MacBeth hath Murdered Sleep

It was a dark and stormy night. 

We walked the gray streets of Chelsea under a steady drizzle of rain as we gazed upon the generic building fronts hoping to arrive at our destined address sooner rather than later.  It was just cold enough for the rain to be unwelcomely chilly, like little specks of recently-melted ice oozing upon us.

We arrived at a warehouse attended by two men clad all in black.  “Are you looking for the McKittrick hotel?”

Upstairs, a gay lounge decorated with an eye towards thirties glamour is hopping.  A four-piece jazz band plays while a singer lovingly croons period music, a bartender dressed in spats serves up cocktails, and a woman in a blue sequined gown slinks around from table to table asking if you are ready to join the party yet.

By now, anyone even remotely connected to the theatre has likely at least heard about the Punchdrunk theatre company’s immersive theatre experience “Sleep No More”.  The New York revival (currently playing at the McKittrick Hotel on W. 27^th street) is a re-make of the phenomenon which hit Boston in October of 2009 (ran Oct. 8, 2009 – Feb. 7, 2010 at The Old Lincoln School in Brookline).  To support the sheer amount of space required for the endeavor, Punchdrunk has taken over three conjoined Chelsea warehouses.  According to the New York Times, 200 unpaid volunteers spent approximately four months meticulously putting the over-100 rooms in the hotel together.  And believe you me it shows.

As you enter the hotel, you are given a white Venetian mask which you are asked to keep on during the duration of the production (my comrades with glasses reported that this made things a little difficult for them).  You are asked not to speak, and (as usual) to silence your cell phones.

You are then ushered into a large freight elevator where a porter randomly assigns chunks of the party to begin their journey at different floors.  We held hands to keep from getting separated (by the by, if you do go, go with a very small group or decide that you will get separated and agree to meet at the bar afterwards – it’s difficult to keep track of people in the dark when everyone’s wearing the same white mask and nobody is allowed to speak). 

You enter a veritable labyrinth of rooms (environments really) where you are permitted to touch, move, examine and explore.  We found everything from a foggy London street, to a taxidermist’s shop, an apothecary with dried herbs hanging from every available surface, a hedge maze, a ballroom, a Victorian hospital, a Victorian asylum, Macduff’s children’s rooms, to a large room with a bathtub filled with bloody water (I take this to be the Macbeths’ room).  In every room there is something to discover (some of my favorite discoveries were hand-written letters strewn about the place including the famous letter which MacB writes his Lady Wife – “They met me on the eve of ascension…”). 

As though the living museum aspect of this weren’t enough to sate the rampant voyeur, there is a human aspect as well.  Actors dash about around you (easy to spot – they’re the ones without the masks) and you can choose to follow them and watch them meet up with other actors to portray wordless scenes in various environments of the hotel.  Amongst some of the scenes we saw were the famous Macbeth banquet, a couple dancing in the ballroom, the Witches’ first encounter with Macbeth (complete with shot roulette), and the murder of Duncan.

I really can’t describe to you how wonderfully creepy the entire experience was.  Imagine floating about darkened rooms, not knowing where you will end up when you turn a corner, constantly meeting with white-masked individuals who are somehow comforting rather than terrifying, and occasionally being grabbed by actors who seem to appear from nowhere.  Perhaps the highlight of our time in the hotel came when we were attempting to find our way out.  We had reached the stairway and were trying to follow an actor one way (at the back of the white-masked cloud) when a woman’s scream echoed through the hall.  We all looked at each other, about-faced, and (like good heroes) ran towards it to find Macbeth standing over the body of a very pregnant Lady Macduff.  Somehow, the knowledge that we had just missed the murder (even if there was nothing we could have done about it) sank sickly into my gut.  Had there even been anyone there to observe her last moments?  Had she expected to see him coming round the hall?  Had she greeted him or did he surprise her?  And did she try to fight him off or gracefully accept her fate?

Now this is theatre.

The experience jostled me.  As we explored the different rooms, there was no doubt that I was moved; to tears, terror, laughter, excitement, suspense, pity and everything in between.  Being able to touch and be touched by what was going on brought the story home to me in a way that I’ve never experienced before.  Of course, there isn’t really a cohesive story.  There is no set path for a visitor to explore, there is no pre-determined way to experience the hotel.  Proprietors estimate that each guest only sees 1/16^th of the total experience.  And I won’t say that at times I wasn’t left wondering “so what does this have to do with Macbeth?”  But even in those times, I was too enraptured with what was going on around me to mind too horribly much.

Some reviewers find that Shakespeare haunts the attraction rather than is the attraction.  I don’t entirely disagree with them, but I find it difficult to lend their argument full credence.  Certainly liberties were taken with “Sleep No More”, and there are things which still don’t make sense to me.  That, however, is what I think holds the greatest appeal.  The entire thing is a puzzle which can be solved one of ten billion ways and it is up to each individual to determine her own experience and what that experience means.

When I left the hotel I was exhausted.  I felt like my mind was going to leak out my ear.  I had a difficult time forming coherent sentences, and we drove home through the now-torrential thunderstorm in almost complete silence.  As I collapsed into my bed that evening, all I could think was “Macbeth hath murdered sleep.”

…for that… I slept like a baby.  Despite having bizarre blood-soaked dreams with figures in white Venetian masks and random time-traveling with an eye towards steam-punk style globetrotting antics. 

Go.  Seriously.  Find some way to get there.  This is a veritable revolution in the way audiences experience Shakespeare and I can only hope that this cutting edge cuts deeply into the fabric of American Theatre.  I don't think that saying "I will cheat on the bard" works here because technically I didn't really.... it's more like having a tryst with his similar-yet-different twin brother.

Don't Mess with the Bard

Let us take a moment to talk about arguing.

Premise one: there can be no evolution of academic inquiry without argument.

This premise is entirely what the academy is based upon.  We scholars can hole ourselves up in our towers and libraries, but on our own and with no one to talk to this is where our work ends.  Even by reading a text we are entering into dialogue with whomever wrote it.  Our ideas and evolutions of the text are contentions that must have a basis in previous intellectual thought.  Ideas don’t come from nowhere, and without people to read them or tell them to they become nothing.

Friction and stress created by two minds duking it out is the mother of the evolution of thought.  Even if I have a brilliant idea, by defending it to my peers I can deepen and lengthen it.  It will not change merely by my thinking upon it, but rather by the pressure exerted upon it by others.  In this instance, two minds are definitely better than one.  And an institution full of minds is better than anything.

Premise two: every academic has an area of expertise.  This area, however, is merely representative of the majority of the individual’s reading and writing experience and thus said expertise’s value appreciates with time.

I’m an Early Modernist (and, to be very technical, a Shakespearean with an eye towards performativity and theatricality).  All this means is that I am very well read in this area and have spent a great deal more time thinking about them than about other areas of scholarship.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t read other things, it doesn’t mean that I don’t write about other things.  It doesn’t mean that I know everything about this and nothing about anything else.

It says something about how I think and what I think about.  The specialty is a way to summarize a scholar’s values in short-hand to come to some greater understanding about what a scholar does and what courses she teaches.  It is not a way to encapsulate everything said individual knows.

