tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/william-shakespeare-14574/articlesWilliam Shakespeare – The Conversation2024-03-10T22:48:00Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2236552024-03-10T22:48:00Z2024-03-10T22:48:00ZBell Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is side-splittingly funny – yet some of the magic is lost<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580594/original/file-20240308-18-hd5iby.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C14%2C1885%2C1264&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Matu Ngaropo and Ahunim Abebe in Bell Shakespeare s A Midsummer Nights Dream. Photo by Brett Boardman</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Shakespeare’s delightful A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a perennial favourite – and the production run by the Bell Shakespeare company (first prepared in 2021 but hindered by COVID lockdowns) is a swift and pared-back reimaginingreimagining of the play.</p>
<p>It follows the comedy of four lovers – Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius – who are lost in a forest and get tricked by the fairies, King Oberon, Queen Titania and the impish Puck. </p>
<p>The play also features the bumbling mechanicals – a carpenter, a weaver, a bellows-mender, a tinker, a joiner and a tailor – who meet in the forest to rehearse a play to perform at the upcoming wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/25/10-of-the-best-plays-within-plays">play within a play</a>, performed at the end, has always brought the house down with sidesplitting laughter, and this show is no exception. It must have been just as hilarious during the play’s first performance, if it’s true that Shakespeare <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/a-midsummer-nights-dream/about-the-play/dates-and-sources">wrote it</a> to be performed at an aristocrat’s wedding.</p>
<h2>Finally, Shakespeare for the whole family</h2>
<p>Bell Shakespeare promotes the show as “fast, funny and family-friendly”. This is welcome news for theatregoing parents. Few of Shakespeare’s plays are suitable for children, despite there being a significant market for Shakespeare-related books and activities designed <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-for-kids/">for young people</a>. </p>
<p>My two boys received a storybook version of Shakespeare’s plays from family members some years ago, but it’s a delicate operation to tell bedtime stories about the <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fratricide">fratricide</a> in Hamlet, the domestic violence of Othello, or the romantic suicides of Romeo and Juliet. </p>
<p>Certainly, Shakespeare’s delightful comedies lend themselves more readily to the young. So taking Bell Shakespeare’s promo at its word, I took my son Heathcliff, aged 9 (who contributes to this review) to the show.</p>
<h2>Powerful presence onstage</h2>
<p>Seasoned playgoers will be thoroughly impressed by the vibrant and engaging performances of the cast, who make Shakespeare’s language (and their connections to it) ring as clear as a bell. This is harder to achieve than it sounds. </p>
<p>The delightful charisma of Matu Ngaropo as Nick Bottom (the weaver) positions him as a type of leading man. A galvanising force, Ngaropo combines refined flamboyancy and outrageous sensitivity to keep the audience firmly in his pocket. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580603/original/file-20240308-18-prhzxy.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Matu Ngaropo was a galvanising force onstage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ella Prince is subtle in their rendering of Puck, the sprightly spirit – so watchable in their intriguing silences and confusion when manipulating mortals.</p>
<p>Richard Pyros gives a commanding performance as Oberon: fastidious and curious, with a propensity for bellowing through the forest. Imogen Sage also shows tremendous range by delivering a sultry Titania, a restrained Hippolyta, and a librarian-esque Quince. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580600/original/file-20240308-18-bbvl9q.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ella Prince as Puck, Imogen Sage as Titania and Richard Pyros as Oberon in Bell Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Nights Dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, the four comic lovers: Hermia (Ahunim Abebe), Helena (Isabel Burton), Demetrius (Mike Howlett) and Lysander (Laurence Young), give feisty performances wholly committed to the verse.</p>
<h2>A subtle set and costumes</h2>
<p>This is Bell’s national touring play for 2024, and the <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/2024-midsummer-dream-design-inspiration">set design</a> by Teresa Negroponte centres around a dilapidated wooden construct that looks like the roof of an old barn tipped on its side.</p>
<p>But despite this dynamic set (which might double as the shipwreck from The Tempest), there are no leaves or any sort of greenery to help indicate most of the play is set in a forest – no sylvan milieu. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580601/original/file-20240308-28-vh4rq9.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The set, which resembled a rundown wooden barn, didn’t effectively depict the play’s setting in a forest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, this production seems, in several instances, to presuppose the audience’s familiarity with the play. This can prove confusing for newcomers to Shakespeare.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/2024-midsummer-dream-design-inspiration">costumes are</a> intriguing and subtle if you know the play, but may also be too realistic – too bland and “everyday”. This made it difficult for young people to recognise the kings, queens and fairies.</p>
<p>For example, there was nothing fairylike about the fairies, whose costumes were almost always plain black, with no hint of glitter or sparkles in sight. </p>
<p>As Heathcliff commented: “They all changed into black clothes and called themselves fairies […] I didn’t know they were meant to be fairies until the second half […] they looked more like ghosts.”</p>
<p>“Thou shall wear <em>not</em> black costumes for fairies,” he added.</p>
<p>With actors needing to double (and sometimes triple) character roles, they quickly don a new coat, scarf or hat. But again, these distinctions may be too subtle for newcomers to recognise. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Laurence Young and Ahunim Abebe played Lysander and Hermia, two of the four comic lovers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Boardman</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Heathcliff’s highlights</h2>
<p>While the acting proved second-to-none, many typical features of this famous play were absent. Heathcliff found the play “entertaining, but not laugh-out-loud funny”.</p>
<p>His favourite parts were the “horse’s head”, the slow-motion sequences, the fake swords used in the ridiculous staging of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pyramus">Pyramus and Thisbe</a> at the play’s end, and “the man playing the princess” (with hairy chest exposed) – which he thought was funny but a bit odd.</p>
<p>Yet, the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe at the end delivered on its promise. Many of the audience members doubled over in stitches, throwing their heads back with laughter. </p>
<p>I’ll remember this show for the many exemplary renditions of the famous characters, but while Shakespeare’s script is itself family-friendly, the play can be confusing when many of its typical features are <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136330433/view">pared back</a> to the bone. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-50-shades-of-shakespeare-how-the-bard-sexed-things-up-106783">Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223655/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirk Dodd does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I took my young son Heathcliff to the show, and his perspective helped me see it through a kid’s eyes.Kirk Dodd, Lecturer in English and Writing, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046062023-11-15T13:22:50Z2023-11-15T13:22:50ZFrom ancient Greece to Broadway, music has played a critical role in theater<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557575/original/file-20231104-17-el5el8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=747%2C286%2C4559%2C3246&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The remnants of a Greek theater in Sicily.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/panoramic-sights-of-the-beautiful-greek-theater-of-royalty-free-image/1345579639?phrase=++aulos+player+greek+theater&adppopup=true">Fausto Riolo/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Though anxiety about the fate of live theater performances still lingers, Broadway is celebrating its <a href="https://playbill.com/article/whats-currently-playing-on-broadway">third season</a> since <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/arts/broadway-reopening-pandemic-new-york-city-1235046751/">reopening after the COVID-19 pandemic</a>, with a lineup dominated once again <a href="https://www.broadwayworld.com/shows/broadway-musicals.php">by musicals</a>. </p>
<p>The new season includes long-running hits like “<a href="https://hamiltonmusical.com/new-york/">Hamilton</a>,” revivals of classics like “<a href="https://merrilyonbroadway.com/">Merrily We Roll Along</a>,” new musical adaptations of nonmusical works like “<a href="https://daysofwineandrosesbroadway.com/">Days of Wine and Roses</a>,” and even “<a href="https://www.theshed.org/program/301-here-we-are">Here We Are</a>,” the last musical by <a href="https://www.sondheimsociety.com/">Stephen Sondheim</a>. </p>
<p>Despite its centrality to today’s theater, musicals are often thought of as second class to what is considered legitimate theater, such as William Shakespeare’s “<a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/hamlet/">Hamlet</a>” or Arthur Miller’s “<a href="https://salesmanonbroadway.com/">Death of a Salesman</a>.” In both of those works, music plays little or no role. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="The names of different musicals are illuminated by neon signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557877/original/file-20231106-28-ia4o28.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Broadway musical theater billboards in Times Square in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/broadway-theater-billboards-new-york-royalty-free-image/583765685?phrase=broadway+night&adppopup=true">Ozgur Donmaz/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>But musicals have been the dominant form of theater across cultures and throughout most of history, including in ancient Greece, the birthplace of theater.</p>
<h2>Music, words and songs</h2>
<p><a href="https://brill.com/view/journals/grms/10/2/article-p306_4.xml">My research</a> focuses on the tragedies and comedies of ancient Greece and Rome. Though no scores from these original plays exist, a remarkable number of clues about the sound of ancient theater can be found in the surviving texts of the plays and other sources.</p>
<p>Evidence reveals that the plays of ancient Greece and Rome were decidedly musical affairs. </p>
<p>For example, in a conspicuous place during the performance stood an elaborately dressed player of the “aulos,” a loud and strident woodwind instrument consisting of two pipes played simultaneously. Both actors and choruses sang during their performances <a href="https://www.emousike.com/athenaeuspaean">to the accompaniment of this instrument</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="In this illustration, a man is using two long pipes as a musical instrument." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557852/original/file-20231106-25-unw1fz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustration of a man playing the ‘aulos,’ or double pipe, in ancient Greece.</span>
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<p>Just as in modern musicals, the important components of what made the plays work were the actors’ use of words both spoken and sung.</p>
<h2>Oedipus’ woeful song</h2>
<p>Consider Sophocles’ “<a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Oedipus the King</a>,” thought by many to be the quintessential Greek tragedy, and often taught and performed as a drama without music. The plot and message of the tragedy are profound and disturbing. </p>
<p>Though Oedipus rises to the heights of human success and becomes an admired ruler of the city of Thebes, he is unaware that he had murdered his father and married his mother. When he learns the truth, he blinds himself and begs to be driven from the city.</p>
<p>Music does much of the work in making this powerful play effective. </p>
<p>Clues in the text of “Oedipus the King” suggest that when it was first performed in about 430 B.C., just under a fifth of the verses were sung or chanted to the accompaniment of the aulos. </p>
<p>Most of the play’s passages accompanied by music are <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc97mwbbMds">sung by the chorus</a>. Far from mere interludes, the chorus’s songs expressed key themes in both their words and their music.</p>
<p>When the chorus first enters, for example, they sing stately prayers like the one in which they address the oracle of Apollo:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Sweet voiced oracle, Zeus-sent, tell me, what is your message?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But later in the song, their rhythm becomes less self-assured when they turn from prayer to despair at the plague that afflicts their city:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O dear, I’m bearing countless toils!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In conspicuous contrast to the chorus’s emotional songs, Oedipus does not sing through most of the play in his attempt to maintain control in the face of ever more threatening revelations. </p>
<p>The contrast becomes most pointed when the chorus, singing, defends Oedipus’ brother-in-law against a charge that he is plotting to gain the throne:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t strike down in dishonor, on an unclear charge, a dear one who has sworn an oath.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Then Oedipus replies, speaking and not singing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Know well that when you seek this you are seeking death or exile from this land for me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Oedipus later yields to the chorus’s wish, but his refusal to participate in their musical performance reflects both his reluctance and his determination to remain in charge. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A marble sculpture of the head of a bearded white man." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=784&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/557542/original/file-20231103-22-37nlbl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=985&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A marble bust of the playwright Sophocles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bust-of-sophocles-athenian-playwright-roman-sculpture-in-news-photo/159829159?adppopup=true">DeAgostini/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But when Oedipus has met disaster and enters from his palace after blinding himself, he sings in his distress, and he calls attention to the change in his performance mode by addressing his now uncontrolled voice:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Oh, Oh, how miserable I am. Where on earth am I going? Where does my voice fly out uncontrollably? Oh, my fortune, where have you leapt to?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In contrast to the earlier scenes, it is now the chorus who speaks, distancing themselves from their fallen king:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To someplace dreadful, unbearable to listen to or to see.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recent productions of Greek drama have followed the textual clues to music provided in the texts, with chorus and actors alternating unaccompanied spoken performance with sung verses, accompanied by the aulos or other instruments.</p>
<p>Notable are performances in ancient Greek at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM4sYJ7hdqg">Columbia/Barnard</a> and in English translation at the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MVyAZbRaK0">University of Vermont</a>. These performances indicate how much Greek theater has in common with modern musical theater on Broadway and around the world today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204606/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy J. Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The use of music in theater goes back to ancient Greece, and its popularity has grown to the modern-day productions of ‘Hamilton.’Timothy J. Moore, John and Penelope Biggs Distinguished Professor of Classics, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. LouisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028912023-04-21T09:06:05Z2023-04-21T09:06:05ZShakespeare’s environmentalism: how his plays explore the same ecological issues we face today<p>Climate change, urban sprawl, air pollution, deforestation, depleted fish stocks, biodiversity and species loss: these are not exclusively modern problems that only sprang up in the last few hundred years. In fact, the common but misleading phrase “industrial revolution” masks the <a href="https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/507339/1/A%20once%20and%20future%20extractive%20history%20of%20Britain.pdf">long history of resource extraction</a> and ecological degradation in the British Isles stretching back at least to the arrival of the <a href="https://www.roman-britain.co.uk/life-in-roman-britain/mining-in-roman-britain/">tin-hungry Romans</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/key-features-of-renaissance-culture">Renaissance England</a> was reeling from the effects of all these problems. Often hailed as the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/English-literature/Elizabethan-and-early-Stuart-drama">golden age of English literature</a>, the Renaissance was also the apex of the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-original-climate-crisis-how-the-little-ice-age-devastated-early-modern-europe-178187">little ice age</a>”, in which a cooler climate produced poorer harvests.</p>
<p>These food shortages were especially difficult because England’s <a href="https://www.gale.com/intl/essays/matthew-clark-tudor-society">human population surged</a> fourfold in the 16th century, while the <a href="https://tudorhistory.org/glossaries/e/enclosure.html">enclosure of common lands</a> forced more country-dwellers to flock to London. Given how heavily these environmental concerns weighed on a society coping with chronic scarcity, it should come as no surprise that we can find traces of them in the works of England’s greatest playwright.</p>
<h2>King and countryside</h2>
<p>When <a href="https://www.royal.uk/james-i">King James</a> became his patron in 1603, Shakespeare was tasked with writing plays to entertain a keen outdoorsman and hunter who was as much preoccupied with the material state of the British countryside as with matters of state. No wonder, then, the Shakespearean stage encompasses a remarkable variety of landscapes and features an abundance of animal imagery to rival the <a href="https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-tower-of-london-menagerie/#gs.ujqfoc">royal menagerie</a> – basically King James’s private zoo – and compensate for England’s dwindling numbers of wild game.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/william-shakespeare-14574">First Folio 400</a> series. These articles mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>It would, of course, be an anachronism to dub Shakespeare an environmentalist. But he was acutely aware of what we would term the environmental issues of his era. In particular, the plays Shakespeare composed during the reign of James frequently intervene in environmental policy disputes at the Stuart court about how best to carve up the natural riches of the realm.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.bl.uk/works/macbeth">Macbeth’s</a> famous depiction of the “blasted heath” reflects the increasingly negative views of this terrain as a sterile abode of witches and <a href="https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/romani-gypsies-in-16th-century-britain">Romani</a> people that should be transformed into private farmland.</p>
<p>Although James dreaded witches, he and parliament sought to protect heathland as a habitat for game animals and birds. He would have relished Shakespeare’s comparing Macbeth to a poacher and a <a href="https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/conservation/conservation-and-sustainability/safeguarding-species/case-studies/red-kite/">kite</a>, a species then classified as vermin. Macbeth’s killing of Duncan and Macduff’s (pronounced Macdove) family simulates illegal net-hunting, nest-robbing, and the raiding of estate buildings known as <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/discover/history/architecture/what-is-a-dovecote">dovecotes</a>, which housed pigeons and doves for food and feathers. </p>
<h2>Enduring environmental issues</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/pericles/the-plot">Pericles</a>, Shakespeare wades into pan-European squabbles about fishing rights amid a crash in North Sea fishing stocks. Its conclusion mirrors James’ plan to end the <a href="https://www.deruyter.org/uploads/media/5acf9125b45c4.pdf">herring wars</a> (the ongoing feud between England and its coastal neighbours over territorial control of fishing areas) by forging dynastic alliances through the marriage of his heirs.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Pericles also plays on fears of coastal erosion. Shakespeare adapted the story from a writer whose father had proposed the existence of a flooded land-bridge linking Britain to the continent (now known as <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/doggerland/">Doggerland</a>.</p>
<p>While the shipwrecked king refutes claims to rule the unruly seas, the costumes donned by Shakespeare’s actors would have told a different story. Pericles and his family almost certainly appeared in robes of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180801-tyrian-purple-the-regal-colour-taken-from-mollusc-mucus">Tyrian purple</a>. This dye, made in Pericles’ home town from crushed sea snails, could only be worn by royalty and would thus have been a striking visual symbol of royal dominion over the ocean. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-winters-tale">The Winter’s Tale</a> comments on the inhumanity of the fur trade. The famous bear that pursues Antigonus off stage may have been played by an actor in a polar bear’s pelt captured by fur traders, while Queen Hermione is a personification of an <a href="https://ztevetevans.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/stoats-in-folklore-and-heraldry/">ermine</a>.</p>
<p>Spelled “ermion” in Shakespeare’s day, an ermine is a stoat in its white winter coat. Ermines were symbols of chastity since it was believed they would rather die than befoul their white fur. </p>
<p>Hermione acts like her namesake when she exclaims she too would rather die than stain her name as an adulteress. The trial scene in which she would be stripped of her white fur re-enacts the flaying of an animal, while the scene in which her statue is reanimated captures a fascination with the new, death-defying art of taxidermy. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zn955417swY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p><a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/king-lear/">King Lear</a> proclaims humans no better than beasts and is a tour de force demonstration of our vulnerability to both extreme weather and darkness. In <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/cymbeline">Cymbeline</a>, Shakespeare expresses a newfound appreciation for mountain wilderness as a preserve not only of game animals but also of Britishness and masculinity.</p>
<p>Few people realise <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/tempest/">The Tempest</a> is based on legends of a demon-battling hermit from the English fens. Its notorious monster Caliban voices the outrage of fenland communities dispossessed by schemes to drain and enclose their wetlands.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/measure-measure/">Measure For Measure</a> reveals how <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/plague/History">the plague</a> stoked fears of urban overpopulation, while <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/timon-athens/">Timon of Athens</a> offer’s a scathing satire on the mining lobby and its cornucopian economics: the notion that the earth’s wealth is inexhaustible. </p>
<p>In inserting these environmental issues into his plays, Shakespeare forced his audience to reflect on the political, moral, and spiritual implications of early modern England’s growing power to transform the natural world. His fascination with kings might seem old-fashioned, but in our brave new era of the <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/what-is-the-anthropocene.html">Anthropocene</a>, in which our species has become the dominant geological force, we can better appreciate how he often uses kingship as a metaphor for human tyranny over nature. </p>
<p>Shakespeare’s profound sympathies for the disempowered outsider also extend to non-human creatures. When his high and mighty despots have their comeuppance out in the wilds, learning that the earth doesn’t exist to bend to them, Shakespeare’s plays are teaching us all to relinquish the delusion that we are entitled to dominate the planet.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Todd Andrew Borlik does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Worrying environmental issues dominated the time of William Shakespeare as they do now, from depleted fish stocks and food shortages, to overpopulation and animal exploitation.Todd Andrew Borlik, Reader in Renaissance Drama, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020202023-04-20T16:32:15Z2023-04-20T16:32:15ZShakespeare by numbers: how mathematical breakthroughs influenced the Bard’s plays<p>Mathematical motifs feature in many of Shakespeare’s most memorable scenes. He lived and wrote in <a href="https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/key-features-of-renaissance-culture">the late 16th century</a>, when <a href="https://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj/texts/mathematicus.htm">new mathematical concepts</a> were transforming perceptions of the world. Part of the role of the theatre was to process the cultural implications of all these changes.</p>
<p>People in Shakespeare’s time were used to the idea of the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229654-800-shakespeare-did-radical-astronomy-inspire-hamlet/">infinite</a>: the planets, the heavens, the weather. But they were much less used to the inverse idea that the very small (and even nothingness) could be expressed by mathematical axioms. In fact, the first recorded English use of the word “zero” wasn’t <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zero#word-history">until 1598</a>. </p>
<p>Thinkers like Italian mathematician <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fibonacci">Fibonacci</a>, who lived in the 13th century, helped to introduce the concept of zero – known then as a “cipher” – into the mainstream. But it wasn’t until philosopher <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rene-Descartes">René Descartes </a> and mathematicians <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isaac-Newton">Sir Isaac Newton</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz">Gottfried Leibniz</a> developed <a href="https://marktomforde.com/academic/miscellaneous/calculus-history/calchistory.html">calculus</a> in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that “zero” started to figure prominently in society. </p>
