Big Ideas Simply Explained - The Shakespeare Book

["THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 149 Unable to sleep, the At Gaultree Forest, In Gloucestershire, Newly crowned, king worries about Prince John leads the Pistol brings news that Henry V rejects further rebellion. Henry IV is dead and Falstaff, while Prince rebels to believe a John mentions future compromise is Hal at last is king. war with France. possible, before arresting them for treason. 3.1 4.1 5.1 5.4 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 2.4 3.2 4.3 5.2 Ensign Pistol\u2019s swaggering Falstaff Thinking his sleeping Hal promises the brings chaos to the tavern, reminisces with father dead, Hal takes worried Lord Chief Shallow and Silence the crown and, when Justice that he will and Hal overhears in Gloucestershire rebuked, reassures his make the law his Falstaff malign him. and then recruits the father he will prove a means of rule. weakest men. noble king one day. \ufb01nancial, keeps him in London. Sensing his own mortality, Falstaff believing the king has died, the There the Lord Chief Justice seeks comfort from Doll Tearsheet king is all the more convinced his rebukes him for dishonorably before departing for duty. He is son desires his death. Hal assures misleading Prince Hal, and tasked with a recruiting drive in his father that he dreads that event, Mistress Quickly has him arrested Gloucestershire. But since Falstaff and promises that, when it comes, for debt. He molli\ufb01es her with takes bribes to exempt certain it will herald a just reign. further empty promises and conscripts, his \ufb01ghting force retains borrows more; and then maligns the poorest men in every sense. Henry dies, and Falstaff hopes Prince Hal, who overhears these for in\ufb02uence at court. But Hal keeps potential words of treason. Amid At court, the wakeful king is his word. Promising the Lord Chief the rising noise and chaos of the troubled by his betrayal of those Justice to defend the law, he Eastcheap underworld, a sudden same warlords who helped him dismisses Falstaff when his old call to his father\u2019s sickbed delivers to the crown, and by fears for the friend hails him at the coronation. a timely rebuke to the wayward future once the unpredictable Hal As Falstaff is arrested for debt, Prince for this irresponsible is king. He asks that the crown lie Prince John mentions a rumored waste of time. on his pillow as he sleeps. When war with France and we know that Hal arrives and takes the crown Agincourt beckons. \u276f\u276f","150 HENRY IV PART 2 F alstaff remembers hearing O thoughts of men accursed! London\u2019s church clocks Past and to come seems best; IN CONTEXT chiming midnight when, as a student at the Inns of Court, he things present, worst. THEMES burned the candle at both ends. In Archbishop of York Time\u2019s decay, loyalty and those days, the lateness of the hour betrayal, misremembering signaled a young man\u2019s liberty. Act 1, Scene 3 Now, remembered in old age, it SETTING marks the end of things. With their The play appears to have been Court of Henry IV; Boar\u2019s blend of warmth and wistfulness written for an audience that has Head Tavern, London; Falstaff\u2018s words capture perfectly seen Part 1, and it therefore uses Gloucestershire; Gaultree the bittersweet quality of this similarities between the two in Forest, Yorkshire play, in which for king, rebels, narrative and structure to make and common folk alike, midnight the differences stand out. While SOURCES chimes \ufb01nality and judgment. this play looks forward to the 1587 Holinshed\u2019s Chronicles of coronation of Henry V, its main England, Scotland, and Ireland. The title Henry IV Part 2 leads focus is retrospective. It revisits us to expect a sequel to Part 1, and issues and relationships from Part 1 1594 The Famous Victories to a degree it is. As the title page to and re\ufb02ects on them at a slower of Henry V, an anonymous the 1600 quarto promises, we are pace and in a more nuanced way. play probably known to to see again the comic knight John Shakespeare. Falstaff, meet his new companion, Subjects to time Pistol, and follow the history to The three worlds of Part 1\u2014the 1595 Samuel Daniel\u2019s poem Henry\u2019s death and the coronation court, the tavern, and the rebels\u2014 \u201cThe First Four Books of the of the hero-king Henry V. It was now feel the debilitating effects Civil War Between the Two a winning combination for the of time and mortality. Plump Jack Houses of York and Lancaster.\u201d Elizabethan audience who had Falstaff, Hal\u2019s father-substitute and delighted in Part 1. But while there tavern-king, is in physical decline: LEGACY is comedy in Part 2, the mood is his \ufb01rst words in Part 2 are to Since Henry IV Part 2 is rarely darker, and the historical events inquire about the health of his played as a solo drama, most are less valiant, tainted as they urine. The king himself swaps the of the performance history is are with political trickery. robe of majesty for a nightgown as shared with Part 1. sleepless anxiety about rebellion and his inheritance contributes to Early 1700s Actor-manager his deteriorating health. And the Thomas Betterton\u2019s adaptation rebels, too, admit that their long extends the popular role of dispute with the king has made Falstaff on the London stage. In an intriguing theatrical dynamic, 1821 The play is performed a dotard Falstaff was played by British as part of the coronation actor Timothy West alongside a cynical celebrations for George IV. Prince Hal, played by West\u2019s son Samuel, at the Old Vic, London, in 1997. 1945 Laurence Olivier plays a memorable Justice Shallow at the New Theatre, London. 1966 Orson Welles\u2019 \ufb01lm The Chimes at Midnight focuses on Hal\u2019s father-son relationship with Falstaff and the King. 2012 BBC\u2019s \u201cHollow Crown\u201d series casts Simon Russell Beale as a melancholy Falstaff.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 151 From the medieval kings to Elizabeth I King Edward III Queen Philippa of Hainault (1312\u201377) (1314\u201369) Edward the Joan of John of Gaunt Blanche of Edmund of Isabella of Black Prince Kent Duke of Lancaster Lancaster Langley Castille (1345\u201368) (1355\u201392) (1330\u201376) (1328\u201385) (1340\u201399) Duke of York (1341\u20131402) Edward Duke King Mary de King Henry IV of Aumerle Richard II Bohun (Bolingbroke) Richard Earl of 2nd Duke (1367\u20131400) (1368\u201394) Cambridge of York (1366\u20131413) (1375\u20131415) (1373\u20131415) Owain Catherine King Thomas Duke John Duke Humphrey Richard Tudor of Valois Henry V of Clarence of Bedford Duke of Plantagenet (1400\u201361) (1401\u201337) (1386\u20131422) (1387\u20131421) (1389\u20131435) Gloucester 3rd Duke (1390\u20131447) of York (1411\u201360) King Henry VI (1421\u201371) Edmund Tudor Margaret Elizabeth King George Duke King Earl of Richmond Beaufort Woodville (1441\u20131509) (1437\u201392) (1430\u201356) Edward IV of Clarence Richard III (1422\u201383) (1449\u201378) (1452\u201385) King Henry VII Elizabeth King Shakespeare was familiar (Richmond) of York Edward V with complex royal genealogy (1430\u20131509) (1470\u201383) connecting the Houses of (1466\u20131503) Plantagenet, Lancaster, York, and Tudor. Katherine King Anne Boleyn of Aragon Henry VIII (1507\u201336) (1485\u20131536) (1491\u20131547) Queen Queen Plantagenet Lancaster Mary I Elizabeth I York Tudor (1516\u201358) (1533\u20131603) them ill: \u201cwe are all diseased, \/ And in its twilight years where elderly scoundrel has become harder since with our surfeiting and wanton men ponder sheep prices and tally his father\u2019s illness, and the prince hours \/ Have brought ourselves into the deaths of old friends. con\ufb01des to Poins that his heart a burning fever, \/ And we must \u201cbleeds inwardly\u201d (2.2.41) for the bleed for it\u201d (4.1.54\u201357). Even Not even Hal is untouched by king. He is concerned, too, when the central scenes take us this pervasive malaise. He admits about how his friends perceive him. to Gloucestershire, where pippin when he \ufb01rst appears that he is He knows that Falstaff hopes for apples and \ufb01ne game are on the \u201cexceeding weary\u201d (2.2.1) and seems future in\ufb02uence at court, but now menu, England appears as a society bored with his wastrel life. Keeping he learns that Poins, his close \u276f\u276f up the image of the wayward","152 HENRY IV PART 2 from the lies we tell ourselves: \u201csmooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs\u201d (Induction.40\u201341). Sir John, Sir John, I am well Looking back God knows, my son, acquainted with your manner Characters spend much time By what bypaths and indirect of wrenching the true cause revisiting and revising the past in this play, and almost unthinkingly crook\u2019d ways the false way. rework history to suit the present. I met this crown Lord Chief Justice For example, the barons justify their continued rebellion with King Henry Act 2, Scene 1 reference to the death of Richard II, and promises made but not ful\ufb01lled Act 4, Scene 3 companion, might have misused by Henry since becoming king. their friendship by claiming that They overlook their own complicity itself warns Falstaff that time is his sister Nell and Hal will marry. in Henry\u2019s rise to power and short and judgment inevitable. Though Poins dismisses this as dangerously underestimate how far At the play\u2019s end this same Justice Falstaff\u2019s lie, there is a new unease the king will go to \u201cwipe his tables will imprison Falstaff for debt. in Eastcheap. clean\u201d (4.1.199). Fearful and unable to sleep, Henry also looks back The rebels also \ufb01nd that time is Time is running out, \ufb02esh is at that time and marvels at how not on their side. Northumberland weak, and dreams decay. This easily the barons seem to switch hears the falsehood of his son\u2019s vulnerability to time and its allegiance. In doing so, he forgets victory before learning of his death, deceptions is described in the how he, too, betrayed a king. and news of his own departure for Induction to the play, which is Scotland reaches his fellow barons spoken by the \ufb01gure of Rumour, Meanwhile, pro\ufb01ting from the lie too late for remedy. Prince John possibly wearing a robe decorated that he killed Hotspur, Falstaff has takes timely advantage of this with tongues. He not only reveals recast himself as a gentleman and weakened position to spring his the lie about Hotspur\u2019s death, but adopted airs and graces he can ill trap. Although Morton is uneasy, the says that the greater danger comes afford. He is confronted in the street other rebel leaders trust the Prince\u2019s by the Lord Chief Justice who is word and rashly dismiss their forces unamused by the wit with which the fat knight usually extricates himself from trouble. Now Justice Language and place The Eastcheap tavern is a place seasons than by man. Falstaff of transit through which pass contaminates this English characters whom Shakespeare idyll. In a telling moment, identi\ufb01es by their idiosyncrasies