Premise three: the value of an idea does not depreciate when critiqued by an individual whose area of expertise is unrelated to the idea itself.

And here, good reader, is the core of this entry.  Though I may have an idea about Shakespeare, simply because I had that idea and Shakespeare is my specialty does not mean that my idea should be bullet-proof.  It does not mean that I am the Unconquerable Knower of All Bardy Delights.  It just means that I had an idea. 

Those premises in mind, let me tell you a little story.

I’m taking a class which is very Shakespeare-centric.  I am back on cloud nine, let me tell you.  However there is one problem with this.

This is a problem that has occurred in other classes, but hasn’t been as pressing since those other classes centered around other literature.  My department is small.  People with big mouths get noticed.  Smart people also get noticed.  As a smart person who talks a lot, I find myself hard-pressed not to meet someone in this department who does not know me.  You know at the beginning of the semester when everyone goes around and introduces themselves?  You have to give a little bit of your background and what your interest is in the class, etc?  English majors, being bookish nerdy types, tend to do this haltingly with half an eye on their notes the whole time.  I, on the other hand, will stare down the class, introduce myself, and say that I’m a Shakespearean before filling them in on whatever it is I happen to be working on at the time.

I am also an academic pit-bull.  I will take an argument and shake it until it’s dead.  In class, this means a great deal of talking, taking hits, adjusting my shield, striking again, and rolling with whatever it is the class has to say about my argument.  I have been known to take on a whole teeming roomful of pugnacious bookish types when I get some idea rattling around in my head. 

However.  I have a secret weapon (although I guess when I tell it to you, it won’t be very secret anymore, will it?).

To many people, invoking Shakespeare is like invoking God.  It’s why he’s referenced so frequently in political speeches; he has been made into the ultimate authority on just about everything.  As I have found, this also works in the classroom.  If I’m really in a corner, all I have to do is call down the heavenly light of My Man Will and suddenly everyone backs off and shuts up.

Seriously.  It works like a charm.  No one argues with the Bard.  And apparently no one argues with a Pitbull Bard Scholar either.

Which, don’t get me wrong, is great in a pinch.  But it’s not great in this class.  Since almost all we talk about is Shakespeare, and since nobody will argue with me about it, it means that I tend to dominate class discussion and get nowhere with my thoughts.  So I talk, but it’s more me lecturing than me getting a resounding response. 

Resound.  Re-sound.  To say something and have it come back to you slightly altered.  Resonance is so important to the development of thought.  I am so excited to be in a Shakespeare class, but without the resonance that I so value in my other classes, I’m finding it difficult to engage.  I really wish I could just shake some of my classmates and remind them that, despite the fact that I speak loudly and with definite purpose, I do not (in fact) know everything.  Their input into my thoughts is valuable to me, and without it, I may as well be stuck in my tower reading my books and talking to myself.

…not that that doesn’t have a time and place, mind you, but that time and place certainly isn’t during class.

Maybe if I come to class looking disheveled and hung over I’ll be less credible… but then I’d have to figure out how to look disheveled and hung over.  So not worth it.

Just Another Week at Rutgers

The following account is based upon real events of the past week.  Any resemblance to characters living or dead are likely purposeful.

I sighed and pushed the elevator button again.  That was the one downside to living on the thirteenth floor; it took forever to get anywhere (especially at prime traffic hours).  Luckily, due to the fact that I was leaving early to attend a certain pre-class event, I had not hit prime traffic hours; the elevator was just slow.

I had been in Dr. Lynch’s classes long enough to call him “Jack” over “Professor” or “Doctor Lynch”.  I had worked closely with him as a grader and general mentee ever since my arrival on campus.  Jack habitually hosted pre-class “saloons” in which he invited his graduate students to come and bullshit socially for an hour or so before we dug out our books and started talking literature.  This semester, however, due to a long and varied series of circumstances, was the first time he had been able to hold these regularly since my acquaintance with him.  And, though it was the third week of class, this was the first one that any of us would be able to attend.

Just as I began to wonder about the merits of button-mashing as a come-hither tool on elevators, my cell phone dinged announcing that I had a text message.   I smiled knowingly as I dug for my phone.  I had wondered when I would hear from Ben that day.  Steadfast comrades at arms against the deepest darkest armies of literary theory, Ben and I had similar taste in classes and thereby saw a lot of each other.  We also both love Joss Wheedon.

I managed to juggle my already-full mug with one hand and my bag with the other as I fished my phone from its depths.  I glanced at the screen to see that I was correct; it was Ben.  However, instead of the “want to get coffee before we meet Jack?” text, my little screen read “there’s a fire in Robeson and Hill Hall is on lockdown.”

Robeson was the building where Jack was to hold court.  Our class was in Hill Hall.  The course had been cancelled last week due to snow emergency.  It was the beginning of the semester, we couldn’t lose two weeks!  “Where are you?” I replied, mashing the elevator button despite myself.

“Outside Hill; campus side.”

“Jack with you?”

“No word from him yet.”

“On my way.”  I fairly jetted through the doors when the darn thing finally arrived and used everything I knew about being a New Yorker to get myself to Hill as fast as possible with only one thought pounding through my head: the building which Jack was supposed to be in was on fire.  I had to rendezvous with Ben as quickly as I could so that we could use our wonder-twin powers to swoop to the rescue through the towering inferno.  Jack was but a Professor, without his graders he could easily be burnt at the stake or crushed to death!  Part of our job description was “brute force muscle” and “personal rescue squad”.  And besides, I had questions to ask him about submissions for publication!

I arrived in the quad to large groups of people milling about in front of the two connected buildings.  Though I saw no smoke or flames licking the sides of the brick, I knew the situation must be dire to evacuate in this fashion.  I scanned the crowd for Ben.

“Danielle!”  I looked to find a small group of my colleagues had spotted me and were milling about in a small group. 

I nodded at the one who had called my name then shouted back “I have to find Ben and Jack!”

They followed in my wake as we made a wedge through the crowd, not pushing per se but not being entirely pleasant either.  I spotted Jack out of the corner of my eye; tweed suit and all.  He was well-attended already with two other professors walking at his elbows.  Ben wasn’t far away and I made eye contact with him as we swooped into bodyguard formation.  I readied my tome of Gothic novels in case rioting ensued and we had to clear a quick path for the good Professor to escape. 

We had just moved into flanking position when we noticed another colleague of ours assembled with a group of his fellows nearby.  Perfect, a good way to cover the fact that we had Jack so well in our sights.  Nothing throws off would-be Professor-muggers like nearby students having discussions. 

“How’s your semester going!?”

“Great!  But we haven’t had a serious class session of this Wednesday class!”

“Yea, this day seems to be cursed.”  It was then I realized… it was cursed.  Gothic literature.  A Graduate course Jack had never taught before.  First the skies opened up to prevent our meeting with tumultuous snow, then we had been stricken down with fire.  Clearly there was no other explanation.  Much like the castles and abbeys, graveyards and labs, monks and aristocrats we read about, this class was cursed.  Doomed never to meet.  Always meant to be barred from assembling by some freakish intervention of nature.