<p>Moreover, scientist <a href="https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hooke/">Robert Hooke</a> didn’t discover microorganisms until 1665, meaning the idea that life could exist on a micro level remained something of fantasy.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white engraving showing Calvius with mathematical tools. He wears a clock and pointed hat." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=868&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518478/original/file-20230330-16-xzv2wu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1091&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 16th century engraving of astronomer Christopher Clavius after a painting by Francisco Villamena (1606).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://library.si.edu/es/image-gallery/73149">Smithsonian Libraries</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With the <a href="http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/staff/saj/thesis/introduction.htm">growing influence of neoclassical ideas</a> in England, small, insignificant figures had begun to be used to represent very large concepts. </p>
<p>This was happening both in modes of calculation (which used proportion) and in the practice of writing mathematical symbols. </p>
<p>For example, during the 16th and early 17th centuries, the equals, multiplication, division, root, decimal, and inequality symbols were gradually introduced and standardised.</p>
<p>Alongside this came the work of <a href="https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Clavius/">Christopher Clavius</a> – a German Jesuit astronomer who helped Pope Gregory XIII to introduce the Gregorian calendar – and other mathematicians on fractions. Then referred to as <a href="https://nrich.maths.org/2515">“broken numbers”</a>, they <a href="https://jontalle.web.engr.illinois.edu/uploads/298/HistoryMath-Burton.85.pdf">stirred up great angst</a> among those who clung to classical models of number theory. </p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/william-shakespeare-14574">First Folio 400</a> series. These articles mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>The struggle to come to terms with the entanglement of the very large and the very small is splendidly displayed in many of Shakespeare’s works. This includes his history play Henry V and tragedy Troilus and Cressida.</p>
<p>The opening chorus of Henry V displays Shakespeare’s interest in proportion and the <a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/08/04/shakespeare_defined_our_concept_of_nothingness/#:%7E:text=How%20do%20we%20write%20three,0%20(zero%20units)%3A%203%2C000.">concept of zero</a> through its repeated “O” and references to contemporary mathematical thought:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O for a muse of fire, that would ascend / The brightest heaven of invention: / A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, / And monarchs to behold the swelling scene […] / may we cram / Within this wooden O the very casques / That did affright the air at Agincourt? / O pardon: since a crookèd figure may / Attest in little place a million, / And let us, ciphers to this great account, / On your imaginary forces work. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/henry-v-the-oxford-shakespeare-9780199536511?cc=gb&lang=en&">Scholars</a> largely agree that Shakespeare’s “crookèd figure” is actually zero. This is despite, of course, the rather obvious objection that zero is the least crooked of all numbers. </p>
<p>In the line “a crookèd figure may / Attest in little place a million”, Shakespeare references 16th century <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229654-800-shakespeare-did-radical-astronomy-inspire-hamlet/">mathematical debates</a> surrounding the idea that the very small is capable of both representing and influencing the very big. In this case, the zero is capable of transforming 100,000 into 1,000,000.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Interior shot of Shakespeare's open air Globe theatre showing its round shape." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518476/original/file-20230330-26-6m7kcb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Use of ‘zero’ or ‘O’ in Shakespeare can also be read as a metaphor for his circular Globe theatre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-april-20-2019-globe-1376701724">Nick Brundle/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In this mathematical analogy, “crookèd figure[s]” can “attest” much greater things. The chorus suggests that by using one’s “imaginary forces”, much greater things may come from the forthcoming stage performances. </p>
<p>This extended metaphor reappears in Shakespeare’s tragicomedy, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-winters-tale-review-jarring-shakespeares-globe-production-lacks-warmth-202566">The Winter’s Tale</a> when the “<a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/08/04/shakespeare_defined_our_concept_of_nothingness/">cipher</a>” (numbers) transform into many thousands of thank yous:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like a cipher, / Yet standing in rich place, I multiply / With one “We thank you” many thousands more / That go before it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There is a further, visual metaphor in Henry V’s opening prologue where the chorus asks pardon of an “O” to help them represent many things in the “wooden O” – the <a href="https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/">Globe Theatre</a>. This is perhaps evidence of Shakespeare’s ongoing interest in insignificant figures “attest[ing]” much greater things.</p>
<p>Elsewhere in his work, mathematical metaphors encircle themselves in moments of crisis. In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare uses mathematical language to chart the slow motion collapse of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24778494">Troilus’s mental stability</a> after witnessing his lover Cressida’s flirtation with another man.</p>
<p>For Troilus, Cressida disintegrates into “fractions”, “fragments” and “bits and greasy relics”. To mirror this, Shakespeare’s verse descends into jagged pieces, like the early modern name for fractions: “broken numbers”.</p>
<p>With 2023 marking 400 years since the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio, it is exciting to see how the Bard’s plays spoke to significant developments in the 16th-century mathematical world.</p>
<p>Shakespeare’s plays registered the 16th-century crisis of classical mathematics in the face of newer ideas. But they also offered space for audiences to come to terms with these new ideas and think differently about the world through the lens of mathematics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine S. Killacky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the late 16th century, new mathematical concepts were transforming perceptions of the world. Shakespeare’s plays helped audiences to process these changes.Madeleine S. Killacky, PhD Candidate, Medieval Literature, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029982023-04-20T16:32:14Z2023-04-20T16:32:14ZShakespeare’s First Folio turns 400: what would be lost without the collection? An expert speculates<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518464/original/file-20230330-20-6659wf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5928%2C3871&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shakespeare's First Folio was the first published work to include Macbeth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/OO8AEXFQtdI">Matt Riches/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been 400 years since the publication of the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays, a volume now known as the First Folio. Prepared <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-in-print/first-folio/">by his fellow actors</a> after his death, the book presented 36 plays divided into the genres of comedy, history and tragedy.</p>
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<p>Without it, <a href="https://folio400.com/publication/">18 of Shakespeare’s plays</a> that had not previously been printed would have been lost, among them Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night and The Tempest. No “friends, Romans and countrymen”, no “brave new world”, no “double, double toil and trouble”.</p>
<p>But what would really be different if this book had never been printed at all?</p>
<p>Most significantly, there wouldn’t be the cultural icon we know as “Shakespeare”. Those works that do survive would be scattered across numerous flimsy early editions, rather than gathered in this imposing and serious volume. </p>
<p>Without the weight – cultural as well as literal – of the collected edition, it’s possible few would care about these surviving plays. Something similar happened to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/17/classics.theatre">other playwrights of the period</a>, whose work was not given the authority of a collection.</p>
<p>We’d also have an idea of Shakespeare as more interested in histories and comedies than tragedies. Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar and Timon of Athens <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-in-print/first-folio/">would be lost</a> without the First Folio. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The title page of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays featuring a portrait of a balding Shakespeare." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=967&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518455/original/file-20230330-30-cjtfyc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1215&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The title page of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Shakespeare_-_First_Folio_1623.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since some of these early editions did not name Shakespeare on their title pages, the authorship of plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Titus Andronicus and Henry V would be uncertain. Conversely, title pages identify Shakespeare as the author of <a href="https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/london-prodigal-first-edition">The London Prodigal</a> (1605) and <a href="https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/resource/document/yorkshire-tragedy-first-edition">A Yorkshire Tragedy</a> (1608), which most modern scholars do not attribute to Shakespeare. In part this is due to the fact that they are not included in the First Folio. Without it, the canon of Shakespeare’s plays would have decisively shifted.</p>
<p>This different canon would have prompted a different historical response. The convenience and ready availability of the First Folio as a repository for Shakespeare’s plays <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/podcasts/lets-talk-shakespeare/how-did-shakespeare-get-so-popular/">was a significant practical factor</a> in getting him back into the theatres when they reopened at the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. </p>
<p>This large collection of Shakespeare’s works took up visible space on the shelf. Had he not come back into prominence at that important moment – and had the newly revived theatre looked elsewhere for their dramatic scripts – Shakespeare’s reputation might well have been permanently lost.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/520292/original/file-20230411-22-7ego8p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/william-shakespeare-14574">First Folio 400</a> series. These articles mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio, the first collected edition of William Shakespeare’s plays.</em></p>
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<p>If Shakespeare had not been revived in the later 17th century, it is hard to see how he would have <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/shakespeares-first-folio-9780198819998?cc=gb&lang=en&">become the national poet</a> during the 18th. No <a href="https://www.westminster-abbey.org/abbey-commemorations/commemorations/william-shakespeare">statue in Poets’ corner</a>, no arguments between the literary figures of the day about the best way to edit his plays. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/David-Garrick">David Garrick</a> – the leading Shakespearean actor of the 18th century – would have had an entirely different career (as, in later periods, would other actors like Laurence Olivier and Judi Dench).</p>
<h2>Shakespeare’s international reputation</h2>
<p>This much-depleted Shakespeare would hardly have <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-birthplace/purchase-of-birthplace/">galvanised outrage</a> about the sale of his Stratford birthplace in the 19th century. </p>
<p>Perhaps modern Stratford-upon-Avon would now simply mark its playwright son with a blue plaque (rather as Shakespeare’s writing partner <a href="https://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/heritage-and-retro/retro/the-peterborough-schoolboy-who-went-on-to-write-with-shakespeare-2942419">John Fletcher</a> is remembered in his hometown of Rye). There would be no <a href="https://www.shakespearescelebrations.com/whats-on/shakespeares-birthday-celebration-parade/">birthday parade</a>, no Othello taxi firm, no tourist industry. No one would care if his wife, Anne Hathaway, <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/visit/anne-hathaways-cottage/">had a cottage</a>.</p>
<p>Without the First Folio there would be no dedicated Shakespeare theatre in Stratford, or at Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside. There would be no Shakespeare festivals around the world, such as that in Stratford, Ontario. In fact, Stratford, Ontario, named in the 19th century for Shakespeare’s hometown, would now have a different name entirely, as would Stratfords in Ohio, Connecticut, Wisconsin, New Jersey and in New Zealand and Australia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A thatched English cottage with white walls surrounded by greenery, photographed under blue skies." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518460/original/file-20230330-24-kyaao9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Anne Hathaway’s famous thatched cottage just outside Stratford upon Avon.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/anne-hathaways-william-shakespeares-wife-famous-121825960">David Steele/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Halloween would be quite different without Macbeth, which popularised a trio of witches around a cauldron performing a spell. Valentine cliches of romantic love are unthinkable without the popularity of Romeo and Juliet. No sporting fixture between England and France would reach for the lines about Agincourt from Henry V.</p>
<p>A Shakespeare reduced in national prestige would not have been sufficiently prominent to be translated. Without German Shakespeare, we might never have had <a href="https://www.freud.org.uk/2013/01/16/shakespeare-and-psychoanalysis/">Freud’s version of the Oedipus complex</a>, which he understood through his reading of Hamlet. </p>
<p>Karl Marx would not have conceptualised his theory of capital <a href="https://theconversation.com/shakespeares-timon-of-athens-penned-in-plague-time-shows-money-corrupts-but-can-also-heal-143493">via Timon of Athens</a>. And translations around the world – into more than 100 languages – would not have established Shakespeare as a global author.</p>
<p>There are other, more serious consequences of this fancy. Colonial rule in India would not have relied on Shakespearean study as the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/post-colonial-reading-of-the-tempest">central text of empire</a>. Othello’s murder of Desdemona might not have left its <a href="https://wilson.fas.harvard.edu/stigma-in-shakespeare/othello%E2%80%99s-black-skin">long shadow of prejudice</a> about interracial marriage. </p>
<p>Perhaps the Confederate actor John Wilkes Booth would not have shot Abraham Lincoln at DC’s Ford’s Theatre, in April 1865 since he wouldn’t have been <a href="https://www.theamerican.co.uk/pr/int-Shakespeare-In-A-Divided-America-James-Shapiro">steeped in the role</a> of the assassin Brutus in Julius Caesar.</p>
<p>The First Folio’s after-effects are far reaching indeed, touching fields of human psychology and geopolitics as well as literature, culture and theatre. No First Folio means no Shakespeare. And, whether you enjoy his works or not, that’s a hard reality to imagine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202998/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Smith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Without the First Folio, the canon of Shakespeare’s plays would have decisively shifted.Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2025662023-03-28T12:21:12Z2023-03-28T12:21:12ZThe Winter’s Tale review: jarring Shakespeare’s Globe production lacks warmth<p>The Winter’s Tale is one of Shakespeare’s great “<a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781315757346-11/hospitality-risk-grace-bargain-uncertain-economies-winter-tale-james-kearney?context=ubx&refId=f9bb2210-47ca-429d-8b51-de3e182ea726">hospitality</a> plays” – a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315612720-12/italian-pastoral-tragicomedy-english-early-modern-drama-robert-henke">tragicomedy</a> about what goes wrong when a guest outstays their welcome. </p>
<p>Leontes, king of Sicilia, suspects his friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, of adultery and catastrophe ensues. In keeping with the 16th-century genre, however, the villain is eventually reformed and the friends – and husband and wife – reconcile. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Director Sean Holmes and designer Grace Smart discuss their staging of The Winter’s Tale.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Director Sean Holmes streamlines things in this production for Shakespeare’s Globe, so the action in the kingdoms of Sicilia and Bohemia each revolve around a feast. The audience are invited in to the second but are strictly onlookers for the first.</p>
<p>The opening three acts in Sicilia are played as a dinner party with a “fourth wall” in the indoor space of The Globe’s Sam Wanamaker theatre. Set designer Grace Smart has created a strong, if claustrophobic, design – a tasteful mid-century dining room with a large glass-topped dining table, the back wall modernised with a lick of peppermint green paint. </p>
<p>The dialogue of the diners – Leontes (Sergo Vares), his wife Hermione (Bea Segura), Bohemian King Polixenes (John Lightbody) and Leontes’s son, Mamillius (George Robinson) – is punctuated by discordant string music, announcing the arrival of a stream of Heston Blumenthal-style dishes. The audience are positioned as voyeurs, while the court of Sicilia are reduced to Downton Abbey-style servants anonymously waiting at the side lines.</p>
<p>Cut down to jarringly bite-sized episodes, the production reaches for a more conceptual adaptation. It conveys something of the brittleness of Sicilia’s court but loses much of its complexity and depth.</p>
<p>Dishes continue to be served, through Mamillius’ bedtime story, the truncated prison scenes, birth of Perdita and Hermione’s trial – whether the diners are present or not. </p>
<p>The cuisine morphs from fine dining to takeaway dishes from Deliveroo, as Leontes descends into a jealous rage. Stripped to his underwear, he crawls on the table and chases his friend and servant Camillo (Beruce Kahn) around it.</p>
<p>As Hermione speaks the heartrending lines of her hopeless self-defence: “Now, for conspiracy / I know not how it tastes, though it be dish’d / For me to try how”, she clutches a steaming burger.</p>
<p>Stripped and chopped like this, the play cannot convey the tenderness of the relationship between Leontes and his son, the friendship between Paulina (Nadine Higgin) and Hermione, the concern of Leontes’ wise councillors or the pathos of Hermione’s dignity and despair. It is not exactly clear what is left.</p>
<h2>Hospitality in The Winter’s Tale</h2>
<p>The current political debate around <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/suella-braverman-robert-jenrick-home-secretary-prime-minister-cabinet-b2215331.html">the UK as a place of “welcome”</a>, calls out for artistic engagement with hospitality and its stakes.</p>
<p>An ambivalent art of social and political navigation, hospitality is a play of manners, sustained in the tensions of obligation and reciprocity. Identifying what is real and what is feigned in hospitality is hard. Theatre should be the perfect laboratory for its investigation.</p>
<p>The first scene of The Winter’s Tale, which is almost always cut – as it is here – stages a war of courtesy over whose hospitality is better, Sicilia or Bohemia. Holmes takes the bold directorial decision to stage each kingdom in a different performance space and have the audience move between them. This is the first time Shakespeare’s Globe’s two spaces have been used in tandem in a production.</p>
<p>In the cold night, with a bare and makeshift stage, Florizel (Sarah Slimani) invites the audience into Bohemia, switching on rigged fairy and flood lights. There’s a shared thrill in creeping into an empty theatre after hours. </p>
<p>Antigonus (Colm Gormley) abandons new-born baby Perdita in Bohemia and is eaten by a bear. A baroque but necessary plot device in other productions, the abandonment takes on a different gravitas in the cold open air. </p>
<p>Indoor Sicilia is stiff and uninviting by contrast with hospitable and festive Bohemia, outdoors. The contrast is over-egged, however, which means the dramatic ambiguity of hospitality on which the action turns is lost. </p>
<p>Holmes has an ambitious vision for this production of The Winter’s Tale, but its realisation is a piecemeal tasting menu that is better celebrated in its parts than its whole.</p>
<p><em>The Winter’s Tale is on now at <a href="https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/whats-on/the-winters-tale-2022/">Shakespeare’s Globe theatre</a>, London, until 16 April.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202566/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penelope Woods has received funding from the Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. She is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>The Globe has used both its theatres in tandem for a single production, for the first time in its history.Penelope Woods, Lecturer, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2001152023-02-20T15:16:17Z2023-02-20T15:16:17ZMuch Ado About Nothing: National Youth Theatre gives Shakespeare the Love Island treatment<p>“<a href="https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/56469/1/love-relationships-type-on-paper-dead-love-island-ekin-su">What’s your type on paper?</a>” is frequently asked by contestants on the popular reality dating show <a href="https://theconversation.com/love-island-what-the-show-can-teach-young-people-about-commitment-185459">Love Island</a>. “Rich, that’s certaine” responds Benedick, a contestant on “Nothing Island”, who appears to know exactly what he likes. “Wise, or I’ll none”, “virtuous”, “fair”, “mild” – though he concedes he is not fussed about hair colour.</p>
<p>In this <a href="https://www.nyt.org.uk/MuchAdo">National Youth Theatre production</a> celebrating their tenth anniversary, poet and playwright Debris Stevenson (<a href="https://royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/poetindacorner/">Poet in Da Corner</a>) adapts Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing as the final segment of reality TV show “Nothing Island”. “If it ain’t love,” executive producer Leonato (Jessica Enemokwu) says: “it’s Nothing”.</p>
<p>Stevenson’s production is sprinkled with quotations from other Shakespeare plays. “To thine own self be true,” cautions on-set therapist Dr Dogberry (a brilliant new lease of life for Shakespeare’s nightwatch policeman). “To sleep perchance to dream,” says the executive producer as the islanders turn in the night before the finale. </p>
<p>However, King Lear’s caution: “Nothing comes from nothing” might be the overriding concern, as this production sets Shakespeare’s coupling and uncoupling within the nihilistic and superficial world of reality TV.</p>
<p>The concept, however, is an effective springboard. As Stevenson and director Josie Daxter explain: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We were forced to lean into the shared, uncomfortable realities of the play [patriarchy, misogyny, racism] and the TV show [superficiality, racism, heteronormativity] in order to expose and critique them. The lens made us braver.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Through innovative approaches, theatre productions can make the historical values of Shakespeare’s plays <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Political_Shakespeare.html?id=K2UgAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">both understandable and relevant</a> to modern audiences. This is exactly what has been achieved here.</p>
<h2>Staging reality</h2>
<p>The TV production set frames all the play’s action, in a coherent, if claustrophobic, 90-minute run time. What audiences see of the play, they also simultaneously see being manipulated by a production team for an off-stage TV audience, whose torrent of caustic, sentimental and superficial social media interjections appear on screens above the action.</p>
<p>The rationale for the villainy in Shakespeare’s original plot has shifted. Don John is still the disaffected and illegitimate sibling – now sister – of Don Pedro (both decried as “nepo babies”). However, in this adaptation, she is more puppet than puppeteer.</p>
<p>Conrad (played brilliantly by Tomas Azócar-Nevin) is now the arch manipulator as an ambitious “story producer”. With an eye over all the action, Conrad seeds rumours that bloom into reality TV gold. He whispers in people’s ears (headsets) providing prompts and cues. </p>
<p>At the height of one character’s public humiliation, when they are jilted at the altar and presumed dead, he says: “Oh! I think we are going to win a Bafta.”</p>
<p>The reality show elements of the diary room (soliloquies), staged competitions (Benedick and Beatrice’s first encounter is a girls v boys “rap battle”) and parties (the masked ball), map uncannily well onto the plot devices and structure of Shakespeare’s comedy.</p>
<p>Will surprise couple Beatrice and Benedick win this year, or will it be Hero, back from the brink of death, and her lover/abuser Claudio (Jez Davess-Humphrey)? The executive producer, herself a black woman, articulates her cynical certainty that TV audiences will never vote for someone who looks like her.</p>
<p>There are also some tensions or distortions produced by this amalgamation. That Beatrice still requires Benedick, a man, to “kill Claudio”, is <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/shakespeare/6048">a hangover of Shakespeare’s patriarchal society</a> that feels out of kilter with the equality of the 50/50 gender split cast and female-led creative team.</p>
<p>Stevenson’s language is predominantly true to Shakespeare’s original play, with some deft interpolations and witty disjunctures: “I must cancel your company”, declares Benedick to Don Pedro. </p>
<p>However, the decision to keep other bits of original text (“he is as civil as an orange”, says Beatrice of the jealous Claudio, a pun on the sour imported Seville oranges of the 17th century, played here as a piece of nonsense), is unnecessary.</p>
<p>In other instances, Shakespeare’s verse is shown to excellent effect as rap and spoken word, though some of the play’s chipper couplets (“If it proves so, then loving goes by haps/ Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps”) could have been made more of.</p>
<p>Overall, this youth adaptation speaks with wit to a generation saturated in reality television and social media versions of love, who have missed out on real social contact during the COVID pandemic. The cynicism of the exposed reality TV strategies is counterbalanced by the warmth and joy of an assembled audience who laugh, gasp and click their fingers at this fast-paced and witty production.</p>
<p>If you want to know what love is, this adaptation suggests: switch off the reality TV and turn to Shakespeare instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penelope Woods has previously received funding from The Arts Council and The Arts and Humanities Research Council.
