In the complete works of Shakespeare, there are:

...AND about 90% of the words Shakespeare uses have the same meaning as today; yet interpretation remains a problem for many students. In his A Reader's Guide to William Shakespeare, Alfred Harbage recalls Mark Twain's comment that "...a classic is something everybody wants to have read but nobody wants to read..." (p.2) and notes that with qualification, Shakespeare's works often go unread. Part of this is the age of expediency in which we live. Why, we might argue, should a student today spend hours reading a play when Cliff Notes seem to work nicely? Arguments like appreciating the beauty of the language or firsthand exposure to the great truths of human nature frequently fall on deaf ears. Paradoxically Shakespeare might agree! He wrote plays for the same reason Lucas directs movies--to earn a living, which meant both in the Renaissance and today, the stuff had to sell. Audiences won't pay unless they are entertained. Undoubtedly Shakespeare would be flattered but horrified and perhaps amused if he saw a whole academic industry based on his plays, with ten lines of footnotes for every line in the textbook. Stone did not appeal to an audience by selling copies of his scripts, and neither did Shakespeare: both The Phantom Menace, and Hamlet (recall Mel Gibson) were meant to be viewed. Seeing a production makes all the difference. Even showing a film in class engages the interest of students who might otherwise not be entertained.

That is why we will watch several productions, hoping to encourage enjoyment by sustaining Bloom's hypothesis in SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN that Shakespeare indeed invented personality. In so doing, we need to avoid the equation that: Shakespeare = confusion = Cliff Notes = an A or B on a test (hopefully). Generations of students have sworn by that equation, and honestly, some have met with success or the companies that publish them would not be in business. Any study guide is useful, and some are better than others. The material on this web page frequently contains bibliographical references, but at best all of these are like baby food or training wheel on a bike. Sooner or later, they should become less important...so how? The best way is to see a production live or on film. Once upon a time, I enjoyed a performance of Richard III, done in quasi-NAZI uniforms. My delight with the production grew as I relied more on the stage and less on trying to identify every figure of speech and motif in the play. Certainly knowing them helps, but Shakespeare did not write to burden readers with literary analysis. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HE WROTE TO MAKE MONEY SO WHAT HE DID HAD TO ENTERTAIN!

This course seeks to provide you with the social, political, historical, philosophical, and literary background needed to make Shakespeare intelligible. Coupled with the eyewitness experience of seeing a play, either live or watching it on TV, the result will hopefully be enjoyment. Several of the sections contain exercises that reinforce what has been presented. Work on them carefully; they are designed to enhance your comprehension of the plays and sonnets.

1. WEB SOURCES: Student curriculum links: Renaissance
2. CONTENT SOURCES: British Literature Home Page

Look at this Prologue (Introduction to one of the history plays, Henry V,) and note what quality of mind is needed for understanding and appreciation: The actor is on an empty stage speaking to a large audience:

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!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vast fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt!
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined tow mighty monarchies...
Think when we talk of horses. that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs in th' receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings...
Turning th' accomplishment of many years Into an hourglass...

QUESTION: WHAT MUST AN AUDIENCE DO TO ENJOY A PLAY?

When you examine a text, assume you are a director. What would you do? How would you stage the action? We rely today on special effects. On what did Shakespeare's audience rely? Remember that much of Shakespeare is poetry--blank verse. defined as unrhymed iambic pentameter, and therefore is based on inference, and a knowledge of the traditional figures of speech: simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, paradox, and irony -- among many others.

I. Diction: connotation and denotation (implied contextually) and (literal dictionary meaning). There are several dictionaries available for Shakespearean research, chief of which of course is the OED, The Oxford English Dictionary. Others include editions by Onions and Schmidt. The OED provides entomologies, with prolific historical examples, many of which are from Renaissance sources.