I caught Ben’s gaze and I knew he had come to the same realization that I had.  We didn’t know what was to be done, but we were sure it had to be something.  A fire in a municipal class building was one thing, but what next?  Carpenter ants attacking the library in droves?  EMPs outing all of campus?  Or worse, an attack on Jack himself?

Jack had, by now, finished his conversation so we politely said goodbye to our friend and moved to stand closer to our charge.  He glanced to each of us, then sighed heavily.  “They are saying that you may as well go home if you have class in those buildings.”

“Well… we’re here anyway.”  I said, adjusting my grip on the tome in case anyone got any ideas about bum-rushing potential exits. 

Jack scanned the faces of the assembled quorum.  Not the entire class, but enough of us.  “Can we reach the others?”

“We can begin to.  I think between all of us we should be able to spread the word to most of the class.”

He nodded.  “Well then.  Class at the pub today?”

Ben nodded and gestured briefly with his hand.  In an instant, cell phones were whipped out and the chain of communication had begun.

When Ben confirmed that the calls had been completed, we fell into line for traveling.  I took point and he guarded our rear.  We weren’t exactly with a group of vets and greenies in situations like this could get people killed.  I would feel better when we had crossed University place, the great dividing line between Campus and the rest of the world.

We turned the corner of the library and walked right into them.  They must have been waiting for us.  Expecting us.  It wasn’t exactly like you could be silent with all that ice and snow crunching beneath your feet.  There they stood, armed to the teeth and angry as the hell they came from; Foucault, Lacan, and Derrida.  I swung into action and immediately produced a pencil weighted (and sharpened) for throwing from my hair.  I had several of these pencils, actually, but this would start us off.  Foucault was massive so I knew he would be slow, but Derrida had gotten the drop on us and was quickly approaching.  I aimed for his eye.

With a small “whoosh” noise, the pencil flew from my fingertips and landed clean in the socket.  Derrida screamed and clutched his face, falling back to where Lacan was preparing to attack with a flail made from what looked like a steel umbrella, a length of chain, and a paperweight.  I readied my Gothic tome to use as a shield and reached into my bag to pull out something to use as a weapon.  The first thing my fingers closed around was my netbook power cable.  Not perfect, but it’d have to do.

Lacan swung the flail and I blocked it squarely with the book.  The business end slid off and he swung it behind himself again, ready to go for another hit.  In that instant, I looped the power cord around my head like a lasso and  circled it around Lacan’s feet.  There wasn’t much weight to the swing, but it was enough.  He tripped and fell, crumbling to the ground which gave me enough time to advance on him and bludgeon him with the book I held.  He fought.  Hard.  Scratching, biting, as contentious as his work was.  He kicked out with his feet, looping around my calves and taking me to the ground with him.  We grappled for a bit and, though he was much larger than I, I had better balance.  I threw my head back, uttering my war cry (a dramatic rendition of Sonnet 109).  As I hit those last lines of Iambic Pentameter, the throwing pencil I had managed to grab hold of glowed in my hands.  A divine beam shone down from the sky, empowering my strike.  I used all my might to heave the weapon into Lacan’s jugular, and the wound exploded with blood and the white light of my faith.  I held Lacan down until he ceased to struggle.

“What was that?” came a voice from in front of me. 

I looked up and realized it was Ben, “Bardolotry ain’t just a source of inquiry anymore.”  I tilted my head back and uttered a thank-you prayer to my God Will and felt my faith swell within my heart.

…just then, I felt it.  He snuck up behind me so quietly that I didn’t even have a chance to gasp.  Foucault had me by the throat, the pencil that I had thrown through Derrida’s eye held menacingly at my temple.  “Nobody move.”  He uttered.  “I’ll do it!”

My hands went instinctually to his forearm to try and pry him off of me, but it was no use.  He had me in his clutches.  I tried to remain calm, looked to Ben to see if he had any plans.  His eyes told me that he was just as surprised as I was. 

“Let the girl go.”  It was Jack.  One of the greenies had known enough to get him covered and keep him out of the altercation.  “It’s me you want anyway.”

Jack took a few steps forward, but Ben read it in my eyes.  “Do not let him do this” and put out a hand to signal him to stay back.

Derrida laughed.  “That easy, old man?  I’d have thought that there would have at least been some bartering before the offer was made.”

“What can I say, I’ve grown soft in my Full Professorship.  She’s nothing to you, she hasn’t even finished her MA.”

“Oh but young blood is so much sweeter.  At this level they aren’t yet indoctrinated into some university’s backwards school of criticism.  She has potential; worlds of potential; unlimited potential.  I could teach her.  Show her my ways.  She’s fresh meat.”

“She’s an Early Modernist, you two won’t get along too well.”  Ben reminded.  I could see that he was trying to buy time, but I couldn’t tell why.  I guess as long as I wasn’t going to get one of my own throwing pencils through my head it didn’t really matter, right?

“All the better.  I can bend her scholarly inclinations to my own work and then – oh and then – she will be mine!”  He threw back his head and laughed diabolically.  His breathe stank of cheap red wine. 

I cringed at the scent and the sound, but the laughter was cut short by a small squish followed by a grown.  Derrida’s grip on me relaxed, and I was able to wretch myself free.  I spun, ready to do hand-to-hand with the Frenchman, when I saw what had Ben and Jack willing to buy time in such a risky fashion.

There he was, my Man Will, the Bard himself, wielding an iron quill as long as my forearm and a copy of the first folio.  The quill was currently sticking out of Derrida’s chest (though Will was standing behind him).  Derrida sank to the floor, blood pooling at his feet.

“Goodnight sweet Prince.”  Will said, “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

Will stepped over the fallen Derrida and I sank to one knee, head bowed to the ground.  I didn’t know what to say.  It was like all my words had been taken right out of my mouth along with the air from my lungs.  I felt his hand on my shoulder, and I looked up at him, trying not to gape.

“Thus ever do I keep my faithful.”  He said, gently helping me to my feet.

“I… don’t know what to say.”

“Silence is the perfectest herald of joy.  You were but little happy if you could say how much.”

“I can no answer make but thanks… and thanks… and ever thanks.”  I quoted back at him.  Two could play at this game.

“Doubt not that wherever thou art in this world’s globe, I’ll have an iris that shall find thee out.”  His face looked set, but kindly.  I felt the warmth of his gaze wash over me and comfort me.

I said the only thing I could think of.  The only way I could express the depth of my emotion at that moment.  So it’s from a sonnet, not a play, sue me.  You try quoting Shakespeare with Shakespeare at Shakespeare.  “If the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are restored and sorrows end.”

“I go.”  He said, and gently kissed my forehead.

“And take my heart with thee.”  I said, quietly.  He turned and walked purposefully down the path into a waiting beam of white light which seemed to swallow him up and, like a flash, he was gone.

I stood for a moment just breathing before I turned to face the assembly.  The greenies were giving me that terrified look that meant they would never argue with me in class again.  Jack was smiling knowingly and I wondered if he had ever met Swift or Pope that way (if he had, god bless him).  Ben was giving me that look that meant he didn’t quite know what to believe (but he’s a secular critic so really that comes with the territory I think).

“So,” I said, “Beer and Vathek?”

The Ladies who Brunch

Yesterday, while brunching with my usual cohorts at our usual watering hole, several things decided to pop their heads onto the table over beers, bloody marys, and totally awesome waffles and French toast.