She is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>Shakespeare’s Conrad is now an ambitious ‘story producer’. With an eye over all the ‘Nothing Island’ action, he seeds rumours that bloom into reality TV gold.Penelope Woods, Lecturer, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1756312022-06-13T20:03:05Z2022-06-13T20:03:05ZMacbeth by William Shakespeare: a timeless exploration of violence and treachery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467612/original/file-20220608-18-9xkpay.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films, DMC Film, Anton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In our <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/guide-to-the-classics-23522">Guide to the Classics</a> series, experts explain key works of literature.</em></p>
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<p>Macbeth issues a warning: the greatest risk to the inner life comes from the delusion that it does not exist. </p>
<p>“A little water clears us of this deed,” says Lady Macbeth, thinking that getting the look right will make it right. But in doing so she commits treachery upon her inner life. </p>
<p>In a world where existence seems increasingly to equate to self-projection, she is an example of the mistake we make when we see the visible surface of public and social media as the place where reality plays out, the place where we see what we are. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452375/original/file-20220316-15-r8xfoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1069&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Page from Shakespeare’s First Folio.</span>
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<p>Macbeth, like most of Shakespeare’s plays, sets two worlds spinning: one of outer action and one of inner being. The collision of their orbits provides the spark for the drama. The themes of Macbeth’s outer world of action are violence and treachery. The intersecting themes of its inner world are ambition, and moral reasoning.</p>
<p>In exploring what holds a society together and what tears it apart, the play doesn’t just condemn violence, it dramatises its uses. The play showcases both loyal violence and treacherous violence. </p>
<p>In Act One, Scene One, a soldier reports that Macbeth, a Scottish general, has shown prowess on the battlefield and “unseamed” his rebel opponent, Macdonald, “from the nave to th’ chops.” That means he cut him in half. </p>
<p>Macbeth does this in loyal service to King Duncan, and usually enters the stage splattered with blood, that of his victims and his own – blood lost in service to his king. The military campaign is to suppress domestic rebellion. Among the rebels is the “disloyal traitor” the Thane of Cawdor, whose title Duncan transfers to Macbeth, commanding that the treacherous clan chief be executed. </p>
<p>Macbeth’s first promotion, then, is gained through the sanctioned violence of killing traitors. There is a fragile moment at the beginning of the play, when this violence seems to have restored order. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452382/original/file-20220316-19-i4x88h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Macbeth and Banquo meet the Witches - Théodore Chassériau (1855)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/suppd-full-with-horrors-400-years-of-shakespearean-supernaturalism-57129">'Supp'd full with horrors': 400 years of Shakespearean supernaturalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Macbeth’s second promotion is also achieved through violence, but this time by premeditated treachery. The witches on the heath greet him as Thane of Glamis, which he is, Thane of Cawdor, which we know from Duncan’s command that he will be, and “king hereafter”. </p>
<p>This sets the spark to the powder keg of Macbeth’s ambition. Violence is in his repertoire and he needs only to take one violent step further to fulfil their prophecy.</p>
<p>The thought of killing the king, a thought “whose murder yet is but fantastical”, occurs to him immediately. And when he arrives back at his castle, his wife Lady Macbeth urges him to “catch the nearest way” to fulfilment of the prophecy by stabbing King Duncan to death as he sleeps in their home. </p>
<p>Here one of the inner-world themes intrudes – who is morally responsible for what Macbeth does? Do the witches wield power over him? Does Lady Macbeth, as the architect of regicide, carry equal blame with Macbeth?</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-shakespeares-hamlet-the-everest-of-literature-164070">Guide to the classics: Shakespeare's Hamlet, the Everest of literature</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<h2>Outer and inner dimensions</h2>
<p>The unfolding of their murderous plot is dramatised by Shakespeare as having outer and inner dimensions. The physical world is portrayed as instantly ruptured by their act of violence. Even before Duncan’s murder is discovered, Lennox speaks of the unruly night that has passed: chimneys were blown down, strange lamentings and screams of death were heard in the air, and the earth shook and was feverish. </p>
<p>There is dramatic irony in Macbeth’s response to this poetic description of cosmic disorder: “It was a rough night.” </p>
<p>Society is also fractured. Duncan’s sons flee Scotland. A mood of paranoid crisis sets in as Macbeth is crowned. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452376/original/file-20220316-25-da9xsk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=971&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Herbert Beerbohm Tree as Macbeth - Charles A Buchel (1872)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the treachery resonates inwardly, too, and Shakespeare keeps the inner dimension perpetually before the audience. That image from Act One of a man split down the middle is a potent symbol for the destruction the Macbeths have wrought upon themselves. </p>
<p>The order of Macbeth’s mind begins to break down the moment he murders his king. He roams out of the king’s chamber with the bloody daggers still in his hands saying he has heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep.” </p>
<p>Lady Macbeth seems to preserve her practical mindset for a time. She says “a little water clears us of this deed”. But this is another moment of dramatic irony. Her moral delusion is patent.</p>
<p>It seems that Macbeth, with his auditory and ocular hallucinations, has the clearer moral vision. Inevitably, her sleeping mind goes to war with her waking consciousness: “Out damn spot!” She cannot unsee the blood on her hands. </p>
<p>The Macbeths have failed to anticipate that their inner lives – their minds and their functional connection with the world – will be broken by their outer action. Remarkably, these mental, physical, spiritual breakdowns are rendered from the sufferers’ point of view. </p>
<p>Before he kills the king, Macbeth gives a speech about ambition that shows he has the moral insight to avoid the crime. He says he has “no spur to prick the sides of [his] intent”, using the metaphor of riding a horse to express that there is nothing about Duncan to urge him forward into the act of murder. </p>
<p>Macbeth realises he has “only vaulting ambition”, which leaps over itself and falls on the other side. He anticipates the catastrophe, but he kills the king anyway.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=753&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452386/original/file-20220316-25-vin2li.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=947&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Czech actor Leopolda Dostalová as Lady Macbeth (1916)</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-shakespeares-sonnets-an-honest-account-of-love-and-a-surprising-portal-to-the-man-himself-156964">Guide to the classics: Shakespeare’s sonnets — an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The twists and turns of moral reasoning</h2>
<p>Why does Shakespeare include such contradictions?</p>
<p>Shakespeare understood that it is spellbinding to witness a character forming an inner resolution, or breaking one. In Macbeth, the stakes are high: an innocent life and a kingdom’s peace hang in the balance. The tension is relentless. Lady Macbeth enters, cutting off Macbeth’s reflection on ambition. He has just reasoned himself out of committing the murder, and she reasons him back into it. </p>
<p>The play dramatises the twists and turns of moral reasoning and the pressure of emotional coercion on conscience. Macbeth is wise and compassionate one instant, and preparing to kill his friend the next. This challenges our tendency to see the world in black and white, populated by good people and bad people. </p>
<p>All of the themes of Macbeth – violence, treachery, moral reasoning, conscience and ambition – were close the surface of public consciousness in Shakespeare’s day. </p>
<p>Since Henry VIII left the Catholic Church, establishing himself as the head of the Church of England in 1534, the nation’s political landscape had been riven by religious opposition. This affected people’s everyday lives and challenged their deepest inner convictions. In 1557, you could be burned as a heretic for being Protestant; in 1567, you could be burned as a heretic for being Catholic. </p>
<p>Being able to see the soul in motion, as Shakespeare allows his audience to do, was a fantasy that interrogators of both Catholic and Protestant persuasions would have cherished. </p>
<p>By the time Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, he was a member of The King’s Men – a playing company patronised directly by a new king – James the First of England and the Sixth (you guessed it) of Scotland. What can we make of the fact of Shakespeare writing a Scottish play for a Scottish king, who is also the boss of his particular business enterprise? He had to be very careful. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=808&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452377/original/file-20220316-27-1b4kqm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1016&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King James the First - John de Critz (1604).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Public domain</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Shakespeare steered a clever course. His play seems mildly topical and politically correct on the surface, but underneath it complicated the moral questions of its moment. </p>
<p>The first thing to be aware of is that James had a preoccupation with the occult. In 1597, James had published a book called <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/king-james-vi-and-is-demonology-1597">Demonology</a>, seeking to prove and condemn witchcraft. He had it published again in 1603 when he became King of England. </p>
<p>Shakespeare seems to pander to this obsession when he includes witches in his play, who discuss spells and make prophetic predictions. </p>
<p>Notice, though, that Shakespeare leaves unanswered the question of their moral culpability. We are left wondering whether it pleased or disturbed King James that the supernatural element in the play explains very little about the actions of its characters. Shakespeare portrays the Macbeths’ ambition for power as perfectly adequate motivation for their criminal action.</p>
<p>The second thing to be aware of is <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/gunpowder-plot-medal">the Gunpower Plot</a>. When Macbeth was first staged in 1606, England was reeling from the discovery of a nearly successful conspiracy to blow up parliament. If successful, the attempt would have killed the king and a large number of the nation’s ruling class, and triggered catastrophic civic disorder. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-gunpowder-plot-torture-and-persecution-in-fact-and-fiction-105944">The Gunpowder Plot: torture and persecution in fact and fiction</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Gunpowder, treason and plot</h2>
<p>On 4 November 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested. A letter tipping off a member of parliament had led to the discovery of a stash of barrels of gunpowder in a cellar under parliament. Under torture, Fawkes revealed the names of his Catholic conspirators. </p>
<p>The discovery of the plot was promoted as a defining moment of victory for the Protestant nation against its Catholic traitors within, and led to intensified persecution of Catholics across Europe.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C613%2C315&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C0%2C613%2C315&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/452361/original/file-20220316-25-kyrhf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=388&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Gunpowder Plot conspirators.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The adage, don’t waste a crisis, seems to have been heeded by James. Even in its own moment, the event became a black and white moral fable, in which treachery was weeded out and punished with violence. The traitors were tortured and publicly executed. Their bodies were literally quartered. </p>
<p>How did Shakespeare’s play, first performed in 1606, engage with the Gunpowder Plot and the grisly punishment of its perpetrators? </p>
<p>On the surface, Shakespeare cashed in on the way the Gunpowder Plot had shocked the people of London. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4625011">Fireworks, or “squibs”, were used at the opening of the play as special effects</a> for the “thunder and lightning” called for in the script. It is easy to imagine the first audience jumping with terror and then telling friends to attend the next spectacular performance. </p>
<p>By inventing the witches, Shakespeare also sets up ambiguous, almost imaginary figures of evil who “melt into air”. Were these anything like the monsters that the trial of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators had created in the public imagination?
Many understood the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot to be an act of supernatural preservation of their God-ordained ruler. A silver commemorative medal from 1605 bears the Latin inscription: “You [God], the keeper of James, have not slept.” </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467623/original/file-20220608-16-rfct6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=726&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image: British Museum</span></span>
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<p>Tracing a parallel with this sensibility, Shakespeare borrows Banquo – a real 11th century person believed to be an ancestor of King James – from the historical <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/holinsheds-chronicles-1577">Chronicles of Raphael Holinshed</a>. His characterisation, deviating from that of Holinshed, puts King James, through association, on the side of right in the play. </p>
<p>Shakespeare’s story of Banquo, who is murdered on Macbeth’s orders but returns as a ghost, seems to shore up by supernatural intervention James’ right to the throne. That is, until we consider that the witches who prophesy that Banquo will be the father of kings are the same ones who predict Macbeth’s ascent to the crown.</p>
<p>Shakespeare’s play is unsettling. It provides a thought experiment. It teases out the moral ambiguities of a society whose members see others in black and white, while permitting shades of grey in themselves. </p>
<p>It is a society in which treachery is punished with sanctioned violence, but in which ambition paves the way to real power via both violence and treachery. It is the kingdom of Scotland riven by contending clans. It is England of 1606 reeling from the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. It is our world of perpetual crisis. </p>
<p>Crisis appeals to the human imagination because it offers to suspend the rules by which we normally operate. Crisis can, as Macbeth shows, make moral compromises appeal as “the nearest way” to increased power. It can make brutal measures seem necessary to retain it. </p>
<p>Macbeth issues a warning for our times about the harm done to individuals and societies when they allow the will for power to drown out the inner voice of conscience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175631/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Flaherty works for the Australian National University. She has received funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>The tragedy of Macbeth issues a warning for our times about the harm that is done when the desire for power drowns out the inner voice of conscience.Kate Flaherty, Senior Lecturer (English and Drama) ANU, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1602702021-05-25T04:36:30Z2021-05-25T04:36:30ZShakespeare’s rulers and generals are all flawed, but the books on his leadership lessons keep coming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402475/original/file-20210525-13-escqdb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=125%2C41%2C1871%2C1272&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Bell, pictured here in 2006, is the latest to write a book on Shakespeare and leadership.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Millar/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: John Bell, Some Achieve Greatness: Lessons on leadership from Shakespeare and one of his greatest admirers. With illustrations by Cathy Wilcox. Pantera Press, 2021.</em></p>
<p>John Bell’s new book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/some-achieve-greatness-9780648748885/">Some Achieve Greatness</a> is but the latest to use Shakespeare’s works to inspire and teach would-be leaders in the modern world.</p>
<p>In 2000 alone, two books appeared aimed at business management students: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1503838.Power_Plays">Power Plays</a> and <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2124928.Shakespeare_on_Management?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=X7vmQJTCZU&rank=1">Shakespeare on Management</a>. In perhaps the best of the genre, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32957067-shakespeare-the-coach?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=H08rsEgcb7&rank=2">Shakespeare the Coach</a> (2004), Australian Olympian, medical graduate, politician and hockey coach Ric Charlesworth applies the dramatist’s words to the sporting arena and people management. Naturally he devotes a chapter to motivational leadership, headed “Purpose and Persuasion”.</p>
<p>The new book from Bell, the actor and renowned theatre director, is both more, and less, than these. More, because it is as much a pithy “business autobiography” as instructional manual, from a man who has devoted his career to bringing Shakespeare to Australian audiences. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-shakespeares-sonnets-an-honest-account-of-love-and-a-surprising-portal-to-the-man-himself-156964">Guide to the classics: Shakespeare’s sonnets — an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402470/original/file-20210525-21-1dykx6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1133&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Bell in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Bell has not only performed most of the major characters, learning their words by heart and internalising the subtleties and plural meanings, he has also directed the plays. He has shown business acumen in administering two successful theatre companies, co-founding Nimrod in 1970 (dedicated to producing Australian plays as well as Shakespeare’s), and of course, the Bell Shakespeare Company. </p>
<p>His name has become almost synonymous with the bard’s in our cultural life through this company and a series of <a href="https://www.woodslane.com.au/Book/9781875684724/King-Lear">scholarly editions of plays</a> named after him. He also authored a substantial book titled <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13392603-on-shakespeare?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=HV82zAbROb&rank=1">On Shakespeare</a> (2011), full of insights: the fruit of a practised actor-director’s rich and detailed experience.</p>
<p>And, as one of Australia’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Living_Treasure_(Australia)">Living Treasures</a>, Bell has cemented his reputation by “dying” hundreds of times onstage in Shakespearean roles — like Cleopatra, he “hath such a celerity in dying”.</p>
<p>Reflecting on his multifaceted career, Bell applies his accumulated knowledge to recount his own leadership style as it evolved through experience. Sage advice is offered, enlivened and illustrated with pertinent quotations from speeches, which no doubt Bell can enviably recite from memory. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402471/original/file-20210525-19-17czhfp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bell, centre, as Falstaff during a dress rehearsal of Henry 4 in Canberra in 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The book offers lessons gleaned from a Shakespeare who is seen as a natural “collaborator never a one-man band”. We find chapters on “Courage, or how to be a leader in times of crisis”, “Decisiveness, timing and tough decisions”, “Charisma, confidence and humility”, and other virtues such as integrity and humanity. These are set against dangerous managerial vices like ambition, arrogance and entitlement. </p>
<p>Along the way are sprinkled inspirational quotations about leadership from the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy and Michelle Obama, alongside cautionary reminders of a less savoury, more recent American president .</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-shakespeare-helped-shape-germaine-greers-feminist-masterpiece-59880">Friday essay: How Shakespeare helped shape Germaine Greer's feminist masterpiece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>No ideal leaders</h2>
<p>However, Bell offers less than Charlesworth (my benchmark), in that the latter dwells more on applicable quotations than characters and dramatic context. This allows him to skirt the problem Bell faces: there are, in fact, no unflawed or ideal leaders in Shakespeare.</p>
<p>Although Bell ranges across the complete works, his major examples of good or bad leadership are surprisingly few in number. All are, to some extent flawed. Bell readily concedes this, since their failures are instructive. The figure who recurs in most detail is Henry V. For all his faults as a ruthless, likely war criminal, he seems to come closest to Bell’s ideal leader, at least in his rousing speeches. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402472/original/file-20210525-17-1d19kk1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kenneth Branagh as Henry V in the 1989 film: ruthless but with rousing speeches?</span>
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</figure>
<p>Julius Caesar and Brutus emerge as ambiguous and lacking in strategical competence. Antony for all his brilliant oratory is too much the playboy who believes in his own “celebrity”, while King Lear is easy prey for sycophants and flatterers. </p>
<p>Naturally enough, Richard III and Macbeth as leaders are definitely not to be emulated, though there is somehow a touch of unintended humour in the homily-like way Bell warns us against using murder as a career move:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Watching the downfall of the Macbeths we have to ask ourselves: What am I prepared to pay to make it to the top of the pile? Is the reward worth my sanity, my self-respect, my relationship, my reputation, my friendships?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Who would answer yes to such a piously phrased question?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/402474/original/file-20210525-15-1vky1im.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Michael Fassbinder as Macbeth in the 2015 film: not a great role model.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">See-Saw Films, DMC Film, Anton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about the women?</h2>
<p>We have to wait for the final chapter before some women make an appearance, exemplifying such admirable qualities as adaptability and negotiating skills (Portia), integrity and plain-speaking honesty (Cordelia), and playfulness (Rosalind), although Bell sees their agency as qualified in a man’s world:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the Comedies, women find a voice and authority by adopting a false male persona and using their wit, charm and female tenderness to lead the menfolk to an awareness of their follies and a better understanding of successful male/female coexistence and interdependence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This book is very readable and can probably be devoured in a single sitting, though Bell might prefer us to take our time and savour at leisure the lessons taught. It also features witty and pertinent cartoons by Cathy Wilcox.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert White does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The founder of the Bell Shakespeare Company has written a book gleaning leadership wisdom from the bard. But figures such as Richard III and Julius Caesar are hardly ones to emulate.Robert White, Winthrop Professor of English, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1569642021-05-17T20:07:21Z2021-05-17T20:07:21ZGuide to the classics: Shakespeare’s sonnets — an honest account of love and a surprising portal to the man himself<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400922/original/file-20210517-17-1c4rb9n.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C14%2C758%2C535&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Giovanni Cariani, Portrait of Two Young Men. The bulk of the sonnets are addressed to a young man known as the 'fair youth'.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Most of us are familiar with Shakespeare’s plays. Even if we aren’t Shakespeare geeks, chances are we’ve waded through five or six in school, seen several movie adaptations and been to an “in the park” production. </p>
<p>And then there is the constant background of Shakespearean quotations and references colouring our lives, from recognisable lines like “let slip the dogs of war”, to the <em>oh, I didn’t know Shakespeare wrote that</em> cliches, such as “one fell swoop” or “wear my heart upon my sleeve”.</p>
<p>However, apart from a few hits, Shakespeare’s sonnets are less known.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1018&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400921/original/file-20210517-17-430jhf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1279&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">goodreads</span></span>
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<p>Fortified with a familiarity with the plays, a virgin journey into the sonnets is as good a literary adventure as anyone could hope for. It is both unsettling and beguiling. </p>
<p>The Shakespeare of the plays is god-like: he is everywhere in his creations as a masterful and unifying presence, and yet he is aloof. If I had to take a punt, I’d say he was wise, wry — the kind of person who knew how to do life right. </p>
