I finished Timon of Athens yesterday, and since I am going to see The Tempest tonight at BAM, I thought I should write some of my impressions since before I lay another play over them. I have to say, though, that I hope visiting Prospero's island will help reduce some of the bad taste that reading Timon left in my mouth. It is not a nice play!
This was certainly my least favorite of the plays we have read so far. It is hard to read, and not just because the characters are unappealing and the events are enough to make you lose faith in human decency, but because the writing itself feels disjointed. I know that that is partly because it is a work with two authors, Shakespeare and Middleton, but I think my experience of it was worse because I was switching between reading it in my Bevington "Complete Works" edition, and in the Oxford paperback, which saves me from getting a hernia lugging the entire oevre around. Usually this does not present a problem, but for this play the two editions were so different (Oxford's was not even broken up into 5 acts) that I kept losing my place. It probably didn't help that I wasn't very engaged with the story to begin with. Part of the problem is not just that the emotions all the characters exhibit are so ugly, but that they are very petty. There is no grand villainy or monstrous crime, just a lot of little failings. Except for Timon's epic fits of rage, none of the players even seem to show much emotion.
As I was getting towards the end of the play, however, I had a realization that helped me get into it a little more. This is a play that is basically about a credit crunch and the social fallout it inspires. If I was going to stage it today, I would have Timon be the head of Bear Sterns or General Motors, the senators be Washington politicians, and the steward be someone whose house was foreclosed. The sort of bitter misanthropy, recrimination, and disgust that washes through the majority of the play is certainly evocative of some of the public responses of the last two years. That's not very comforting, but it makes it more engaging to think of it in that way.
Other than that, I don't think I was able to take very much from this play, so I will be interested to hear what the professor has to say. I imagine that he will be able to open it up for me a little more.
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Foul is Fair
Well, I said that I wouldn't be able to post again until after my draft was due, but then I first made a lot of progress on that, and second realized that I cannot work constantly at one thing for two weeks, so I have slunk back to this blog, rather like Macbeth seeking out the witches on the heath for a second interview.
Also, I know that I won't be able to remember all my impressions if I put off writing about it until well after I have finished the reading and discussion.
Today was the second day of lecture devoted to the Scottish play, and the professor took us through a whirlwind tour of the political context in which it was written and first played in 1606, a time when plays about regicide and tyranicide and particularly powerful political significance. I had not realized how closely the November 5th plot (as in Guy Fawkes) fell to the play's premier. Not to mention the fact of a new Scottish king on the English throne who was trying to bring the kingdoms of England and Scotland into closer political alignment. Professor Shapiro then went on to say that one of the great ambiguities of the play, for him, was whether to read it as a political tragedy or a psychological one.
I was interested to hear that he thinks it is one of the most difficult of the plays (although I am beginning to think that he says that about all of them...) He professed horror at the numbers of high schools that make it assigned reading. I do think it's a hard play, but I'm afraid I have a high enough opinion of my high school English teacher (and of my high school self) to think that it was not a waste for me to read it then. It certainly meant that I retained a lot more when I read it this time. I had forgotten how creeeeepy it is, though. It should be a standard Halloween work, like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
One of the most difficult things, I think, about this play is the fact that you cannot properly understand your relationship, as the reader or spectator, to Macbeth. He is a villain as much as Iago was (maybe more so, since Iago didn't kill children), but he makes you see inside his soul in a way that you can't with Iago. You want to sympathize with him. You can see the dagger with its handle towards his hand just as he can. You want to see him as a victim of supernatural fate. Yet you also want to condemn him. What he does is terrible, and it merits the dark portents that riddle the play. It is this simultaneous attraction and repulsion that was the the hardest part about my reading of the play, on this go round.
Next we have Timon of Athens, about which the professor warned us, "This won't be your favorite. Just hold your breathe and push through it." Inhaling now...
Also, I know that I won't be able to remember all my impressions if I put off writing about it until well after I have finished the reading and discussion.
Today was the second day of lecture devoted to the Scottish play, and the professor took us through a whirlwind tour of the political context in which it was written and first played in 1606, a time when plays about regicide and tyranicide and particularly powerful political significance. I had not realized how closely the November 5th plot (as in Guy Fawkes) fell to the play's premier. Not to mention the fact of a new Scottish king on the English throne who was trying to bring the kingdoms of England and Scotland into closer political alignment. Professor Shapiro then went on to say that one of the great ambiguities of the play, for him, was whether to read it as a political tragedy or a psychological one.