The first thing was a way of putting this horrible feeling that we are all going through over the uncertainty of our futures due to PhD applications being in the mail and decision letters on the horizon.  During a round of your average “how are you?”s, someone brought the topic up (it might have been me).  It was inevitable, right?  It’s at the back of all of our minds.  Getting us together and adding a little booze was only less likely to make us ignore the elephant in the room.  So someone said PhD applications, someone said decision letters, someone said job applications, and my friend (the husband of my other friend), ever-the-sage, piped up with this little gem:

“How is she doing?  Are you kidding?  She hasn’t finished a sentence in months!”

I stopped, gaped, briefly considered, and slowly realized how apt this description was.  I then attempted to launch into my own description of how I was doing, and wound up with a slew of started and re-started sentences and phrases not amounting to much of anything but a ball of stress and upset.

“See?”  He said, “Like that.”

Oh god.  It’s true.  It may even be the root of why all this is bothering me so much.  How can you live without knowing what the end of the sentence is?  We’ve begun it, surely, but now that things are out of our hands there is absolutely no way to complete it without someone inserting a word mad-lib-style… and all of our mad-lib buddies are in the bathroom, or checking their facebook in the other room, or on the phone with their moms for a family emergency, or otherwise detained in some fashion and unable to give us the crucial noun, verb, or color to continue!

We’re stuck mid-mad-lib!

Do you know how infuriating it is for an English major to be stuck mid-sentence?  In that pause space that Tim Curry adds as Frankenfurter when he says “I see you shiver with antici….” and the whole audience shouts “say it!  SAY IT!” before he finally outs with “…pation” and the crowd goes wild.  We’re ellipsis.  No, we’re not even ellipsis, ellipsis imply an interruption in the thought that will be filled with dramatic tension and indicates an omission in the text.  While the tension is there, the omission will not be forever.  Eventually it will be filled.  We’re stuck at sentence fragments.  We know the subject, but not the verb. 

How am I supposed to analyze a text if I don’t know the story?

This brief moment of panic aside, the waitress was a very inquisitive individual who started asking questions about who we were and what we did and, feeling the bravado of Winter Lager in my system, I boldly told her “we’re professors!”.  Yes, I know, it’s a stretch of the truth, but without time to explain what we really do it’s the best way to say what our passions are and what our careers will be.  She then started asking about our fields.  I pointed us out one by one; “Feminist” (aforementioned friend-wife-of-husband-friend), “Shakespearean” (yours truly), “Secular Critic” (actually not a lady, but he was late to brunch and thereby I don't feel too horrible about picking on him indiscriminately in this blog post). 

“And together we make the justice league!” The secular critic said.

…which really got me thinking, if we did make the justice league what would our powers be and what sorts of crimes would we solve?  Would we be the scourges of bad grammarians everywhere?  Copy-editing with iron quills?  Or would we be Defenders of the Text, like the lorax but speaking for books and authors whose words none can hear any longer without our help?  Or would we swoop in and rescue libraries from burning down and give away used books to poor children who didn’t have money to buy them?  Or would we just wear funny costumes and sit around a citadel all day talking about the awesome things we would get around to doing eventually but couldn’t because our reading loads were too much?

At this juncture, fretting about random punctuation marks was pushed to the back of my mind.  I was instead worried about my super hero ensemble and name.

I think “The Bardette” would suffice… or maybe “The Quillmistress”… and my icon would be a skull with a feather quill crossed over it and an open book emblazoned behind it… and my colors would probably be white and burgundy because white for “the sweet swan of Avon” and burgundy because every velvet or leather-bound Shakespeare volume I’ve ever seen was in burgundy and my primary weapon would be an iron-bound copy of the First Folio that I would use to bludgeon my assailants to death and I need to come up with a clever and punish catch phrase and…

…I like thinking about this a lot more than thinking about the space between ellipses.

Prospero’s Staff (no, this is not a euphemism)

I really should know better than this.  Apparently it’s been an eventful (if snowy) week in the land of academia because I had about five different ideas for posts I could write.  I finished another attack on the Common Reading Exam List (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court); I’ve had so many PhD-app-related thoughts whirring and churning that I’m pretty sure I’ve developed a stress-induce stomach ulcer; I still haven’t written you that afore-promised breakdown of the history of the English language; I would love to share some thoughts on my most recent personal project; I’ve found some exciting conferences to submit to for next year…

However, as I sat down to do a little writing for class, my little writing turned into something a bit too long and a bit too in-depth to keep to a private class discussion board.  I broke down again this semester and took another Shakespeare-related class and, as a result, I’ve been gleefully romping through my home-turf-playground.  I had to read The Tempest for class this week (along with criticism and I have to do some research and I may write a paper on it and, in the words of E.L. Doctorow, “life was suddenly wonderful and full of delicious possibility”).

There are a few pretty myths that we Shakespeareans tell.  Fantasies that we can only sort-of prove.  To me, they are the fairy tales of our field; cardinal sticking points that we choose to believe because they make us feel better about the world and how it works.  Things that are based in fact (if only the smallest bit of it), but then diverge into wild and untamed fantasies that we like to repeat to ourselves before we go to sleep at night because they make us feel more secure and happy in what we study.  Things like the Mulberry tree that stands today behind what was once Shakespeare’s House in Stratford being planted by Shakespeare himself.  There’s one about Shakespeare leaving his wife the second-best bed in his will because that would have been their marriage bed (the best bed would have been the guest bed).  Or, my personal favorite, the so-called “lost years” (between 1585 and 1595 when we simply can’t account for our Bard as there are no records of any kind in which he appears) being when he learned the craft of acting by running away and joining the Elizabethan equivalent of the circus (a wandering group of players ousted from London by plague who had happened to come through Stratford round about the time Shakespeare disappears off the map).

One of these pretty falsehoods is about The Tempest.  We know that it was written late in Shakespeare’s career as a playwright (best guess for the date of its inscription being sometime between late 1610 and its first performance on Hallowmas night in 1611).  Many believe that The Tempest was Shakespeare’s farewell to the theatre and Prospero’s magic, by extension, to be a euphemism for theatre in general (this has been expanded to mean “art” over the years).  As Prospero bids adieu to his charms, so too it is said that Shakespeare did when he finally left London to re-join his family in Stratford.

I can understand the basis for this myth.  There are, in fact, two breath-taking speeches that most scholars cite as its source.  Both are in the fifth act; the first being 5.1.1984-2008 and ending with:

…this rough Magicke

I heere abiure: and when I haue requir'd

Some heauenly Musicke (which euen now I do)

To worke mine end vpon their Sences, that

This Ayrie-charme is for, I'le breake my staffe,

Bury it certaine fadomes in the earth,

And deeper then did euer Plummet sound

Ile drowne my booke.

The second speech is the epilogue, spoken by Prospero on a blank stage:

Now my Charmes are all ore-throwne,

And what strength I haue's mine owne.

