to downloading a version to my iPod, too. But between working in a library and living in home containing an English professor and two former theater majors, I'm seldom more than a 30 second walk from a copy of Shakespeare.
- Steele Lawman
My childhood version was Beautiful Stories From Shakespeare. I still have the book, somewhere. Oh, and I just found it online, with the illustrations. http://www.gutenberg.org/files...
- Betsy #TeamMonique
Question for those who know this stuff: which is preferable, the Arden Shakespeare or the Pelican Shakespeare? Does it make much difference?
- Betsy #TeamMonique
At work I'm using a 1955 reprint of a 1929 volume "Edited for the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson." It has the most readable font combined with rather thick pages--others in our collection were so thin, the print bled through too much, or used odd fonts or spacing. At home I've got an old single-volume collected works, the citation to which I'll need to check.
- Kirsten
Betsy, I think the Arden often gets the nod as the "standard" volume for students. For reading enjoyment, though, I doubt it matters. With some plays that differ tremendously between the folio and quarto versions (notably Hamlet and Lear) there can be big differences depending on what the editor does. But for our purposes, I think any edition you find amenable is fine.
- Steele Lawman
Steve: Thanks. I got the Arden last night.
- Betsy #TeamMonique
Riverside Shakespeare, also from college, also very heavy. I've got a couple versions on my iPod Touch, too, but I find that a wee bit small for comfortable reading. I need whatever the baby bear has.
Kirsten and Steele Lawman liked this
I'm constantly amazed every time I see one of these plays performed by how much more there is to them than dialog. Sounds funny to say that, I know, but as I read All's Well I can see place after place where the actors and directors from the version I saw last week could imagine the world between the lines where I only see the lines.
Kirsten liked this
As someone who did a fair amount of acting, I feel the same way. It's really impossible for me to imagine that stuff without reading the play three or more times.
- Steele Lawman
You've got something there. In the version I saw, the Countess, Parolles, and the King were the three best-acted parts, so I have a pretty easy time imagining them as whole people rather than lists of lines.
- lris
With Shakespeare especially, I have a hard time getting beyond the "what is going on here" point to the emotional truth of what is happening between the lines on my first reading. With modern plays, I'm usually more immediately attracted to one role or another.
- Steele Lawman
It's funny, because every time I see Shakespeare, I think, "Oh yeah, that's right, these are *plays.*" Plays, that is, as opposed to literary experiences where I turn phrases over in my head and think about all the imaginary lines connected words and themes on the page, etc., etc.
- laura x
HELENA 'Tis pity-- ... / That wishing well had not a body in't, / Which might be felt; that we, the poorer born, / Whose baser stars do shut us up in wishes, / Might with effects of them follow our friends, / And show what we alone must think, which never /Return us thanks.
I thought this (from near the end of I.i) sounded a bit like something I have complained of in the past--the dissatisfaction I have with the *hugs* and so forth that must pass for physical expressions of affection online.
- Steele Lawman
Coincidence: I just downloaded the complete Shakespeare to my iPod Touch this morning. I'm going to get the book, anyway, but it's nice to have it electronically, in case of something-or-other.
lris liked this
*Finally* getting started on All's Well. I've been delayed by assigned reading from a book club on campus (we're struggling through Dante's Inferno... slow going).
Just finished Act I. It never ceases to amaze me how many things Shakespeare can do with dead fathers.
Steele Lawman and lris liked this
It seems like it should, since Hal certainly has issues with Dad. We could group them as living, dead, and died during the play.
- laura x
I'm sure Ophelia would say it counts if dad dies during the play.
- Steele Lawman
What shall we read first? And how long should we take to do it?
I second that vote, because late fall is no time for reading tragedies.
- lris
Yes, I think starting in the comedies would be good. Now to decide: one people mostly haven't read or one people mostly have? I'm kind of leaning toward As You Like It, because it's one I'd really like to know better, but I'm up for anything.
- laura x
We could do alpha-order and start with All's Well That Ends Well. Or chronological and start with Two Gentlemen of Verona.
- Kirsten
In my previous project I was starting early and going in rough chronological order. But it might make sense to start with a later, "better" one. As You Like it is fine with me, but I'm pretty easy on this on.
- Steele Lawman
As for "how long," a week seems short, a month seems long.
- Steele Lawman
I am committing to this only in the most casual non-committal kinds of ways. It all just depends.
- maʀtha
Martha, I think this needs to be a no-guilt group. Read the play? Great. Didn't read the play but like to lurk for the discussion? Also great.
- Steele Lawman
*raises hand about the lurking bit*... yeah that's all me
- MoTO #TeamMonique
I think a fortnight is a good compromise between a week and a month, and it absolutely has to be no guilt. And I also think it would be wise to start with one of the better/better known onces. I love Shakespeare, but I'd like some time to adjust before I dive into the Henry VIs.
- laura x
I'm down with that. Can we choose a play tonight?
- Steele Lawman
Works for me. If we go with 2 weeks, that would have us all finishing by November 8th.
- laura x
I'll third All's Well. It's one that I haven't read or seen, so it suits my agenda just fine.
- Steele Lawman
All's Well by November 8th it is. Lurkers welcome. Zero guilt.
- lris
*tries to remember where wife's "complete works" is stashed*
- MoTO #TeamMonique
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