Over the weekend I finished reading Neil Gaiman's Stardust, and I was planning on posting about it today...However, I have also been reading Romeo and Juliet as well, and since that is fresh in my mind at the moment I am going to bombard you with yet a bit more on my encounters with Shakespeare. I promise to talk about the other books I am reading this week, too (I have gotten back into a reading rhythm with a few other books, which I am very happy about).
Before I jump in I have to say thanks to all who have left comments on my Shakespeare posts. I think it says something that these posts attract so many comments--even now--400 years after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet, people are still reading, studying and enjoying the play--and talking about it. I have found all the suggestions very helpful and have been picking and choosing methods and working out what is best for me. This will probably change as I go, but at least I feel like I have sound advice on how to approach my reading--so, many thanks!
Watching the play first and now reading it has worked out well for me. I am able to visualize in my mind where the characters are and what they are doing when I read. So fixed in my mind now are Olivia Hussey as Juliet and Leonard Whiting as Romeo, it is hard to remember that when this was first staged, Juliet would have been played by a boy! I have decided to just read and try not to be distracted too much by the language. There is so much that is unfamiliar to me that I was stopping constantly and looking for the definition, only to have lost my place and have to reread sections I already read. I thought I would never make any progress. Now I am reading and marking the passages that are particularly confusing, and I plan on going back to these marked passages later and looking up meanings. Even not stopping constantly, my reading is fairly slow. The edition I am reading from is a little Bantam classic, which is fine, but I do think I will look for an edition that has the definitions on the facing page in the future. Perhaps that will help my reading flow, too?
As there are five acts, I plan on reading an act a day--finishing up just in time for the weekend, so I can watch the play again. I realize that I am moving at a snail's pace, but I sort of like my daily Shakespeare visits to be honest. I have to admit I broke down and bought a student guide and am reading the summaries after each scene and find the guide very useful. I read the Garber essay on Romeo and Juliet, so I am aware of some of the major themes (light/dark, old/young, violence/romance), but the guide does help reinforce these points. The summaries also clarify the action. It's interesting to see what I am getting and what is going right over my head.
Can I share a passage that I found particularly pleasing? This is Mercutio talking in Act 1 Scene 4. Romeo, Mercutio, and Benvolio are outside the Capulet's house getting ready to go into a masked ball that is being held (mostly for Juliet's sake, if I am to understand correctly, as her parents want her to marry Paris, and here she will meet him). Mercutio is not a romantic like Romeo. He doesn't believe that dreams foretell future events (unlike Romeo). As with love, Mercutio is skeptical of dreams as well. It is sort of long, but well worth the read:
"O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you.
She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone
On the forefinger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep;
Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs,
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's wat'ry beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid;
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers.
And in this state she 'gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers' knees, that dream on cursies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream,
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are.
Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose as 'a lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five fadom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,
And being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two
And sleeps again. This is that very Mab
That plats the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish, hairs,
Which once untangled much misfortune bodes
This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs,
That presses them and learns them first to bear,
Making them women of good carriage.
This is she-"
I thought this passage was particularly apt as I am also reading books for Carl's Once Upon a Time challenge (hence the Gaiman). Queen Mab is a fairy, so she fits right in with the theme. Although I am planning on reading A Midsummer Night's Dream for Carl's challenge later on, I think I'd like to give Twelfth Night a try in the interim.
"Twins Viola and Sebastian are shipwrecked. Believing her brother drowned, and determined to survive alone, Viola disguises herself as a boy. As 'Cesario' she enters the service of Orsino and is sent by him to woo Olivia." But Olivia isn't interested and 'Cesario' is swept into a merry-go-round world of unrequited love, mistaken identities, high comedy, low tricks and desperate passion."
Does that not sound like fun? Why did I wait so long to start reading Shakespeare? As someone said in a comment--"Shakespeare rocks!".