Blog 15: Shakespeare in Cooperstown

The Baseball Writers Association of America announced its pick for induction into the hall of fame this week, and, lo and behold, they actually got it right (mostly), voting in Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio.[1] The 10-player ballot is an entirely different issue that should be rectified, but that’s for another blog (much like my befuddled surprised as learning that Aaron Boone received votes, but Johnson was left off some ballots?)[2] For now, I was happy to see four quality players go in the same year.

But it also got me thinking about Shakespeare’s Hall of fame. No, I don’t mean that one swanky table of superstars everyone gazes at during the annual luncheon of the Shakespeare Association of America conference.[3] I’m referring to a hall of fame of Shakespeare’s characters. If you were voting to induct certain characters into a list of “all-time greats,” what would it look like, and what criteria would you use? There would be easy answer, titular characters that continue to haunt our cultural psyche after four hundred years. Hamlet would probably go in on the 1^st round (even though most writers probably secretly dislike him); Rosalynd would be a unanimous selection as well. Iago would eventually get in after voters make him sweat a few years (and in his induction speech, he would say nothing). There would be heated debates on borderline cases. Is Puck a Hall of famer? He poured the love potion, but he got it from Oberon. He’s a fan favourite, but is that enough? Same for Prospero: he dominated his play with brio, but on a deserted island, away from real competition like the Roman Senate or the English court. Kate the shrew would likely get my vote, but I feel she might encounter resistance along her path to induction.

There would be even tougher decision where perceptions come into play. How can you not vote for the Merchant Antonio? He’s in the title of the play (but he does nothing but be sad) Melancholy is an important part of that play[4]…Shylock should go in before him…What about Romeo and Juliet? Should they be inducted together? Separately? Should Friar Laurence? Should the poison? The debate would rage on as no one would vote for Troilus or Cressida.[5]  

I could on pushing the funny analogy (I have pages of this stuff!), but it speaks to a larger point about what constitutes a memorable character in Shakespeare? Titularity is not enough, nor is simply being top billed in your cast of character. Some characters seem to take on a life of their own that appears distinct from authorial intention or craft. King James’ copy of Shakespeare’s Folio contained the famous marginalia note next to Twelfth Night that read “Malvolio.” There is no way to know the true intention behind the note, but the character nonetheless made an impression on the monarch (more so than Viola, Feste, or Sir Toby, for example). When I watch or read Twelfth Night (my favourite play), I do so through the prism of my fondest affection for the Feste (I’d vote for him for the hall). Similarly, some adaptations and subsequent productions have made a point to shine a light on lesser known, underappreciated characters (Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Well’s Chimes at Midnight) or have flipped the script on initial playtexts, such as Julie Taymor’s The Tempest centering on a female Prospero. These creative licences complicate our views of what constitutes a memorable character as does every actor in every production we see. The process is as organic as it comes, tied to our own sensibilities and experiences. No matter how many different performances of Cyrano de Bergerac I’ll witness in my lifetime, the character will always hark back to Depardieu’s powerhouse, heartbreaking performance.[6]

Shakespeare was attuned to such a delicate phenomenon. He must have known what made a memorable character. Why give so much pathos to Shylock and send Antonio to the background? Why change the ending to The Winter’s Tale. Yet, was he aware of the success that a character like Falstaff would have? Did he know how much we would weep with Lear and laugh with Crabbe? To a point, but never entirely, I suspect. As with most art, it is the uncontrollability of a playtext sent into the world that makes it so valuable. On any given night, in any given theater, you can be moved in so many ways that you will remember it forever.

But I am never voting for Cardenio…              

Excitement:

Oscar season is upon us and some very exciting films have been making the rounds. I am particularly eager to see Boyhood and Selma, and the optimist in me would love the see The Grand Budapest hotel be rewarded with several nominations (Fiennes chief among them). There’s a NFB animated film on the short list as well, so fingers and toes crossed![7]

Smooshy:

A recurring smooshy to winter, in all its forms: cold, snow, ice, icy snow, cold icy snow, snowy ice, windy, Shelley, Jonathan… you name it! I know it comes with the territory, but still.  