Feeble, a woman\u2019s tailor, of speech: Ensign Pistol\u2019s empty speaks out against Falstaff\u2019s bombast; Mistress Quickly\u2019s corrupt recruiting practices and sentimental picturing of the declares that he is proud to die past; Bardolph\u2019s monosyllabic for King and country: \u201cNo man\u2019s utterances, and Doll\u2019s abuse. too good to serve\u2019s prince\u2026 Faith, I\u2019ll bear no base mind\u201d In contrast, Gloucestershire (3.2.234\u2013235,238). Feeble\u2019s folk are rooted to and identi\ufb01ed by simple integrity puts Falstaff\u2019s place: John Doit of Staffordshire; enterprise to shame. It also Will Squeal, a Cotswold man; rejects the calculating baseness Clement Perkes o\u2019th\u2019Hill. Unlike of mind that ultimately derives Eastcheap, there is a deep sense from the very king whom Feeble of continuity in the country, would give his life for. and of events driven more by the","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 153 Thinking his sleeping father (David Yelland) dead, Hal (Tom Mison) tries on the crown for size in this 2011 production directed by Sir Peter Hall. before establishing the details of his also shares his father\u2019s cold- away. In his earlier words, he promised redress. Once the lords are bloodedness, has warmed it with described his father as using the powerless, John condemns them all the wine of tavern life. crown like armor, to serve himself. to death. Timing is everything. As Now he says to the king that it is Lord Hastings puts it, \u201cWe are time\u2019s Hal shows his ability to sidestep he, the king, who has protected the subjects, and time bids be gone\u201d the kind of confrontation that his crown and suffered in its service. (1.3.110). Thanks to Prince John\u2019s brother seems to relish when he Henry takes up this \ufb02attering tactics, by the middle of the play, eventually meets the king. Henry falsehood when he describes all of Henry\u2019s enemies are gone. has placed the crown beside him himself as meeting rather than on his pillow and, mistaking sleep seizing the crown, as if he took no Inheritance for death, Hal has brie\ufb02y tried it on. active part in usurping Richard II. Shakespeare alters history to Now it sits between them as they And Hal con\ufb01rms the \ufb01ction that the implicate the king in this deception talk. The prince tells Henry what he crown has rightfully passed to by tasking his son with the trick. wants to hear, but he does so by Henry when he casts himself as its The chronicles ascribe it to one reworking slightly what happened true inheritor: \u201cYou won it, wore it, of his nobles. In political terms, when he brie\ufb02y took the crown kept it, gave it me; \/ Then plain John has acted wisely in avoiding and right must my possession be\u201d bloodshed. Yet, as the scene closes, My father is gone wild (4.3.350\u2013351). This revision by father his insistence that \u201cGod, and not into his grave and son of the central problem we, hath safely fought today\u201d Prince Harry of Henry\u2019s reign exempli\ufb01es (4.1.347) recasts his political Shakespeare\u2019s major theme in the stratagem as a battle\ufb01eld victory Act 5, Scene 2 play\u2014that of re-reading the past. by infusing it with honor that it hardly deserves. John has evidently Having placated his father with inherited his father\u2019s calculation. this promise of loyalty, the prince He is, in Falstaff\u2019s words, a \u201csober- receives his advice. Once king, says blooded boy\u201d (4.2.84\u201385), lacking a Henry, Hal should bring the people sense of humor or taste for drink. In together in a foreign war. his lengthy praise of sack, or sherry, the fat knight says that Hal, who Somber \ufb01nale Shakespeare closes the play in the minor key. Falstaff is \ufb01nally dismissed when Hal establishes his power in the rule of law. His rejection of his old friend is the \ufb01nal playing out of that promised moment from the comic tavern play in Part 1. Hal\u2019s new regal style now silences Falstaff\u2019s familiar greeting: \u201cI know thee not, old man\u201d (5.5.47). And when John mentions rumors of war, we remember Henry\u2019s deathbed advice to his son. We know this war will end with victory at Agincourt and see Hal ful\ufb01ll his father\u2019s project of uniting the nation under the crown, however brie\ufb02y. \u25a0","OUT ON THEE SEEMING! I WILL WRITE AGAINST IT MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (1598\u20131599)","","156 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING DRAMATIS Leonato learns that The villainous Don John Don Pedro leads the PERSONAE Don Pedro and his men plots to disrupt the men in convincing festive mood. Benedick that Beatrice Leonato Governor of Messina are to arrive shortly secretly loves him. and father of Hero. in Messina after a victorious war. Hero Leonato\u2019s daughter and only heir. 1.1 1.3 2.3 Act 1 Act 2 Don Pedro Prince of Aragon, 1.1 2.1 returned from war, possibly against Don John. Benedick and Beatrice At the masked ball, Don renew their war of words John tells Claudio that Don John Illegitimate brother Don Pedro woos Hero for of Don Pedro to whom he\u2019s and Don Pedro agrees to grudgingly reconciled. woo Hero for Claudio. himself. The lie is exposed, the Claudio A young count who has distinguished himself in marriage agreed, military action. and the date set. Benedick A lord of Padua N ews comes to Leonato, Benedick, as if seeking reassurance. also serving under Don Pedro; Governor of Messina, that But while Benedick, the avowed a professed bachelor. the victorious Don Pedro of bachelor, ridicules idealized love, Aragon will shortly return from war Don Pedro offers to win Hero\u2019s Beatrice Niece of Leonato and that Claudio, a young member hand for Claudio at that evening\u2019s and cousin to Hero. of his company, has distinguished masked ball. With their identities himself in battle. Beatrice\u2019s playful disguised, the maskers indulge Borachio A follower of inquiry after another of\ufb01cer, in innuendo, sexual banter, Don John who invents a Benedick, sets the theme of their retribution, and deceit. And Don plot to thwart Claudio\u2019s love-hate relationship. The couple\u2019s John, seizing the chance to play marriage to Hero. witty banter cuts through the mischievously on Claudio\u2019s welcoming formalities and sharply insecurities, insinuates that Don Margaret A gentlewoman contrasts with Claudio\u2019s nascent Pedro is wooing Hero for himself. attending on Hero who adoration of Hero, Leonato\u2019s only plays a dubious role in heir. Claudio confesses this The lie is exposed, the match is Borachio\u2019s plot. infatuation to Don Pedro and made and, delighted, Leonato gives his blessing. All that remains is for Ursula A gentlewoman attending on Hero, who helps to trick Beatrice into admitting her love for Benedick. Friar Francis He arranges for Hero to fake her death. Antonio Leonato\u2019s brother. Conrad A follower of Don John, he is arrested with Borachio and forced to confess. Dogberry Master Constable of the Watch, he tries to imitate his betters.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 157 Don John\u2019s second On the wedding morning, Benedick challenges Claudio, Claudio\u2019s bride is plot offers to show Dogberry tries to and Borachio confesses revealed to be Hero, Claudio and Don the plot. Claudio promises and Benedick and Pedro that Hero inform Leonato of the to make amends. plot, but fails. Beatrice\u2019s love is is unchaste. made public. Now the weddings can take place. 3.2 3.5 5.1 5.4 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 3.3 4.1 5.3 Hero and her women The Watch overhear At the altar, Claudio Claudio mourns let Beatrice Borachio bragging rejects Hero, her father Hero\u2019s \u201cdeath.\u201d overhear their about the plot. disowns her, and the discussion of Priest proposes a means Benedick\u2019s secret of restoring her good love for her. name. Benedick and Beatrice privately declare their love. Claudio and Hero to speak to one Borachio feeds Don John\u2019s Overwhelmed by emotion, he and another for the \ufb01rst time. While malevolence with a plot to Beatrice confess their love. She they whisper together, Beatrice thwart the marriage. He\u2019ll then asks him to kill Claudio. fends off a throwaway marriage speak to Margaret, dressed as proposal from Don Pedro. Hero, at her window the night The duel does not take place before the wedding, while Don because by chance the bumbling Until the wedding, Don Pedro John ensures that Claudio and watchmen have overheard Borachio takes up matchmaking. Detecting Don Pedro witness the encounter. bragging about the plot. They bring compatibility in opposites, he At the altar, Claudio cruelly rejects the truth to light and clear Hero\u2019s decides to trick Beatrice and Hero, claiming that she\u2019s no longer name. Believing her to be dead as Benedick into admitting they love pure. Hero faints. Claudio and the Priest suggests, Claudio agrees each other. Two scenes are set: Don Pedro leave. Unlike Leonato, to mourn at her \u201ctomb\u201d and to Benedick eavesdrops as Don Pedro, the Priest believes in Hero\u2019s marry her \u201ccousin,\u201d sight unseen. Claudio, and Leonato discuss innocence and proposes a rescue When this lady unveils, she is, in Beatrice\u2019s feelings. Meanwhile, plan. Benedick stays behind, fact, Hero. The play ends with news she overhears Hero and Ursula concerned for Hero and Beatrice. of Don John\u2019s arrest, and a dance revealing Benedick\u2019s love. before the double wedding. \u276f\u276f","158 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING IN CONTEXT M uch Ado About Nothing And there shall appear such presents \u201cseeming\u201d in seeming truth of Hero\u2019s THEMES several guises. The Social codes and status, wordplay on nothing\/noting in the disloyalty that jealousy shall love, marriage, deception title would have alerted the play\u2019s be called assurance. \ufb01rst audience to the theme of Borachio SETTING observation. And the messenger\u2019s Messina, a port city in reports in the \ufb01rst scene make it Act 2, Scene 2 Sicily under Spanish rule clear that Messina is a society where appearances matter. But SOURCES what\u2019s built on appearance, report, There are no direct sources. and hearsay is fragile, open to The Hero plot, based on an old con\ufb02icting interpretations, and tale, is indirectly indebted to: easily destroyed. 1516 Ludovico Ariosto\u2019s Appearing and observing traits in the young woman; Orlando Furioso (Italian verse Both love stories in the play hinge Claudio\u2019s noting, however, marks translated into English, 1591) on appearance and observation. her as priceless: \u201cCan the world Claudio has fallen in love with Hero buy such a jewel?\u201d (1.1.171). 