<p>Thus it is a shock to meet the Shakespeare of the sonnets. This Shakespeare is frail (sonnets <a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/29">29</a> and <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/145">145</a>), obsessed (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/28">28</a>), judgmental (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/130">130</a>), fickle (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/110">110</a>) and self-pitying (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/72">72</a>). And so we are drawn in. We begin to ponder how much of himself Shakespeare reveals in the sonnets, and, if he is in there, how one of the most remarkable humans could be so like the rest of us.</p>
<h2>What is a sonnet?</h2>
<p>A sonnet is a short poem, traditionally about love. The “English” or “Shakespearean” sonnet has a standard form. There are 14 lines, each with five “beats”. </p>
<p>Each beat has two syllables, with the second being stressed. This is known as “iambic pentameter”. Try it out with the most famous line from the sonnets: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (<a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/18">18</a>)</p>
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<p>The sonnet has three “quatrains” — stanzas with four lines — and a final rhyming couplet — two lines that rhyme. The couplet packs a certain punch that turns the sonnet on its head or provides the key to the sonnet or something similar.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-poetic-metre-53364">Explainer: poetic metre</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A brief overview</h2>
<p>When we talk about Shakespeare’s sonnets, we are usually referring to the 154 sonnets published in 1609 when Shakespeare was about 45. The sonnets were likely written and revised throughout Shakespeare’s adult life (though there is debate).</p>
<p>Keeping to the tradition, Shakespeare’s sonnets are about love. But they take us into love’s maelstrom. The sonnets speak, often in the most raw fashion, of jealousy (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/61">61</a>), fear (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/48">48</a>), infidelity (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/48">120</a>) and love triangles (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/41">41</a>, <a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/42">42</a>), but also of the simple happiness that love can bring (<a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/25">25</a>). Because of this, according to poet and essayist <a href="https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Melodies_Unheard/ub3TDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">Anthony Hecht</a>, young lovers make up the most substantial readership of the sonnets.</p>
<p>The bulk of the sonnets (1-126) are addressed to a young man, often referred to as the “fair youth”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=786&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400478/original/file-20210513-13-14vcb7x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The dedication to the sonnets.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>The last 28 are mostly addressed to or about a woman: “the dark lady”. The real-life identities of both figures are not known. However, the dedication to the sonnets, which some consider to be a code, may contain the youth’s identity (see <a href="https://shakespeareoxfordfellowship.org/wp-content/uploads/Oxfordian1999_Rollett_Dedication.pdf">this</a> article by amateur Shakespeare scholar, John Rollett). </p>
<p>Within these two broad sets there are smaller groupings. Sonnets 1 to 17 are known as the “procreation sonnets”, while 78 to <a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/86">86</a>, which reveal that another poet is drawing inspiration from the fair youth, are referred to as the “rival poet” sequence.</p>
<p>And throughout, two and sometimes three sonnets are directly linked as if they were a longer poem (for instance <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/66">66</a>, <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/67">67</a> and <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/68">68</a> — look out here for the objection to the silly wigs everyone wore).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-50-shades-of-shakespeare-how-the-bard-sexed-things-up-106783">Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up</a>
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<h2>The fair youth sequence</h2>
<p>There are several recurring themes here.</p>
<p>A number of sonnets address the pain of being apart (such as <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/44">44</a> and <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/45">45</a>). And in <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/49">49</a> we see the persona’s anxiety about parting permanently when he imagines the time “when thou [the fair youth] shalt strangely pass, / And scarcely greet me with that sun, thine eye.”</p>
<p>But we also witness the persona drawing on his love for the youth to fortify himself against unhappy memories. The well known <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/30">30</a> begins with: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When to the sessions of sweet silent thought / I summon up remembrance of things past, / I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It finishes with the lines, “But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, / All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.”</p>
<p>There are also the themes of time’s destruction of beauty and the horror of death. And hand-in-hand with these, we see the persona searching for ways for the youth to achieve immortality.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/12">In 12</a>, one of the “procreation sonnets”, the youth is encouraged to seek immortality by having children. It finishes with: “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defence, / Save breed, to brave him, when he takes thee hence.” </p>
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<p>However, even more poignant are the persona’s many explicit attempts to preserve the youth through his poetry — a quixotic enterprise that, remarkably, has worked. This is best exemplified in <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/18">18</a>. We read: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, / When in eternal lines to time thou growest. / So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.</p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=769&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400924/original/file-20210517-21-1gj94x.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=966&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Portrait by John Taylor, thought to be of Shakespeare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/oct/16/shakespeare-sonnets-don-paterson">common discussion</a> is whether the fair youth sequence reveals that Shakespeare was gay or bisexual. Unless the sonnets are a wild fabrication, Shakespeare certainly wasn’t straight. </p>
<p>However, we should, as scholar <a href="https://www.amazon.com/William-Shakespeare-Sonnets-English-Authors/dp/0805716491">Dennis Kay</a> reminds us, be cautious of “applying a modern understanding of, and attitudes toward, homosexuality to early modern culture.” Read <a href="http://shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/20">20</a> and see what you think.</p>
<p>Not all the sonnets in the fair youth sequence are addressed to the youth. An exception is another of the evergreen sonnets: <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/116">116</a>. This ode to the eternal nature of love begins with: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments. Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Returning to sonnet <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/66">66</a> (my favourite), although the final couplet addresses love, the sonnet stands out because its focus is not love, but the corruptions of the world. </p>
<p>In it, the persona objects to “folly (doctor-like) controlling skill” and “art made tongue-tied by authority.” Here we are reminded of the battles many who are capable and spirited must fight against soulless bureaucracies and the censorious.</p>
<h2>The dark lady sequence</h2>
<p>The “dark lady” is “dark” because when she is introduced in <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/127">127</a>, her complexion and eyes are described as black: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the old age black was not counted fair, / Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name; / But now is black beauty’s successive heir, / And beauty slander’d with a bastard shame. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>And later in the sonnet we read: “my mistress’ eyes are raven black.” </p>
<p>In the dark lady sequence, the persona suffers familiar torments. But there are also several instances of humor — the fair youth sequence is almost humorless.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/135">sonnet 135</a> and <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/136">136</a> the persona puns bawdily and relentlessly on the world “will”: “Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, / Not once vouchsafe to hide my will in thine?” </p>
<p>But the stand-out is <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/130">130</a>. Here the persona pointedly declines to use tired comparisons to praise the attributes of his mistress. </p>
<p>We read: “My mistresses’ eyes are nothing like the sun”, and, “And in some perfumes is there more delight / Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.” </p>
<p>Then come the glorious lines: “I grant I never saw a goddess go; / My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground.”</p>
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<h2>Their reception</h2>
<p>The sonnets were not much read for nearly 200 years after their publication, but since then they have only grown in popularity. This was, perhaps, assisted by Wordsworth’s own sonnet: “<a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45547/scorn-not-the-sonnet">Scorn Not the Sonnet</a>”. (I know, it’s hard not to laugh.)</p>
<p>Today, lines from the sonnets turn up from time to time in popular culture. Naturally, in “Dead Poets Society” <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/18">sonnet 18</a> is recited.</p>
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<p>So what do the sonnets mean for us today? Many things. Most commonly, they have come to stand for perfect love, but this is likely because few readers make it past two of them: <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/18">sonnets 18</a> and <a href="http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/116">116</a>.</p>
<p>For those who do read further, the sonnets provide a more honest account of love, while exploring other substantial themes such as fear of death and the search for immortality. </p>
<p>The sonnets can also be enlisted to support social and political causes, from freedom to sexuality. And then there is the possible portal they provide into Shakespeare the man. </p>
<p>Ultimately though, we read on because of Shakespeare’s inimitable commingling of beauty and truth — if the two can be separated. And because each reading reveals that we are still only splashing about in the shallows of an immeasurable ocean.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156964/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Q Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Addressed to a ‘fair youth’ and later, ‘a dark lady’, the sonnets are less well known than Shakespeare’s plays. A journey into them is an unsettling and beguiling literary adventure.Jamie Q Roberts, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1552562021-04-22T12:24:47Z2021-04-22T12:24:47ZShakespeare’s musings on religion are like curious whispers – they require deep listening to be heard<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396365/original/file-20210421-17-if17cq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=31%2C177%2C6927%2C5153&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Caliban implores his fellow island dwellers to listen to the noises in "The Tempest."</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/act-i-scene-ii-from-the-tempest-c19th-century-miranda-news-photo/507137240?adppopup=true">The Print Collector/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare’s role as a religious guide is not an obvious one. </p>
<p>While the work of the bard, whose <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/when-was-shakespeare-born/">birthday is celebrated on April 23</a>, has been scoured at various times over the past four centuries for <a href="https://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/titles/clare-asquith/shadowplay/9781541774308/">coded messages about Catholicism, Puritanism or Anglicanism</a>, the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/shakespeare-and-religion-9781904271703/">more common view</a> is that his stunning explorations of humanity leave little space for serious reflection on divinity. Indeed, some Shakespeare scholars have gone further, suggesting that his works display an <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo6021785.html">explicit atheism</a>.</p>
<p>But as a scholar of theology who has published <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Shakespeare-Theology-and-the-Unstaged-God/Baker/p/book/9780367784836">a book exploring Shakespeare’s treatment of faith</a>, I believe the playwright’s best religious impulses are displayed neither through coded affirmations nor straightforward denials. Writing at a time of great religious polarization and upheaval, Shakespeare’s greatest pronouncements on faith are more like curious whispers – and, like whispers, they require deep listening to be heard.</p>
<h2>Religious noises</h2>
<p>I see an invitation to this deep listening in one of Shakespeare’s most unusual plays, “<a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/tempest/">The Tempest.</a>” “Be not afeared,” the half-man, half-beast Caliban tells his companions as they arrive on the island where the play is set, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.”</p>
<p>It is a striking passage, made all the more so coming from a foul-smelling creature accused of attempted rape and repeatedly called “monster.” But in it, Shakespeare seems to be suggesting that there are dimensions of reality that many of us miss – and we might be surprised to find out who among us is paying attention.</p>
<p>Subtleties like this show up differently across Shakespeare’s plays. “Romeo and Juliet” is not in any overt sense a theological play. But as the tragedy comes to a somber denouement, we have the line “See, what a scourge is laid upon your hate, That heaven finds means to kill your joys with love.”</p>
<p>While there is no clear naming of gods or fates, Shakespeare implies that some great power transcends the destructive feud between the Montagues and Capulets, the families of the two lovers. He calls into question the earthly power of the two houses – heaven, he implies, is also at work here.</p>
<h2>Tumultuous times</h2>
<p>Shakespeare was, I believe, in constant search of subtle ways to imagine divine intervention within the human realm. This is all the more impressive given the fraught religious times in which he lived.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="An etching of William Shakespeare." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=728&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/396408/original/file-20210421-23-wjcv7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=915&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Closet Catholic or atheist? Or is it more complicated?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/english-dramatist-william-shakespeare-circa-1600-news-photo/51165673?adppopup=true">Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The late 16th century witnessed religious and political polarization greater, even, than our own. Decades earlier, King Henry VIII had <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-22586-6">separated the Anglican church from Rome</a> and created a Protestant England. His daughter Elizabeth, who sat on the throne for the first half of Shakespeare’s writing career, was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/stc.2016.13">excommunicated by Pope Pius V</a> for continuing in her father’s footsteps. The queen responded by making the practice of Catholicism a crime in England. </p>
<p>So even before Elizabeth’s successor, James I, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/61/251/495/1564755">outlawed overt theological humor or criticism on stage</a>, artists hoping to engage in religious themes were under considerable restrictions. </p>
<p>These upheavals affected Shakespeare directly. Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-religion/">family had deep ties to Roman Catholicism</a>, as likely did some of his closest associates. For any one of them to express doubts about the Anglican prayer book, or even to avoid the Anglican parish on Sunday, was to put themselves under suspicion of treason. </p>
<p>There is little in the way of biographical detail to help scholars looking for Shakepeare’s religious beliefs. Instead, they have generally relied on explicit references to familiar religious language or character types – the Catholic priest in “Romeo and Juliet,” for instance – in speculating about Shakespeare’s faith. Some have suggested that clues and codes in his play suggest the <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/shakespeare-closet-catholic">playwright was a closeted Catholic</a>. But to me it is more in what he doesn’t say, or where he finds new ways of saying something old, that Shakespeare is theologically at his most interesting. </p>
<h2>‘God’s spies’</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s faith and how he expresses it are explored in a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24712408?socuuid=9b85877c-589a-4256-a51b-711cfbc818fb&socplat=email">2017 play</a> by poet Rowan Williams, a theologian and former head of the Church of England. In it, Williams imagines a young Shakespeare in search of a new language for things religious, and dissatisfied with the heavily politicized options before him.</p>
<p>In a pivotal scene, “young Will” explains to his Jesuit mentor that, despite the attractiveness of their radical Catholic cause, he cannot join: “The old religion is the only, the only – picture of things that speaks to me, yes, but it’s as if there were still voices all around me wanting to make themselves heard and they don’t all speak one language or tell one tale, and all that – it would haunt me if I tried what you do, and it would make me turn away from the pains and the question, because I’d know that there’d always be more than the old religion could say and it still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>In other words, while Catholicism “speaks” to young Will, he believes there is more that “still had to be heard.”</p>
<p>The voices that Williams’ Shakespeare wants to hear are similar, I believe, to those that Caliban talks of in “The Tempest.” So young Will does not join the Catholic cause; instead, he goes off in search of ways to stay with “the pains and the question.” Williams is suggesting that Shakespeare’s subsequent plays are an attempt to let all these complex and difficult voices “be heard.”</p>
<p>They are his attempt to give voice to religious noise beyond the range of the religious certainty of his age.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>We see this in “King Lear.” Lear spends the entire play cursing the gods for the lack of love and respect his children show him. But when the heaven-cursing rants finally subside, the play gives its audience a beautiful and painful reconciliation scene with his daughter Cordelia. He discovers in his daughter’s forgiveness a kind of higher vantage point, one from which they might both “take upon’s the mystery of things, As if we were God’s spies.”</p>
<p>Like Caliban in “The Tempest,” Lear learns to hear those voices just out of human range.</p>
<p>Similarly, Shakespeare asks his audience to listen and watch differently, as if we too are God’s spies or Earth’s monsters.</p>
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<p><a href="https://www.ats.edu/">Seminary of the Southwest is a member of the Association of Theological Schools.</a></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony D. Baker funding in the form of a grant from The Conant Foundation, through The Episcopal Church, for travel research on Shakespeare. </span></em></p>Scholars have scoured the works of the great playwright for clues about his faith. A scholar of theology and Shakespeare’s works says it isn’t as simple as that.Anthony D. Baker, Professor of Systematic Theology, Seminary of the SouthwestLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1548012021-02-10T19:07:28Z2021-02-10T19:07:28ZBaz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet at 25: is this the best Shakespeare screen adaptation?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383160/original/file-20210209-15-1uqlj7o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=21%2C0%2C2400%2C1598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bazmark Films</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It is 25 years since Australian auteur Baz Luhrmann released his gloriously spectacular version of Shakespeare’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117509/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Romeo + Juliet</a>, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes as the doomed lovers.</p>
<p>While some praised the film as <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/romeo-juliet-review-movie-1996-1248607">“clever and well-executed”</a> and <a href="https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/william-shakespeare-romeo-juliet-review/">“genuinely inventive”</a>, others labelled it <a href="https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/romeo-and-juliet-1996">“a very bad idea”</a> and <a href="https://www.sfgate.com/movies/article/This-Romeo-Is-a-True-Tragedy-DiCaprio-Danes-2960887.php">“a monumental disaster”</a>. How could one film be so polarising?</p>
<p>Lurhmann was not presenting us with a reinterpretation of the stage play, but a complete re-imagining of its universe. Gone was the sense of theatre. Gone were the long soliloquies. Gone were the 16th century costumes. Instead of Verona, Italy, we are on Verona Beach, California. </p>
<p>The Capulet and Montague patriarchs do business in adjacent skyscrapers while the younger generation wage a vicious war on the streets. Tattoos, gold chains, loud Hawaiian shirts, leather vests, and silver teeth adorn them. Swords are replaced with Uzis and pistols.</p>
<p>The soundtrack dispenses with classical strings, replaced by 90s bands such as Radiohead and Garbage. Even the “and” in the title was replaced with a + sign. In every way Lurhmann made this film scream “gangsta”. It feels dangerous.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/marx-freud-hitler-mandela-greer-shakespeare-influenced-them-all-57872">Marx, Freud, Hitler, Mandela, Greer... Shakespeare influenced them all</a>
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<h2>Fast and loose</h2>
<p>Many critics compared the film to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/01/movies/soft-what-light-it-s-flash-romeo.html">Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 version</a> of Romeo and Juliet. While Zeffirelli’s film is visually sumptuous, it still plays it safe with the material, with few changes in tone or historical period. </p>
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<p>Lurhmann, in contrast, plays fast and loose with every element of his production. To me, the films are in different stratospheres in their approach to the material and thus totally incomparable.</p>
<p>Shakespeare adaptations set in different time periods had happened before Lurhmann. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103723/?ref_=fn_al_tt_5">As You Like It</a> (1992) was performed in an industrial wasteland. <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Richard III</a> (1995), was set in 1930s Britain; and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117991/">Twelfth Night</a>, made in the same year as Luhrmann’s film, was set in Victorian times.</p>
<p>However, Lurhmann didn’t just take the words and characters from the stage play and insert them into new environments. He created a completely stylised pastiche of visuals, dialogue, character and action. </p>
<p>It’s all quite over the top, as exemplified by the scene where a drag-queened Mercutio <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ88c7Wb-34&list=RDqZ88c7Wb-34&start_radio=1&t=33">dances to Young Hearts Run Free</a>. This is really Shakespeare for a specific demographic — youth. Some have <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2016/11/1/16045046/baz-luhrmann-romeo-juliet-20th-anniversary-4c9f63053447">argued</a> Luhrmann’s film was beloved by attention deficit teenagers who later regarded it as “embarrassing” in adulthood . But I think this simplifies things. </p>
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<p>I can understand why traditionalists, who didn’t mind the other adaptations set in modern times, don’t like this one. Much of the humour is pure slapstick, the acting can be over-exaggerated and lines are over-emphasised. There are large parts of the film which don’t have any dialogue at all, it’s all just visuals and music.</p>
<p>But the onscreen chemistry between Danes and DiCaprio is electric. Their scenes are genuinely emotionally charged, often heightened by the musical accompaniment.</p>
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<p>And Lurhmann was making a film that would appeal to those who loved or loathed, or were indifferent, to traditional Shakespeare. A Shakespeare accessible to everyone.</p>
<p>This can be seen in the dialogue delivery of actors such as John Leguizamo, who plays Tybalt. As he venomously spits out, in modern gangsta rap style, lines like, “Now by the stock and honour of my kin, To strike him dead I hold it not a sin”, you actually forget you are listening to words written 500 years ago. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/shakespeare-had-fewer-words-but-doper-rhymes-than-rappers-27424">Shakespeare had fewer words, but doper rhymes, than rappers</a>
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<p>My favourite scene has always been Mercutio’s death. In the minutes leading up to, during and after he dies, Lurhmann dispenses with glitz and glamour, concentrating solely on the engagement between DiCaprio, Harold Perrineau (Mercutio) and Leguizamo. This is raw, visceral acting, no exaggeration, no contrivance. </p>
<h2>Fluid works</h2>
<p>Some have argued making such radical changes to the text is unnecessary and <a href="https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/blog/adapting-shakespeare/">harms the essence</a> of Shakespearean drama. The nuance and poetry of Shakespeare’s language is lost in all the flash and sparkle.</p>