Shout out:

Shout-out to anyone, anywhere, who has the courage to poke fun at the sacred, the political, or the revered in whatever form they chose, even if it puts their lives at risk. Tenez bon, mes amis. Nous sommes avec vous.  

Till next time! Now that the holidays are behind us, I’m aiming to post more regularly. Be warned, that means puns coming your way

Bye, dad.

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[1] I was however, sad to see Tim Raines fall short once again. But there is still time!

[2] To anyone who came in looking for that sweet, sweet, Shakespeare blog honey and are now confused, angry, and wishing I would combust into flames: patience, it’s coming.

[3] You’re welcome, David Bevington and Coppelia Kahn!  

[4] Just ask the author of the book manuscript “Shakespearean Melancholy: Philosophy, Form, and the Transformation of Comedy”

[5] Zing! No, I kid, I kid. We kid because we love. But yeah, no hall of fame for either of you.

[6] Kids, that was back in the 1990s, before Depardieu became a bloated Russian parade float.

[7] Last time I tried crossing my toes, it hurt for a week. No more late night pizza for me.  

Blog 14: What were you thinking, Shakespeare?

What were you thinking Shakespeare when you set off to London to become an actor? Were you trying to distance yourself from the age gap that separated Anne and you? Did you really poach a deer? Those always seem so dramatic to me. Were you trying to find yourself in your salad days? I think about you in these moments, unsure of what lies ahead, possibly penniless, your head filled with ideas. Did you always have ideas? Did you dream of Rosalynd, of Titania? Were you nightmares ruled by Iago, or furtive vision of Caliban? Did you steal any material? I’m sure Marlowe appreciated the shout outs, but I have a feeling Greene would not have been crazy about The Winter’s Tale.  

What were you thinking when you wrote Lear? Did it pain you to send Cordelia into her eternal rest in such a way? Did it delight you? Did you always intend for Romeo and Juliet to die? Did you secretly wish Lady Macbeth could have gotten away with it? What did you think about love? That one puzzles me, I must say. You give us Beatrice and Benedick while Othello and Desdemona lurk in the horizon, and behind them Leontes and Hermione. Were you excited to pull a fast one in the statue scene? Was that your attempt at reconciliation? Is the real enemy time, unrelenting, tireless, time that cruelly transforms the Ephesus of our youth in the deserted islands of our autumns?

Or were you just doing your job, writing your own hybrid stories for coterie and audiences, trying to figure out the next trend and stay ahead of new, hungrier reflections of yourself? I can’t think of this possibility for too long. It breaks my heart to tell you the truth when I do not imagine you passionately hunched over a candlelit table, paper and quill in hand, frantically marking the enchanting cadence of Portia, Hamlet. That too is pretty dramatic, I know. But your shadow looms so large that it’s hard not to give you the god-like treatment, every now and then. The creator of worlds and the strange people in them. Did you see yourself in anyone you wrote? People are too quick to tie you to your characters and speculate on your mood, but it’s hard to resist (I know for a fact you were hung over when you wrote Macbeth). Harold Bloom says you invented us, and as much as it pains me to admit it, sometimes I think he’s right. Do you know Harold Bloom? If not, don’t waste your time. Read Mike Bristol, Barbara Freedman, and Stephen Orgel instead.    

What were you thinking about the world you lived in? Did you have any regret once you called Stratford your home again? Did Jonson owe you money? Tom Stoppard wrote about your last days, and it’s disturbing because a lot of it goes against the image of you that I crafted for myself, but it somehow feels so accurate. Did you struggle to finish The Two Noble Kinsmen and ask Fletcher for help? Was he stuck on Henry VIII and came to you? Did you have anything to do with Cardenio? I don’t think you would have relegated Don Quixote to that subplot. May be you just did not have the energy anymore.  