1554 Matteo Bandello\u2019s because she seems to him a sweet, With no assurance for his budding Novelle (Italian prose adapted modest young woman. But he\u2019s love from Benedick, Claudio is into French, 1569). unsure of his own judgment and reluctant to reveal his admiration seeks con\ufb01rmation from the older for Hero to Don Pedro. Only when LEGACY Benedick and Don Pedro. Benedick the Prince insists that he\u2019s serious 1613 The play is staged to differentiates between noting Hero in thinking \u201cthe lady is very well celebrate the marriage of King and looking at her. His replies draw worthy\u201d (1.1.207\u2013208) does James\u2019s daughter Elizabeth. attention to the subjectivity of Claudio admit his love. perception, as simply looking at her 1662 William Davenant\u2019s The does not reveal any extraordinary The courtship of Claudio and Law Against Lovers combines Hero follows a very formal pattern. parts of Much Ado About Friendship is constant First the lovers admire each other Nothing and Measure for in all other things from a distance. Claudio does not Measure. The play in\ufb02uences even woo Hero himself, but leaves many Restoration comedies. Save in the of\ufb01ce and this to the Prince. The lovers do affairs of love. not speak to each other until their 1861 Hector Berlioz\u2019s opera elders have agreed on the marriage B\u00e9atrice et B\u00e9n\u00e9dict portrays Therefore all hearts in love and Leonato has given his blessing. the witty sparring of the use their own tongues. Even at this point, Hero doesn\u2019t eponymous older couple in Let every eye negotiate have any lines, although the text sparklingly jazzy syncopations. for itself, suggests that she takes the liberty And trust no agent. of kissing Claudio in public. 1993 Kenneth Branagh\u2019s \ufb01lm Claudio moves the play to the Tuscan Constrained by the formality hills, giving it an easy-going Act 2, Scene 1 of their courtship, Claudio and holiday atmosphere. Hero hardly know each other. It\u2019s not surprising, therefore, that 1996 Michael Boyd\u2019s RSC Claudio\u2019s faith in Hero is easily production makes great use of shaken when Don John tells him mirrors, frames, and portraits that his brother has wooed her to bring out the theme of for himself. Claudio does not appearance versus reality. doubt for a minute that Hero","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 159 has accepted Don Pedro. The The formal, stylized nature of the appears to him is determined by report is quickly revealed as false courtship \ufb01nds its counterpart in what others want him to believe. and laughingly dismissed by Claudio\u2019s public rejection of Hero in So it\u2019s no surprise that when, the Prince and Leonato. But Don the disrupted wedding ceremony. eventually, Borachio confesses John is still determined to prevent As in the scene at Hero\u2019s window, the plot, Claudio instantly reverts the marriage and, thanks to Claudio misinterprets what he to the \ufb01rst image he had of her. Borachio\u2019s plot, he makes it observes. Having rejected Hero appear to Claudio and Don Pedro as a \u201crotten orange\u201d (4.1.32), he\u2019s Tricks and truths that Hero entertained a man convinced that \u201cHer blush is While appearances give the love on the night before the wedding. guiltiness, not modesty\u201d (4.1.42). story of Claudio and Hero an almost Mistaking Margaret for Hero, Incapable of seeing her as the tragic turn, they are put to comic Claudio is instantly convinced person she really is, Claudio falls use in the love story of Beatrice and that she is unfaithful and his from one extreme: Hero as chaste, Benedick. Here are two people who idolizing adoration quickly turns pure, and innocent, to another: Hero seem to detest nothing so much into hatred and disgust. as loose and wanton. The way she as each other. Yet we cannot help feeling that behind their battle of words they are hiding wounds caused by rejected love, hints of which can be heard in their banter: \u201cYou always end with a jade\u2019s trick. \/ I know you of old\u201d (1.1.138\u2013139). Their friends are convinced that they will make a perfect couple and, in the two eavesdropping scenes, use report and hearsay to trick them into admitting their love. Claudio, Don Pedro, and Leonato paint the picture of a Beatrice desperately in love. But they think it best for her not to admit it for fear of being mocked by an unfeeling Benedick. Convinced that the three men tell the truth, because \u201cThe conference was sadly borne\u201d (2.3.210), Benedick is determined that Beatrice\u2019s love will be requited. Even the prospect of being mocked by his friends for changing his mind about marriage does not deter him. Hero and Ursula, in turn, praise Benedick as \u201cthe only man of Italy\u201d (3.1.92). They reproach Beatrice for being proud and disdainful since, as a con\ufb01rmed bachelor, she always \ufb01nds things to criticize in even \u276f\u276f For his 1993 \ufb01lm, Kenneth Branagh cut the text to keep the action moving. A star-studded cast included Kate Beckinsale, Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Branagh himself.","160 MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING the most perfect of men. If she But manhood is melted into deeply rooted fear in Messina learned of Benedick\u2019s love, then she courtesies, valour into society of being cuckolded. Even would \u201cmake sport at it\u201d (3.1.59). Leonato jokes about the legitimacy Sobered by this criticism, Beatrice is compliment, and men are of his daughter. Where marriage prepared for \u201ctaming my wild heart only turned into tongue, brings fears of cuckoldry, Don John\u2019s to thy [Benedick\u2019s] loving hand\u201d accusation against Hero is readily (3.1.112). Benedick can con\ufb01rm that and trim ones, too. believed. In the wedding scene, Beatrice is fair, virtuous, and wise, Beatrice the language switches from jests and Beatrice does not need reports to calculated insults as Claudio of Benedick\u2019s merits to know that he Act 4, Scene 1 uses the very form of the marriage is deserving. It is clear to us that, service to reject and humiliate Hero. unlike Hero and Claudio, Beatrice The studied nature of his rejection and Benedick know each other well. is matched in the formal mourning ceremony at Hero\u2019s tomb. The Language and reality about Benedick\u2019s mistrust of readiness with which Don Pedro and The play\u2019s language is characterized women and rejection of marriage: Claudio dismiss the musicians by wordplay, banter, and repartee. \u201cDon Pedro: \u2018In time the savage and leave for a second wedding Beatrice and Benedick are involved bull doth bear the yoke.\u2019 can make us wonder how much of in linguistic fencing matches from Benedick: The savage bull may, Claudio\u2019s grief is merely \u201cseeming.\u201d the moment they meet in the play: but if ever the sensible Benedick \u201cBenedick: What, my dear Lady bear it, pluck off the bull\u2019s horns and Language is also used as a Disdain! Are you yet living? set them in my forehead, and let me means of establishing social Beatrice: Is it possible disdain be vilely painted\u2026\u2018Here you may equality. In her conversations with should die while she hath such see Benedick, the married man\u2019\u201d men, Beatrice uses witty repartee meet food to feed it as Signor (1.1.243\u2013250). This expresses the to meet them on an equal footing. Benedick?\u201d (1.1.112\u2013115). Both Margaret and Dogberry see Conversation between Don Pedro language as having the potential to and his men is predominantly light- bring them level with their masters. hearted, macho joking, especially Margaret\u2019s brief conversation with Benedick (5.2), a dialogue that True love \ufb01nds a way Margaret Friends Beatrice Uncle to Leonato Father to Hero Her maids Loves Governor of Loves Ursula Claudio Benedick Messina Co-conspirators Conrad of Don John Borachio Serving Serving under Serving under under Don Pedro Prince of Aragon Bastard brothers Follower of Follower of Don John","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 161 The banter between Benedick and Beatrice is central to the play\u2019s charm. In the 2007 production at London\u2019s National Theatre, Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wanamaker played the pair. condenses many of the play\u2019s concerns about class and gender con\ufb02ict, reveals her desire to move up socially. In the RSC production in 1996, she was caught at this point by Benedick with one of Hero\u2019s dresses. Access to these outward signs of social status makes her a threat in a society that depends so much on signs. However, Constable Dogberry\u2019s efforts to sound like his betters fail miserably. He epitomizes a society distracted by surfaces, where words are easily divorced from their meaning. Pairs and frames Messina\u2019s values in their preference guards his silence: \u201dI am not of The play is structured around pairs: for the bachelor life. Claudio and many words\u201d (1.1.150). Refusing to Leonato and his brother Antonio; Hero are easily reconciled once her perform, he is what he seems. News Claudio and Don Pedro; Borachio innocence is proven. But Beatrice of his recapture darkens the festive and Conrad; Dogberry and Verges. and Benedick seem determined mood. In the 1990 RSC production, And Messina is a society where not to admit their love. In her \ufb01nal he stood at the edge of the stage, marriage is the rule. Don Pedro\u2019s lines, Beatrice hints that she might and stared at Don Pedro as if scheme to make Beatrice and yet refuse to be neatly paired off. reigniting the con\ufb02ict suggested Benedick pair up, therefore, is not Most productions follow the at the beginning of the play. \u25a0 purely comic. It brings \ufb01rmly into editorial tradition and attribute line two individuals who otherwise the reply, \u201cPeace! I will stop your One Hero died de\ufb01led, stand out uncomfortably against mouth\u201d (5.4.97) to Benedick, as he but I do live, kisses Beatrice. But the Quarto and And when I lived Folio texts give this line to Leonato, And surely as I live, I was your other wife; who may be using his patriarchal I am a maid. And when you loved authority to bring Beatrice to heel. Hero you were my other husband. Like The Taming of the Shrew, there is ambiguity in the ending. Act 5, Scene 4 Hero By the end of the play, Don Act 5, Scene 4 Pedro is the only single man left. Without an heir, he leaves his estate vulnerable to the plotting of others such as his bastard brother Don John. A born outsider, John refuses all efforts to be framed in Messina\u2019s codes. In a world of wordplay he","ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH DEAR FRIENDS ONCE MORE HENRY V (1599)","","164 HENRY V DRAMATIS The prelates resolve to Henry\u2019s old drinking The French PERSONAE support Henry V\u2019s friends quarrel in the prepare for battle claim to the throne pub as Falstaff lays dying. Chorus Sets the scene for of France. with Henry. each of the Acts. 1.1 2.1 2.4 Henry V Once Prince Hal, Act 1 Act 2 now a soldier monarch. 