<p>But pop culture critic Tori Godfree <a href="http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/236/baz-luhrmanns-romeo-juliet-compared-with-shakespeares-original-work">contends that</a> Lurhmann’s incorporation of contemporary jokes, music and pop culture into his film is exactly what Shakespeare did in the original play. Shakespeare’s works should not be treated as sacrosanct icons but as fluid works open to reconstruction and modernisation. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-50-shades-of-shakespeare-how-the-bard-sexed-things-up-106783">Friday essay: 50 shades of Shakespeare - how the Bard sexed things up</a>
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<p>Luhrmann’s approach worked. The film grossed <a href="https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Romeo-and-Juliet-(1996)#tab=summary">over ten times its $14.5 million dollar budget</a>. No other direct Shakespeare adaptation has come close to this sort of <a href="https://money.com/shakespeare-movies-box-office-billions/">monetary success</a>. Others have since embraced gangsta style violence in their own Shakespeare adaptions, notably Australian director Justin Kurzel, with <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2884018/">Macbeth</a>, and David Michod’s <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7984766/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The King</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Juliet as an angel, Romeo as a knight. He goes to kiss her hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/383181/original/file-20210209-23-12uj0qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lurhmann incorporated pop culture into his telling — just as Shakespeare would have done.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bazmark Films</span></span>
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<p>Romeo + Juliet catapulted Luhrmann into the A-list, where he was given free reign on his next film, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203009/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Moulin Rouge</a>. Unfortunately, I think Lurhmann’s love of visual excess overwhelmed this and his further films, which were much more focused on screen imagery and design than story, character or meaning. </p>
<p>Perhaps the difference with Romeo + Juliet is that Luhrmann had a great script to start with. One can justly say of this lush, loud film, “For I never saw true beauty till this night”.</p>
<p><em>Romeo + Juliet is being re-released in selected cinemas from February 11 to mark its 25th anniversary.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/154801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Sparkes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It was the film that put the gangsta in Shakespeare: loud, brash, and brimming with pistols and gold chains.Daryl Sparkes, Senior Lecturer (Media Studies and Production), University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1526692021-01-08T15:49:30Z2021-01-08T15:49:30ZShakespeare and Cervantes: what similarities between the famous writers reveal about mysteries of authorship<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377555/original/file-20210107-19-8xmtuk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5053%2C3378&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://webgate.epa.eu/?16634349628007773501&MEDIANUMBER=55764109">Andy Rain/EPA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes, two of the most important writers of literature, are surrounded by a halo of mystery related to authorship.</p>
<p>In the case of Shakespeare, the question of whether he is the true author of his plays has circulated for some time. In the case of Cervantes, mysteries about authorship tend to concern who wrote the sequel to the first part of Don Quixote, one of the earliest modern novels.</p>
<p>Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. In 1614, an unofficial sequel by the pseudonymous Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda was published. In response, a year later, Cervantes published his sequel to Don Quixote, denouncing Avellaneda’s version in the prologue. Since then, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX5g2SfUFxLYt_O6KJWC2PtP_b4beG93y">Avellaneda’s identity</a> has become the greatest mystery in Spanish literature.</p>
<h2>Cervantes, Shakespeare and education</h2>
<p>Both Cervantes and Shakespeare lived and died at around the same time. Shakespeare was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare#Life">born into a wealthy, rural family</a> and Cervantes had <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_Cervantes#Biography">humbler origins</a>, yet both had a passion for the theatre and wrote plays. </p>
<p>In both cases, we hardly know anything about their childhoods and education (although it is known that neither went to university).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Person’s finger on magnified page of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, reading: " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377557/original/file-20210107-14-ndt4jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=453&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Shakespeare’s works have been attributed to 80 different authors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://webgate.epa.eu/thumb.php/55763975.jpg?eJw1jrEOgkAMht-ls8NdufbKbYYFE9FETNTJHBy4GAeRSXx3K8Tpy9_vT9s3FGsIfbwP3QqKEgKA8gzBKi4zthsIqNip7B636zhE7VSaiDxnuadfPM7deq7WBQSnqJaZqtdz1P2nRR8geGM0Vn-xVwGSkD273EcnVjxzjtxHtFlLbWdd0iv6KqAhpAkNGpmaJMTciFBvjEsEny8tSTIC">Andy Rain /EPA</a></span>
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<p>Great authors lend themselves to speculation. Shakespeare’s lack of education is one of the main arguments against the idea that he wrote his works, which have been attributed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question">80 different authors</a>. While Cervantes’ authorship tends not to be under the same scrutiny, questions about who exactly Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda was, remain.</p>
<p>Cervantes’ own educational background, however, suggests that it is possible to write to a high standard without academic training. If this could be true for the Spanish writer, why not for Shakespeare too?</p>
<p>A very large number of authors have also been proposed as <a href="https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/2090">candidates for the authorship of Avellaneda’s sequel to Don Quixote</a>.</p>
<p>Social and cultural prejudices have been important in both cases. Shakespeare’s works show a detailed knowledge of the highest social classes, which is why it is thought that they should have been composed by some illustrious person of the time, such as <a href="https://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/did-shakespeare-really-write-his-plays-a-few-theories-examined/2">Sir Francis Bacon</a>.</p>
<p>However, Cervantes also had knowledge of the higher social classes and did not belong to them. Some researchers have even proposed that Avellaneda could have been Lope de Vega, the most prominent Spanish playwright at the time, since it is more attractive to imagine Cervantes confronted with a great author than with a mediocre person.</p>
<p>In both cases, figures who died well before both Shakespeare and Cervantes have been proposed as authors: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford as the author of Shakespeare’s plays, and the Spanish writer Pedro Liñán de Riaza as Avellaneda, the unconvincing argument being that their works were left incomplete and were finished by other writers.</p>
<p>That said, it’s important to look at other plausible explanations. At the time of the publication of the first part of Don Quixote, there were no copyright laws protecting writers from continuations or plagiarism of works, which explains how Avellaneda’s version came to be. </p>
<p>Similar confusion has been caused in Shakespeare’s case. The Taming of the Shrew had an earlier anonymous version titled: <a href="https://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespeare/taming.html#:%7E:text=The%20only%20quarto%20edition%20of,bookseller%20John%20Smethwick%20in%201631.&text=Smethwick's%20copyright%20in%20The%20Taming,folio%20and%20the%201631%20quarto">The Taming of a Shrew</a>, seemingly supporting <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/authorship-of-the-taming-of-the-shrew/53EEB169C4B837834F7AC7504F6325B4">theories</a> that Shakespeare’s version was co-authored, or written by someone else entirely. </p>
<p>These days, however, following a theory <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sq/article-abstract/3/4/367/5136733?redirectedFrom=fulltext">put forward by Shakespearean scholar Peter Alexander</a> in 1926, it is generally accepted that The Taming of A Shrew was simply an attempt to record the live production version of the play from memory.</p>
<p>In the case of Cervantes, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OmFF1oRXzg">I think I have cleared the mystery</a>: we already know what Cervantes thought about Avellaneda’s identity, which should put an end to absurd speculation.</p>
<h2>Cervantes and issues of authorship</h2>
<p>As one popular theory goes, Avellaneda’s sequel to Don Quixote should be read as an embittered response to Cervantes’ parody of two real people: Lope de Vega and Jerónimo de Pasamonte. Pasamonte was a soldier from the region of Aragon who took part – as did Cervantes – in the battle of Lepanto (1571). Cervantes is said to have behaved heroically in the battle since, despite being ill, he insisted on fighting and was wounded several times.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Red hard-bound editions of Miguel de Cervante’s Don Quixote books in a row on a shelf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/377559/original/file-20210107-15-14fm9xe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Cervantes’ parody of the apocryphal Don Quixote hints at Avellaneda’s true identity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/don-quixote-antique-books-1181401978">Amani A/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Shortly afterwards, in 1574, Pasamonte was taken prisoner and spent 18 years in captivity. Upon his release, he returned to Spain and finished his autobiography, <a href="http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra/vida-y-trabajos/">Life and Works</a>.</p>
<p>When writing about the capture in 1573 of La Goleta (where there was in fact no actual battle), Pasamonte claimed to have acted as heroically as Cervantes at the battle of Lepanto.</p>
<p>After seeing how Pasamonte had usurped his heroic deeds in his autobiography, Cervantes satirised it in the first part of Don Quixote. Cervantes turned Jerónimo de Pasamonte into Ginés de Pasamonte, a galley slave, who is presented as a liar, a cheat, a coward and a thief, and is gravely insulted by characters Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.</p>
<h2>The revenge of Pasamonte</h2>
<p>The hypothesis that <a href="https://theconversation.com/cervantes-y-el-quijote-apocrifo-quien-fue-avellaneda-113331">Pasamonte was Avellaneda</a>, proposed by Martín de Riquer, an academic at the Royal Spanish Academy of the Language, is <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjEt5uDloXuAhVYZxUIHXk8DCsQFjAAegQIARAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fusers.pfw.edu%2Fjehle%2Fcervante%2Fcsa%2Fartics02%2Fpercas.pdf&usg=AOvVaw05HtrFdlG3iEA7YVq2TF9N">increasingly</a> <a href="https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjHhrqKl4XuAhUGhlwKHWQ9CeoQFjAAegQIAxAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fusers.pfw.edu%2Fjehle%2Fcervante%2Fcsa%2Fartics05%2Fpercas.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1_CQd_8CYhunBFuhXP0amR">accepted</a>.</p>
<p>As I have probed in my book, <a href="http://alfonsomartinjimenez.blogs.uva.es/publicaciones-en-internet/libro/">“The two second parts of Don Quixote”</a>, Pasamonte sought to take revenge on Cervantes, writing a sequel to Don Quixote with the intention of robbing Cervantes of his earnings from the second part. In order not to be linked to Cervantes’ galley slave, he then signed it under a pseudonym.</p>
<p>To get revenge on Avellaneda, Cervantes imitated his imitator and created a masterly scene, making the literary representation of Avellaneda (personified in a character known as Jerónimo) recognise his Don Quixote as the true one.</p>
<p>As attractive as speculation about Shakespeare and Cervantes’ authorship may be, looking closer at their lives shows just how irrelevant class, education and conspiracy theories are in terms of explaining their genius.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alfonso Martín Jiménez does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Looking closer at the Spanish writer’s life work shows that social and cultural prejudices have kept us from seeing the full pictureAlfonso Martín Jiménez, Catedrático de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada, Universidad de ValladolidLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1369742020-04-23T11:56:05Z2020-04-23T11:56:05ZShakespeare on Zoom: how a theatre group in isolation conjured up a Tempest<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330055/original/file-20200423-47784-po9adu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1662%2C1017&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Madeleine MacMahon as ‘Sebastianne’ in a live production of The Tempest by Creation Theatre from 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Creation Theatre/ Big Telly Theatre Company</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>While theatres remain closed, the way we watch Shakespeare is changing. When I picture the audiences Shakespeare would have written for, I think of the groundlings in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/">Shakespeare in Love</a>(1998). They stand, arms on the edges of the stage, staring upwards, eyes filled with tears – laughing, clapping, gasping. They are part of the show – and they show that they’re there. In the bright afternoon sun, the actors can see and hear every reaction.</p>
<p>Right now, of course, it’s not possible to take a trip to the playhouse. Still, with the <a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/nt-at-home">National Theatre</a>, the <a href="https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blogs-and-features/2020/04/03/how-to-watch-our-free-globe-player-films/">Globe</a>, and the <a href="https://www.andrewlloydwebber.com/the-shows-must-go-on/">Really Useful Group</a> moving quickly to put past performances online, the theatre can come to us via YouTube. We can see and hear the actors (and, having watched Hamlet, Jane Eyre and The Phantom of the Opera, I’ve been very grateful for it). But even though we can tweet our reactions, the actors can’t see or hear us.</p>
<p>The possibility of live performances during lockdown might change that. Over the Easter weekend, I watched an Oxford-based theatre company, <a href="https://www.creationtheatre.co.uk/">Creation Theatre</a>, and their co-producers at <a href="https://www.big-telly.com/">Big Telly Theatre Company</a> from Portstewart in Northern Ireland, put on a production of The Tempest via video conferencing platform Zoom. </p>
<p>It seemed a tricky challenge under lockdown, with each cast member performing (and rehearsing) from home. Indeed, as chief executive and creative producer Lucy Askew warned before the play began, the night’s events were at the mercy of the technological gods.</p>
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<p>But, when the play began and Ariel conjured a storm, suddenly it became clear that – despite our isolation – we too were part of the action. The audience’s microphones (muted while the actors spoke) were suddenly raised and we were asked to click our fingers to make it rain. The screen was full of audience members – and their pets, and their glasses of wine, and their pyjamas – and the storm was, even if I say so myself, convincing.</p>
<p>Within the space of an hour, the audience asked Antonio for answers via the chat function as he boasted of his usurpation of Prospero, we blew wind into the path of his ship and – in lieu of a banquet – all held up an offering of snacks (chocolate biscuits, from me). Each time other audience members appeared on screen, there was a rush of excitement as we got to see one another.</p>
<h2>Listening to the island.</h2>
<p>Shakespeare knew the importance of his audience’s reaction. At the end of The Tempest, Prospero relinquishes his magic and asks for something in return:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But release me from my bands<br>
With the help of your good hands.<br>
Gentle breath of yours my sails<br>
Must fill, or else my project fails.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s a moment when we are asked to make some noise – to clap with our “good hands”, to cheer (or whistle, or shout) with our “gentle breath”. Prospero’s redemption, if we allow him that possibility, comes from finally turning outwards, it comes from him seeing the necessity of his connection to others – to his daughter, to his once-forgotten subjects in Milan, and, perhaps, to us.</p>
<p>Yet, for all of the noise we made, this new medium exposed the myriad kinds of loneliness in The Tempest. Prospero sat in front of a backdrop of television screens, reminding us that we were all at one remove from one another. When Caliban described the noises of the island, the “Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not”, it was painfully apparent that he was alone and that there was nothing real to hear. When Ferdinand proposed to Miranda and reached from his screen to hers in an impressive feat of Zoom technology, that brief moment of “contact” was bittersweet.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1252942523468783617"}"></div></p>
<p>After all, the despair of being alone is a fear which Prospero seeks to create. As ordered, Ariel deliberately scatters the shipwrecked courtiers across the island. Yet, as <a href="https://www.bl.uk/people/john-donne">John Donne</a>, a contemporary of Shakespeare, wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>No man is an island entire of itself;<br>
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The dispersed groups come back together – Prospero leaves his island exile, and returns home. It’s not a perfect resolution, and it’s not a happy ending, but it is, nonetheless, a reunion.</p>
<h2>Somewhere new?</h2>
<p>As site-specific, conference call plays go, The Tempest lends itself to such a production. It’s a play about isolation and exile, about characters moving around a small island without ever meeting one another. Creation’s performance did nothing to disguise its new medium. In fact, the most powerful part of the performance came as Prospero spoke the famous epilogue which begins: “Now my charms are all o’erthrown”.</p>
<p>The cast slowly and methodically packed up their bedsheet green screens and wiped off their makeup. They changed their onscreen identities from their character’s names back to their own. By the time we were invited to stay on Zoom for a moment or two, to catch up with friends, thank the actors, and wave goodbye, the spell was broken.</p>
<p>But the magic may not be entirely over, not least as the popularity of their performances have led to Creation extending its run. Moreover, The Tempest is not the only play offered in this new genre of “Zoom Shakespeare”. Another group of actors recently collaborated to create <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXSokTF6KeY">A Midsummer Night’s Stream</a>, which they advertise not simply as a reading but a live performance, “adapted for our stage”. And there is no reason to think that “Zoom Theatre” will stick to Shakespeare.</p>
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<p>While we will (to entirely misuse one of Prospero’s lines) return to a time when we “have no screen between this part he play’d/And him he play’d it for”, Zoom Theatre may not be a temporary measure. Perhaps new plays will be written with the possibilities of Zoom and YouTube in mind. For many, watching theatre from home will allow for greater access and comfort. And, for now, speaking back, making noise, and waving at strangers, could inject a bit of silliness into our own isolated worlds.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136974/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Jayne Wright received funding from TORCH Theatres Seed Fund (University of Oxford) for a programme to widen public engagement with Shakespeare in collaboration with Creation Theatre. </span></em></p>We can’t go to the theatre but some creative theatre groups are bringing it to us, via Zoom.Laura Jayne Wright, Stipendiary Lecturer in English, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1368032020-04-22T14:20:25Z2020-04-22T14:20:25ZWilliam Shakespeare: archaeology is revealing new clues about the Bard’s life (and death)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329477/original/file-20200421-82707-1qrghie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C11%2C3703%2C2424&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Waxwork of Shakespeare by Madame Tussauds in Berlin.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anton Ivanov via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>William Shakespeare is widely regarded as one of the greatest authors of all time and one of the most important and influential people who has ever lived. His written works (plays, sonnets and poems) have been translated into more than 100 languages and these are performed around the world. </p>
<p>There is also an enduring desire to learn more about the man himself. Countless books and articles have been written about Shakespeare’s life. These have been based primarily on the scholarly analysis of his works and the official record associated with him and his family. Shakespeare’s popularity and legacy endures, despite <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeares-lost-years/">uncertainties in his life story</a> and debate surrounding <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/william-shakespeare/shakespeare-authorship-question/">his authorship and identity</a>. </p>
<p>The life and times of William Shakespeare and his family have also recently been informed by cutting-edge archaeological methods and interdisciplinary technologies at both New Place (his long-since demolished family home) and his burial place at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon. The <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/articles/finding-shakespeares-new-place/%20and%20https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-35883872">evidence gathered from these investigations</a> by the Centre of Archaeology at Staffordshire University provides new insights into his interests, attitudes and motivations – and those of his family – and shows how archaeology can provide further tangible evidence. These complement traditional Shakespearean research methods that have been limited to sparse documentary evidence and the study of his works.</p>
<p>Archaeology has the ability to provide a direct connection to an individual through the places and objects associated with them. Past excavations of the <a href="https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/famous-playhouses-shakespeare%E2%80%99s-bankside-%E2%80%93-ground-breaking-new-book-tells-all-about-rose-and">Shakespearean-era theatres</a> in London have provided evidence of the <a href="https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/new-archaeological-evidence-excavated-shakespeare%E2%80%99s-theatre-preparations-put-archaeological">places he worked</a> and spent much of his time. </p>
<p>Attributing objects to Shakespeare is difficult, we have his written work of course, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/HCCXjlFZJQTQPm5vhcvvXw/face-value-what-did-shakespeare-really-look-like">his portrait(s)</a> and <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/podcasts/60-minutes-shakespeare/shakespeares-memorial-bust/">memorial bust</a> – but all of his known possessions, like those <a href="https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/life/shakespeare-will-overview">mentioned in his will</a>, no longer exist. A single gold signet ring, inscribed with the initials W S, is thought by some to be the most significant object owned and used by the poet, despite its <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100-objects-shakespeares-signet-ring/">questionable provenance</a>. </p>
<h2>Shakespeare’s house</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s greatest and most expensive possession was his house, New Place. Evidence, obtained through <a href="https://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/archaeology/projects/searching-for-shakespeare/">recent archaeological investigations of its foundations</a>, give us quantifiable insights into Shakespeare’s thought processes, personal life and business success.</p>
<p>The building itself was lost in the 18th century, but the site and its remains were preserved beneath a garden. Erected in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon more than a century prior to Shakespeare’s purchase in 1597, from its inception, it was architecturally striking. One of the largest domestic residences in Stratford, it was the only courtyard-style, open-hall house within the town.</p>
<p>This type of house typified the merchant and elite classes and in purchasing and renovating it to his own vision, Shakespeare inherited the traditions of his ancestors while embracing the latest fashions. The building materials used, its primary structure and later redevelopment can all be used as evidence of the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00794236.2019.1601388">deliberate and carefully considered choices</a> made by him and his family.</p>
<p>Shakespeare focused on the outward appearance of the house, installing a long gallery and other fashionable architectural embellishments as was expected of a well-to-do, aspiring gentleman of the time. Many other <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-34936744">medieval features were retained</a> and the hall was likely retained as the showpiece of his home, a place to announce his prosperity, and his rise in status. </p>
<p>It provided a place for him and his immediate and extended family to live, work and entertain. But it was also a place which held local significance and symbolic associations. Intriguingly, its appearance also resembled the courtyard inn theatres of London and elsewhere with which Shakespeare was so familiar, presenting the opportunity to host private performances.</p>
<h2>In search of the Bard</h2>
<p>Extensive evidence of the personal possessions, diet and the leisure activities of Shakespeare, his family and the inhabitants of New Place were recovered during the archaeological investigations, revolutionising what we understand about his day-to-day life. </p>
<p>An <a href="https://searchingforshakespeare.co.uk/">online exhibition</a>, due to be made available in early May 2020, presents 3D-scanned artefacts recovered at the site of New Place. These objects, some of which may have belonged to Shakespeare, have been chosen to characterise the chronological development and activities undertaken at the site. </p>