II. Common figures of speech:
A. metaphor and simile: links the abstract to the concrete; the macrocosm and microcosm)
B. alliteration--repetition of a consonant sound in succeeding words
C. personification--giving human characteristics to the non-living
D. paradox--an apparent contradiction, but logical in context
E. irony--implying the opposite of what is intended: dramatic--audience knows more than the character verbal--what the character says is different from what is meant; either intentional or unintentional situational--the dramatic context evolves in a way different from what the actions of the characters intend. [NOTE: for IRONY--recall Aristotle's reversal and recognition]

III. Imagery:
A. creating mental pictures that can dominate a scene or a whole play
B. motifs--images that unify a scene or an entire play--disease in Hamlet, blood, fair is foul in Macbeth, for example Common motifs: blood garden macrocosm/microcosm animal disorder symbols unnatural happenings sexual imagery storms-thunder etc. nature

IV. Patterns within a line of verse:
A. repetition of key ideas using parallel syntax patterns
B. antithesis--opposite ideas are syntactically balanced...see examples below

V. Dramatic devices:
A. soliloquy--character alone on stage reveals his/her inner thoughts to... himself, audience, another character? function: dramatization of consciousness.
B. aside--a mini-soliloquy--other characters on the stage who "suspend disbelief" and pretend not to hear.
C. manipulation of time--foreshadowing, flashback devices may occur by using figures of speech and/or motifs

[NOTE: In Shakespeare, several of the above devices may be used simultaneously.]

VI. Creating character:
A. actions? speech? relationship to others? degree of deception? use of irony? Reaction of character to his/her situation? Course of action? What frustrates action?
B. dramatization of consciousness

VII. Themes and central ideas: A Shakespeare play generally has what is called a theme passage. Its purpose is to define the meaning of the play in a single group of lines. The imagery, motifs and figures of speech in the passage will be echoed throughout the play. When this happens, we have a motif. The theme passage is usually in the first act and is spoken by a major character. By doing a comparative study of the theme passage it is possible to determine the evolution of Shakespeare's art as developed from period to period, especially regarding the treatment of common thematic material such as ...

love - hate - revenge - passion vs. reason - death - murder - growth - decay - honor - courage - cowardice - the supernatural - witches/ghosts - devils - order and degree in the universe - insanity - psychology of leadership - ambition - terror - fear - compassion...

[Note: Other than the BIBLE, it is difficult to imagine any other material besides the works of Shakespeare that dramatize so fully what it means to be human.]

EXERCISES from the Early Period: (1538-1597) comedies and histories--few tragedies

(Compare these passages to the ones from Hamlet cited below:)

1. FALSTAFF:

I call thee coward! I'll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back; call that backing of your friends. A plague upon such backing...

2. RICHARD: (speaking to Ann):

More wonderful when angels are so angry.
Vouchsafe. divine perfection of a woman.
Of these supposed crimes to give me leave
By circumstance but to acquit myself.

3. ANNE: (replying to Richard):

Vouchsafe, diffused infection of a man,
Of these known evils, but to give me leave
By circumstance t'accuse thy cursed self.

What is the motif in the following passages? Notice how the same one will be used in plays of the mature period.

1. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn our tiring house.

2. As in a theater the eyes of men
After a well-graced actor leaves the stage
Are idly bent on him that enters next,
Thinking his prattle to be tedious,
Even so, or with much more contempt men's eyes
Did scowl on gentle Richard.

HENRY VI, PART II

The uncle to the king, Gloucester, speaks;

...These days are dangerous
Virtue is choked with foul ambition,
And charity chased hence by rancour's hand.
Foul subordination is predominant...

ROMEO AND JULIET:

Friar Laurence is speaking:
...For not so vile that on earth doth live,
But to the earth some special good doth give,
Nor ought so good but , strained from that fair use,
Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.
Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied
And vice sometimes by action dignified.,
Within the infant rind of this small flower
Poison hath residence and medicine power...
Two such opposed kings encamp them still,
In man as well as herbs, grace, and rude will
And where the worser is predominant,
Full soon the canker death eats up that plant.

(This could serve as the theme passage for all of the tragedies. Why?)

What themes are expressed below and how stylistically?