I wonder what you would do or say in today’s world. What you would write about it. Would you be amused? Fascinated? Disgusted? Things never change, I suppose. If a captain of the guard cannot escape the color of his skin, what chance does a kid in a hoodie have? What would you be doing today, Shakespeare? I often wonder. You’d be litigious, I know that much. Copyrights seem like your thing. I have a feeling you would like the internet and rail against reality TV (until you get you own show). Would you still write? Would you disown anything you’ve created? No one will call The Two Gentlemen of Verona a masterpiece but it has strong qualities. I have strong qualities but I sometimes struggle in your shadow. In my mind I know you and write for you (don’t tell anyone), and that’s hard. And it’s rewarding. And it’s common, too common on occasion. I read what you wrote and I get it more than I get myself sometimes. I see what you wrote performed and I am moved to set off to my London, poach my deer and adorn beautified feathers.   

I think of you, Shakespeare, in those times where things are grim and when sound and fury signify nothing. I thought of you when my sister left us too early after being with us for too long and I think of you as my father fades away, fumbling his sheets. I also thought of you the day I married Emily, the moment where I held my godson in my arms for the first time and yes, odd as it may seem, I think of you when I watch baseball, where the world is a stage and the men are players. Sports remind me of you, mostly in the way we think about it and the people that play it. You are a big part of my life. I read you, write you, I teach you to students. I quote you, sometimes out of pleasure, sometimes to sound smart. There’s so much more I want to ask you, but doing so would take a lot of fun out of it, like meeting some of your favorite books but realizing the mundane world in which they exist. I guess the rest is silence at this point.

Thanks,

J. F.

PS: I am applying for a tenure-track at Yale and I’d love if you could serve as one of my referees.

   

Blog 13: Shakespeare, Fair-weather M.D.

Shakespeare was many things throughout his career: writer, playwright, poet, actor, businessman, theatre owner … He was also an avid reader nay, consumer, of written material, which he recycled generously in his own plays. As a window into early modern culture, the plays offer a cornucopia of subject which likely piqued the bard’s interest to varying degrees: history, mythology, science, libations, zoology… the list goes on. Among these, Shakespeare’s engagement with medical matters has always fascinated me.

I do not wish to rehash David Hoeniger’s wonderful study of medical allusions in Shakespearean drama,[1] nor to go down the historicist rabbit hole by pointing out that Shakespeare‘s son-in-law, John Hall, was a physician.[2] Rather, my interest rests in the idea that too often, Shakespeare and his works are used as a vehicle for an ideology, as if the material found in the plays spoke in unison for a given doctrine or philosophical current. Shakespeare was catholic, protestant, Marxist, anarchist, Lutheran, stonemason, a bad tipper, etc. In few other fields is such a practice more current than when it comes to determining his relationship to medical science. Critics virtually trip over one another in making the claim for Shakespeare’s Hippocratic allegiances: he followed Galen, he aligned with Aristotle, he was influence by Timothy Bright and Robert Burton, he was a disciple of Paracelsus … There is nothing overly preposterous about any of these claims since, evidence can be found throughout the canon that supports them at least partially. At their core, they signify his knowledge of all these authors and their philosophies.  

My larger point is that in pigeonholing Shakespeare within such schools of medical thoughts, we tend to forget that he was in the business of popular theater. More so than with perhaps “touchier” early modern issues such as religion or politics, Shakespeare was free to hopscotch from one medical theory to another in order to suit the themes and concerns of whatever play he produced. Shakespeare’s engagement with medicine is thus inherently multifocal. His treatment of humours within his comedies speaks to this point at considerable lengths. Comic characters repeatedly express themselves, comment upon, or critique one another’s humoural states, and do so mainly by drawing on the humoural lexicon introduced by Galen; a matrix of balance, excess, cold, heat, and temperament that had morphed into a characterial shorthand by the time Shakespeare began writing for the theatre. Yet, the comedies also carry other perspective on humours, some which recall Aristotle’s discussion of geniality, others that reference the more contemporary ideas of Burton, Ficino, or Thomas Wright. Neither end of the spectrum holds dominion over the other in terms of determining what Shakespeare believed in. Opportunisms ruled the day, and Shakespeare had several theories to choose from when crafting a certain scene, passage or character.

