Shakespeare Challenge: Seven Themes

7. Theme [1] Nihilism

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

(Macbeth)

7. Theme [2] Reconciliation

(himmapaan)

They looked as they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed: a notable passion of wonder appeared in them; but the wisest beholder, that knew no more but seeing, could not say if the importance were joy or sorrow; but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

(The Winter’s Tale)

7. Theme [3] Mistaken Identity

Why, how now, gentleman! why, this is flat knavery, to take upon you another man’s name.

(Taming of the Shrew)

7. Theme [4] Girl Power

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

(Othello)

7. Theme [5] Bigotry



He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

(The Merchant of Venice)

7. Theme [6] Duplicity



For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.

(Othello)

7. Theme [7] Irreverence



DEMETRIUS: Villain, what hast thou done?
AARON: That which thou canst not undo.
CHIRON: Thou hast undone our mother.
AARON: Villain, I have done thy mother.

(Titus Andronicus)

Shakespeare Challenge: Six Settings

6. Setting [1] The Winter’s Tale

The setting of The Winter’s Tale beautifully conveys a sense of rejuvenation. The first half takes place in Sicily’s winter and covers what is essentially a tragedy. Sixteen years later, the second half happens mostly in Bohemia’s summer, a time of harvests, festivals, dancing, and singing, of humor, love, and forgiveness. What better way to depict the thawing out of old men’s hearts and the magic of redemption?

6. Setting [2] King Lear

King Lear is set in pre-Christain Britain, an ageless place, bereft of tangible society and context. The setting is as dark and chaotic as Lear’s mind. Even though several countries are mentioned, the play could take place in the absence of space. This emptiness directly reflects Lear’s and humanity’s absurd position at the hands of insensitive fate. Our protagonist howls into the abyss. But is there any response?

6. Setting [3] Macbeth

Macbeth’s tale of ambition and bloodshed can be set anywhere, including the 1970s (like in the hilarious Scotland, PA) or a postapocalyptic battleground. But there’s little question as to where the original is set. It is even referred to as the Scottish Play starring the Scottish King, due to theScottish Curse that brings harm when “Macbeth” is uttered in a theatre. Supposedly based on real king, Medieval Scotland is a perfect gothic setting for witches and warring factions.

6. Setting [4] A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The woods play a huge part in Shakespeare’s works. They represent magic and moral chaos, a place away from society. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, fairies reign in Athens’ ancient forests. Spells are cast, people are transformed, and couples fall in and out of love. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is often one of Shakespeare’s most visually beautiful plays due to the setting’s fantastical possibilities.

6. Setting [5] The Tempest

(Sue Doggett)

The Tempest is a rare Shakespearean play that follows Aristotle’s “unities” theory: unity of action, time, and place. The Tempest happens in one day on one island. The setting is of utmost importance as the magician Prospero and his daughter have been stuck on this island for more than a decade. Prospero creates a storm that shipwrecks a passing boat which carries his wicked brother. Now they are on his land, as Prospero has mastered the island and its spirits. The setting illuminates themes of colonization and the human fear of something untamed and wild.

6. Setting [6] War of the Roses

The War of the Roses tetralogy, which includes Henry VI parts one, two, and three, and Richard III, covers several decades in 15th century England. The plays are an epic retelling of political maneuvering and slaughter. The tetralogy portrays an essential part of English history, and is intriguingly complex historical propoganda.

Shakespeare Challenge: Five Minor Characters

5. Minor character [1] Lucio

Lucio lies in order to stir up trouble, but he tells some serious truths about society and humanity. A mischievous knave, a flippant rascal, and a helper and a hinderer, Lucio frequently skewers puritanical laws against sexuality and other human “sins.”

5. Minor character [2] Barnardine

Barnardine (right), a prisoner of nine years, says only a few lines, yet he is highly memorable. The characters in Measure for Measure describe him best:

Provost: A man that apprehends death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep; careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come; insensible of mortality, and desperately mortal. 

Duke: He wants advice.

Provost: He will hear none. He hath evermore had the liberty of the prison: give him leave to escape hence, he would not: drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming warrant for it: it hath not moved him at all.

He appears in a hilarious exchange in which he is threatened with execution, which he refuses, due to being too drunk. Amazingly, this excuse works, as he marches right back into his cell to live and drink another day.

5. Minor character [3] Mercutio

(Arden Ellen Nixon)

In the above painting, the aptly named Mercutio is shown with fairy midwife Queen Mab. She appears in a detailed speech that displays Mercutio’s imagination. He also possesses a bawdy sense of humor, which makes him delightful if sometimes overbearing company. However, he can quickly lose his temper or sink into melancholy. Mercutio is both avid entertainer and haunted, tragic figure. Shakespeare supposedly said “he was forced to kill him in the third act, to prevent being killed by him.” Check out Zeffirelli’s 1968 Romeo and Juliet for John McEnery’s beautiful interpretation of the character.