1.2 2.2 Duke of Exeter Henry\u2019s uncle. Henry V \ufb01rmly Henry uncovers a rebuffs the mocking traitors\u2019 plot. Dukes of Gloucester and French approach. Clarence The king\u2019s brothers. T he Chorus pleads with the old drinking pals meet in a tavern. Duke of York, and Earls of audience to overlook the Bardolph stirs up trouble between Salisbury, Westmorland, theater\u2019s limitations and Nim and Pistol, now married and Warwick English nobles. to picture the epic events to come. to Nim\u2019s former betrothed, hostess King Henry V, reformed from his Nell Quickly. Henry unmasks Archbishop of Canterbury wild youth, is assured by the the traitors and sends them for and Bishop of Ely Church Archbishop of Canterbury that his execution. Nell describes the death prelates. claim to the French throne is just. of old Falstaff, broken by Henry\u2019s When the French ambassador rejection of him, and the three pals Earl of Cambridge, Lord brings him a mocking gift of tennis embark for France with Henry. Scroop, Sir Thomas Grey balls, Henry\u2019s riposte is that he will Traitors. strike the French crown out of play. In France, the French king, Charles VI, and his son, the Fluellen and Gower Of\ufb01cers In Southampton, the Chorus Dauphin, prepare for battle, in Henry\u2019s army. describes how the youth of England mocking the wild youth of Henry. are eager to \ufb01ght, but warns that Henry\u2019s ambassador Exeter warns John Bates, Alexander there are three traitors. Henry\u2019s the French against resistance. Court, and Michael Williams English soldiers. Pistol, Nim, and Bardolph The Eastcheapers, former drinking friends of Prince Hal. Nell Quickly A tavern hostess, wife of Pistol. Charles VI King of France. Louis the Dauphin Son of Charles VI. Montjoy French herald and envoy to Henry at Agincourt. Ambassador He delivers the gift of tennis balls to Henry. Isabel Queen of France. Catherine The King of France\u2019s daughter. Alice Catherine\u2019s attendant.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 165 Bardolph is caught As the battle begins, Pistol is beaten by Fluellen Henry woos looting and executed Henry orders the with a leek, and mourns Catherine of France. on Henry\u2019s orders. killing of the on hearing of Nell\u2019s death. French prisoners. 3.6 4.6 5.1 5.2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 4.1 4.8 5.2 Henry V lays siege On the eve of battle, The English win The French sue Henry to Har\ufb02eur with dire Henry walks the the battle. for peace and accede to threats, while the English camp his claim. French king orders incognito. Henry\u2019s capture. In France, Henry launches persuade him to withdraw. Henry, 10,000 French slain and only three an attack on Har\ufb02eur and disguised as Henry Le Roy, argues English lords. Henry prepares to threatens dire repercussions the rights and wrongs of the battle return to England victorious. if the townspeople do not yield. with the soldier Williams. The Meanwhile, Bardolph and his next morning, Henry, his army In the French palace, Charles associates argue about joining outnumbered 5 to 1, gives a speech receives Henry. Henry agrees to the \ufb01ght. In the French palace, the pledging that those who \ufb01ght with peace only if his demands are French king\u2019s daughter Catherine him will be forever remembered on met\u2014including the hand of tries to learn French. The king rails this, St. Crispin\u2019s Day. Princess Catherine. Henry starts against Henry while the Dauphin to woo the French princess in a condemns French women for As the French attack again, conversation made dif\ufb01cult by his fraternizing with the English. Henry orders the slaughter of poor French and her poor English. French prisoners to free up the men It ends with Henry kissing her. In the English camp, Bardolph guarding them. Gower reports that The Chorus recounts how destiny is caught looting and executed the French have slain English boys, unfolds as Henry and Catherine\u2019s on Henry\u2019s orders. Henry refuses and Henry swears the French no son becomes Henry VI and how an embassy from the French to mercy. Henry wins the day, with his courtiers lost France again. \u276f\u276f","166 HENRY V H enry V is often described \u201cband\u201d of Englishmen defeated a as Shakespeare\u2019s war play. large army of the cream of French IN CONTEXT Unlike most of his plays, knighthood. At the center of it all is there is no unfolding of complex an uplifting portrait of a matchless THEMES personal journeys or relationships. hero, leading his men to an unlikely War, patriotism, kingship It appears to be a simple, thrilling victory. Speeches have often been story of how the heroic young culled from the play to inspire SETTING soldier-king Henry V triumphs at troops at moments of crisis. Most London and Southampton Agincourt against all the odds, famously, British Prime Minister in England; the palace of packed with stirring war poetry. Winston Churchill echoed Henry\u2019s the French king; Har\ufb02eur speech \u201cWe few, we happy few\u2026\u201d and Agincourt in France In the past, many regarded it (4.3.60) in his broadcast telling the as Shakespeare\u2019s most patriotic public of the debt owed to the \u201cfew\u201d SOURCES play\u2014a glori\ufb01cation of a high point \ufb01ghter pilots who saved the country 1577 Edward Halle\u2019s Union of in England\u2019s history, when a small in the Battle of Britain of 1940. the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York. Consideration like an Changing perspectives angel came Attitudes towards the play have 1587 The key source is changed considerably through the Chronicles of England, And whipped th\u2019offending time, along with attitudes to war Scotland, and Ireland edited Adam out of him and nationalist fervor. Critics and by Ralph Holinshed. Archbishop of theater directors now treat the play Canterbury much more warily than in the past. LEGACY They often look for a subversive 1738 The \ufb01rst performance Act 1, Scene 1 political message that parodies of the full play in 130 years is militarism\u2014staging the play not staged in London as Britain goes to war with France again. Laurence Olivier\u2019s morale-boosting \ufb01lm, made during World War II, left 1897 Frank Benson plays a out some of Henry\u2019s more vicious acts, heroic Henry in Stratford-upon- such as the hanging of Bardolph, to Avon, notably pole-vaulting portray Henry as a heroic \ufb01gure. onto the walls of Har\ufb02eur. 1944 Laurence Olivier directs and stars in a \ufb01lm version of the play. Partially funded by the British government, it stresses the patriotism of the play. 1986 Michael Bogdanov tours with a left-leaning version for the English Shakespeare Company, portraying Henry as a cold cynic. 1989 Kenneth Branagh\u2019s \ufb01lm adaptation brings a gritty reality to the battle scenes. 2003 Nicholas Hytner makes his debut as National Theatre Director setting Henry V in contemporary Iraq.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 167 I see you stand like Proclaiming Henry Historical Agincourt greyhounds in the slips, The Chorus that opens the play Straining upon the start. The puts the illusory theater experience The focus of Henry V is at the forefront, with its evocative the Battle of Agincourt, a game\u2019s afoot. mentions of \u201cthis wooden O\u201d\u2014the landmark English victory in Follow your spirit, and upon term often used for the round, a series of con\ufb02icts known as timber-framed playhouses of the Hundred Years War, which this charge Shakespeare\u2019s time, one of which lasted from 1337 until 1453. Cry, \u2018God for Harry! England has been accurately reconstructed It was fought between the today in the form of the Globe English and French ruling and Saint George!\u2019 Theatre. The Chorus apologizes for families, the Plantagenets Henry V the theater\u2019s limitations in staging and the Valois, for control such an epic story, but the apology of the French throne. Act 3, Scene 1 is uplifting: \u201cO for a muse of \ufb01re that would ascend \/ The brightest The battle took place on in historical England, for instance, heaven of invention: \/ A kingdom October 25, 1415 near present- but in charged contemporary for a stage, princes to act, \/ And day Azincourt in northern situations, such as the war in Iraq. monarchs to behold the swelling France. Henry V did indeed Or they look to focus on the human scene\u201d (Prologue-1\u20134). \ufb01ght in the battle. The cost of war implicit in the play. outnumbered English forces Many critics have gone further, and The Chorus may be saying possessed both technology suggested that Henry V has been sorry, but at the same time, he is and luck. Henry\u2019s archers misread. Far from glorifying war, whipping up the crowd for the could shoot up to six arrows a they say, the play is a complex coming event with no less fervor minute using the longbow, exploration of the miseries of war than Henry will do when he later whereas the French possessed and the power of propaganda. rouses his troops with his famous the slower, heavier crossbow, Crispin\u2019s Day speech. \u201cCan this and, weighed down with What is clear is that the play is cockpit hold \/ The vasty \ufb01elds armor, had chosen a muddy by no means a simple narrative of of France?\u201d the Chorus asks \ufb01eld for their attack. Henry\u2019s big moment. It tells the (Prologue.11\u201312). The words conjure story from at least four different the same illusion as Henry will The battle was not as perspectives. Not only is there the when he, beginning with the one-sided as Shakespeare straight sequence of scenes that same false modesty, rouses his makes out, although the killing places Henry at the thick of things; men with the promise of great of the prisoners did take place. there is also the Chorus, which memories for the future. \u276f\u276f Neither was the impact of the prepares us for each act; there are battle as decisive as the play the trials and tribulations of the Would I were in an alehouse suggests. It took \ufb01ve more Eastcheapers; and there are the in London. I would give years of war before Henry tough experiences of the ordinary reached a settlement with the soldiers. There is even a French all my fame for a pot of ale, French. He died at the age of perspective. These multiple and safety. 