Uncovering whatever Shakespeare might have believed—medically—would be a fascinating undertaking, but it is as extraordinary to witness the mastery with which he can blend writers, ideas, and doctrines for the sake of dramatic representation. It all comes down to the Jaws theory:[3] During the production of the motion picture, author Peter Benchley often found himself at odds with director Stephen Spielberg concerning the changes the latter was making to his original work. Benchley was particularly critical of alterations made to the story’s climactic ending: Spielberg’s version, which he deemed far too extravagant and unrealistic, showed protagonist Martin Brody shooting an air tank placed in the shark’s mouth, causing it to explode. Spielberg’s reply was that if he could hold the audience’s attention in his hand for the duration of the film, they would believe whatever finale he would then throw at them. The legitimacy of this Hollywood anecdote resides beyond the scope of this blog. Yet, it illustrates a process that I recognize as salient in terms of Shakespeare’s reworking medical science: everything seemingly goes as long as it makes a good play.

Now, take two sonnets and call me in the morning.

Excitement:

The Shakespeare Performance and Research Team Seminar Series continue next week and it is a treat, Paul Yachnin’s will be speaking about visual field in Cymbeline on November 25^th. The SPRiTE meetings are always stimulating and yield very interesting conversations and ideas. Come check it out!

Smooshy:

Listen here, How to Get Away with Murder, I am trying soooooo hard to like you (even if Emily has already given up on you). And you have been good if not great in some regards. For one thing, you have a bona fide MVP in Viola Davis, who infuses so much life in Annalise that some scenes are hypnotically good (even the Dangerous Liaisons “taking the makeup off” rip off). Yet every time you do something good, you immediately cancel it with something idiotic: a character trips on a pile of boxes and falls face first in the one document they need to crack the case, someone actually utters the words “no one has ever believed in me this way,” and character inevitably have frantic sex in public spaces to the beats of techno music. Get your act together HTHAWM,[4] or I’ll do to you what I did to the Chicago Code. What’s the Chicago Code, you ask? Exactly…

     

Shout out:

I was fortunate enough a few weeks ago to come into my former supervisor’s class and talk to her students about Hamlet.[5] It was fantastic. I enjoy myself, as I usually do when I get to hear myself talk for extended periods of time, but what really thrilled me was hearing their opinions about the play and its brooding protagonist.  It’s refreshing to listen to readers who have just read the play for the first time. One of the pitfalls of studying Shakespeare (or anything, for that matter) for a lengthy period of time is that you can become trapped in your ideas about a text. My discussion with them was engaging and very interesting. Thank you, Joyce’s students, for a wonderful afternoon.

Till next time!

What a piece of work is Taco Bell

Is that meat or cheese?

I can’t even…

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[1] David F. Hoeniger, Medicine and Shakespeare in the English Renaissance, Newark: U of Delaware P, 1992.  

[2] Could he have written the plays? Could I? Could you? NO ONE KNOWS!!!!

[3] Finally this week’s image makes sense! Great White Bard for the win!

[4] 2014 nominee for ugliest acronym.  

[5] For those who do not know my former supervisor, her name is Joyce Boro, she rocks, and I once had a dream I decorated her house for Halloween. Joyce, my readership. My readership, Joyce. 

Blog 12: Is it Shakespeare?

The image above this sentence would (and does) make a Shakespeare scholar cringe, since it erroneously yokes Hamlet’s “To be or not to be speech” with the scene in which he picks up the jester’s skull and reminisces upon Poor Yorick. In actuality the speech and the skull happen nearly two acts apart in the play. Yet, I suspect that this image or its description would look (or sound) accurate to most people mainly familiar with Hamlet (or Shakespeare) as a cultural icon from a distant past. Similarly, you are likely to find a plethora of images depicting Shakespeare himself holding the skull, perhaps even reciting the mislocated lines. It is perhaps the clearest example in all of Shakespeare of the process by which a collective intellectual psyche amalgamates Shakespearean tropes to form a skewed visual emblem that subsequently gains cultural significance.