Which is most faint: now 'tis true

I must be heere confinde by you,

Or sent to Naples, Let me not

Since I haue my Dukedome got,

And pardon'd the deceiuer, dwell

In this bare Island, by your Spell,

But release me from my bands

With the helpe of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours, my Sailes

Must fill, or else my proiect failes,

Which was to please: Now I want

Spirits to enforce: Art to inchant,

And my ending is despaire,

Vnlesse I be relieu'd by praier

Which pierces so, that it assaults

Mercy it selfe, and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your Indulgence set me free.

There are, of course, several other smaller instances of Prospero’s preparation to bid farewell to his magics.  The most famous and note-worthy of these is his remark at the end of the mask he has summoned to celebrate Ferdinand and Miranda’s wedding: “We are such stuff/ as dreams are made on, and our little life/ is rounded with a sleep.” (4.1.1826-39) meaning that actors within their parts are nothing more than “airy nothings” and must, inevitably, fade with the fantasy. 

While this is a pretty fairy tale and perhaps satisfactory to those straight-up booky types, as an actor/scholar I remain unconvinced. 

The metaphor seems apt on the surface, but let us first remember that Shakespeare was more than a playwright.  His involvement with the theatre and the stage spanned all angles from playwright to producer to actor.  There is no doubt that Prospero’s magic is the driving force of the play.  His control over Ariel, Caliban, the masks, the very weather itself precipitates and drives the action of The Tempest.  Without it, the play does not exist.  The courtly characters enter the world of The Tempest and unheedingly thereby submit themselves to Prospero’s magic.  Importantly, the world of The Tempest is not one which Prospero created, it is merely one which he can control.  This is not a position that either the actor or the playwright finds himself in.  The playwright is the creator of the theatre.  It all spawns from his fancy and imagination.  He is not the puppet-master, he is the god.  The actor is the ultimate submissive in the theatrical division of power.  Much less Prospero, the actor plays Ariel or Caliban and must bend to the whims of any and all above him in the power structure (director, producer, stage manager…).  It is a pretty fantasy that the actor holds any power at all in the creation of a theatrical piece.  While the actor is showcased within it, it is not his piece to control.

Important as well is that Prospero says goodbye to fairy land to return to a very real very courtly existence.  This begs a question which may or may not be answerable; to Shakespeare, what was real and what was fairy land?  Was the far-off dream of wife and children in Stratford his reality, or was it the daily grind of theatre work which provided his bread and butter?  Was it the things he knew he had but never saw or the things he saw every day?  What was fantastical, what was magic, and what was mundane?  Is it safe to assume that “THE MAGIC OF THE THEATRE” was what Shakespeare believed he could control with staff and book and a cushy, courtly existence what awaited him outside the boundaries of London?  I don’t think we can leap to this conclusion.  Art is magical, yes, but also utterly unpredictable and fickle; something which Prospero’s magic never proves to be.  It is the court within The Tempest which proves unreliable, not the wilderness. 

The dichotomy presented by Prospero in his epilogue between “charms” which are overthrown and the strength which he relies upon within himself does not draw a direct and uncomplicated parallel to real-world biographical occurrence within Shakespeare’s life.  Prospero begs to be set free by the audience’s indulgence, but I remain unconvinced that Shakespeare felt tethered to the theatre.  Rather, wasn’t he tethered to his wife and children in Stratford?  Prospero speaks of sins that must be pardoned, Shakespeare’s sins lay not in the theatre, but rather with an all-but-forgotten family in the country. 

Little is straightforward about biographical literary criticism, and this is further complicated by authors whose biographies remain unclear.  While I do not object to this particular fairy story, I do object to any assertion that it is a steadfast truth.  We cannot grasp at airy nothings and harden them to brick.  Rather, we must see them, appreciate them, and allow our indulgence to set them free.

famous last words

Yesterday, a member of my family passed away. It wasn’t unexpected, it wasn’t tragic (as far as death goes), it just was. People die. It is the ultimate punctuation to life. The period, question mark, or exclamation point to our time here upon this mortal coil.

I got the inevitable phone call (of course while I was driving, ain’t that the way things go?), I cried a little, and then I got to thinking. Here was a man who knew he was going to die. He was in the hospital and all signs were pointing at the hereafter. What does one say in those situations? There’s not much to be done, clearly, when you know you are running out of breathe and that your thought cannot sustain itself to another line. But there is still time for a few more words, a poignant tid-bit, a grand exit perhaps. At the very least one final jab at the world…

In Shakespeare, people die a lot. It’s the nature of the beast when you write Renaissance tragedy. Sometimes these deaths are expected, sometimes they are not. This passing within my life got me to thinking, what do the characters of the most eloquent man in the history of the English language say when their time is up?

Perhaps the most famous last words are spoken by Hamlet;

If thou did'st euer hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicitie awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in paine,
To tell my Storie….
O I dye Horatio:
The potent poyson quite ore-crowes my spirit,
I cannot liue to heare the Newes from England,
But I do prophesie th'election lights
On Fortinbras, he ha's my dying voyce,
So tell him with the occurrents more and lesse,
Which haue solicited. The rest is silence. O, o, o, o.

(Hamlet, V ii, 3832-4847)

Of course, people usually only remember the first bit of this speech. The beautiful part. I can only hope to be half as eloquent on my death bed (or, as in Hamlet’s case, stretched across the ground after having lost a duel and watched my mother be poisoned by my step-father while he lies dying from my own blade). Hamlet recognizes he is dying, he concedes the Country to the invading forces, and then passes in moans of pain. In doing so, Hamlet denies his own decree. “The rest is silence” he says, before letting out increasingly weaker moans of distress. Even in death, Hamlet remains contrary- unable to follow his own orders. Unable to act upon what he has set out to do. He is consistent then, his true self upon the last moment of his life.

Another famous set of last words (though perhaps people don’t realize they are quoting a death rattle when they use them) are given by Richard Plantagenet:

A Horse, a Horse, my Kingdome for a Horse.

(Richard III, V iv, 3840)

This comes from a character who has consistently been able to connive and cannodle anything he wants out of any other character. Here, in death, he is stripped of that ability. He begs for the necessities of battle. Unable to acquire them, he is slaughtered by his own inadequacy (finally). These last words reflect the universe stripping Richard of his unrighteous gains in order to give him his just deserts. It is also a reminder that not everyone can predict their death and give an eloquent speech, sometimes we die pleading for what would save us.


Of course, how could I discuss death without discussing the most famous lovers of all time? Both Romeo and Juliet have memorable closing remarks, though in very different ways. Here is Romeo:

…Eyes looke your last:
Armes take your last embrace: And lips, O you
The doores of breath, seale with a righteous kisse
A datelesse bargaine to ingrossing death:
Come bitter conduct, come vnsauory guide,
Thou desperate Pilot, now at once run on
The dashing Rocks, thy Sea-sicke wearie Barke:
Heere's to my Loue. O true Appothecary:
Thy drugs are quicke. Thus with a kisse I die.

(Romeo and Juliet, V iii, 2969-2977)

Romeo is a fine balance between the lovely and the practical. He gives his rehearsed speech, he says his goodbye to the world, he even has one of the most dramatic toasts of all time. Then, finished, reality sets in. Much like Hamlet’s “O, o o o”, Romeo is unable to stop at merely the lovely. We find Romeo the human being in his last line- perhaps more revealing and more truthful than anything he had previously spoken. Far from the flowering poetry he spoke but a moment before, Romeo’s final utterance is shiveringly real. Succinct. To the point. It is his life, encompassed.