35 before ever becoming king viewpoints suggest there is much Boy of France. more going on than merely Henry\u2019s heroism, as each interweaves with Act 3 Scene 2 the central Henry narrative.","168 HENRY V O God of battles, steel my of a necessary display of kingship? Ruthless leader soldiers\u2019 hearts. We never actually see Henry on the The picture presented of Henry is battle\ufb01eld, nor do we ever hear of far from simply heroic. Shakespeare Possess them not with fear. any strategic skill. Instead, Henry shows him to be not just an Take from them now. dazzles with rhetoric. inspiring leader, but a tough, Henry V even brutal, one too. His way with Henry the orator justice is ruthless. The traitors are Act 4, Scene 1 Two speeches in particular show tricked into urging their own death Shakespeare\u2019s language at its most sentence, while Henry brusquely Beyond the banner muscular. The \ufb01rst is when Henry con\ufb01rms the death sentence on What follows the Chorus\u2019s prologue urges his men on outside the walls his drinking friend Bardolph for is not scenes of heroism but a of Har\ufb02eur: \u201cOnce more unto the stealing from a church, despite shady debate between England\u2019s breach, dear friends, once more, \/ pleas for clemency. Indeed, Henry\u2019s two church leaders. These men Or close the wall up with our old Eastcheap pals\u2014Bardolph, of the cloth do not discuss high English dead\u201d (3.1.1\u20132). The second Nim, and Pistol\u2014are as unheroic moral matters, but a back-alley is his address before the battle, an image of soldiering as can be. collusion to escape taxes by when he promises: \u201cAnd Crispin Disreputable, lazy, cowardly, and supporting Henry\u2019s claim to Crispian shall ne\u2019er go by \/ From argumentative, very often they the French throne. If the church this day to the ending of the world \/ seem to parody Henry\u2019s rhetoric, leaders\u2019 motives are so venal, But we in it shall be remember\u00e8d, \/ with Bardolph proclaiming, \u201cOn, maybe one should question their We few, we happy few, we band of on, on, on, on! To the breach! assessment that the erstwhile brothers\u201d (4.3.57\u201360). To the breach!\u201d (3.2.1\u20132). In the tearaway Prince Hal has had an almost religious conversion to the straight and narrow on becoming king: \u201cConsideration like an angel came \/ And whipped th\u2019offending Adam out of him\u201d (1.1.29\u201330). Throughout the narrative, Henry presents himself as a Christian king, armed by God. After the seemingly miraculous triumph on the battle\ufb01eld at Agincourt, he declines to take credit, offering the victory to God\u2014\u201cTake it God, \/ For it is none but thine\u201d (4.8.111\u2013112). But is this all image-building, part In Kenneth Branagh\u2019s \ufb01lm version, the Battle of Agincourt takes place on a rain-drenched, muddy battle\ufb01eld. In contrast to Olivier\u2019s earlier \ufb01lm, Branagh stressed the horrors of war.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 169 prequel, Henry IV, these were Nobles KEY Soldiers entertaining characters, a comic Knights counterpoint to the main action led by the irrepressible Sir John The Battle dead: Falstaff. But in Henry V, much of the 10,000 French, including humor has drained away and the 126 nobles, 8,400 knights, lovable rogues of the earlier play 1,600 common soldiers; become victims, bearing the cost of 29 English, including war more than the other characters. 4 nobles and 25 knights\/ common soldiers. Falstaff dies without ever even appearing\u2014a victim, so Mistress for self-control and self-sacri\ufb01ce is bishops to common man with the Quickly insists, of Henry\u2019s neglect: clear. The result is that Henry\u2019s soldiery, to charming, unschooled \u201cThe King has killed his heart\u201d personality remains largely hidden. lover with the princess Catherine. (2.1.84). Bardolph and Nim are He has just one moment of personal hanged offstage for the same revelation\u2014a long soliloquy at the The Henriad roguery that made them endearing end of his nightwalk about the Henry V was the fourth play of the in the earlier play. Finally, Mistress camp\u2014and even here his argument Henriad, a quartet of history plays, Quickly dies of the French malady about the burdens of kingship seem following Richard II and Henry IV (venereal disease), again offstage. more theoretical than emotional. Parts 1 and 2. Together with the Only Pistol survives, and even he is Henry is a consummate actor, able \ufb01rst quartet (comprising Henry VI humiliated by being forced to eat a to be whoever his people need him Parts 1, 2, and 3, and Richard III), it leek by Fluellen. The juggernaut of to be\u2014from theologian with the forms a complete chronology of Henry\u2019s heroic new age has rolled English history from the time of on and left these characters of an Take it God, Richard II (1377\u201399) to the time of earlier time in its wake. For it is none but thine. Richard III (1483\u201385). Henry V provides a contrasting \ufb01gure to the Henry the king Henry V quartet\u2019s \ufb01rst king, Richard II, The portrait of a king in Henry V, whose weaknesses are transformed then, is an ambiguous one, more so Act 4, Scene 8 into Henry\u2019s strengths. Richard than the stirring speeches would smashes a mirror when he loses his suggest. What is certain is that throne. But as the English prepare Henry is no unthinking military for battle, the Chorus holds Henry up leader. He has a keen insight into as \u201cthe mirror of all Christian kings\u201d his role as king. As he explains (2.0.6). Henry is our own re\ufb02ection, to Bates and Williams when in the king we want him to be, which disguise, \u201cAll his senses have but may explain why our view of this human conditions. His ceremonies hero is so hard to pin down. \u25a0 laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man\u201d (4.1.103\u2013105). Henry knows that he is, underneath the crown, just a man. But he is keenly aware that, as king, he cannot behave as other men do. \u201cWe are no tyrant,\u201d he insists, \u201cbut a Christian king, \/ Unto whose grace our passion is as subject \/ As our wretches fettered in our prisons\u201d (1.2.241\u2013243). The image of his human emotions as a wretched prisoner in chains is disturbing, but his view of the need","THERE IS A TIDE IN THE AFFAIRS OF MEN WHICH TAKEN AT THE FLOOD LEADS ON TO FORTUNE JULIUS CAESAR (1599)","","172 JULIUS CAESAR DRAMATIS The people of Rome Casca and Cassius meet Despite Calpurnia\u2019s PERSONAE celebrate Caesar\u2019s in a thunderstorm and plea for Caesar to victory over Pompey. discuss overthrowing Caesar remain at home, Julius Caesar A Roman with the help of Brutus. Decius convinces general and senator who, Caesar to go into having defeated the tyrant Pompey, is crowned emperor. the Capitol. CAESAR\u2019S SUPPORTERS 1.1 1.3 2.2 Mark Antony A senator and Act 1 Act 2 soldier who is loyal to Caesar. 1.2 2.1 Antony is a manipulative man, able to turn the civilians A soothsayer warns The conspirators against Brutus. Caesar to beware Cassius, Decius, Casca, the ides of March. Cinna, and Trebonius Calpurnia Wife of Caesar. She asks him not to visit the meet in Brutus\u2019s Capitol on the ides of March. orchard and plan to assassinate Caesar. Octavius Caesar Nephew and adopted son of Julius I n Rome, the people celebrate respected by the public. After Caesar, Octavius is the a holiday, the Lupercal, and this, Cassius and Brutus learn from named heir to his uncle. also rejoice in the triumph Casca that Caesar has been offered of Julius Caesar over the former a crown three times, but refused Lepidus One of the rulers of leader, Pompey. it, albeit unconvincingly, each Rome after the assassination time. He \ufb01nally accepts the offer, of Caesar. While greeting his followers, agreeing to become king and sole Caesar is warned by a soothsayer leader of Rome. Cassius, left alone, Soothsayer A prophesier who to beware the ides (15th) of March. admits that he will use whatever warns Caesar to beware the Caesar ignores this warning and deception necessary to convince ides of March. dismisses the soothsayer as a Brutus to overthrow Caesar. dreamer. As he leaves, Cassius CONSPIRATORS draws Brutus aside to convince During a thunderstorm the night Marcus Brutus A senator him that Caesar has become too before Caesar is to be crowned, and staunch Republican, who self-important and that Brutus Casca notes that many ill omens is persuaded by Cassius to himself would be a better leader, have appeared. The conspirators revolt against Caesar. being of equal standing and as meet at Brutus\u2019s home and agree to Caius Cassius Manipulative and greedy, he exploits Brutus\u2019s loyalty to the republic in order to overthrow Caesar. Portia Loyal, loving, and trustworthy wife of Brutus. Lucius Serving boy to Brutus. Trebonius, Decius Brutus, Metullus Cimber, Cinna, Caius Ligarius Conspirators against Caesar.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 173 Brutus convinces the Antony, Octavius, Portia dies and Overrun by Antony and plebeians that Caesar and Lepidus form a Brutus is visited Octavius\u2019s army, Brutus triumvirate and wage war by Caesar\u2019s ghost deserved death. against Caesar\u2019s assassins. who warns that he kills himself and is Antony convinces will die at Philippi. promised an honorable them immediately burial by the conquerors. after to mutiny against Brutus in protest of Caesar\u2019s murder. 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 5.5 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 4.2 5.3 In the Capitol, Casca Cinna the poet is set upon Brutus accuses Cassius, believing stabs Caesar, after by angry Plebians for his Cassius of pocketing Titinius to be defeated, kills which the other part in Caesar\u2019s death. money but they conspirators attack reconcile. himself with the sword he used to Caesar in turn. Antony vows stab Caesar. vengeance over Caesar\u2019s body. murder Caesar in order to liberate Caesar\u2019s funeral. Brutus agrees Brutus sees the ghost of Caesar, the country from his dictatorship. to let Antony do this, in spite of and acknowledges that he will Brutus has reservations, but he Cassius\u2019s warning that it would lose the battle. After he \ufb01nds agrees that it must be done to be dangerous to let him rally the Cassius dead, Brutus asks his put a stop to Caesar\u2019s ambition. public in Caesar\u2019s name. servant Lucius to hold his sword while he runs onto it and he The next day, on the fateful After Brutus gives a speech to dies. Finally, Antony and ides of March, Caesar is convinced the people, Antony convinces them Octavius arrive as victors after by Decius that he should go into that Caesar was unjustly murdered the war, lamenting the fall of the city, where he is stabbed by by the conspirators, and that this Brutus and noting that, despite each of the conspirators. When injustice must be avenged. The his crime against Caesar, the great soldier Mark Antony people then take Caesar\u2019s body his intentions were the most hears of this, he laments the death to be buried, and start a public honorable of all the conspirators. of Caesar, but he shows respect mutiny. When Caesar\u2019s son The play closes with Octavius for the people who murdered him, Octavius returns to Rome, he promising to give Brutus a asking them if he can give a and Antony start a war against respectable funeral. \u276f\u276f speech to the people before Brutus and the conspirators.","174 JULIUS CAESAR T he \ufb01rst of Shakespeare\u2019s O conspiracy, Roman plays, Julius Sham\u2019st thou to show thy IN CONTEXT Caesar is a tale of ambition, dang\u2019rous brow by night, political manipulation, and duty. When evils are most free? THEMES The true tragic \ufb01gure of the play Power, ambition, rebellion, is Brutus, whose actions proceed Brutus civil war from a noble desire to serve Rome. Brutus\u2019s struggle between love for Act 2, Scene 1 SETTING Caesar and fear of his despotism Ancient Rome make him a sympathetic and anxiety, which makes them more honorable tragic \ufb01gure. morally ambiguous than Plutarch\u2019s SOURCES counterparts. For instance, it is not 1579 Sir Thomas North\u2019s Following the events laid out in clear whether Caesar would have translation of Plutarch\u2019s Plutarch\u2019s history, the play charts mutated into the tyrant that Brutus Lives of the Noble Grecians the events leading up to Caesar\u2019s fears before his assassination, and Romans. assassination and the civil war that nor that Cassius is a categorically breaks out thereafter. The senators\u2019 self-interested man, nor even that LEGACY concerns about Caesar\u2019s leadership Ocatvius will make a suitable 1599 A performance at a echoed anxieties about the aged successor to his adopted father. Bankside theater is mentioned and heirless Queen Elizabeth in Such ambiguity has led the in the diary of the Swiss 1599, when the play was \ufb01rst American historian Garry Wills to traveler Thomas Platter the performed. Her inheritance and argue that the play has no villains Younger. The theater is likely legacy were not to be discussed, and is, therefore, unique among to have been the Globe. let alone satirized, but could be Shakespeare\u2019s tragedies. approached sideways via history. 