<p>Open access to these virtual objects will enable the dissemination of these important results and the potential for others to continue the research.</p>
<h2>Here lies …</h2>
<p>Archaeological evidence recovered from non-invasive investigations at Shakespeare’s burial place has also been used to provide further evidence of his personal and family belief. Multi-frequency Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/arp.157">used to investigate</a> the Shakespeare family graves below the chancel of Holy Trinity Church.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/mar/23/shakespeare-stolen-skull-grave-robbing-tale-true">number of legends</a> surrounded Shakespeare’s burial place. Among these were doubts over the presence of a grave, its contents, tales of grave robbing and suggestions of a large family crypt. The work confirmed that individual shallow graves exist beneath the tombstones and that the various members of Shakespeare’s family were not buried in coffins, but in simple shrouds. Analysis concluded that Shakespeare’s grave had been disturbed in the past and that it was likely that his skull had been removed, <a href="http://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/archaeology/projects/secret-history-shakespeares-tomb/">confirming recorded stories</a>.</p>
<p>These family graves occupy a significant (and expensive) location in Holy Trinity Church. Despite this, the simple nature of Shakespeare’s grave, with no elite trappings or finery and no large family crypt, coupled with his belief that he should not be disturbed, confirm a simple regional practice based on pious religious observance and an affinity with his hometown.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-read-shakespeare-for-pleasure-136409">How to read Shakespeare for pleasure</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is still so much we don’t know about Shakespeare’s life, so it’s a safe bet that researchers will continue to investigate what evidence there is. Archaeological techniques can provide quantifiable information that isn’t available through traditional Shakespearean research. But just like other disciplines, interpretation – based on the evidence – will be key to unlocking the mysteries surrounding the life (and death) of the English language’s greatest writer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136803/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Mitchell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New technology is helping archaeologists uncover details of the playwright’s home, workplaces and his final resting place.William Mitchell, Lecturer in Archaeology, Staffordshire UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1364092020-04-21T08:12:47Z2020-04-21T08:12:47ZHow to read Shakespeare for pleasure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329522/original/file-20200421-82672-10gj7rb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C2600%2C2576&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Martin's Droeshout portrait of William Shakespeare (1623)</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bodleian Library, Oxford.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In recent years the orthodoxy that Shakespeare can only be truly appreciated on stage has <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11956151/Sir-Ian-McKellen-Dont-bother-reading-Shakespeare.html">become widespread</a>. But, as with many of our habits and assumptions, lockdown gives us a chance to think differently. Now could be the time to dust off the old collected works, and read some Shakespeare, just as people have been doing for more than 400 years. </p>
<p>Many people have said they find reading Shakespeare a bit daunting, so here are five tips for how to make it simpler and more pleasurable.</p>
<h2>1. Ignore the footnotes</h2>
<p>If your edition has footnotes, pay no attention to them. They distract you from your reading and de-skill you, so that you begin to check everything even when you actually know what it means. </p>
<p>It’s useful to remember that nobody ever understood all this stuff – have a look at Macbeth’s knotty “<a href="https://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/soliloquies/if-it-were-done-when-tis-done/">If it were done when ‘tis done</a>” speech in Act 1 Scene 7 for an example (and nobody ever spoke in these long, fancy speeches either – Macbeth’s speech is again a case in point). Footnotes are just the editor’s attempt to deny this.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C21%2C4881%2C3642&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C21%2C4881%2C3642&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/329075/original/file-20200420-152567-11dndy9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Shakespeare plays hand bound by Virginia Woolf in her bedroom at Monk’s House, Rodmell, Sussex, UK.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Alexanber/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>Try to keep going and get the gist – and remember, when Shakespeare uses very long or esoteric words, or highly involved sentences, it’s often a deliberate sign that the character is trying to deceive himself or others (the psychotic jealousy of Leontes in <a href="https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/shakespedia/shakespeares-plays/winters-tale/">The Winter’s Tale</a>, for instance, expresses itself in unusual vocabulary and contorted syntax).</p>
<h2>2. Pay attention to the shape of the lines</h2>
<p>The layout of speeches on the page is like a kind of musical notation or choreography. Long speeches slow things down – and, if all the speeches end at the end of a complete line, that gives proceedings a stately, hierarchical feel – as if the characters are all giving speeches rather than interacting. </p>
<p>Short speeches quicken the pace and enmesh characters in relationships, particularly when they start to share lines (you can see this when one line is indented so it completes the half line above), a sign of real intimacy in Shakespeare’s soundscape. </p>
<p>Blank verse, the unrhymed ten-beat <a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html">iambic pentamenter structure</a> of the Shakespearean line, varies across his career. Early plays – the histories and comedies – tend to end each line with a piece of punctuation, so that the shape of the verse is audible. John of Gaunt’s famous speech from Richard II is a good example.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,<br>
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Later plays – the tragedies and the romances – tend towards a more flexible form of blank verse, with the sense of the phrase often running over the line break. What tends to be significant is contrast, between and within the speech rhythms of scenes or characters (have a look at Henry IV Part 1 and you’ll see what I mean).</p>
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<h2>3. Read small sections</h2>
<p>Shakespeare’s plays aren’t novels and – let’s face it – we’re not usually in much doubt about how things will work out. Reading for the plot, or reading from start to finish, isn’t necessarily the way to get the most out of the experience. Theatre performances are linear and in real time, but reading allows you the freedom to pace yourself, to flick back and forwards, to give some passages more attention and some less. </p>
<p>Shakespeare’s first readers probably <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/apr/01/reading-shakespeare-book-plays-emma-smith">did exactly this</a>, zeroing in on the bits they liked best, or reading selectively for the passages that caught their eye or that they remembered from performance, and we should do the same. Look up <a href="https://shakespeare.folger.edu">where a famous quotation comes</a>: “All the world’s a stage”, “To be or not to be”, “I was adored once too” – and read either side of that. Read the ending, look at one long speech or at a piece of dialogue – cherry pick. </p>
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<p>One great liberation of reading Shakespeare for fun is just that: skip the bits that don’t work, or move on to another play. Nobody is going to set you an exam.</p>
<h2>4. Think like a director</h2>
<p>On the other hand, thinking about how these plays might work on stage can be engaging and creative for some readers. Shakespeare’s plays tended to have <a href="https://www.shakespeareswords.com/Public/LanguageCompanion/ThemesAndTopics.aspx?TopicId=37">minimal stage directions</a>, so most indications of action in modern editions of the plays have been added in by editors. </p>
<p>Most directors begin work on the play by throwing all these instructions away and working them out afresh by asking questions about what’s happening and why. Stage directions – whether original or editorial – are rarely descriptive, so adding in your chosen adverbs or adjectives to flesh out what’s happening on your paper stage can help clarify your interpretations of character and action.</p>
<p>One good tip is to try to remember characters who are not speaking. What’s happening on the faces of the other characters while Katherine delivers her long, controversial speech of apparent wifely subjugation at the end of The Taming of the Shrew?</p>
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<h2>5. Don’t worry</h2>
<p>The biggest obstacle to enjoying Shakespeare is that niggling sense that understanding the works is a kind of literary IQ test. But understanding Shakespeare means accepting his open-endedness and ambiguity. It’s not that there’s a right meaning hidden away as a reward for intelligence or tenacity – these plays prompt questions rather than supplying answers.</p>
<p>Would Macbeth have killed the king without the witches’ prophecy? Exactly – that’s the question the play wants us to debate, and it gives us evidence to argue on both sides. Was it right for the conspirators to assassinate Julius Caesar? Good question, the play says: I’ve been wondering that myself. </p>
<p>Returning to Shakespeare outside the dutiful contexts of the classroom and the theatre can liberate something you might not immediately associate with his works: pleasure.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136409/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Smith is the author of This Is Shakespeare, published by Penguin Random House.</span></em></p>The Bard’s plays have an unfair reputation for being hard. You’re probably reading them in the wrong way.Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1292582019-12-31T10:07:11Z2019-12-31T10:07:11ZThe hangover in literature, from Shakespeare and Burns to Bridget Jones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308311/original/file-20191230-11891-1g8n5c0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C25%2C5734%2C3802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Africa Studio via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>What a subject! And, in very truth, for once, a ‘strangely neglected’ one. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So Kingsley Amis began his famous 1971 <a href="https://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2011/12/24/kingsley-amis-on-the-hangover/">essay on the hangover</a> How different is our present moment, when it would be hard to find a media outlet on New Year’s Day not featuring an item about the effectiveness of remedies. Every age has its preferred cure: Pliny the Elder advocated <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/in-search-of-a-cure-for-the-dreaded-hangover/">raw owl’s eggs in wine</a>. Shakespeare refers to “small ale”, which remained popular into the 19th century. The early 20th century was the golden age of hangover cocktails such as the Bloody Mary and the Prairie Oyster – but also of Alka-Seltzer. Amis recommends a “<a href="https://drunkard.com/0805_kingsley/">Polish Bison</a>” – vodka mixed with hot Bovril.</p>
<p>Even scientists have got involved and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827719/">hangover research</a> is a subfield of medicine and psychology. Studies have <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2005-04292-004">explored links</a> between hangover severity and alcohol use disorders, the hangover’s economic cost, the effectiveness of remedies and the ethical implications of a pharmaceutical cure.</p>
<p>The bad news is that, if you’re feeling unwell this morning, all <a href="https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cdar/2010/00000003/00000002/art00007">reputable studies</a> have shown that the only thing guaranteed to relieve symptoms is the passing of time.</p>
<p>To be fair, Amis never thought that remedies – and physical after-effects including headache, nausea and dehydration – had been ignored. What had really been neglected was what he termed the hangover’s “<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB121097388467299643">metaphysical superstructure</a>”. That is all the emotional baggage that often follows drinking: guilt, shame, self-pity and the more nebulous “<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-hangovers-blackouts-and-hangxiety-everything-you-need-to-know-about-alcohol-these-holidays-127995">hangxiety</a>”.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-causes-hangovers-blackouts-and-hangxiety-everything-you-need-to-know-about-alcohol-these-holidays-127995">What causes hangovers, blackouts and 'hangxiety'? Everything you need to know about alcohol these holidays</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Science can tell us why we feel sick after heavy drinking: dehydration, contracted blood vessels causing headaches and the build-up of acetaldehyde. But when a hangover makes us unwell we don’t just mean physical symptoms. </p>
<p>Science finds emotions less susceptible to measurement than physical effects. For the former, we require literature and the arts. Literature is an outlet for feeling, but also an expression of individual and cultural values. There is a surprisingly rich tradition of hangover literature in western culture – in writers as diverse as Shakespeare and Jane Austen, Robert Burns and George Eliot, Jean Rhys and Helen Fielding – that has been largely ignored and goes some way to explaining why hangovers might make us feel like mending our ways.</p>
<h2>Hangover literature</h2>
<p>In a 1791 <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_QYIAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA449&lpg=PA449&dq=robert+burns,+I+write+you+from+the+regions+of+hell,+amid+the+horrors+of+the+damned&source=bl&ots=vuUGPw8vgb&sig=ACfU3U06e5ZksAAQ8_E6PKyKBXgypWBm5g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi86fm3td3mAhXcQEEAHYJvA_cQ6AEwAXoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=robert%20burns%2C%20I%20write%20you%20from%20the%20regions%20of%20hell%2C%20amid%20the%20horrors%20of%20the%20damned&f=false">epistle to Maria Riddell</a>, a wretchedly hungover Burns apologises for an unwanted sexual advance on her sister-in-law. “I write you from the regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damned”, he begins, before bemoaning his “aching head reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn”, and “an infernal tormentor” called “Recollection”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=548&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308310/original/file-20191230-11900-1ao2cfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=688&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Burns: recollection seems to be the hardest word.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alexander Nasmyth</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is penitent’s rhetoric, reminding us that Burns lived in rigidly moral Presbyterian Scotland. Pounding head and dehydration are just reprisal for his indiscretion and his letter is an apology for sinfulness. Shame is a powerful cultural force: if there is a cure here it will be found in forgiveness.</p>
<p>Hangovers often reveal the personal and social values that make us feel “bad”. In other words, the hangover is both a physical and cultural deterrent. Guilt and shame are not just nervous reflexes but part of a superstructure of values – Amis chose his words wisely – without which they cannot be understood.</p>
<h2>Men and women</h2>
<p>Science argues that hangover severity is different for men and women, focusing on metabolism and body mass. But surely the real differences are sociocultural? We could compare the hangovers of the alcoholic journalist, Peter Fallow, from Tom Wolfe’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/10/bonfire-of-vanities-tom-wolfe">The Bonfire of the Vanities</a> (1987), with those suffered by Helen Fielding’s ladette, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/27/bridget-jones-s-diary-helen-fielding-book-club">Bridget Jones</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308308/original/file-20191230-11909-vbkvg5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bridget Jones the morning after the night before.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Universal Pictures)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When hungover, Fallow seeks penance through strenuous exercise: “Never again. He would begin an exercise regimen tonight. Or tomorrow, in any case.” Wolfe makes it evident that hangxiety is not free floating, but derives from Fallow’s impression of being culturally tarnished: “It wouldn’t be this pathetic American business of jogging, either. It would be something clean, crisp, brisk, strenuous … English.” The body is a site of cultural meaning.</p>
<p>Jones faces low self-esteem when hungover. Her worries superficially recall those of Fallow, but her negative self image involves the distinctive pressures put upon women to marry and have children. She obsesses about weight gain, her looks (“Oh why am I so unattractive? Why?”), her ability to attract a partner and her ticking body clock.</p>
<h2>Family values</h2>
<p>The hangover’s impact on family life has been the focus of hangover studies. Here literature also points us to cultural variables.</p>
<p>The wife who nags her husband for his drunken ways is a stock figure of comic fiction from the 16th century to the present day. John Taylor captures the type in his colourful <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A13439.0001.001?view=toc">Skimmington’s Lecture</a> (1639): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What not a word this morning … have you lost your tongue, you may be ashamed, had you any grace in you at all, to bee such a common drunkard, a pisse-pot.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But in the Victorian period Janet Dempster in Eliot’s <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/24035174_Women_Alcohol_and_Femininity_A_Discourse_Analysis_of_Women_Heavy_Drinkers'_Accounts">Janet’s Repentance</a> (1857) tells us of a different domestic power dynamic. Because she is unable to reproach her abusive, though popular, husband, she drowns her sorrows. While Robert’s “good head” for drink is legendary, Janet’s hangovers mean she neglects housework and loses her “good” reputation. Her shame shows that she is held to a different set of standards than her husband, the “stigmatising subject position” of women drinkers. (Janet is, however, able to repent, while Robert ends up dying after delirium tremens.)</p>
<h2>Cultural resistance</h2>
<p>It is possible to defy moral judgement for our lack of self-care, wasted time or embarrassment. However, even the most rebellious of literature’s drinkers feel self-doubt bite during hangovers. Martin Amis’s John Self (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/15/martin-amis-money-tv-series">Money, 1984</a>), Alan Sillitoe’s Arthur Seaton (<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/content/articles/2008/04/11/east_midlands_sillitoe_s13_w8_feature.shtml">Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1958</a>) and A. L. Kennedy’s Hannah Luckraft (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/aug/28/fiction.alismith">Paradise, 2004</a>) are notorious for recklessness and defiance when drunk. Their hangovers are, however, some of the most crippling in literature. Luckraft revels in blackouts and casual sexual encounters, but admits: “Inside, I am mostly built out of remorse.” Self’s hangovers are a necessary curb on a particularly toxic brand of masculinity. Seaton’s motto is “don’t let the bastards grind you down”, but the hangover of Sunday morning succeeds boozy Saturday nights and he eventually submits to marriage and a steady job.</p>
<p>Literature shows that hangovers are rarely just a collection of physical symptoms. A recent <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/10/the-guardian-view-on-the-science-of-hangovers-no-more-research-needed">leader article in The Guardian</a> was given the headline: “The Guardian view on the science of hangovers: no more research needed”. Perhaps we don’t need another article about the best remedies – but it is worth reflecting that there is much more to a hangover than bodily symptoms. </p>
<p>Hangover literature tells us quite a lot about our attitudes to alcohol, how they form and what they mean. This New Year, alongside the Bloody Mary, it might just be worth picking up a book. I don’t claim it will make anyone feel better, but it could help us understand a little more about why drinking often makes us feel bad about ourselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/129258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathon Shears does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Memoirs of the morning after: because literature tells us the hangover is about so much more than physical symptoms.Jonathon Shears, Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1139552019-04-22T11:56:58Z2019-04-22T11:56:58ZShakespeare: research blows away stereotypes and reveals teenagers actually love the Bard<p>When you think of inner-city teenagers, what springs to mind? For many, it’s hoodies, video games – and probably hating Shakespeare. But my research proves that this stereotype is far from the truth.</p>
<p>Shakespeare holds a contested place in the <a href="https://journals.warwick.ac.uk/index.php/wjett/article/view/42/243">English national curriculum</a> as the only compulsory writer to be studied between the ages of 11 and 16. This imposed curriculum attempts to situate Shakespeare’s plays as part of national culture, rather than purely as an exemplar of high art. But teens are rarely asked directly about their experiences of education, and about its relevance to them.</p>
<p>Instead, they are often represented as a <a href="http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/95644/1/WRAP_Theses_Evans_2017.pdf">homogenous group who are bored and resistant</a> to studying Shakespeare, particularly when it comes to struggling with the language he used. </p>
<p>However, <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/people/cb2448">my research</a> with over 800 students in four London secondary schools offers a very different picture. I asked these 13 to 14-year-olds what they think and/or feel when they hear the word “Shakespeare” – and some of their answers defied expectations.</p>
<h2>What students say</h2>
<p>Many students told me that they actually enjoy studying Shakespeare in school. From comments such as “I feel happy because I like most of his plays”, to “I feel excited because Shakespeare was the best writer ever […] a legend or genius”, they expressed levels of interest in Shakespeare that are rarely acknowledged.</p>
<p>These students also did not see the language as a barrier, but as a challenge to be embraced. One commented: “I also get quite happy because we do not often look at texts with old English.”</p>
<p>In this large cohort of students, some comments stand out, showing how varied and individual their responses are. One described Shakespeare as “one of my inspirations for writing poetry”, while another said that “although I don’t really like English, I like his plays a lot”.</p>
<p>Teachers seem to play a key role in developing a positive attitude in some of their students. One student said that “all the work I’ve done on Shakespeare has been interesting and fun”, while another said she “really enjoyed the last play that we did”.</p>
<p>This study did not look in detail at what actually happens in the classroom, but many of the students’ comments suggest that having the confidence to approach a Shakespeare text with a positive attitude partly comes from the teacher’s attitude to him and his work.</p>
<h2>‘Be not afraid of greatness …’</h2>
<p>In addition to the wholly positive comments, some students demonstrated a more mixed response to the subject. One student told me that “sometimes it’s interesting and sometimes it’s just boring ‘cause in Year 7 I remember we did this one play for a very long time and it was just kind of the same thing every lesson for a double lesson”.</p>
<p>Here, the lessons were clearly not varied enough to hold this student’s attention all the time, although the comment suggests that the student knew that studying Shakespeare could be interesting and fun, even if it isn’t always like that in practice.</p>
<p>For others, the choice of play is key: “Some Shakespeare plays are more interesting than others, in my opinion.” One of the students I interviewed also articulated a clear tension in her attitudes towards studying Shakespeare. She said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The good part is because everyone goes through different stuff, some people can relate and they can feel like they’re not alone or like this has happened before and studying Shakespeare makes you see the world differently, […] and the bad thing about it [is] learning how to write in the Shakespeare kind of structure when it won’t be useful in the future. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>For a number of students, there are perhaps inevitable negative connotations attached to the word “Shakespeare”. Some did describe Shakespeare simply as “boring”, but others explained their reservations in more detail. One said: “I feel like I’ve heard the word Shakespeare too much and that I don’t want to talk about him.” Another thought “about long complicated language that no one understands”, while further complaints were about how “it is unnecessary to learn about as I don’t understand what’s beneficial for us as students”. </p>
<p>Overall, the students involved in this research demonstrated a breadth and depth of response to Shakespeare that counters the generalised belief that teenagers respond poorly to his work. Indeed, used as an introductory question to establish students’ attitudes to Shakespeare before attending a production at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre, in London, I have been fascinated by the variety and subtlety of thought they have demonstrated.</p>
<p>As one said: “I feel honoured that I’ve covered Shakespeare in school, because telling people you have read his plays makes you sound smart.” The sense of privilege inherent in this comment, despite the fact that everyone studies Shakespeare at school, is clearly something to cherish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113955/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cathy Baldwin receives funding from Shakespeare's Globe.
