King Lear, William Shakespeare

I had never read King Lear before and had only a rudimentary knowledge of the plot. And, wow it is really depressing! I used the Alistair McCallum Shakespeare Handbook while reading which was helpful. Edmund, Regan, & Goneril are quite the horrible villains. Even though I knew I was reading a tragedy I still couldn't help but be shocked by the bleak ending, especially for Cordelia. I think part of my shock stemmed from the fact that I really didn't know how this play ended before I read it unlike Romeo & Juliet or MacBeth or Hamlet; plays that I can't remember not knowing the endings to. Now I want to watch Ian McKellen's King Lear.



Chapbook:

I cannot heave my heart into my mouth (I.1.80)

Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,
Most choice forsaken, and most loved despised,
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon.
Be it lawful I take up what's cast away.
Gods, gods! 'Tis strange that from their cold'st neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed respect...
Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind;
Thou losest here, a better where to find. (I.1.239-250)

the bond cracked between son and father (I.2.107)

I should have been that I am had the maidenliest star of
the firmament twinkled on my bastardy. (I.2.125)

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child. (I.4.283)

Thou shouldst not have been old before thou hadst been wise. (I.5.43)

the child was bound to the father (II.1.47)

my old heart is cracked, is cracked (II.1.89)

I'll so carbonado your shanks (II.2.34)

elf all my hair with knots (II.3.10)

unnatural hags (II.4.255)

Blow wind, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow,
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched the steeples, drowned the cocks! (III.2.1-3)

I am a man more sinned against than sinning. (III.2.60)

that way madness lies (III.4.20)

I had a son...
I loved him, friend;
No father his son dearer (III.4. 156-159)

As flies are to th'wanton boys are we to th'gods:
They kill us for their sport. (IV.1.34)

No more, the text is foolish (IV.2.37)

Thou knowest the first time that we smell the air,
We wail and cry...
When we are born, we cry that we are come
To this great stage of fools (IV.5.169-173)

Come, let's away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds i' th' cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness; so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies (V.3.8-13)

The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare

Nora and I watched the hilarious Shakespeare Retold version of Taming of the Shrew last night. Now I can't stop wanting to tell people to "swivel". Moaning Myrtle and Seth Starkadder are amazing in this! Having never read the play, I decided to read it today.

Then, of course, I had to see what Harold Bloom had to say about it:

"Petruchio gets to swagger, and Kate will rule him and the household, perpetually acting her role as the reformed shrew.

The swaggering Petruchio provokes a double reaction in her: outwardly furious, inwardly smitten.

Roaring on the outside, Petruchio is something else within, as Kate gets to see, understand, and control, with his final approval.

From this moment on [IV.v. 1-22], Kate firmly rules while endlessly protesting her obedience to the delighted Petruchio, a marvelous Shakespearean reversal of Petruchio's earlier strategy of proclaiming Kate's mildness even as she raged on."

I agree with Bloom's description of one of my favorite moments in the play:

"There is no more charming scene of married love in all Shakespeare than this little vignette on a street in Padua:

KATHERINA.

Husband, let's follow to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIO.
First kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATHERINA.
What! in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIO.
What! art thou ashamed of me?

KATHERINA.
No, sir; God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.

PETRUCHIO.
Why, then, let's home again. Come, sirrah, let's away.

KATHERINA.
Nay, I will give thee a kiss: now pray thee, love, stay.

PETRUCHIO.
Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate:
Better once than never, for never too late."

More on Romeo & Juliet

from Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, Harold Bloom

"Chaucer's ironic yet amiable religion of love... is the essential context for Romeo & Juliet

love dies or else lovers die

the virtual identity of the torments of love and jealousy is a Shakespearean invention later to be refined by Hawthorne & Proust

the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death

Romeo and Juliet is unmatched, in Shakespeare and in the world's literature, as a vision of uncompromising mutual love that perishes of its own idealism and intensity

[Juliet's] sublimity is the play and guarantees the tragedy of this tragedy

The permanent popularity, now of mythic intensity, of Romeo and Juliet is more than justified, since the play is the largest and most persuasive celebration of romantic love in Western literature."

Romeo & Juliet, William Shakespeare

"a sea nourished with loving tears" (Act I, Sc. I)

Romeo and Juliet is one of my favorite Shakespearean plays but I hadn't read it in a very long time. And I am not feeling awake/intelligent enough at the moment to do more than record a few favorite (& familiar) lines:

"Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate,
O anything of nothing first create!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,
Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!" (Act 1, Sc.1, 181-186)

"O, here
Will I set up my everlasting rest
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh! Eyes, look your last.
Arms, take your last embrace. And, lips, O, you,
The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss
A dateless bargain to engrossing death." (Act 5, Sc. 3, 109-115)

And what kind of teenage girl circa 1996 would I be if I didn't mention the Leonardo DiCaprio movie version. I have so many memories of repeated viewings at sleepovers. Although our main focus of discussion was how to achieve Claire Danes' braided updo from the party scene rather than the actual play.

Oh the hair, the music, the ridiculous expressions on Paul Rudd's face... what's not to love?




Having not watched the Zeffirelli version in a long time I am struck by how much Romeo looks like Zac Efron which is slightly distracting, even the hair is Efronesque. Regardless, I do love this movie.



And finally some lovely Angel Corella & Alessandra Ferri.