1898 British actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree opens Shakespeare brings an acute the \ufb01rst of his successful sense of humanity to the story. His Shakespearean productions at historical \ufb01gures are not simply Her Majesty\u2019s Theatre, London, biographical documentations of the with a lavish Julius Caesar. lives of noble Romans. Rather, the characters experience hardship and 1937 At the age of 22, Orson Welles stages a heavily edited, Why, man, he doth bestride Seductive rhetoric modern-dress adaptation set the narrow world Power in this play does not come within a European fascist from strength, honor, or military context at the Mercury Theatre Like a Colossus, and prowess. Instead, power is linked in New York. we petty men to manipulative and calculated rhetoric. Without the support of the 1977 While imprisoned on Walk under his huge legs, people, the senators cannot avoid Robben Island, South Africa, and peep about civil unrest, and how to convince, Nelson Mandela marks on his To \ufb01nd ourselves placate, and organize the civilians copy of the play Caesar\u2019s in Rome is a major preoccupation of words \u201ccowards die many dishonourable graves. the leaders. It is this that motivates times before their deaths\u201d as Cassius Brutus\u2019s address to the people an inspirational passage. after Caesar\u2019s death and Antony\u2019s Act 1, Scene 2 speech about Caesar\u2019s reputation. 2013 An all-female production at the Donmar Warehouse in Antony\u2019s oft-quoted speech London, directed by Phyllida beginning \u201cFriends, Romans, Lloyd, sets the action in a countrymen\u201d (3.2.74) is a carefully contemporary women\u2019s prison. crafted piece of rhetoric calculated","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 175 A 1953 \ufb01lm adaptation by director Joseph Mankiewicz starred Marlon Brando as Antony. Brando received coaching in declaiming Shakespearean verse from co-star John Gielgud. to inspire suspicion of Brutus and same way that Antony persuades Caesar\u2019s assassination. Rhetoric respect for the late Caesar. Antony the people that the conspirators and persuasion are integral to the accuses the public who so recently are treasonous murderers, so too political tacticians in Rome, so celebrated Caesar\u2019s triumph at the Cassius convinces Brutus that it is with a scathing voice that Lupercal of being \u201cbrutish beasts,\u201d Caesar must be removed from Cassius declares, \u201cFor who so \ufb01rm an echo of Brutus\u2019s name. Antony of\ufb01ce. The most potent piece of that cannot be seduced?\u201d (1.2.312). suggests that his enemy is a liar, rhetoric is the cry made by the simultaneously touting Caesar as conspirators after Caesar\u2019s death: Women unheeded a peerless hero. With this speech, \u201cLiberty! Freedom! Tyranny is The women in this masculine and with his reading of Caesar\u2019s dead!\u201d (3.1.77). Intangible ideals are political Rome are presented as will, Antony gains the support of cleverly used to justify the horror of supportive, stoic wives. Both \u276f\u276f the civilians, thereby exploiting their new hatred of Caesar\u2019s murderers to justify civil war. With this support, Antony unleashes havoc in the streets. Rebellions and rioting lead to the assassination of Cinna, the poet. There is no accountability for such violent crimes because the civilians act out of anger and fear. Antony understands this, but chooses to spur on the people\u2019s distrust of the conspirators to further his own interests. With persuasive rhetorical \ufb02ourishes, the senators also manipulate one another. In the Contemporary twist The director Gregory Doran Ray Fearon\u2019s Antony was a staged a politically provocative charismatic, manipulative adaptation of the play in 2012. man whose speech to the With a black cast and set in an citizens was delivered on unspeci\ufb01ed African country, this a raised platform over the production of Julius Caesar drew bloodied body of Caesar, played inspiration from contemporary by Jeffery Kissoon. Brutus was political tyranny in its depiction played as a \ufb01ercely honorable of a nation familiar with despots, but naive man by Patterson civil war, superstition, poverty, Joseph. Caesar\u2019s own tyranny and disease. The actions of was skillfully echoed by a giant 20th-century dictators such as statue of the leader, designed Idi Amin and Bokassa, and, more by Michael Vale, resembling recently, Robert Mugabe, together icons of dictatorship in the with the unfolding of the Arab 20th century. The production Spring in 2010, collectively was adapted for the screen informed this interpretation. later that year.","176 JULIUS CAESAR Brutus\u2019s wife Portia and Caesar\u2019s unpurg\u00e8d air \/ To add unto his Cowards die many times wife Calpurnia exist to temper the sickness? No, my Brutus, \/ You before their deaths; passions, albeit unsuccessfully, of have some sick offence within their husbands. Neither politician your mind, \/ Which by the right The valiant never taste shares his misgivings with his and virtue of my place \/ I ought of death but once. wife, nor does either one heed to know of\u201d (2.1.260\u2013269). Julius Caesar the wifely warnings of danger. Although Brutus promises to Act 2, Scene 2 Calpurnia appeals to Caesar\u2019s be more open with his wife, she regard for reputation and honor to remains ignorant of the plot against ask him to remain at home on the Caesar. This echoes Calpurnia\u2019s ides of March. By contrast, Portia lack of in\ufb02uence over Caesar. wounds her own thigh, proving herself an equal to her husband Masters of fate? When he speaks of riding the tide through noble suffering. She takes For the conspirators at the start of opportunity, Brutus suggests her own life by swallowing hot of the play, time and opportunity that fate has a degree of \ufb02exibility coals, setting the bar of honor work in their favor. Caesar is not yet to it and that to make the most of very high for Brutus\u2019s death. an emperor, nor has he morphed opportunities leads on to fortune. into a tyrant. Before he can become This is a theory he takes from Like the men in this world, the either, Brutus believes it is in the Cassius who argues that autonomy women craft their speech. Portia interests of the people and state to is the route to success: \u201cMen at urges her husband to reveal his dispatch him:\u201cThere is a tide in the sometime were masters of their anxieties in a series of questions affairs of men \/ Which, taken at the fates. \/ The fault, dear Brutus, is not using the rule of listing in threes: \ufb02ood, leads on to fortune; \/ Omitted, in our stars, \/ But in ourselves, that \u201cIs Brutus sick? and is it physical \/ all the voyage of their life \/ Is bound we are underlings\u201d (1.2.140\u2013142). To walk unbrac\u00e8d and suck up the in shallows and in miseries. \/ On humours \/ Of the dank morning? such a full sea are we now a\ufb02oat, \/ Brutus\u2019s belief in destiny What, is Brutus sick? \/ And will he And we must take the current explains his willingness to accept steal out of his wholesome bed \/ when it serves, \/ Or lose our his defeat at Philippi. Although he To dare the vile contagion of the ventures\u201d (4.2.270\u2013276). took the opportunity to remove night, \/ And tempt the rheumy and Caesar, it is the ghost and retribution of that same enemy that brings about Brutus\u2019s fall. In other words, fate intervenes to punish the conspirators. If fate leads these men to their inevitable ends, how can there be, and what is the purpose of, free will? This question consumes Brutus and Cassius, as well as proving fatal to Caesar. Although Shakespeare does not provide a resolution to the con\ufb02ict between fate and free will, The knives are out for Caesar in this 2014 production at the Globe Theatre, with George Irving as Caesar, and Anthony Howell as Cassius.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 177 DEATH TOLL Cinna the Poet Julius Caesar Brutus stabs Cassius stabs Portia eats is torn apart by is stabbed. himself. himself. hot coals. the mob. there is an overwhelming sense consequences. It is no accident power to interpret and act on those of destiny throughout the play, that, when Casca expostulates warnings lies with the individual. speci\ufb01cally with the many omens about portents, the senator Cicero Ultimately, Brutus takes advantage that appear during the action. responds with a statement that of chances thrown his way, and yet rings true for every individual still ends in defeat. Octavius and Ominous portents in this tragedy: \u201cIndeed it is a Mark Antony will overcome Brutus, Casca expounds on the unnatural strange-dispos\u00e8d time; \/ But men just as Brutus took advantage of events that led up to the ides of may construe things after their Caesar\u2019s decision to ignore caution March during an equally ominous fashion, \/ Clean from the purpose of on the ides of March. thunderstorm. Fire drops from the the things themselves\u201d (1.3.33\u201335). sky, men walk around the streets in There is, in other words, a greater The intricacies of fate aside, the \ufb02ames, lions stalk the Roman roads, force at work forewarning these play makes clear the respect that and nightingales sing at midday. men of their destinies, but the these men have for one another. Casca claims \u201cI believe they are Brutus\u2019s love for Caesar prevents portentous things\u201d (1.3.31). I love the name of honour him from overcoming his guilt at more than I fear death. Phillippi; Caesar\u2019s trust in Brutus The signs of doom, as Cassius Brutus prompts him to exclaim \u201cet tu, and Brutus choose to interpret Brut\u00e9?