Cathy Baldwin is affiliated with teaching union, NASUWT.</span></em></p>Study uncovers what inner-city teenagers really thing about Hamlet et al.Cathy Baldwin, PhD Candidate in Education, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1132272019-03-11T15:19:39Z2019-03-11T15:19:39ZRichard Burbage: Shakespeare’s leading man and the reason Hamlet was fat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262933/original/file-20190308-155502-hj3m5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C1128%2C1073&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">RIchard Burbage: actor, theatre owner and entrepreneur. Born, January 5 1558, died March 12 1619.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Unknown artist</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s 400 years since the death of Richard Burbage, the first person to play the roles of Hamlet, Lear, Othello and Macbeth in the original version of the Globe in London. As far as Shakespeare was concerned, Burbage was both a blessing and a curse. He was a good actor, and he seems to have been a particular draw for female audience members – <a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/richardiiiscenes.html">an anecdote</a> by the contemporary diarist <a href="https://shakespearedocumented.folger.edu/exhibition/document/john-manninghams-diary-earliest-mention-twelfth-night-and-shakespeare-anecdote">John Manningham</a> tells of a citizen’s wife who was so smitten after seeing Burbage play Richard III that she sent a note backstage to make an assignation, only for it to be intercepted by Shakespeare, who went off to the rendezvous himself with the remark that “William the Conqueror was before Richard the Third”. </p>
<p>This story may or may not be true, but the story would never have been told if Burbage had not had sex appeal.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=996&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263154/original/file-20190311-86710-1nwh819.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1251&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Shakepeare’s first folio, dedicated to the Earl of Pembroke in 1623.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But Burbage seems not to have aged well. In the mid-1590s he was playing Romeo and climbing up to Juliet’s balcony, but by the time of Hamlet, which was first performed in about 1600, Gertrude’s remark “he’s fat, and scant of breath” probably got an appreciative laugh from the audience. Hamlet’s trip to England in Act Four of Hamlet looks a lot like Shakespeare engineering a rest for Burbage before the exertions of the fight scene in Act Five.</p>
<p>Five years after playing Hamlet, Burbage was playing King Lear, who – we are told – is over 80 years old. That was overstating the case a bit – Burbage would have been about 40 at the time – but a year or so later he is the male lead in Antony and Cleopatra – a grizzled old warrior who is repeatedly said to be past his best. By 1611, Prospero in The Tempest, perhaps the last role that Shakespeare intended to write for Burbage, is announcing that every third thought will be of his grave. </p>
<p>And eight years later Burbage was indeed dead, leading the Earl of Pembroke – to whom <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/shakespeares-first-folio">Shakespeare’s First Folio</a> would be dedicated four years later – to decide that he <a href="http://bloggingshakespeare.com/the-first-great-shakespearian-actor">could not face going to see a play</a> because it was “so soon after the loss of my old acquaintance, Burbage”.</p>
<h2>Supporting cast</h2>
<p>Burbage was Shakespeare’s most famous actor – but he was not the only one, and the things that the other actors could or couldn’t do had an impact on what was needed from him. Shakespeare wrote for a company of ten men and four boys – and the four boys had to act all the female roles. So if you have ever wondered why Romeo’s mother dies so suddenly and doesn’t have her own death scene, the answer is simple – the boy actor who had played her is <a href="https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/starcrossed/enter-montague-alone-5-3-208-215/">already on stage</a> as the page.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263155/original/file-20190311-86678-8qz9rt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Old Globe theatre — a print of the original theatre in London.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wenceslas Hollar (1642)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early in his career, Shakespeare enjoyed the services of two really exceptional boy actors – they played Rosalind and Celia in As You Like It, and could learn long and complicated speeches. But just after Shakespeare wrote Twelfth Night, his best boy actor suffered the misfortune of <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_7wRDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA101&lpg=PA101&dq=shakespeare+rewrote+twelfth+night+after+actor+playing+viola%27s+voice+broke&source=bl&ots=NwuJ1kYBf7&sig=ACfU3U2G3PakUwyFBP2raYusrMMq7rr1iw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilw_-orvrgAhV_URUIHYkBBC0Q6AEwEnoECBAQAQ#v=onepage&q=shakespeare%20rewrote%20twelfth%20night%20after%20actor%20playing%20viola's%20voice%20broke&f=false">having his voice break</a>. We can see this from the way Shakespeare designed the play – Viola, the female lead, says at the beginning that her plan on entering Orsino’s household is to sing, but in the event she never does. Instead Feste the clown is improbably presented as the resident singer in Orsino’s household as well as the Countess Olivia’s. Shakespeare revised the play, but the joins still show.</p>
<p>For a few years after that the parts Shakespeare writes for women are much less ambitious and demanding: Cordelia in King Lear speaks fewer than 100 lines – though that might be partly because it is easier to create an impression of virtue if you do not shine too bright a light on it, and Cordelia is the one good daughter who must be strongly contrasted with the two bad ones.</p>
<p>By the time of Antony and Cleopatra, Shakespeare had a new performer at his disposal whose Cleopatra could give Burbage’s Antony a run for his money. The boy who played the Egyptian queen had to go through some mercurial mood changes – and Cleopatra dominates the stage in the fifth act after Antony has very unusually died in the fourth.</p>
<p>Even this mark of weakness, though, helps us remember that throughout his writing career, when Shakespeare thought “hero” he thought of Richard Burbage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113227/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Hopkins is co-editor of the journal Shakespeare and a member of the board of the British Shakespeare Association.</span></em></p>All of Shakespeare’s major male roles were written for Richard Burbage who died in the 1619s.Lisa Hopkins, Professor of Renaissance Literature, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1024112018-08-30T14:02:40Z2018-08-30T14:02:40ZHonouring Annan, McCain and others: why eulogies have blind spots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234283/original/file-20180830-195301-tq9f9f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A United Nations staff member pays tribute to Kofi Annan during a ceremony at the European headquarters of the UN in Geneva, Switzerland.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/ Salvatore Di Nolfi</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As an old adage says: <a href="https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder.html">“beauty is in the eye of the beholder”</a>. So it should not come as a surprise that prominent people are sometimes remembered selectively when they are dead. </p>
<p>Perspectives have blind spots. We often appreciate or dislike others because of how we relate to them through our spectacles, coloured by the values we treasure. There is a wide zone between fact and fiction. The truth is that the interpretation of others’ legacies often reveals a great deal about us and our values. And is often less about the complexity of the lives of those with whom we engage.</p>
<p>I have experienced such a balancing act in my engagements with Dag Hammarskjöld, the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, before he met his untimely death in a <a href="https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/who-killed-hammarskjold-2/">plane crash at Ndola</a>, in then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia), in 1961.</p>
<p>As the world’s highest international civil servant, Hammarskjöld provoked divided opinions. Some saw him as a tool of Western imperialism for the assassination of the Congolese leader <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/792-the-assassination-of-lumumba">Patrice Lumumba</a>; others praised him as being <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/8873047/hammarskjold">close to a saint</a>.</p>
<p>Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general who recently passed away, said that Hammarskjöld was his <a href="https://www.daghammarskjold.se/event/dag-hammarskjold-21st-century-kofi-annan/">role model</a>. The obituaries that followed Annan’s death led me to reflect on the two men, the legacies they left, and how imperfectly high profile people are remembered after they’re gone.</p>
<p>Politicians and diplomats are a special breed. We owe it to them and to us, to find an adequate way of engaging with their legacies in a format that avoids the superficial praise song and highlights the contradictions when entering the power games of policy. </p>
<h2>Kofi Annan</h2>
<p>There wasn’t much of a balancing act when it came to remembering Annan. Many eulogies had few critical undertones for <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-19-kofi-annan-a-man-who-cared-for-humanity/">“a man who cared for humanity”</a>.</p>
<p>Some managed to address his <a href="https://theconversation.com/kofi-annan-a-complicated-legacy-of-impressive-achievements-and-some-profound-failures-101791">complicated legacy</a> while others were courageous enough to emphasise his shortcomings as Secretary-General, including his refusal “to acknowledge any meaningful sense of personal or institutional responsibility” for <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/kofi-annans-unaccountable-legacy">some major debacles</a>. </p>
<p>But these remained the odd ones out. Others were quick to list his merits, which outweighed the shortcomings as <a href="https://theconversation.com/kofi-annan-a-man-who-paid-his-dues-to-global-peace-and-security-101837">a man who paid his dues</a>.</p>
<p>Many obituaries conceded the impact of his influence on <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-08-21-kofi-annan-a-geopolitical-obituary/">the global stage</a>. But acknowledgements missed mentioning at least two other Africans, who during Annan’s terms played an important role in the agenda-setting he is praised for. Lakhdar Brahimi was crucial in promoting more <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/brahimi_report.shtml">effective peacekeeping operations</a>; Francis Deng made major contributions towards the UN’s <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/book/sovereignty-as-responsibility/">“Responsibility to Protect” agenda</a>.</p>
<p>Like others – think of former US-President Jimmy Carter’s track record as human rights advocate and his <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/22/jimmy-carter-lives-in-an-inexpensive-house.html">modest lifestyle</a> – Annan’s merits lie more in his time after office. Most prominently in his role as one of the <a href="https://theelders.org/kofi-annan">Elders</a>. </p>
<p>He was a noteworthy mediator, most spectacularly in <a href="https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kofi-Annan-and-Kenya--Hero-to-some-and-villain-to-others/1056-4718852-3xqgmw/index.html">Kenya</a>. Commendable is also his recent commitment towards a solution for the plight of the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/former-secretary-general-kofi-annan-urges-un-to-push-for-rohingya-return-to-myanmar/a-40950080">Rohingya in Myanmar</a>.</p>
<p>What might explain the overtly positive eulogies to Annan is that there were moments of human dignity and decency, in which the opportunity was seized to set a morally acceptable example. This seems to have also been the case when it comes to John McCain, American politician and military officer <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-john-mccain-who-survived-torture-and-ran-for-the-us-presidency-97020">who recently passed on</a>. </p>
<h2>John McCain</h2>
<p>McCain was widely celebrated in the established media as <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mccain/senator-john-mccain-ex-pow-and-political-maverick-dead-at-81-statement-idUSKCN1LB00C">war hero and maverick</a>. He was also deemed an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/aug/26/an-american-hero-the-life-of-john-mccain-video">American hero</a>, whose “principles and belief in bi-partisanship” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/27/john-mccain-paradox-america-principled-moral">made him unique</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=759&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234285/original/file-20180830-195304-1tdht6w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=954&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The late former US Senator John McCain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/CJ Gunther</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But moments of personal integrity were at times deeply ambiguous. His defending Barack Obama as “a decent man” and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/aug/27/john-mccain-remembered-defending-obama-from-racist-questions-video">“family father”</a>, was far from dismissing racism. It only exonerated his contender and should not make up for McCain being willing to compromise his declared principles in his bid for <a href="https://theconversation.com/john-mccain-dead-at-81-helped-build-a-country-that-no-longer-reflects-his-values-97054">presidential power</a>. </p>
<p>The conservative values praised as a sign of integrity, elevating him into <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-john-mccain-who-survived-torture-and-ran-for-the-us-presidency-97020">“a class of his own”</a> should not distract from McCain’s role as a war monger who did not care for human life and dignity. </p>
<h2>Weigh right and wrong</h2>
<p>All too often – and Annan has been a particularly prominent example – those praising a person highlight their own involvement. They cannot resist focusing on the impact the person had on them or when and where the person left a lasting impression through a personal encounter. Often, such eulogies reproduce a photo of the praised person, shown together with the one who applauds her or his merits – almost as if these were their own merits.</p>
<p>This leaves me wondering what kind of memory will be paid to Obama. As the first black president of the US there were a number of things deserving positive recognition, mainly in domestic policy. But they should not prevent a condemnation of his massive failures. But then, in the shadow of Obama’s through and through immoral successor in office, it already makes a difference to display some degree of ethics, moral consciousness and decency.</p>
<p>Maybe this is also a valid explanation why so many failed in their tributes to Annan or McCain. It might be difficult to enter the necessary investigations of what is right and what is wrong in times when reactionary populism requires a desperate search for alternatives. But, it is in support of such alternatives that we shouldn’t shy away from the challenge.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Henning Melber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kofi Annan and John McCain’s positive eulogies could be because both men seized moments of human dignity and decency.Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor, Department of Political Sciences, University of PretoriaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1018372018-08-21T07:14:22Z2018-08-21T07:14:22ZKofi Annan: a man who paid his dues to global peace and security<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232654/original/file-20180820-30593-1un7mqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/ Fredrik Persson</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>All the world’s a stage; And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts. (<a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/you-it-act-ii-scene-vii-all-worlds-stage">As you like it</a>, Act II, scene VII, William Shakespeare.) </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Indeed, Kofi Annan, born in 1938, entered the world in the City of Kumasi in Ghana, and exited the world in 2018 as a humanitarian, a true statesman and a peacebuilder.</p>
<p>He became Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) a few years after the demise of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the bi-polar world reduced to the barest minimum the constraints imposed by the Cold War rivalry on the world body. It also led to the expansion of its role and responsibilities to address the new challenges and dimensions of security. </p>
<p>Annan’s tenure began a few years after the (re)introduction of two important international security lexicons – peacebuilding and human security. These two were popularised in the UN commissioned works by former Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s <a href="http://www.un-documents.net/a47-277.htm">An Agenda for Peace</a> (1992) and the Pakistani economist, <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-mahbub-ul-haq-1169323.html">Mahbub ul Haq</a>. Boutros-Ghali’s initiative expanded the UN’s role and responsibilities to the world. It also redefined global peace and security architecture. </p>
<p>The 1990s was characterised by complex and intractable armed conflicts. The period saw a significant shift from inter-state to intra-state conflicts. There was a rise in the number of
failed states as well as egregious violations of human rights.</p>
<p>As the Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and later the Secretary-General, Annan’s task of overseeing the implementation of the new security agenda was no doubt arduous. </p>
<h2>The fight against poverty</h2>
<p>Throughout his life Annan committed himself to peace and security, human rights and rule of law. He was committed to ensuring respect for human rights and improving human security. Both were considered important in improving the quality of living of people. On one occasion he <a href="http://www.un.org/en/ga/president/68/pdf/human_security/FINAL%20Gasper_HumanSecurityApproach_UNGA-18June2014.pdf">remarked</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>…anyone who speaks forcefully for human rights but does nothing about human security and human development – or vice versa – undermines both his credibility and his cause. So let us speak with one voice on all three issues.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He pursued the agenda of improving the quality of people by getting world leaders to commit themselves to addressing the basic concerns of the world’s population – poverty. In his <a href="http://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/We_The_Peoples.pdf">2000 report</a>, We the peoples: the role of the United Nations in the 21st century, he urged member states to:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Put people at the centre of everything we do …. to make their lives better.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the concluding part of the report, Annan <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/pdfs/We_The_Peoples.pdf">admonished</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Free our fellow men and women from the abject and dehumanising poverty in which more than 1 billion of them are currently confined. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Throughout his international public service, measures to address the basic needs of people were ever present, both in his words and deeds. Even on retirement, he continued to work for the improvement of the living standards of ordinary people.</p>
<h2>The reformist</h2>
<p>Annan was a reformist. On taking up the post as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN, he <a href="http://www.g77.org/doc/policy%20brief.htm">drove</a> the implementation of two management reports on reform. The first introduced a cabinet kind of body which assisted the Secretary-General in the effective running of the organisation. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=812&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/232656/original/file-20180820-30608-19zde3x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1020&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA-EFE/Lynn Bo bo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The second established of the position of Deputy Secretary-General and the reduction of administrative costs to the world body. He presided over reforms intended to make the UN an effective international peace and security interlocutor. In his <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061213000423/http:/www.un.org/largerfreedom/">progress report</a> he made further far reaching recommendations for the expansion of the Security Council and a number of other <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20061213172029/http:/www.un.org/mandatereview/">reforms</a> that brought about significant changes to the UN. </p>
<p>His past experiences shaped his international engagements, especially on international intervention to save humanitarian catastrophes. The failure of the UN to stop the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the Srebrenica massacre when Annan served as the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations were key events in this context.</p>
<p>Under Annan, the UN General Assembly in 2005 endorsed the doctrine of “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_to_Protect">Responsibility to Protect</a>” following the incorporation of this doctrine in his report, <a href="https://www.un.org/en/events/pastevents/in_larger_freedom.shtml%7CIn">Larger Freedom</a>. </p>
<p>In the preparation to invade Iraq in 2003, Annan condemned the US and the UK, urging them not to do so without the support of the UN. He believed the intervention didn’t conform with the UN charter, and was therefore <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3661134.stm">illegal</a>.</p>
<h2>Reflections</h2>
<p>In his <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pPXpiXQ45osC&pg=PA90&lpg=PA90&dq=All+of+us+must+bitterly+regret+that+we+did+not+do+more+to+prevent+it&source=bl&ots=JFLE201ClH&sig=eYK3IYyO3_9Rze--faz7aj7dePs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi-r-2q1PncAhXQY1AKHfa2ApIQ6AEwBHoECAUQAQ#v=onepage&q=All%20of%20us%20must%20bitterly%20regret%20that%20we%20did%20not%20do%20more%20to%20prevent%20it&f=false">memoir</a> which he coauthored with his former advisor and speechwriter, Nader Mousavizadeh, Annan, he reflected on his roles at the UN. </p>
<p>On the Rwandan genocide, one of the significant lapses that dented the UN’s peacekeeping reputation, Annan reported on how he lobbied about 100 governments – and made personal calls to others – to assist with the passage of the Security Council Resolution (918) to dispatch about 5,500 troops to the country. He recalls how he received no single serious offer for troop contribution. </p>
<p>The 1999 independent investigation into what had happened categorically concluded that the UN had failed to prevent, and stop, the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-13431486">genocide in Rwanda</a>. As Secretary-General during the investigation, Annan accepted responsibility of the lapses during the genocide in Rwanda. He said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All of us must bitterly regret that we did not do more to prevent it,</p>
</blockquote>
<p>pointing out that UN peace force at the time was “neither mandated nor equipped” for the kind of forceful action needed to prevent the genocide.</p>
<p>Nonetheless with a deeper refection, Annan said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>On behalf of the United Nations, I acknowledge this failure and express my deep remorse. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Recounting more recently on the genocide in Rwanda and his later diplomatic undertakings after the end of his tenure as the Secretary General, Annan said he’d learnt some useful lessons:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I realised after the genocide that there was more that I could and should have done to sound the alarm and rally support. This painful memory, along with that of Bosnia and Herzegovina, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-44412275">has influenced</a> much of my thinking, and many of my actions, as secretary-general". </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He was to put these lessons into practice as he continued to pursue avenues for peace in conflicts around the world. For example, six months after his appointment as the UN-Arab League Special Envoy to Syria, Annan <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2012/08/416872-kofi-annan-resigns-un-arab-league-joint-special-envoy-syrian-crisis">resigned</a>. His reasons included the stalemate in the Security Council to take measures that could ensure a peaceful resolution to the Syrian crisis as well as the intransigence of both the Assad regime and the rebels towards a peaceful outcome. </p>
<p>And in 2016 he headed the Rakhine Commission which was appointed to look into the Rohingya conflict in Myanmar. The commission’s recommendations were unpopular to both sides. But in 2018 the Myanmar civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi accepted the commission’s recommendations and convened a new board, ostensibly to implement them.</p>
<p>Annan acquitted himself well as an international diplomat, a humanist and peace-builder. He lived a fulfilled life, and contributed significantly in his chosen career. Kofi ‘Damirifa Duei Duei ne amane hunu’ (Rest in Peace).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101837/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abdul-Jalilu Ateku receives funding from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission IN the UK for my PhD</span></em></p>Kofi Annan’s tenure began after the reintroduction of two important international security lexicons – peacebuilding and human security.Abdul-Jalilu Ateku, PhD Candidate in International Relations, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/963012018-05-29T08:49:14Z2018-05-29T08:49:14ZHow Shakespeare used music to tell stories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220260/original/file-20180524-51141-1t9dgpl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Francia_-_Madonna_and_Saints_(detail)_-_WGA08174.jpg">Francesco Francia, Madonna and Saints (detail).</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today we fully expect film, television and theatre to use music to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-one-man-changed-the-landscape-of-film-music-29191">shape meaning</a>. The screeching violins of Psycho and the menacing <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-jaws-ate-the-horror-genre-and-has-yet-to-spit-it-out-43511">Jaws</a> theme, for instance, both depend upon a shared 20th-century dramatic language in which music indicates mood. Rewind 400 years and it may not seem like the same is true. Take Shakespearean drama. Many modern productions choose to avoid historical music altogether, preferring new compositions or pre-recorded popular songs that more obviously indicate mood to modern ears.</p>
<p>Yes, early modern theatre was a little more restrained in its musical practices when compared to the near-constant musical underscore of screens large and small today. But music was actually an equally important component of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy, often combined with words, action and the occasional firework to shape dramatic meaning. </p>