But is it wrong?

As mentioned above, there is no scene in Hamlet in which the melancholic prince holds up a skull and delivers his most famous lines. Yet, all of its elements do come into play. The image somehow manages to map out the intricate ballet of death, theatricality, existentialism and tragedy that stand at the core of Shakespeare’s play. The example speaks to the unbelievable power of adaptation (indeed, of mutation) that Shakespearean drama displays in remaining in a state of constant cultural production. The works, their actors, and themes, manage to connect and stay with us, even for those not familiar with Shakespeare from a literary standpoint. My father has never read Shakespeare, but when I mentioned that I was writing on The Merchant of Venice,[1] he instantly referred to Shylock asking for a pound of Antonio’s flesh.[2] A similar channelling occurs (to different degrees) with Romeo and Juliet’s balcony scene, Macbeth’s witches, or even the fairies, Bottom and the Ass head in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To go back to Hamlet’s example, nothing stops a director adapting ther play to ask his or her Hamlet to hold a skull while delivering the speech. If the image already holds cultural significance, why discredit it?

But is it Shakespeare? The world of adaption, revision, reappropriation, hinges on a precarious balance between fidelity to a given work and the innovative spirit to take it into new and previously unimagined directions. Kurosawa’s The Bad Sleep, Sons of Anarchy, and the Simpsons’ Hamlet all perform that balance astoundingly well and indeed, can be enjoyed without any prior of Shakespeare or his plays.[3] Even Julie Taymor’s The Tempest, which flips the script considerably by having a female Prospera, still manages to capture the character dynamics and power relations of the original playtext. Where I am inclined to protest too much is when adaptations seemingly veer away from a character for the purpose of shock value and creative revisionism (wouldn’t it be even cooler if…). I was at a conference in the spring where colleagues were discussing a Titus Andronicus adaptation in which Tamora, upon being informed of the content of the meat pies served to her by Titus, stares at him and takes another bite. Yes, that probably made for a surprising, gasp inducing moment, but it seems to go against the play in several aspects, devaluing her initial plea to Titus to save family members at the start of the play while also downplaying Titus’ breakdown dur9ing the climax.[4]             

Then again, four centuries after Shakespeare’s death, I suppose people are free to do what they wish with the works when adapting them. Hamlet can hold the skull, Romeo can find Juliet on Tinder, and I can groan and shake my fist and tell those kids to get off my lawn and that this is not Shakespeare. Then again, I am basing my critique of them on what I think is Shakespeare, and how am I to know that I’m right?[5] Maybe I should relish in the fact that, four hundred years later, people who have never read the works still know about Hamlet, a skull, and theatrical gravitas. Perhaps, when it comes to Shakespeare, there are actually more things in our dreams, than in heaven and earth.    

Excitement:

Halloween is fast approaching and Emily and I are gearing up for our horror movie marathon (complete with candy and Schwartz’s smoke meat… don’t judge!) I love this time of year, and we have a nice line-up of films (and Doctor Who episodes!) ready to go. I look forward to crossing off Ringu from my personal horror film bucket list (I’ve only seen the American remake). Above all else though, as we do every year, it will probably end with Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit. Fabulous animation film. Get yourself a kid and see it![6]

What about Shakespeare in this time of terror and monstrosities? Well tune in next week…

Smooshy:

This is random, specific, and perhaps pointless, but as a teacher, I am tired of seeing this sequence play out in any movie, TV show, or sketch that contains a classroom scene: the class is listening (or not) to a teacher lecturing on who knows what, the bell cuts him or her off and students rush out as the teacher yells outs reading assignments and reminds them to learn a life lesson or two along the way.[7] Do these teachers never plan a lecture/lesson? You know how much time you have and even if a class is spirited and gets off track, you still take a couple minutes at the end to cool things down, recap, and deliver assignments! Smooshy to you media representation of unprepared professors!   