Juliet is similar:

Yea noise?
Then ile be briefe. O happy Dagger.
‘Tis in thy sheath, there rust and let me die.

(Romeo and Juliet, V iii, 3032-3035)

No long speech. No dramatic toast. Merely the truth. Instructions. Practicality. She has no time for anything else. She is blatant, straightforward and simple, yet poetic. There is nothing brutal about Juliet’s last words. They are kind, gentle, personifying the dagger as something to be rejoiced in rather than feared. It will free her, let her die rather than cause her to die. Juliet releases life as simply as an exhale and nearly as silently.

A less famous parting speech is spoken by Antony:

The miserable change now at my end,
Lament nor sorrow at: but please your thoughts
In feeding them with those my former Fortunes
Wherein I liued. The greatest Prince o'th'world,
The Noblest: and do now not basely dye,
Not Cowardly put off my Helmet to
My Countreyman. A Roman, by a Roman
Valiantly vanquish'd. Now my Spirit is going,
I can no more.

(Antony and Cleopatra, IV xv, 3062-3070)

Antony’s last words also mirror his life. They are strong, practical, and giving. He counsels his friends to remember him in a happier time, a mightier time. He turns the thoughts of Cleopatra to himself at his prime. He eulogizes himself, summing his life up in a necessarily succinct piece. Antony is not terse, but he certainly isn’t a Romeo. No flowers for him, but rather marble monuments. He dies a warrior and a prince. Though in the arms of his lover, he does not die swooning. He simply stops. He can no more.

Another warrior who exits the stage in a flight of glory is the notorious and infamous Macbeth:

I will not yeeld
To kisse the ground before young Malcolmes feet,
And to be baited with the Rabbles curse.
Though Byrnane wood be come to Dunsinane,
And thou oppos'd, being of no woman borne,
Yet I will try the last. Before my body,
I throw my warlike Shield: Lay on Macduffe,
And damn'd be him, that first cries hold, enough.

(Macbeth, V viii, 2468-2475)

MacB actually runs off the stage fighting. He curses, spits, fights, and the next we see of him Macduff is carrying his head to the assembled Scottish Lords. This is again a character in the pinnacle of his life at the moment before his death; he is bright, bold, arrogant. He knows he will lose this battle, but he does not run. He throws up his shield and taunts his impending doom.

But what are Macbeth’s other choices? He certainly cannot grow anymore (as he is already King), he may fade back into obscurity rotting in some dungeon somewhere, but his story is over. Byrnane Wood has come to Dunsinane, the witches’ prophecies have all been fulfilled. There is no more destiny for Macbeth, no other part of the story for him. He must die, he has no choice in that. His only choice is how he does die.

So what will I say when facing down my death? Will I have flowery poetry, be begging for the necessities of life, be ready to face the reaper head on, eulogize myself? Will I find some truth about the deepest core of my humanity in that moment, or will I just fade into obscurity? Will it be offstage or onstage? Or will someone simply announce in the fifth act that “his commandment is fulfilled that Rosincrance and Guildensterne are dead” (Hamlet, V ii, 3864-3865). I don’t think there are any answers to these questions until the moment of their certainty, and I hope to be asking them for many years to come before that certainty arrives.

I will conclude this little jaunt into the macabre with a thought from Cymbeline. When Guiderius and Arviragus set Imogen (as Fidele) in her tomb in IV ii (lns 2576-2600), they speak the following poem because they have no voices to sing. My own voice does not feel the jubilation to be lifted into song at present. I am tired. I am sad. So, once again, I will rely upon Shakespeare to sing for me.

Feare no more the heate o'th'Sun,
Nor the furious Winters rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast don,
Home art gon, and tane thy wages.
Golden Lads, and Girles all must,
As Chimney-Sweepers come to dust.

Feare no more the frowne o'th'Great,
Thou art past the Tirants stroake,
Care no more to cloath and eate,
To thee the Reede is as the Oake:
The Scepter, Learning, Physicke must,
All follow this and come to dust.


Feare no more the Lightning flash.
Nor th'_all-dreaded Thunderstone.
Feare not Slander, Censure rash.
Thou hast finish'd Ioy and mone.
All Louers young, all Louers must,
Consigne to thee and come to dust.

No Exorcisor harme thee,
Nor no witch-craft charme thee.
Ghost vnlaid forbeare thee.
Nothing ill come neere thee.
Quiet consumation haue,
And renowned be thy graue.

Shakespeare Untold

The other week in class, a professor had us do an interesting exercise. He had us actually re-write Shakespeare’s sonnets in sentence form. The goal was to understand what words in the sonnet were important and how pervasive certain imagery was. We then went around the room and each read our sentences aloud, which was another interesting exercise in what we all found in the poetry.

This reduction of some of the greatest poetry ever written to its skeletal basics is perhaps some of the most worthwhile work I’ve done on the sonnets. And, of course, I can’t help but notice that it can be used to great comedic effect. When you get down to it, past the snobbery, past the intellectual mumbo jumbo, past the deification of Sweet William, these poems are love poems. Love poems, while beautiful if well written, innately contain certain tropes. When lain bare and seen as their very essence, these tropes are hilarious.

So I decided to break a few of the sonnets down for you here. I’m including the full text of the sonnet (divided by quatrain then final couplet), my sentences (again divided by quatrain then final couple so each sonnet will be four sentences), and a brief analysis which I hope will amuse you as much as it amuses me. Enjoy!

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

You’re prettier and more mild than a summer’s day. The sun is sometimes too hot and often clouded, and perfection always fades with time. But time will not ravage you and you will not die. So long as man has lungs to breathe and eyes to see, this will survive and grant you life.

God, what woman was he thinking of? Mild and temperate? Not mercurial or cloudy? One thing I know about women (and I’m an expert because I am one) is that we are beings of extremes and would more often say “nothing is wrong” when something is than let our sun shine unclouded. I guess this is just further proof that Shakepseare was gay…

Sonnet 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it, for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.

O! if, I say, you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

When the church bells ring for my death and I am buried in the ground do not mourn me. I love you so much that I don’t want you to be grieved. If you read this after I’m gone, just let your love for me decay like my corpse. Otherwise, the world may play tricks on you with your memory of me.

I love this sonnet because it reeks of teenage emo poetry. It’s like what a suicidal Jewish Grandmother would write if she wore black eyeliner and fishnet stockings, “No no, my love, don’t be sad, just don’t think about me. I will die and decay in the ground and worms will eat my flesh, but just move on.”

Sonnet 116

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,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.


Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.


If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Do not allow me to impede a marriage which should occur; Love cannot be true love if you are looking to change each other. No, it is ever-constant and like the North star: immeasurably necessary to a wandering soul. Love does not fade with time. If I’m wrong, I never wrote anything and nobody has ever loved ever.