\u201d [you, too, Brutus?] (3.1.77) them, echo the Soothsayer\u2019s Act 1, Scene 2 upon his murder; Cassius is loyal to warning to Caesar to \u201cBeware Brutus despite taking advantage of the ides of March\u201d (1.2.25). Caesar his integrity; and Antony respects ignores the omen by dismissing the Brutus who, in his opinion, \u201cwas Soothsayer, while the conspirators the noblest Roman of them all\u201d take the omens as a sign to attack (5.5.67). They recognize nobility in Caesar, rather than a warning one another. This is what separates about impending turmoil should this tragedy from others, including they proceed. Both Caesar and King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, Brutus misinterpret such signs and because every character is capable go on to make decisions with tragic and deserving of redemption. \u25a0","ALL THE WORLD S A STAGE AND ALL THE MEN AND WOMEN MERELY PLAYERS AS YOU LIKE IT (1599\u20131600)","","180 AS YOU LIKE IT DRAMATIS Charles the wrestler Banished by Duke Orlando learns his PERSONAE arrives with news Frederick, Rosalind brother Oliver hoped that Duke Senior escapes to Arden Duke Senior Older brother has been banished to kill him and of Duke Frederick, living in in disguise escapes to Arden. exile in the Forest of Arden. to the woods. with Celia. Rosalind Duke Senior\u2019s 1.1 1.5 2.2 daughter. Later disguised Act 1 Act 2 as Ganymede. 1.2 2.1 Amiens One of Duke Senior\u2019s Orlando, in disguise, Duke Senior lords, a talented singer. beats Charles in a relishes his time in wrestling bout and exile in the forest. Jaques One of Duke Senior\u2019s Rosalind is smitten. lords, a melancholy philosopher. S ince their father\u2019s death, Frederick, feels threatened by Duke Frederick Father to Orlando has been kept at Rosalind\u2019s popularity and exiles Celia, he usurps his brother. home and denied education her. Rosalind dresses as the boy by his older brother Oliver. When Ganymede and \ufb02ees to the forest Celia Daughter of Duke Oliver hears that Orlando plans to with Celia and Touchstone, the fool. Frederick and Rosalind\u2019s \ufb01ght Charles the wrestler, Oliver In the forest, Duke Senior and his cousin. Later, she disguises tells Charles to kill him. At court, lords, including the gloomy Jaques, herself as Aliena. Rosalind laments her father, Duke enjoy the simple life. Senior\u2019s, banishment. With her Touchstone A court fool. cousin Celia, she watches the Duke Frederick organizes a wrestling match and both are taken pursuit of Rosalind and Celia. In the Le Beau A courtier. with Orlando, who surprisingly forest, Rosalind and Celia witness beats Charles. Orlando falls in love Silvius telling the old shepherd Charles A wrestler. with Rosalind, but has to escape to Corin of his unrequited love for the forest with old Adam, pursued Phoebe. Faint with hunger, Orlando Oliver Oldest son of Sir by Oliver. Celia\u2019s father, Duke meets Duke Senior\u2019s men and draws Rowland de Bois. his sword. They offer him supper Orlando Younger brother of Oliver, kept uneducated. Jaques de Boys Younger brother of Oliver. Adam Former servant of Sir Rowland de Bois. Corin An old shepherd. Silvius A young shepherd in love with Phoebe. Phoebe A young shepherdess, disdainful of Silvius. William A countryman and rival in love for Audrey with Touchstone. Audrey A goatherd, she is betrothed to Touchstone.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 181 Orlando hangs love Orlando and Ganymede Ganymede promises Orlando he shall poems to Rosalind pretending to be \u201cRosalind\u201d marry Rosalind. Rosalind bids farewell to the audience. on trees. have a mock wedding. 3.2 4.1 5.1 5.4 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 2.4 3.2 4.3 5.4 Rosalind as Ganymede Ganymede begins to Orlando saves his Four marriages take and Celia as Aliena teach Orlando lessons brother Oliver from a place in the wood, observe Silvius, a lioness and Ganymede young shepherd, in in love. of\ufb01ciated by Hymen, and love with Phoebe. faints at the Duke Frederick abdicates. blood-stained cloth. and he joins their band. Orlando, over by Aliena as the vicar. Orlando affections. Oliver and Alien decide pining for Rosalind, hangs poems leaves promising to return in the to marry. Orlando is impatient to to her on the trees. Touchstone and afternoon. He fails to return but be with the real Rosalind and Corin compare lifestyles. Rosalind Rosalind is distracted by an Ganymede promises he will make \ufb01nds Orlando\u2019s poems and when anguished love letter from Phoebe Rosalind appear by magic so they he appears, she, still disguised as to Ganymede. Oliver suddenly can be married. He also promises Ganymede, teaches him how to arrives with a blood-stained cloth. Silvius that he will marry Phoebe. woo her as Rosalind. Rosalind as It seems that Orlando found him Ganymede and Celia as Aliena under a tree about to be attacked On the big day, Ganymede come across Phoebe. Rosalind\/ by wild beasts and saved his life, and Aliena slip out to return with Ganymede suggests Phoebe should only to be injured by a lioness. Hymen as Rosalind and Celia. Four be thankful for Silvius\u2019s love; but Oliver is now reconciled with wedding ceremonies are performed instead Phoebe falls for Ganymede. Orlando, and the cloth is a message by Hyman. News arrives that Duke from Orlando to Rosalind. Rosalind Frederick has become a hermit, Rosalind\/Ganymede pretending swoons. Touchstone scares off leaving the dukedom to Duke to be Rosalind goes through a mock William, his rival for Audrey\u2019s Senior. The actor playing Rosalind wedding with Orlando presided bids adieu to the audience. \u276f\u276f","182 AS YOU LIKE IT A s You Like It is one of What passion hangs these Shakespeare\u2019s most weights upon my tongue? IN CONTEXT enduringly popular plays. I cannot speak to her, yet she It forays into the beautiful Forest of THEMES Arden for an interlude full of light urged conference. Love, romance, mortality romance and wit, philosophical Orlando speculation, and broad comedy. In SETTING the clever, ardent, playful Rosalind, Act 1, Scene 2 The French court who spends her time in Arden and the Forest of dressed as the boy Ganymede, it Romantic nonsense? Ardennes (in Belgium) has an engaging central character. The Irish playwright George or Arden (in England) Bernard Shaw thought the play Strangely, though, very little so \ufb02imsy that he dismissed it as SOURCES happens in As You Like It. Two a silly crowd-pleaser. The title 1590 Thomas Lodge\u2019s prose young people, Rosalind and \u201cAs You Like It,\u201d Shaw suggested, tale Rosalynde. Orlando, run away to the Forest of was just Shakespeare throwing Arden to escape dif\ufb01cult relatives\u2014 back at the audience their taste LEGACY Rosalind \ufb02eeing her uncle Duke for such romantic nonsense. But 1603 As You Like It may Frederick, who usurped the power although As You Like It has had have been performed for of her father (who\u2019s already \ufb02ed to a checkered historical reception, King James I. the forest), and Orlando from his most critics now agree that brother Oliver, who connives to have Shaw missed the point. It really 1723 Charles Johnson\u2019s him killed, form a rather paper-thin is a clever, sophisticated play. \ufb01lleted version, Love in a plot. In the forest, Rosalind, dressed While it is more wholeheartedly Forest, appears, with scenes as Ganymede, teaches Orlando the entertaining perhaps than any from other Shakespeare ways of love and meets various folk. other of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, it plays added. After a few misunderstandings, is still packed full of ideas and Rosalind and Orlando get married, insights into life and love. The 1741\u201357 Irish actress Peg along with three other couples who title, far from being a throwaway, Wof\ufb01ngton plays Rosalind on also found romance in the forest, and is perhaps both a celebration of the London stage for 16 years. all family differences are resolved. the joy of theater, and an invitation And this is all that happens. to be open-minded. As the Royal 1879 A production at Shakespeare Company put it, Stratford-upon-Avon features \u201cGender roles, nature, and politics a freshly killed deer from a are confused in a play that re\ufb02ects Warwickshire forest. on how bewildering yet utterly pleasurable life can be.\u201d 1961 British director Michael Elliott\u2019s production for the In 1950, Hollywood star Katharine RSC stars Vanessa Redgrave Hepburn took on the part of Rosalind. as a boyish Rosalind. She said of the role that it is \u201cone of the great tests of how good an actress you 1977 German director Peter are, and I wanted to \ufb01nd out.\u201d Stein stages a large-scale promenade production in Berlin. 1996 Kenneth Branagh\u2019s \ufb01lm version relocates the action to a European colony in 19th-century Japan. 2013 A contemporary youth version by Maria Aberg for the RSC features music by folk musician Laura Marling.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 183 I did not entreat to have her stay. It was your pleasure, and your own remorse. Celia Act 1, Scene 3 There may not be much plot, but Frederick\u2019s sudden change of heart Hugh Thomson\u2019s 1915 illustration there is a feast of romance and offstage at the end, it\u2019s clear only of Act 1, Scene 3, in which Celia and comedy\u2014poems and songs, wit Jaques will stay in the forest. Rosalind contemplate leaving the court, and banter, all spilling from hints at the move to the idyllic forest in characters\u2019 lips with continual It is the nature section, in the the \ufb01nery of the peacocks\u2019 feathers. invention. It is an intellectual Forest of Arden, that dominates and poetic picnic to which the most of the play: for this reason, it is intellectual interests of the age. The audience is invited to spend a often described as a \u201cpastoral word \u201cpastoral\u201d refers literally to the couple of hours for their pleasure comedy.\u201d Pastoral literature was shepherd\u2019s life. It is not about real and mental stimulation. Nothing very much in vogue at the time\u2014 shepherds but an idealization\u2014a much happens because nothing is British critic Frank Kermode harmonious \u201cArcadia.