Shout out:

Shout outs all around:

Shout out to friends Frederik Byrn Køhlert for nearing the end of the dissertation marathon (submitted his intro this week!), Stephen Wittek for securing a book contract for his study of early modern news circulation (can’t wait to read it!) and to Susan Harlan for braving the streets of New Orleans while attending the 16^th Century Society Conference and flooding my Facebook with amazing pictures. For those of you unfamiliar with Susan remember one thing: she has style to burn!

Till next time!

If you prick us, do we not bleed?

If you tickled us---stop it that tickles

hihihihih.

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[1] There is a wonderfully understated reference to such a process in The Sopranos, where Tony makes a comment to his friend (and moneylender) Hesch that suggests that without any knowledge of Shakespeare’s play, he somehow associates Jewish, moneylending, and performance. It’s as brilliant as it is offensive.      

[2] Joe Bidden’s recent blunder regarding his use of “shylock” reminds us of the dangers of this cultural reappropriation,

[3] There are, of course millions of other examples. The most rudimentary Google search for “Hamlet” returns nearly 8 million examples of images, videos, articles ready to assault our senses with Shakespeare’s story. To be fair, the most rudimentary Google search for “Yorkshire pudding” yields almost 2 million hits, while looking up “beanie hats” floods the curious researcher with 43 million web links. A search engine alone cannot act as an accurate barometer to gage the power of Hamlet’s virality.

[4] What really works well in that scene is that Titus never waits for Tamora to react to the news he delivers, killing her instantly. It is one of many scenes in Shakespeare where he purposely frustrates the audience.  

[5] Although, to be fair, it is my blog, so I guess I’m right. You don’t like it? Go away! Scratch that, I need the readership. Please stick around.

[6] Upon advice from my legal team, I must make it clear that The Virtual Whirligig Blog does not endorse the kidnapping of random children simply to watch a Claymation motion picture.

[7] Degrassi style!

Blog 11: How Violent is Shakespeare?

It is question I have brushed up against frequently in my engagement with Shakespeare, as a teacher, scholar, or in general conversations at parties, in cabs, or waiting for a tow truck after a car crash.[1] Though my answer generally stays the same, I have heard a spectrum of opinions about it ranging from “the plays are crude and flashy, akin to Hollywood blockbusters” to “the plays are not violent but our contemporary sensibilities make them so.” I remember once in a masters class at Concordia, while discussing Edward Bond’s Lear,[2] a student made the remark that he found the play’s excessive violence absurd and unnecessary because it went further than what (he felt) Shakespeare intended in the original.[3]

Violence is as much a part of Shakespearean drama as it is of our lives, cultures, and arts. It is once arena where Shakespeare’s theatre proves the norm rather than the exception within early modernity. Yet what I found the most interesting about the question is that everyone comes to it with a different conception of what constitutes “violence.” The student I mentioned in the opening paragraph referred to the explicitly physical violence that Bonds’ play stages. Yet, King Lear offers several types of violent acts, emotional, physical, or psychological that hint at the inherent subjectivity of the matter. A more overt (probably the most overt) example in Shakespeare would be Titus Andronicus, which offers murders, acts of cannibalism, rape, and mutilation as part of its playbill. Yet Shakespeare often manages to strike a balance between showing on stage and reporting off stage that further complicate the issue. For all the action found on stage in Macbeth, there is also considerable violence in lines that inform us of how much the King bled when murdered in his bed, or the reporting of Lady Macbeth’s demise.

