Reading Shakespeare in the time of coronavirus. Anyone interested in discussing?

Cafe Society
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Our library shut down before I could restock, so I surveyed what I wanted to read/reread from my shelves. I decided upon a beautiful leatherbound Complete Works of Shakespeare. Back in college I read (I think) 23 of his plays which I had in one volume, and I’ve often wondered about reading the opus.

So yesterday I started The Tempest. We’ll see if I make it to the end.

At the start, the language is beautiful - a refreshing change from many popular recent novels I’ve read (most recently put down American Dirt unfinished.) Reading plays (something I used to enjoy) is an interesting exercise.

The individual plays are shorter than I had remembered. Must admit, some of the actions/relationships are challenging, such as Prospero’s relationship to Ariel and Caliban. But I’m content to read the play w/o sweating specific details.

I’ve also never really grasped iambic pentameter. At times I try to “count” while reading, but it doesn’t always seem to “fit”, and it interferes w/ my comprehension.

Any other fans of the bard out there?

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If you’re thinking we should have a series of threads where we read a play a week or something like that, I’d be interested. I assume no one would care about spoilers so it’s fine if we’re at different places in the play.

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Shakespeare prof here. It shouldn’t always “fit,” particularly since you’re starting with one of the late plays. Iambic pentameter is the baseline rhythm of English Renaissance drama, but if you’re a skilled playwright, you modify it – often, and to particular effect. Let’s take a look at Miranda’s first speech, for example:

If BY [or IF by?] your ART, my DEARest FAther, you HAVE

[Mostly regular iambic pentameter, but if you want to make it work perfectly, you have to de-emphasize the “if” and swallow the last syllable of “father”: “fath’r.” Which you can do, in early modern English. But you don’t necessarily have to…]

PUT the WILD WAters in this ROAR, alLAY them.

[This is all over the place, and it should be – Miranda is describing a scene of chaos and disorder, and moreover, she’s upset about it; her speech isn’t supposed to sound smooth and ordered.]

The SKY, it SEEMS, would POUR down STINKing PITCH

[Regular, we’re reminded there’s a baseline meter here.]

BUT that the SEA, MOUNTing to th’ WELkin’s CHEEK
DASHes the FIRE out. OH, I have SUFFered
With THOSE that I SAW SUFFer; a BRAVE VESsel –

[We’re hearing the chaos again. Both of these lines start with a trochee, rather than an iamb, a fairly common move at the beginning of a line whenever the playwright wants that first word to hit hard. We also get some consecutively stressed syllables in mid-line; again, this tends to crash harder on the ear.]

Who HAD, no DOUBT, some NOble CREAture IN her –

[Regular. Grammatically, this is a parenthetical bit; Miranda briefly shifts away from describing a violent storm to a more thoughtful, reflective observation.]

DASHED all to PIEces! OH, the CRY did KNOCK

[If you wanted to, you could deliver this as a totally regular line: “Dashed ALL…” But realistically, you probably wouldn’t.]

aGAINST my VERy HEART. Poor SOULS, they PERished.
Had I been ANy GOD of POWer, I WOULD
Have SUNK the SEA withIN the EARTH or ERE

[More or less regular, assuming we’re slurring “pow’r” a little. Miranda, again, is moving from painting a chaotic scene in words to thinking about it.]

It SHOULD the GOOD ship SO have SWALLowed and
The FRAUGHTing SOULS withIN her.

[OK, the ending to that second-last line is just weird, and it’s weird in a way that’s very specific to late-career Shakespeare. One can put a strong stress on “and,” I suppose, but one normally doesn’t. Most naturally, you’d run those two lines together without a pause. Miranda is passionate, breathless, and fifteen years old; she’s got definite ideas about what SHE would do if she had the power to remake the world, and she wants to get them out there. By the way, you’ll notice none of those last three lines end with a punctuation mark – the line ends, the thought and flow of words keep running on, as they would do in natural speech. This is called enjambment, and older-Shakespeare uses it a ton more than young-Shakespeare did. If your Complete Works is based on the First Folio, the next play you’ll read after this one is The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is from the very beginning of Shakespeare’s career. You’ll see that the language is WAY more stylized, and the verse more regular.]

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Thanks for the detailed response. I’ll try to apply/understand it.

I realized I should probably take them chronologically. But instead, I just started doing them in the order they are in the book. This book has no commentary/explanation, so I’ve no idea why Tempest is 1st.

dale - I’d be happy to read them in any order you (or anyone else) wish.

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Yes, 2 Gentlemen next, followed by the Merry Wives. I was planning on just reading them through for enjoyment, rather than making a “study” of it, but perhaps I ought to do more.

Sure, this is a honking thick tome, but I woulda thunk a page or 2 of introduction wouldn’t have tipped the scales. :rolleyes:

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They’re in the order they’re in because that’s how they were originally published. As a reading order, it’s perfectly fine as long as you’re OK with reading all the comedies first, then all the histories, then all the tragedies; there’s no particular reason to go in chronological order. What you probably do want to do is read Julius Caesar before Antony and Cleopatra, the Henry VI plays before Richard III, and (especially), Richard II, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, and Henry V in that order – which you will do, if you go with the Folio order.

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Hope you don’t mind my sorta picking your brain here, FP.

I’m enjoying Tempest so far. Like I said, I’ve read several of the plays - tho not in some time, and seen many in person and film. My initial thought was to basically just read them through. And I’m enjoying that so far. But I’m thinking, if I’m going to take this on, why not make a tad more effort, and get some more out of it. For example, I just read the second scene w/ Fernando and Miranda, and went back to the prev scene between the 2, and realized i had not retained some of what had transpired. And without annotations, I know I’ll miss things like Ariel’s tree, Prospero’s cell, Caliban’s rock…

So what i thought I’d do is just read each play straight through, then look for a SHORT analysis/discussion/explanation of the play, and then re-read it. Like I said before, the plays are so short, that I could basically do this in a week per play probably read the play in 3-4 days, then 1 day for the analysis, then 2 days for the re-read.

What do you think of that approach? If you think it has merit, is there any concise on-line discussion you recommend?

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Sure, that could be fun if you’ve got the time (and don’t we all, these days?)

I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for in terms of online discussion, but here are a few websites I’d recommend:

Folger Digital Resources and teaching modules.

Shakespeare’s Globe Discover page (see here for articles about specific plays.)

Plays Explored at the University of Victoria Shakespeare site.

Also, the writer Grace Tiffany has an interesting blog.

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Thanks - those were useful.
I like the Folger, and the Plays Explored.

Basically, I get a pretty good idea of what happens, and considerable enjoyment, from simply reading it.
Then, it is nice to see a brief description - such as Prospero explaining his magical powers to Miranda and enslaving Ferdinand, as well as explanations of how it might have been staged and cultural references such as Caliban WRT exploration.
And finally, how it fits w/in his opus.

So now I’ll read it through again, and see what different I get out of it.

This promises to be a very achievable and enjoyable project.
Thanks for the assist!