5. Minor character [4] Caliban

If the spirit Ariel is protagonist Prospero’s ethereal superego, Caliban is his id. Born to a witch, is he man or monster? A crude portrait of an indigenous, Irish, or African slave? A sympathetic underdog or a base creature? Though ignorant and subversive, Caliban can be achingly poetic. One of Shakespeare’s most debated characters, Caliban is one to fear, laugh at, and cry for.

5. Minor character [5] Octavius

Octavius appeared briefly in Julius Caesar, but Mark Antony was the young manipulator who made an impression in his rise to power. In Antony and Cleopatra, Antony is older, and Octavius is the up-and-coming threat. When others celebrate and drink, Octavius abstains and observes. His icy calculation is frightening, but his motives might actually be loftier than our hedonistic protagonists’.

Shakespeare Challenge: Four Villains

4. Villain [1] Iago

(wjsolha)

I don’t think there’s a greater, more malevolent, unrepentant, intelligent, repulsive, inscrutable, or fascinating villain in Shakespeare or in fiction than Iago. It’s not what he does to his enemies but to his friends that is so frightening. He destroys others from the inside out, using their flaws or virtues against them. A devil figure and a textbook psychopath, Iago is both endlessly cunning and mundane. The audience never witnesses his death or gets a satisfying explanation for why he led his comrades into spectacular disaster.

4. Villain [2] Richard III

Scholars consider Richard III to be one of the most maligned figures in history, thanks in large part to Shakespeare’s dynamic creation. This Richard III ruthlessly kills his way to the throne, playing with victims as he goes. He is despicable, yet he seduces audiences with his brilliance and wicked sense of humor. Unfortunately, we eventually realize that he has also duped us. Once king, Richard becomes a paranoid despot, revealing himself as nothing more than an empty, lonely mad man.

4. Villain [3] Aaron

In a play filled with heinous individuals, Aaron the Moor stands out as the most cunning and sadistic. Though he refuses to repent and delivers epic speeches about reveling in depravity, his position as a slave and his love for his infant son are points of sympathy. Aaron is one of Shakespeare’s most charismatic and evil characters.

4. Villain [4] Shylock

Shylock is one of Shakespeare’s most written about and most controversial characters. Both an antisemitic charicature and a sympathetic figure, Shylock craves money and blood and gives stirring speeches about the mistreatment of Jews. He has been used in arguments defending and condemning bigotry. Ultimately a bitter, sad, and vengeful man, ill-treatment has warped Shylock’s humanity. He is a reminder of prejudices present in Shakespeare’s time and now.

Shakespeare Challenge: Three Quotes

3. Quote [1]

Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible
Than are the tender horns of cockl’d snails;
Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus gross in taste:
For valour, is not Love a Hercules,
Still climbing trees in the Hesperides?
Subtle as Sphinx; as sweet and musical
As bright Apollo’s lute, strung with his hair:
And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.
Never durst poet touch a pen to write
Until his ink were temper’d with Love’s sighs;
O, then his lines would ravish savage ears
And plant in tyrants mild humility.
From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:
They sparkle still the right Promethean fire;
They are the books, the arts, the academes,
That show, contain and nourish all the world:
Else none at all in ought proves excellent.

(Berowne, Love’s Labour’s Lost)

This whole monologue is gorgeous, and David Tennant’s delivery of this speech in the 2008 Royal Shakespeare Company's production made me feel as though I was watching a young Shakespeare stand before me.

3. Quote [2]

Come, let’s away to prison.
We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.
When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down
And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too—
Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out—
And take upon ’s the mystery of things
As if we were God’s spies. And we’ll wear out
In a walled prison packs and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by the moon.

(Lear to his daughter Cordelia in King Lear)

The description of my blog features a quote from this speech. Almost nothing is more heartbreaking than the end of King Lear. All too late, Lear wants to reconnect with his one loving daughter and enjoy life.

3. Quote [3]

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

(Caliban, The Tempest)

Choosing favorite quotes from Shakespeare is ridiculously difficult. Shakespeare contains so many modern phrases and beautiful passages. So for my third choice, I’ll go with Caliban’s speech. That Caliban, “this thing of darkness,” has the most beautiful little monologue in The Tempest is still remarkable to me.

Shakespeare Challenge: Two Years

2. Year [1] 1599

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Much Ado About Nothing

As You Like It

Henry V

Julius Caesar

Hamlet

It is very likely the plays I’ve listed were not written or performed in 1599, but we don’t have any exact dates.

2. Year [2] 1604

All’s Well That Ends Well

Measure for Measure

Othello

In order not to overlap with Morituae’s excellent selection, I decided to go with 1604. Othello and Measure for Measure fascinate me. I’ve only seen All’s Well That Ends Well once, but I didn’t hate it.

Ten-Part Shakespeare Challenge

Tumblr user Moriturae posted a Shakespeare Challenge, which I decided to undertake. I selected: 

one genre
two years
three quotes
four villains
five minor characters
six settings
seven themes
eight plays
nine protagonists, and
ten relationships.

To start,  I chose one genre: Tragedy.