Then, there are moments of ambiguous violence or rather, violence bred by ambiguity. Isabella’s silence in at the end of Measure for Measure, the murkiness surrounding Caliban’s interaction with Miranda in The Tempest, or even the recurring device of the bed trick all carry a certain understated tone of violence that reinforce the idea that, although violence is found in most plays, we chose (or we recognize) certain types more than others. As a popular dramatist, Shakespeare certainly drew on the incredible selling power that violence has always enjoyed,[4] but he usually makes a point of complicating it or, at the very least, developing it within a denser philosophical interrogation: Iago and Richard make us complicit through asides, we both champion Hamlet and come to expect his tragic demise, etc.

The better question than how violent was Shakespeare would perhaps be why is violence (or the threat of it) in Shakespeare so fascinating? There is no easy answer, but it makes for an original ice breaker at parties when standing by the dip.

Excitement:

Tom Hiddleston.

Hugh Laurie.

John LeCarre.

Nachos.

Those are things I enjoy, and (at least?) the first three will unite in a BBC production of The Night Manager. That has brilliance written all over it and I cannot wait to see it. I am less excited about the inevitable US reboot on Fox, starring David Tennant and stupid hair.[5]

  

Smooshy:

Smooshy goes out to Bell Media for pulling Pardon the Interruption from TSN 1 and 2 and putting them on their new, paying channels (TSN 3,4, and 5).[6]  I have been watching PTI for over ten years and I am sorry to see that streak come to end. Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser (an English major who frequently quotes Shakespeare on the program, by the way) will be missed. It’s a dream of mine to get Kornheiser (and Bob Ryan) on a panel somewhere to discuss Shakespeare and American sports writing. Booooo TSN!  

Shout out:

Last week’s blog on Freud reignited an research interest of mine on the putative correlation between mental illness and creative or artistic genius. This potent association has been around for a while dating back to Aristotle, and it will likely be the subject of an upcoming blog.[7] Here, I just want to use it as a segue into a shou tout to the AMI-Quebec organisation, which raises awareness and helps families cope with mental illness. They do an amazing job doing so (in addition to counting my sister-in-law and proof reader extraordinaire as an invaluable employee). They rocked last week’s Walk for Mental Health downtown, where yours truly rocked a neon pink t-shirt that made me look like plump, county fair cotton candy J. Check out their website and donate if you’re inclined to do so. http://amiquebec.org/

Till next time!

Some are born great,

Some achieve greatness,

And some have greatness thrust upon them.

Others run into a parking meter while texting.

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[1] Actually a true story, I went off the road while coming back from teaching in Huntington, and a man helped me out of the vehicle and waited with me. After asking what I did for a living, he (a fellow English teacher) explained to me how he once wrote a paper explaining how the show Hogan’s Heroes was built on the principles of Renaissance stage comedy. It was a weird afternoon.

[2] The name is Bond, Edward Bond. I like my comma shaken not spliced.

[3] I’m now going to deftly move on from the notion that Shakespeare’s plays are “original” in any ways, since I do not currently own the necessary amounts of buckets to house all the worms that would inevitably crawl out of that can. 

[4] If it bleeds, if leads, or its early modern equivalent: “when blood was shed, to the printing house did thou sped.”

[5] Still not over that one!

[6] A whopping D- for originality on the names here!

[7] Spoiler alert! Also, Hamlet dies at the end of Hamlet. 

Blog 10: Subconsciously Dramatic

Last week marked the 75^th anniversary of Sigmund Freud’s death, which made me want to ponder the interesting connections between the man, his work, and Shakespeare. Freud was an admirer of the bard’s work, both personally and professionally. Some plays (notably Hamlet) bore considerable influence on his conceptualisation of melancholia, mourning, and narcissism. Though his use of the Danish price remains the benchmark of his involvement with Shakespeare,[1] other plays appear throughout his body of work to a lesser extent (such as The Merchant of Venice, or Julius Cesar), serving to illustrate the various psychological phenomena Freud details. When it came to outlining the intricacies of the human psyche, Freud often looked to Shakespeare’s characters as the ideal touchstone.