This definitely falls into the Jewish Grandma category again. “If it’s true love, don’t let me stand in your way…. Oh by the way, here’s what true love is.” My favorite part about this poem is how many weddings it’s been read at… just because it has the word “marriage” in it does not make it a good idea to read at your wedding. Actually, knowing Shakespeare, it’s probably a very bad idea. It’s like the often-misquoted portion of Hamlet, “To thine own self be true”. Yes, he said it, but ironically. Please refer to my post on John Adams and the MacB’s for my opinion on the random quoting of Shakespeare. If you’re not ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CERTAIN of what it maybe kinda means, just don’t do it.

Sonnet 130

My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more read, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grand I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

My love doesn’t look at all like what the poets say is perfect. She’s also got horrendous breathe. Her voice isn’t lovely though she speaks well and she’s kinda chunky too. However, I think she is as special as any that the other poets praise so highly.

Shakespeare, while I applaud your attack on the courtly love poem, all I can say is this: You’re sleeping on the couch for the next century.

Fiddy Cent

I love many things in life: chocolate, tea, the smell of a library, new pens, shopping, backrubs…; but I would say one of the major love affairs I have ever entered into has been with the English language. Plainly spoken I love words. They have always understood me, I have always had a knack with them, and they never call at 3 AM the day before a big test and leave passive-aggressive “we need to talk” messages on my voicemail.

The use of so-called “fifty cent words” is something I highly endorse, both in writing and in speech. Vocabulary is meant to be expanded, and the richer one’s vocabulary the better one is able to express herself. There are few things more exciting than coming across a new word and integrating it into you speech. Seriously, try it out. In the next few days slip in a word like “effulgent”, “lurdan”, or “percolating”. And take a minute to check out this website, a new find of mine which frankly I could spend hours browsing.

However. There is a limit. There is a point when it gets to be too much. If I have to sit with a dictionary in my lap to get through the first two pages of your essay, we have a problem on our hands. I just finished reading the introduction to Shakespeare’s Perjured Eye (the invention of poetic subjectivity in the Sonnets) by Joel Fineman and my goodness, man, could you get more convoluted? Seriously, do any of you know what “epideictic” or “encomium” means off the top of your head? There were even a few words I had to turn to several dictionaries to find (“intromissive” and “extromissive”). The OED finally gave me the answer: “have the quality or effect of intromitting or letting in (e.g. rays of light); connected with intromission” though they broke the cardinal rule of definition (do not use the word to define itself), but that’s another rant.

Now granted, I understand that his argument is based in language and convoluted language at that. He is speaking on some of the most famous treasure-troves of the English language, and these poems are rather old to say the least. Of course his style should be heightened, if not it would do a disservice to the poetry he is so carefully analyzing. However the extensive use of such ridiculously complicated prose is a disservice to the reader. Yes, this is a niche book which will only be read by scholars, but that does not mean it should be dressed in language so convoluted that only someone with such a strong desire to read it as to look up every unavailable reference in an unconnected reference book should be able to take in its message.

I suppose the heart of my frustration with this is the quality of writing in academia. Language is important and should suit the purpose with which the author took up pen, but just because you’re writing a book on a highfalutin’ topic does not mean you should be incomprehensible. Eventually it all just turns into a conglomeration of syllables anyway, why not make it easy to digest? It clarifies meaning, it makes people more inclined to stick with your argument, and it makes you look like less of a self-important prig.

…apologies to the late Dr. Fineman, I do find his argument engaging and interesting, I just wish he had said it with more clarity and less ostentation. Peacocks don’t need to adorn their tails, all they have to do is strut.

"But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, all losses are returned and sorrows end."

Have you ever returned to a favorite author after a long foray into other literature? Picked up a favorite book after having left it gathering dust on the shelf for far too long?

It’s like running into a dear old friend on the subway. Someone you knew would always be in your life but things had gotten too busy to call contact this person for whatever reason. There is a relief in seeing someone like that, a comfort in knowing that all is right in the world. Conversation with them brings easy familiarity and you wonder why it is you ever let your job get in the way of you seeing this person. Picking things up again is simple, like you never left them, because in your heart you never did.

I got to read and analyze Sonnet 18 this week for a class and felt the same way. There was something so very comforting in seeing those words in print and knowing I would be held accountable for them. Being introduced to all this wonderful (and not so wonderful) literature is important for me as a person and a scholar, but Sweet William (Shakespeare not Faulkner) will always be my home. I can do Shakespeare, Bakhtin is another story.

There are several sonnets that, over the course of the years, I have committed to memory. Sonnet 18 happens to be one of them (I mean really, how can I call myself a “Shakespeare scholar” and not be able to rattle off “Shall I compare thee to a summers’ day?...”). I have found that knowing them does not prevent me from making further discoveries within them. In fact, quite the opposite. Because I do know them so well I am more free to stretch the language, discover more, read deeper.

And boy let me tell you what this reading drudged up.

This Spring I will be speaking at several conferences, one of them the New Jersey Writers’ Alliance in a panel headed by Dr. Nira Gupta-Casale on Vampires and Zombies. My essay is a product of my obsessive love for a man dead 500 years (Shakespeare guys, not Lestat) combined with a genre that has led to one too many of my personal teenaged fantasies. Meld these together and you get my paper entitled Staking them Out: Shakespeare’s Vampires.

I can almost hear the critics groaning, but hey, the paper’s already been accepted to one conference and I have another hot on its tail. Yes, I do find founding and reason for the paper beyond “tee hee tee hee let’s see what I can dress up in academic mumbo-jumbo and sell to a conference!” I am slightly loathe to publish “inside scoop” on the paper before it’s been formally presented or published (this is the internet after all, and IP rights are sketchy at best especially among academics). However, suffice to say that this new lens brought a more than interesting reading to sonnets 18 and, more importantly, 19.

For your reading pleasure, take a look and see if you can’t see at least a tidbit of what I see:

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course, untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breath or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 19

Devouring time, blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws,
And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet’st,
And do whate’er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets:
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
O carve not with thy hours my love’s fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty’s pattern to succeeding men.
Yet do they worst, old Time, despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.

…far from vampires that sparkle in the sunlight, huh?

Oh La La

I had a singularly remarkable experience this weekend.

Let me begin by saying that I am slightly embarrassed to admit to the topic of this blog, but I should likely be upfront about my shortcomings. I am an intelligent, beautiful and oh-so-modest woman, but I do have certain faults of character which simply cannot be helped. I am addicted to shopping, I love to eat chocolate, and I love bad pop music.

It is this last flaw which is about to become pertinent to our conversation. Please don’t judge me. Or if you do at least stick with me long enough so that I can explain myself.

This past Saturday at Radio City Music hall I was able to attend a concert. Not just any concert, a concert involving a certain pop super-star native of New York who is infamous for her over-the-top fashion decisions and her crazy house beats.

I won’t stand up for her music (though I firmly believe that, while certainly not “high art” it does hold its own on the music scene), I won’t even give you a lecture about where she went to school (NYU and almost Julliard), but I will say that this woman is horrendously talented. For two hours she put forth a high-energy performance; singing, dancing, doing at least eight costume changes, all the while adoring her fans as much as they adored her.

While I danced in Radio City, I couldn’t help but stand back and marvel at a few pertinent items.