I was interested to hear that he thinks it is one of the most difficult of the plays (although I am beginning to think that he says that about all of them...) He professed horror at the numbers of high schools that make it assigned reading. I do think it's a hard play, but I'm afraid I have a high enough opinion of my high school English teacher (and of my high school self) to think that it was not a waste for me to read it then. It certainly meant that I retained a lot more when I read it this time. I had forgotten how creeeeepy it is, though. It should be a standard Halloween work, like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
One of the most difficult things, I think, about this play is the fact that you cannot properly understand your relationship, as the reader or spectator, to Macbeth. He is a villain as much as Iago was (maybe more so, since Iago didn't kill children), but he makes you see inside his soul in a way that you can't with Iago. You want to sympathize with him. You can see the dagger with its handle towards his hand just as he can. You want to see him as a victim of supernatural fate. Yet you also want to condemn him. What he does is terrible, and it merits the dark portents that riddle the play. It is this simultaneous attraction and repulsion that was the the hardest part about my reading of the play, on this go round.
Next we have Timon of Athens, about which the professor warned us, "This won't be your favorite. Just hold your breathe and push through it." Inhaling now...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
OtHELLo
Due to my thesis situation, I am going to have to greatly reduce my attentions to this blog for the next two weeks, or so, which is vastly disappointing, since I really like Othello and next week's play, Macbeth--probably because I read both in high school, and so I feel as if I have a little more perspective on them. Perhaps I will be able to make a few post-mortem (pun intended) comments on these two tragedies when I get out from under my first draft after a week from Sunday. Unfortunately, there won't be much up here until then.
See you on the other side...
See you on the other side...
Thursday, February 4, 2010
M4M (and love for Professor Shapiro)
Partly because I also read As You Like It this past week in preparation for going to the play, and partly because two lectures is really an insanely fast pace to go through an entire play, I felt as if Measure for Measure went by in a flash. I think that that feeling also owes a lot to the fact that Professor Shapiro in incredibly well informed and engaged, and gives you the feeling that he could talk for a month about each play. Despite the fact that the class has probably fifty people in it, he does not really lecture, but engages everybody in discussion. This could be deadly, but he is a strong enough teacher that can keep the discussion going in the direction he wants it to, and he is able to strike a balance between telling us things and having us figure them out on our own. One of the things he said about Measure for Measure (which is, by the way, a disturbing play full of unappealing characters and STDs) is that one of the most troubling things about it is the fact that it shows people outside the bounds of normal society, who have lost their way and are stuck in some terrible holding pattern. Mariana, who was betrothed to a lover who refused to marry her when her dowry money was lost, and can only live the life of a recluse, "on the shelf," is one such character, and Barnardine, a prisoner on death row, who forgotten by ruler and justice, continually drunk, and ever unrepentant, is another. This was very powerful point, and one I had not thought of on my own.
Another thing that's great about the Professor is his reading ability. He read some key speeches aloud in class yesterday, and it just made you feel the lyricism an the emotion of the verse. It's amazing, the way that Shakespeare's words can make you agree with, or at least sympathize with and try to understand, the most incredible range of perspectives. Take the speech of the Duke's that Shapiro read us:
Thou art not thyself,
For thou exists on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,
For what thou hast not, still thou strive'st to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain,
For thy complextion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor,
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.
Basically, what Shakespeare is saying is, "life is bleak and then you die," but it's so beautiful you could almost agree with him.
NB: On the subject of things that the Professor said that broadened my perspective, I feel as if I should make a postscript to my T&C comments. I no longer think it is quite so misogynist. Although some of the dialogue is terrible towards women, I realized after the discussion in class, that Shakespeare is showing the viewer, though the action of the play, the injustice of women's vulnerability in the midst of the brutality of warfare, and the way that Cressida has to take steps to protect herself by finding a new lover. It does not make her appealing to the audience, but it shows the way that she can take control of her own fate in an adverse situation.
And now, on to Othello...
Another thing that's great about the Professor is his reading ability. He read some key speeches aloud in class yesterday, and it just made you feel the lyricism an the emotion of the verse. It's amazing, the way that Shakespeare's words can make you agree with, or at least sympathize with and try to understand, the most incredible range of perspectives. Take the speech of the Duke's that Shapiro read us:
Thou art not thyself,
For thou exists on many a thousand grains
That issue out of dust. Happy thou art not,
For what thou hast not, still thou strive'st to get,
And what thou hast, forget'st. Thou art not certain,
For thy complextion shifts to strange effects,
After the moon. If thou art rich, thou'rt poor,
For like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
Thou bear'st thy heavy riches but a journey,
And death unloads thee.
Basically, what Shakespeare is saying is, "life is bleak and then you die," but it's so beautiful you could almost agree with him.
NB: On the subject of things that the Professor said that broadened my perspective, I feel as if I should make a postscript to my T&C comments. I no longer think it is quite so misogynist. Although some of the dialogue is terrible towards women, I realized after the discussion in class, that Shakespeare is showing the viewer, though the action of the play, the injustice of women's vulnerability in the midst of the brutality of warfare, and the way that Cressida has to take steps to protect herself by finding a new lover. It does not make her appealing to the audience, but it shows the way that she can take control of her own fate in an adverse situation.
And now, on to Othello...
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