I find Freud’s use of Shakespeare compelling, but it can also make for a cavalier type of criticism that dangerously reads “backwards,” from psychoanalytic theory into Shakespearean drama, treating characters such as Hamlet, Portia, or Iago under purely clinical auspices. The practice too often negates the fruitful interplay between the two authors.[2] The clearest example of this critical pitfall remains the uneasy conflation of Hamlet’s melancholy with Freudian notions of melancholia and mourning. Though the play serves as a building block for Freud’s essay, the prince’s stubborn clinging to his grief and Shakespeare’s broader revision of melancholy within the play is an altogether different animal. His with melancholy rallies classical sources such as Galen, Hippocrates an Aristotle, with the contemporary writings of physicians and philosophers such as Timothy Bright and Robert Burton to offer a dramatic synecdoche of a powerful cultural, social, and historical signifier that simultaneously proves physical, psychological, and spiritual. Freud’s exploration of melancholia is an attempt to understand the modern psyche within a (then) novel scientific framework deeply rooted in the process of subjection.  Again, a contrast of both treatments is worthwhile, but reading the correlation counter-currently does a disservice to both ends of the spectrum. The parallel is also complicated by the fact that beyond the scientific revisions that Shakespearean drama undertakes, notions such as melancholy are altered by the playwright‘s own aesthetic and literary sensibilities. Though Shakespeare masters the art of characterization, the state of minds his characters exhibit are always situated within clearly defined dramatic objectives.

Interestingly, Shakespearean comedy seems to provide a more fascinating (and seldom acknowledged) resonance within psychoanalysis. Emancipated from the deadly conventions of the tragic genre, comic explorations of melancholy place a greater focus on ideas of melancholia and narcissism, and what Freud terms the individual’s “satisfaction from self-exposure.” Characters such as the merchant Antonio, Jaques, or Olivia and Orsino not only display an overwhelming sense of melancholy, but make a point of refusing to alter or abandon it, claiming it as their fundamental character trait. Comic characters that manage to transform themselves and integrate the newly form social order at the end of a Shakespearean comedy can be thought to successfully evade the process Freud discusses. Orsino and Olivia are paired off with the twins by the end of Twelfth Night. Fate is not a kind with Antonio or Jaques, and their all-encompassing melancholy is to blame.

This particular connection serves as a great reminder of the powers and limits of literature in the “real” world. Dramatic representations of melancholy can offer great examples or allusions to depression and other mental illnesses, but the link is never straightforward as we would hope. Human behaviour on the stage, on the page, or in our heads engages in a complex dance of cultural, cognitive, and emotional interplay.

Then again, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar …

Excitement:

Fall means freedom from blockbusters, and the arrival of several films I am keen on seeing, such as Fox Catcher with an unrecognizable Steve Carrel,[3] Love is Strange with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina and Jon Stewart’s Rosewater. We are still a few months away from the release of a Cymbeline adaptation with Ethan Hawke[4] and Ed Harris, and I’m not sure what to think of this one.   

Smooshy:

I’m in a good mood, so no smooshy this week. Go out and hug a tree![5]

Shout out:

This blog came out stupidly late, so I actually miss the event I was shouting out to. Yesterday was the first meeting of the season for the Shakespeare Performance and Research team at McGill (also known as the SPRiTE team)[6]. We had a wonderfully challenging discussion and reading of scenes from Cymbeline. There are more meeting coming up until Christmas (and the next one will be a rambly hot mess of a paper on Hamlet by yours truly!). Check out the schedule on the SPRiTE website: http://mcgill-shakespeare.com.

Till next time!

Who goes there?

The Tacos Salesman

…. Thou may enter.

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[1] Hmmmm danish …

[2] Hmmmm fruit …. Hmm fruit danish.

[3] In a parallel universe where I would cast an adaptation of Othello, I would cast Steve Carrel as Iago. As brilliant of a comic actor as he is, Carrel does underlying darkness really well.

[4] Also, for a little spice in your lives, walk up to a stranger on the street, point to the sky ominously and mutter “any day now…”

[5] Hmmm Sprite. No wait, I actually don’t like soft drinks. Hmmm Perrier.