The seating capacity of Radio City is 6,000. The concert was sold-out. So that is 6,000 people (most of them strangers to each other) dancing, singing, and enjoying one event. This event, a show of dramatic theatrics, is quite possibly the modern-day equivalent to the Elizabethan theatre.

In the days of Dear William, going to the theatre was an all-day occasion. The masses would turn out, from commoner to Queen, to gather in one playhouse and witness the theatrical event. Food and drink were sold to the assembly from wandering merchants. The performance lasted as long as there was daylight (remember, this was in an era before such inventions as electricity and indoor playhouses). More than this, the audience was expected to interact with the show. Booing and hissing the villains, cheering the lovers, and making all kinds of disorderly messes of themselves when the clowns came on. The theatre was more than entertainment, it was a makeshift community, an experience which brought people from all walks of life and the social ladder together.

This is not the case of modern theatre. The modern theatre is often viewed as an “uppity”, “classy” or “prissy” joint. It is highbrow, entitled. Expected conduct at the theatre has changed accordingly. It is considered impolite to interact with the play beyond the occasional laugh or bout of applause. We are more mild-mannered theatergoers, unwilling to break free from the current standard of interacting with our enterainment.

And what is that standard? By far, the most common form of mass entertainment today is television. Television creates a private entertainment experience, no longer a community but rather something we do alone. Moreover, television feeds us entertainment. It dishes out entertainment to us in controlled portions, carefully doled in measured segments. We are not expected to give anything back to the television nor are we expected to interact with it, we are merely expected to sit and be entertained.

The movies are the step between television and theatre. A movie theatre creates a passive viewing experience in a community environment. Unless you live in New York City, it is unlikely that you have ever been to a movie where shouting at the screen was expected (or even encouraged). Certainly we have cross-overs from the movies to theatre (such as the timeless tradition of shadow-casting The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but such experiences are exceptions rather than the rule.

The concert-going experience demands feedback. We sing along, we dance, we shout things at the stage. Moreover, we do so in a group of people who have connected with us on a certain level; the attendees of a concert presumably have one thing in common: the music. You will certainly find a different demographic bopping along to Billy Joel than you will to the aforementioned pop star whose concert I attended.

Now don’t get me wrong, likely the closest modern equivalent to Elizabethan theatre is a sporting event, but as yours truly really sees no value in grown men flinging balls at each other I won’t be speaking on them.

Oh, and of course, there is this.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

The literary gods have had mercy upon my poor soul and have sent a white knight to rescue me from the evil clutches of William Faulkner. My Spring classes have started and, while I am certain that should I be so inclined to I could find the time for good William, I simply have not managed to eek him back into my schedule.

Which means that I get to blog about something a little more upbeat than dreary and dreadfully long sentences: filicide!

Filicide is the act of a parent intentionally killing his/her child. Our good friend William (Shakespeare, not Faulkner) has several plays which feature filicide, probably the most obvious example being Titus Andronicus. Filicide is also featured in The Winter’s Tale (though Leontes does not actually manage to kill Perdita, he does try…) and perhaps our favorite Shakespearean foray into the macabre, Mr. and Mrs. Macers go to Scotland… otherwise known as Macbeth.

Bear with me for a moment, I promise this circles back to Scottish witches.

In a 1765 political pamphlet entitled A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (available here), John Adams speaks on (and debatably introduces) one of the most famous metaphors of the American Revolution: that of England as the mother country. He says, “Is there not something extremely fallacious in the common-place images of mother country and children colonies? Are we the children of Great Britain any more than the cities of London, Exeter, and Bath? Are we not brethren and fellow subjects with those in Britain, only under a somewhat different method of legislation, and a totally different method of taxation? But admitting we are children, have not children a right to complain when their parents are attempting to break their limbs, to administer poison, or to sell them to enemies for slaves? Let me entreat you to consider, will the mother be pleased when you represent her as deaf to the cries of her children, -- when you compare her to the infamous miscreant who lately stood on the gallows for starving her child, -- when you resemble her to Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare, (I cannot think of it without horror,) who…

‘Had given such, and knew How tender ‘t was to love the babe that milked her,’

“but yet, who could,

‘Even while ‘t was smiling in her face, have plucked her nipple from the boneless gums, and dashed the brains out.’ “

Oh ho Mister Adams. Well done, well done indeed.

I have not done extensive research on this subject (though trust me, I intend to- it’s on my “to-do” list along with Johnny Depp and getting a hobby that doesn’t involve libraries), but based upon the perfunctory looking-into I have done I will state that Shakespeare’s words have been used to back every side of every major political argument since just after the poor man died. Frequently in these instances, he is even misquoted- used by the rhetoricians in their time-honored tradition of bending the thoughts of others to their own means.

Now I don’t intend to go too deeply into this concept today, I will save that for when I have more to back my currently biased and unsubstantiated opinions. What I do want to point out is how seemingly random Mister Adams’ reference is.

The quote which Dear John pulls is perhaps the most debated line of Macbeth. It is the only reference to the pitter patter of small bloodthirsty Scottish feet in the play, neither MacB nor his Lady wife ever again mention their own progeny. Clearly there are no Macbeth children in the play, so if Lady M is telling the truth (and why should she not?) then she did have a child and something happened to it. Was it Macbeth’s? Was it a bastard child? How and when did it die? Is its death something which urged her to demand of the spirits to “Take my milke for Gall..” (I iv)? If she had had a child to tend to, would she still have been a murderous witch? These are questions we will never know the answers to, but directors and scholars will continue to debate them, making Adams’ quote one of the “hottest topics” of the Shakespearean cannon.

So John Adams uses the most famous line of one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays in his pamphlet. Why?

Politicians invoke Shakespeare like they invoke a God. Shakespeare is a higher intellectual authority, a literary deity. You can no more trump Shakespeare than you can deny Barthes’ Eiffel Tower. Politicians bank on that. Invoking Shakespeare lends an intellectual superiority. “Not only do I understand him, but he is on my side”. It brings to the proverbial room a discomfort, what do you say to Shakespeare? You can’t rebut him, you can’t discredit him, the best you can hope for is to come back at him with another of his own set of words and hope it holds up in an epic battle with himself (much like this).

Perhaps what startled me the most about Mister Adams’ reference is that he is one of the greatest rhetoricians of history. Here he is, leaning upon the words of Shakespeare (not even unpacking them mind you, just sticking them in his pamphlet) to help him make a tangential point. This either means that Mister Adams recognized a tactic which works and made use of it, or he was just out of creative things to say that day. I’m going to put my money on the first one, but either way, John Adams could certainly have used some time to brush up on his Shakespeare. MacB is no more a play about filicide than Othello is a play about a handkerchief. In addition, I’m not entirely certain how comfortable I am with the metaphor of England as Lady M and the States as the otherwise-unmentioned MacBaby. Certainly we deserve more regard than a single line in passing. We are (and were even in 1765) a large political force. Perhaps Adams is invoking it to suggest that England neglects America just as Shakespeare neglects Baby MacB. They will give us no answers, they recognize us only as an allegory of their success in failure, and they sure as hell won’t admit to having us in polite company.

So kids, today’s moral (brought to you by our good friend the second president of the United States and the letter “S”) is: Shakespeare is your rhetorical buddy. Use his powers well and you too may someday aspire to political greatness.