RICHARD II:

A servant talks with Richard's Queen. [Remember that Richard will soon be deposed:]

sea-walled garden, the whole land,
Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up.
Her fruit trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,
Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs
Swarming with caterpillars [metaphor for false flatterers]

King RICHARD says to his wife:

...Join not with grief fair woman, do not so,
To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,
To think our former state a happy dream,
From which awakened, the truth of what we are
Shows us but this.

Read this passage from Romeo and Juliet--we will compare to one cited below from Antony and Cleopatra:

Alas that love. whose view is muffled still.
Should without eyes see pathways to his will.
Where shall we dine? O Me! What fray was here
Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then. O brawling love! O loving hate!
Of anything, of nothing first create!
Of heavy lightness! Serious vanity,
Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms!
Feather of lead, bright smoke, could fire, sick health

This passage is an analysis of a how a politician managed to achieve his subject's loyalty:

I stole all courtesy from heaven
And dressed myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men.

King Henry reflects on the eve of battle what it means to be a king...

...Oh, hard condition
Twin-born with greatness, subject to the breath
Of every fool...What infinite heart's-ease
Must kings neglect that private men enjoy!
...Wherein thou art less happy being feared
Than in fearing.
What drink'st thou, oft instead of homage sweet,
But poisoned flattery?...
No, not all these thrice gorgeous ceremony,
Not all these, laid in bed majestical,
Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave
Who with a body filled and vacant mind
Gets him to rest...

JULIUS CAESAR:

Brutus speculates about killing Caesar:

Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar
I have not slept.
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma or hideous dream.
The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council, and the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then,
The nature of an insurrection.

HAMLET:

(Compare to Richard III cited above:)

KING CLAUDIUS: But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET [Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS How is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLET Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

FIRST SCENES IN SHAKESPEARE PLAYS FUNCTION AS "TEASERS" IN TV SHOWS. REMOTE CONTROL AUDIENCES WILL QUICKLY CHANGE THE CHANNEL IF THEY ARE NOT HOOKED IMMEDIATELY, AND SHAKESPEARE'S HAD THEIR OWN WAYS OF DOING THE SAME THING. LOOK AT THE FIRST SCENE FROM MACBETH, AND TRY TO IMAGINE WHAT HOLLYWOOD WOULD DO...

STAGE DIRECTIONS: ENTER THREE WITCHES ! THUNDER AND LIGHTNING...

FIRST WITCH: When shall we three meet again,
In thunder, lightning or in rain?
SECOND WITCH: When the hurly-burly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.
THIRD WITCH: That will be ere the set of sun.
SECOND WITCH: Upon the heath.
THIRD WITCH: There to meet Macbeth.
FIRST WITCH: I come Graymalkin.
ALL THREE: Paddock calls--Anon!
Fair is foul and foul is fair
Hover through the fog and filthy air.

React to the passage on an emotional level. Imagine the special effects that a Hollywood director could use. What image comes to mind? How does the style--figures of speech etc,--contribute to meaning, but do you really need to know all of the figures of speech to understand the emotional intent.

Theme Passages:

(Comment as above, noticing any changes in style...)

MACBETH

Note in terms of form and content, how the above passages come together to mirror what Shakespeare writes in one of his greatest plays...

Exercise: This passage by Macbeth follows the witches' scene quoted earlier that introduced the play: Act I, scene i. Here, later in the play, Macbeth is reacting to the prophecy that he would not only be promoted to Thane of Cawdor for winning a battle, but that he one day would become king of Scotland. Compare the passage to the others and note the difference in style, especially how the figures of speech relate to character development:

...This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good. If ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor.
If good, why to I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings.
My thought whose murder is yet but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smothered in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.

Lady Macbeth advises her husband:

...To beguile the time,
Look like the time, bear welcome in your eye
Your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent
Flower
But be the serpent under it

Macbeth after he kills the king:

...Methought I heard a voice cry "Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep"---the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care,
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast...

The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water. The poop was beaten gold.
Purple the sales, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them. The cars were silver
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke and made
The water which to the beat to follow faster
As amorous of their strokes..

Table of Contents