<p>Indeed, 16th and 17th-century playhouse music was in one sense even more “real” than later equivalents. It typically existed within the world of the play: it was audible to the onstage characters. In contrast, the modern norm is music as underscore, sounds that shape mood for the audience but are not part of the dramatic world.</p>
<p>To understand just how important music is to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/shakespeare-6387">Shakespeare’s dramatic craft</a>, we have to do more than simply recover playhouse musical practices. We must also consider what it meant to listen to music with early modern ears, and therefore how Shakespeare expected his audiences to respond.</p>
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</figure>
<p>How would a Jacobean servant react to a trumpet flourish? What about a merchant to an emotive ballad? Or hidden music, rumbling up from under the stage? I have been pondering these questions of late, surveying many texts of the period in search of popular ideas of how music might affect you. In particular, <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/9781107180840">my recent research</a> traced ideas apparently familiar to the average playgoer, rather than the specialist views of composers, theorists and occupational musicians.</p>
<h2>A winter’s miracle</h2>
<p>What emerges is not always as we might expect. Shakespeare’s audience firmly believed that music needed to be seen as well as heard to be experienced properly. They had an extremely high opinion of music’s connection to the celestial and the supernatural and therefore its power over body and soul, to the degree that it was considered physically impossible not to listen when harmony sounded. Even music’s relationship with memory and imagination was understood in terms very different from those of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198722946.001.0001">modern neurological studies</a>.</p>
<p>These beliefs may seem arcane, and irrelevant to our encounters with Shakespeare today. But by ignoring them, we are missing out on Shakespeare’s dramatic intentions. We may even find ourselves in manifest danger of not understanding him. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-winters-tale/">The Winter’s Tale</a> is an important play in this regard. It hinges on a barely plausible resurrection in the final scene when Hermione’s statue is brought to life by music. Today, the scene is typically staged as an elaborate but somewhat unconvincing deception. Hermione, it is implied, has simply been hiding for the 16 years between her supposed death and the revelation of the statue.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=540&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/220172/original/file-20180523-51102-337c6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A mid-19th century ink drawing of the statue of Hermione coming to life.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Statue_Hermione_comes_back_to_life.jpg">Folger Shakespeare Library</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But early modern subjects may have seen this scene very differently, if we consider how they thought of music. Alongside the natural scepticism that this fantastical plotline raises, Shakespeare’s first audiences would have brought with them a firm conviction that music can compel the body and even resurrect. Indeed, Shakespeare seems particularly fond of the “musical resurrection” motif, which has its origins in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/SSO9781107775572.026">alchemical theory</a>. Similarly, in <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/pericles/">Pericles</a>, written a few years before The Winter’s Tale, Cerimon uses “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17450918.2013.766241">rough and woeful</a>” music to help bring Thaisa back to life. </p>
<h2>Music making meaning</h2>
<p>In light of early modern musical beliefs, then, it seems likely that Shakespeare wanted a somewhat complex and equivocal conclusion to The Winter’s Tale. Rather than inviting a straightforward interpretation of the scene, as performances today often encourage, the statue <em>could</em> be a hoax, but could equally be a mythical story of music’s power. A “winter’s tale” is, after all, another name for a fairy story.</p>
<p>Music was a dramatic tool for Shakespeare, used deliberately and precisely to shape meaning at the conclusion of The Winter’s Tale, and in many other plays including <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/">Richard III</a>, <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/othello/">Othello</a> and <a href="https://www.rsc.org.uk/antony-and-cleopatra/">Antony and Cleopatra</a>. Neither is Shakespeare alone in this regard. Many of his contemporaries, such as John Fletcher, Thomas Heywood, John Marston and Thomas Middleton made similar use of music’s dramatic potential. </p>
<p>Careful consideration of popular musical culture in Shakespeare’s time can help reveal crucial nuances in his storytelling. This is important to note, because these details might otherwise be missed at a historical distance of some four centuries. 20th-century underscoring may be the most famous form of music as a dramatic medium. But in a slightly different idiom, Shakespeare and his contemporaries might just have got there first.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96301/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Smith received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2010-13) and the Leverhulme Trust (2014-17) to support his research.</span></em></p>How would a Jacobean servant react to a trumpet flourish?Simon Smith, Lecturer in Shakespeare and Early Modern Drama, University of BirminghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846872017-10-04T19:13:36Z2017-10-04T19:13:36ZShakespeare’s lost playhouse – now under a supermarket<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188688/original/file-20171003-18673-8tpfup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">John Fead, Shakespeare and his contemporaries, 1851. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With its round amphitheatre, The Globe is the most famous playhouse associated with Shakespeare - indeed, a working, <a href="https://popupglobe.com.au/">pop up replica of it is currently in Melbourne</a>. But long before Shakespeare or his plays appeared at the Globe, another forgotten stage was the Bard’s temporary home. </p>
<p>It is even possible that the first purpose-built stage to house Shakespeare was at a playhouse that stood a mile south of the London Thames <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/shakespeare-s-lost-playhouse-laurie-johnson/prod9781138296336.html">at the Newington Butts juncture</a>. Rather than round, the playhouse would have been relatively small and rectangular – a conversion of an existing commercial building.</p>
<p>It was here, in June 1594, that theatre entrepreneur Philip Henslowe recorded the first known performances of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, a theatre troupe of which Shakespeare was a founding member, playwright and actor. The company performed versions of Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, and Titus Andronicus over 11 days. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.booktopia.com.au/shakespeare-s-lost-playhouse-laurie-johnson/prod9781138296336.html">evidence also suggests</a> that the actor Richard Burbage wouldn’t have been at the Newington Butts playhouse. Yet most have assumed Hamlet was a play Shakespeare wrote for Burbage. </p>
<p>While Shakespeare’s plays were performed at smaller venues such as inns and courtyards (possibly as early as 1589), the Newington Butts’ shows were very likely to have been the first on a major Elizabethan stage constructed specifically for the kind of theatre for which he was about to become famous. It soon vanished from history, and was largely forgotten by Shakespeare scholars. </p>
<p>But using 18th-century maps, I’ve been able to figure out where it likely once stood. This historically significant site is likely now under a shopping centre south of the Thames.</p>
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/embed?mid=15CXigY-v3DystvAfqCtkq9InIYE" width="100%" height="480"></iframe>
<h2>Shakespeare detective</h2>
<p>The Newington Butts playhouse was built in 1575 and continued operating until 1594. The playhouse would have had at least two tiers of seating around the perimeter to be financially viable, seating about 700 to 800 patrons. It was closed down when the new leaseholder Paul Buck agreed to convert it to some other purpose – it is likely he converted the building to tenement housing.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188687/original/file-20171003-14213-1evm7kd.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Elephant and Castle shopping centre.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laurie Johnson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of the reasons the playhouse has been easy to forget, and difficult to locate, is that there are no maps from the period that show the junction there. From the perspective of the Elizabethan mapmaker, there was not much to see south of the Thames – London was located on the north side of the river, and the road to the south quickly ran into fields only pockmarked by the occasional dwelling place or church. </p>
<p>While early modern maps and panoramas have been very helpful in locating the more famous playhouses like the Globe on London’s Bankside, they provide no help in searching for the playhouse at Newington Butts. </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://civicwondrous.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/1681-walworth-from-survey-of-londonimg_2649_2.jpg">maps of the roads</a> survive from at least 1681. In 1955, <a href="http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol25">surveyor Ida Darlington</a> pointed out that a property to the east of the juncture on this map was the same as that on which the playhouse stood. However, the map is of too poor quality to find a precise location. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188683/original/file-20171003-18673-105o64q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A detail of the 1681 map showing the Newington Butts juncture. North is to the right of the picture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I used another <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rocque%27s_Map_of_London,_1746">map from 1746</a> drawn up by surveyor John Rocque to pinpoint the playhouse. The building north of the junction has remained in the same place for several hundred years. It began as stables, later becoming the Elephant and Castle Inn. Knowing this, and using early leases that record the site of the playhouse, I could figure out that the playhouse stood southeast of the inn. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=308&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/188293/original/file-20171002-28497-1gb8j1m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Rocque s Map of London from 1746.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1960, the Newington Butts junction was replaced by the Elephant and Castle roundabout. The site of the playhouse now likely lies under the <a href="http://elephantandcastleshopping.com/">Elephant and Castle shopping centre</a>, named after the inn that stood there until 1960. Any archaeological remains, if they survived the redevelopment, would thus be under where the market stalls are situated. Unfortunately, this would seem unlikely, as the shopping centre’s foundations were very deep.</p>
<p>So where did Shakespeare’s troupe go after Newington Butts? Their next known stopping point was in Marlborough. By the end of 1594, they ended up performing at the Theatre in Shoreditch, the first of the famed round theatres. In 1598, the Theatre was closed down and the more famous Globe was built in 1599.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84687/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurie Johnson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The first recorded performance of the theatre company that Shakespeare co-founded was at a playhouse south of the Thames, but was lost to historians for centuries. Now we know where it lies.Laurie Johnson, Associate Professor in English Literature and Cultural Studies, University of Southern QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753142017-03-29T14:41:25Z2017-03-29T14:41:25ZShakespeare in South African schools: to die, to sleep – or perchance to dream?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163090/original/image-20170329-1634-1ye0qed.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">William Shakespeare is a sometimes controversial figure in South Africa's school system.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>South Africa’s education authorities are <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/education/2017-03-27-shakespeare-may-be-taken-out-of-classroom/">reviewing</a> the school curriculum. Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga has confirmed that the review will feature a focus on “decolonisation” reflecting <a href="https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/education/2017-03-27-shakespeare-may-be-taken-out-of-classroom/">the need</a> to move towards the use of more African and South African novels, drama and poetry. This might spell the end of William Shakespeare in the country’s classrooms. The Conversation Africa’s education editor Natasha Joseph asked Professor Chris Thurman about the implications of the proposed review.</em></p>
<p><strong>How much Shakespeare currently features in the South African English curriculum?</strong></p>
<p>I’m not an authority on the current arrangements nationwide and it’s difficult to generalise; in addition to annual curricular changes – not just to set works but to teaching and learning materials, methods and outcomes – within any given year there’s a lot of variation between provinces, across grades, between schools and even (potentially) between learners at the same school. </p>
<p>So let’s focus on Grade 12. Learners doing English as a First Language would be likely to study a Shakespeare play in this final year at school. At government schools in the Gauteng province in 2017, for instance, this is <em>Hamlet</em>; favourites over the years have been <em>Othello</em>, <em>Macbeth</em> and <em>Romeo and Juliet</em>. English First Additional Language learners would be more likely to do a play such as South African playwright and actor John Kani’s <em><a href="http://www.education.gov.za/Portals/0/Documents/Manuals/MTG%20EFAL%20P2d%20NBTT%2019_01_2015%20WEB.pdf?ver=2015-01-20-100446-000">Nothing But The Truth</a></em>.</p>
<p>In 2016 the Independent Examinations Board (IEB), the regulatory body for private schools, introduced <em>Coriolanus</em> as the compulsory Grade 12 Shakespeare set work. In some schools learners in earlier grades will have exposure to Shakespeare, depending on school or teacher preference. There are also “advanced” programmes where senior learners will do extra Shakespeare.</p>
<p><strong>Do you think there’s room for <em>both</em> Shakespeare and African authors? And is Shakespeare actually relevant for pupils in South Africa today?</strong></p>
<p>There’s limited room. English at school level is not purely literary studies; its scope can range from basic language and literacy skills to film and media studies. Add to that slower reading rates among learners combined with the inevitable orientation towards exams and – in terms of “long” texts like novels or plays – teachers have to pay close attention to fewer texts rather than offering a wider selection. </p>
<p>But this limited space could still accommodate writers representing both “Western” (a dubious term, but let’s use it) and South African, African or postcolonial authors. The question is whether or not Shakespeare needs to be the “representative” of English – as in British – literature when there are hundreds of other, more accessible authors to choose from.</p>
<p>This links to your second question. For me the problem is not relevance but accessibility. If you adopt the view: “I am a human being, therefore nothing that is human can be alien to me”, then of course Shakespeare’s plays are – or can be made – relevant. But doing so requires teacherly skills and knowledge that cannot be assumed or taken for granted. It requires resources that grant learners access to performances of the plays on stage or at least on screen. I would also argue that it requires an approach to the barrier of early modern English that includes the learners in processes of translation and modernisation. </p>
<p>I think it’s fair to say that those things simply can’t be, or aren’t yet, found at most South African schools.</p>
<p><strong>Decolonisation has become a hot topic in South Africa over the past three years but it’s been debated across the continent for decades. Does Shakespeare’s work feature in the curricula of other African countries?</strong></p>
<p>Most other African countries have a less fractious or problematic relationship to Shakespeare than South Africa. This is primarily because their colonial and post-colonial histories are different to ours. You can still find Shakespeare in high school curricula across the continent. </p>
<p>But you will find him alongside authors from those countries or from other post-colonial environments. Perhaps even in conversation with (or challenged by) those authors: Aime Cesaire’s <em>Une Tempete</em>, which tackles Shakespeare’s <em>The Tempest</em>, is prescribed in Cameroon. This example also attests to a different view of Shakespeare in Francophone Africa.</p>
<p><strong>Is part of the solution to making Shakespeare’s work more relevant lie in <em>how</em> it’s taught or performed for young people?</strong></p>
<p>Absolutely. Curriculum transformation and the decolonisation of education – at secondary and tertiary level – is as much about <em>how</em> material is taught as it is about <em>what</em> is taught. </p>
<p>When I teach Shakespeare my students and I end up engaging with the history of an organisation like the African National Congress: from <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-sol-plaatje-as-south-africas-original-public-educator-65979">Sol Plaatje</a> (ANC co-founder and translator of Shakespeare into Setswana) via <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-robben-island-shakespeare-9781474283885/">Robben Island</a> to <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/thabo-mvuyelwa-mbeki">Thabo Mbeki</a> and the Polokwane conference at which he lost the party presidency to Jacob Zuma. </p>
<p>Or we experiment with bringing languages other than English into the classroom to invigorate Shakespeare’s text by translating it into isiZulu, isiXhosa or Afrikaans and then back into contemporary/colloquial English. </p>
<p>But, again, it’s not as easy to do this in a high school classroom as it is at university level. And, as I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-shakespeare-be-taught-in-africas-classrooms-44381">said before</a>, it may be preferable for high school learners not to experience “studying” Shakespeare as a form of torture but to encounter him in other ways. This may be through performance, whether performing the plays themselves – for example through the <a href="http://www.ssfsa.co.za/">Shakespeare Schools Festival</a> – or watching professional or student productions. It may be through appropriation and adaptation in films, TV series, fiction, visual art. It may be in fragments; it may be in loose translation in any number of contexts. It doesn’t <em>have</em> to be through a formal curriculum.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Thurman receives funding from the National Research Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is the President of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa.</span></em></p>Most other African countries have a less fractious or problematic relationship to Shakespeare than South Africa does.Chris Thurman, Associate professor, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/744082017-03-20T10:49:54Z2017-03-20T10:49:54ZTamsin Greig’s gender-bending performance in Twelfth Night will go down in history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160549/original/image-20170313-9637-7s0nw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Brenner</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1602, a law student called John Manningham saw Twelfth Night, or What You Will, and wrote what was, in effect, the first review of the play. Manningham enjoyed the “good practice” of the trick played against Malvolio, the puritanical steward, who is fooled into believing that the Countess Olivia loves him and that she wants to see him, smiling, in cross-gartered yellow stockings. Manningham’s comments were a sign of things to come: Malvolio has been running away with the notices ever since.</p>
<p>This is certainly true of the reviews of the latest production of <a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/twelfth-night?gclid=CPX4__vk3dICFesW0wodH6gHGA">Twelfth Night</a> in London’s National Theatre, directed by Simon Godwin and starring Tamsin Greig as “Malvolia”. Godwin defies the current fashion for melancholy, silver, Chekhovian Twelfth Nights, and really runs with the “what you will” aspect of the play. The great barn of the Olivier stage is filled with parties, bands, balloons, a gay club, a drag queen. There are many lively and engaging performances but, overshadowing them all is Greig’s stunning Malvolia, the ultimate killjoy.</p>
<p>Greig makes Malvolia a very modern puritan, dedicated to her work, sacrificing her humanity to get on in life. In black culottes, with jet-black, severely cut hair, she stalks Illyria, putting out parties. She does tai chi to calm herself down. She adjusts plant pots so they are angled precisely. And before setting off to silence the “cakes and ale” brigade of Sir Toby Belch, Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Feste, the clown, she hovers over the sleeping Olivia, a Mrs Danvers besotted with her Rebecca.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/160550/original/image-20170313-9617-1uyalyy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Tamsin Greig as Malvolia, Phoebe Fox as Olivia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marc Brenner</span></span>
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<p>After his appearance in yellow stocking, cross-gartered, and ludicrously smiling at the astonished Countess Olivia, Malvolio is locked up, in a “dark house”, by one enemy, Sir Toby, and tormented by another, Feste. In many modern productions Malvolio is here subjected to what amounts to torture and Manningham’s notion of a “good practice” seems very inappropriate. Greig’s Malvolia is certainly traumatised by her ordeal. She sits alone perched precariously on a high stool, dejected, curled up (slightly foetally), blindfolded, with her hands bound behind her back. She looks agonisingly vulnerable and, stripped back to her yellow stockings and a pale coloured bodice, she also looks naked. It is agonising to watch.</p>
<h2>The thought police</h2>
<p>While most responses to Greig’s Malvolia have, rightly, admired her consummate performance, which ranges across farce, pathos, stand up and trauma, it inspired Dominic Cavendish to write an <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/what-to-see/thought-polices-rush-gender-equality-stage-risks-death-great/">op-ed piece</a> entitled: “The Thought Police’s rush for gender equality on stage risks the death of the great male actor”. Concerned that “men are being elbowed aside”, Cavendish issued “a plea to female thespians to get their mitts off male actors’ parts”. He is worried this may mean “curtains for the male actor”. </p>
<p>Given the paucity of roles usually available to women performers in productions of Shakespeare, Cavendish’s fretting seems hysterical (was it clickbait?) and there have been some <a href="https://theplaysthethinguk.com/2017/02/24/feature-no-dominic-cavendish-you-are-the-thought-police/">appropriately robust responses</a>. But the really remarkable thing about Greig’s Malvolia is not that she is a woman. It is that Greig has completely reconceived Shakespeare’s character, something which is particularly clear in the ending she gives to Malvolia’s story. </p>
<p>The defining moment in Malvolio’s narrative is his final exit line when he turns on his tormentors and threatens: “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you!” Some Malvolios then stumble off broken, ready to commit suicide, unable to face the world after their public humiliation. Some storm off eager to start the puritan revolution that in 1642 would close the playhouses for the Civil War. When Jamaican actor Bari Jonson played the role in 1968, a lone black man in a resolutely white Illyria, the critics squirmed in discomfort as he exited. Greig’s Malvolia rounds on the audience, with whom she’d enjoyed jokey rapport earlier, and explicitly includes them in her promise of revenge. But then she does something really surprising. Malvolia takes off what is now revealed to be a black wig. </p>
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<h2>What you will</h2>
<p>Having started the play in business-like black, Greig’s Malvolia had grabbed at the opportunity offered by the letter tricking her into believing Olivia wants her to don yellow stockings. Her very next appearance had featured not only cross-gartered yellow stockings but also an exuberant pierrot-style frilly jacket and a swimsuit bodice with nipple tassles which, with a flick of a switch, could be set to twirl rapidly as she preened and postured. </p>
<p>The sheer excess of this costume suggested that something repressed was being released – although her hairstyle always remained neat, austere. But as Malvolia leaves, after vowing revenge, she walks away, leaving that black wig, the last remnant of her puritanical, career-centred life, lying on the floor.</p>
<p>In the closing moments Greig’s Malvolia comes back onstage and begins, hesitantly, to climb up a steep pyramid staircase. The moment is intensely ambiguous. Is she intending to throw herself off the top? Or is she climbing towards a new life, painfully reborn, escaping from the carapace of the career, as steward, which has imprisoned her far more than the “dark house” did? </p>
<p>Most modern Twelfth Nights are clear cut about Malvolio’s story. They turn the play away from comedy and Twelfth Night morphs into “The Tragedy of Malvolio”. The ambiguity that Greig brings to Malvolia’s ending leaves things open. Anyone in the audience who liked their Twelfth Nights tragic could choose to see Malvolia stumbling towards suicide. Those who prefer more “cakes and ale” at the end of a comedy could see Malvolia’s trauma might have made her more human, might have helped her escape from the life that was destroying her, might be a kind of rebirth. What is truly original about Greig’s Malvolia is how she leaves the final meaning of Malvolia’s story up to the audience – it really is “What You Will”.</p>
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<p><em><a href="https://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/shows/twelfth-night?gclid=CIClz-zf5NICFZYW0wodg60ALQ">Twelfth Night</a> is at the National Theatre until May 13. It will be <a href="http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/productions/60537-twelfth-night">broadcast live to cinemas</a> on April 6.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/74408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Schafer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The really remarkable thing about Greig’s Malvolia is not that she is a woman. It is that Greig has completely re-conceived Shakespeare’s character.Elizabeth Schafer, Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.