\u201d Shepherds meant to happen. Just as time is described As You Like It as \u201cthe don\u2019t look after sheep in pastoral brie\ufb02y suspended for the characters most topical of the comedies,\u201d literature; instead they are poets, \u276f\u276f in Arden\u2014\u201cThere\u2019s \/ no clock in the because it is most engaged with the forest,\u201d (3.2.294\u2013295) says Orlando\u2014 so it is also for the audience watching the play as they go on a brief vacation in the theater. It\u2019s a chance to mentally recharge and rethink\u2014to \u201c\ufb02eet the \/ time carelessly\u201d (1.1.112\u2013113)\u2014away from the pressures of ordinary life. Country vs city As You Like It is structured in three parts. It begins in the court or city, where unsolvable problems arise; it journeys into nature or a fantasy world, where the problems are untangled; and then returns to the court, the real world at the end with the problems resolved. In fact, As You Like It ends before the \ufb01nal return to court, but with Duke","184 AS YOU LIKE IT Music is a key part of the pastoral merriment of As You Like It, as in this production at the Delacorte Theater, New York (2012). There are more songs in the play than any other of Shakespeare\u2019s. philosophers, and singers. The vacation rather than real country scene, the real old shepherd Corin pastoral world is an imaginary folk. Despite its focus on the is talking about his hands \ufb01lthy golden age or Garden of Eden, simple life, it has nothing much with sheep grease. a peaceful and uncorrupted to do with real nature. In As You place where harmony can be Like It, Shakespeare turns the The countryside continually rediscovered away from the strife pastoral into popular entertainment interweaves the ideal and the and pressures of everyday reality. for the stage. He continually real, the classical with the native subverts the form, letting realism England. Even the name of the Pastoral literature in bleed into its idealized world and forest, Arden, has this ambiguity. Shakespeare\u2019s time was very gently satirizing the genre\u2019s In Shakespeare\u2019s original source, highbrow. It was prose and conventions. In one scene, for Thomas Lodge\u2019s novel Rosalynde poetry, full of lovelorn shepherds instance, Orlando is seen pinning (1590), the setting was the and disdainful girls, and characters poems to trees in true poet- Ardennes, a hilly region bordering with fancy classical names who shepherd style; in the very next France and Belgium. In some were quite clearly courtiers on editions of the play, the Belgian spelling \u201cArdenne\u201d is kept\u2014and Shakespeare retains French names for characters such as Jaques and Amiens\u2014but in other editions the forest is called Arden. Arden was a real woodland near Shakespeare\u2019s childhood home in Warwickshire, and it is also the family name of his grandmother, Mary Arden. Aptly, whether by coincidence or design, the name \u201cArden\u201d also echoes both Ar-cadia and E-den. A shepherd\u2019s life The origins of pastoral literature Arcadia and Christopher date back to writers such as the Marlowe\u2019s romantic poem The Greeks Hesiod (c.750\u2013650 BCE) and Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Theocritus (c.270 BCE) and, most published in 1599. famously, the Roman poet Virgil (70\u201319 BCE) in his Eclogues. They Pastoral literature often all wrote of golden ages and rural contained subversive messages, idylls. The genre was rediscovered and was intended to be held up in Europe during the Renaissance, as a mirror to the contemporary and in Elizabethan England, world. At the time As You Like It the idea of the pastoral became was written, satire had recently popular among intellectuals and been banned by the Church. poets. A key work was Edmund The play may contain reference Spenser\u2019s much-imitated The to this ban in Celia\u2019s line: \u201csince Shephearde\u2019s Calender, \ufb01rst the little wit \/ that fools have published in 1579. Others include silenced, the little foolery that \/ Sir Philip Sidney\u2019s long prose work wise men have makes a great show\u201d (1.2.84\u201386).","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 185 O wonderful, Critics have talked a great deal No, no, Orlando; men are wonderful, and most about gender issues in As You April when they woo, wonderful-wonderful, Like It and the undercurrents and yet again wonderful, of homoeroticism in, for instance, December when they wed. and after that out of Phoebe\u2019s love for Ganymede\/ Maids are May when they are Rosalind, Celia\u2019s for Rosalind, and maids, but the sky changes all whooping! Orlando\u2019s \ufb02irtation with Ganymede. Celia Indeed, the Ganymede of Greek when they are wives. myth was a beautiful boy who Rosalind Act 3, Scene 2 became Zeus\u2019s lover and was a byword for erotic relationships Act 4, Scene 1 Ambiguous Rosalind between men and young boys. At the very heart of the play\u2019s In the play\u2019s epilogue, \u201cRosalind\u201d says in her somewhat down-to- ambiguity is the character of has fun with the ambiguity of her earth fashion, \u201cbut not for love\u201d Rosalind. In the forest, Rosalind gender. She partly steps out of (4.1.99\u2013101). dresses as a boy and takes the very her role, and as a boy actor toys classical name, Ganymede\u2014the with the audience, offering a kiss But Rosalind is not a cynic like name of a beautiful Trojan boy in to \u201cas many of you as had beards Jaques, who doesn\u2019t believe in Greek myth. On the Elizabethan that pleased.\u201d Shakespeare\u2019s play love. At this very moment, she is stage, she would have been played is a celebration of all kinds of love \u201cfathom deep\u201d in love with Orlando by a boy actor, and the play has fun and sexual possibilities, as the (4.1.196) and \u201ccannot be out \/ of \u276f\u276f with her constantly switching title implies. gender identities. At one point, The idyllic countryside setting in Rosalind, disguised as Ganymede, True love Shakespeare\u2019s source novel Rosalynde pretends to be \u201cRosalind\u201d to teach Beneath the role-playing and was the Ardennes in Belgium (below). Orlando how to love. So at this gender-switching, a portrait Shakespeare\u2019s forest may also be partly moment on stage, there would of the reality of love appears. inspired by the Arden forest in England. have been a boy actor playing a When Orlando says he will die girl who is playing a boy playing for love, Rosalind as Ganymede a girl! Meanwhile, Orlando is in at once points out the \ufb02aws love not with the pretend Rosalind in this romantic nonsense. played by Ganymede but the \u201creal\u201d \u201cMen have died from time and Rosalind who is at that moment worms have eaten them,\u201d she playing Ganymede playing Rosalind. And Phoebe\u2014a girl\u2019s role also played by a boy actor\u2014is in love with Ganymede, mistakenly thinking her a boy, when \u201che\u201d is in fact a girl played by a boy! Much of the entertainment in the play comes from seeing how adeptly it manages these confusions and, at the end, resolves them.","186 AS YOU LIKE IT The seven ages of man 7. Oblivion 1. Infant \u201cSans teeth, sans \u201cMewling and puking eyes, sans taste, in the nurse\u2019s arms\u201d sans everything\u201d 2. Schoolboy 6. Sixth age \u201ccreeping like a \u201ca world too snail unwillingly wide for his shrunk shank\u201d to school\u201d 5. Justice 3. Lover \u201cFull of wise saws \u201cSighing like furnace, with a and modern woeful ballad\u201d instances\u201d Jaques\u2019s speech (2.7.139\u2013166) is somewhat 4. Soldier maudlin in its depiction of the tragedy of life. \u201cJealous in honour, sudden, Much of the play counteracts this with its wit and spirit, and portrayal of passions in the forest. and quick in quarrel\u201d the sight\u201d of him (4.1.205\u2013206). The world\u2019s a stage view when he says, \u201cLife\u2019s but a Indeed,she is more in love with him The best known speech in As You walking shadow, a poor player \/ at this moment than he is with her, Like It is Jaques\u2019s speech, which That struts and frets his hour upon despite his protestations and poems. begins: \u201cAll the world\u2019s a stage, \/ the stage \/ And then is heard no At this moment, Orlando is more in And all the men and women merely more. It is a tale \/ Told by an idiot, love with love than with Rosalind, players. \/ They have their exits and full of sound and fury, \/ Signifying and she must remain as Ganymede their entrances, \/ And one man in nothing.\u201d (Macbeth 5.5.23\u201327). to teach him how to actually love his time plays many parts\u201d her. She is high-spirited, insightful, (2.7.139\u2013142). But of course the speaker is witty, and passionate\u2014but she can Jaques, whose name, as the jester only stop playing Ganymede when The speech suggests that we Touchstone slyly reminds us in Orlando stops playing at love. are all merely playing parts, and dubbing him \u201cMonsieur What- describes the seven stages of life, ye-call\u2019t\u201d (3.3.66), is pronounced Love is dressed in many from infancy to decrepit old age. \u201cjakes,\u201d Elizabethan slang for toilet. guises in the play. Curmudgeonly This simple metaphor for life is It\u2019s a reminder that Jaques may as Touchstone suddenly \ufb01nds his heart often quoted out of context, and well be talking \u201ccrap.\u201d In fact, in the with Audrey. The once-mean brother taken as Shakespeare\u2019s theme for character of Jaques, Shakespeare Oliver falls in love at \ufb01rst sight with the whole play and its theatricality. is making fun of a stereotype of Celia. Even Silvius\u2019s absurd poems Its message about the pointless Elizabethan times\u2014the melancholy and declarations bear fruit with arti\ufb01ciality of life seems strangely young philosopher with his Phoebe. Yet beneath it all, love is bleak, though. Indeed, it\u2019s not fashionably jaded outlook on life. shown to be real and important. so different from desolate Macbeth\u2019s In his meandering observations,","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 187 I will weary you then no longer his own sardonic wit too much Playing Rosalind with idle talking. to be truly gloomy. For all his Rosalind cynicism, he seems to positively After its initial success at the enjoy being miserable. This is his Globe in 1599, As You Like It Act 5, Scene 2 life choice\u2014as valid, perhaps, as fell almost entirely out of any other. When the couples wed, fashion in the 17th century, Jaques is perhaps missing the and all is forgiven, the glut of and it was not until 1740 point just as much as Orlando with happiness and \u201cdancing measures\u201d that the play was properly his poems on trees. At the very are too much for Jaques. Instead, performed again by Charles instant Jaques \ufb01nishes his speech despite entreaties, he chooses to Macklin at Drury Lane with his bleak summary of old age go into exile once more, joining in London. In Macklin\u2019s as \u201csecond childishness and mere Duke Frederick in a hermit\u2019s cave. production, Hannah Pritchard oblivion,\u201d on comes old Adam, was unaffectedly lively as carried on Orlando\u2019s back, decrepit It is Rosalind who has the \ufb01nal Rosalind and the role has old age personi\ufb01ed. It\u2019s a funny word, stepping forward to erase the been a favorite ever since. moment, and a clear sign we boundary between character and shouldn\u2019t take Jaques too seriously. actor, stage and audience, offering Actors who have played In some ways, neither does Jaques an invitation to leave this theatrical Rosalind include Edith Evans, himself, for he relishes the bite of diversion, \u201cas you like it\u201d: \u201cI am Katherine Hepburn, Vanessa sure, as many as have good beards, Redgrave (pictured), Maggie or good faces, or sweet breaths Smith, and Fiona Shaw. will for my kind offer, when I make Theater company Cheek by curtsy, bid me farewell\u201d (Epilogue). \u25a0 Jowl\u2019s 1991 production had an all-male cast, with Adrian James Thomas Watts, a Victorian Lester as Rosalind. landscape artist, captured a forest idyll in his painting of Celia, Rosalind, and There have been three Touchstone in the forest. Country idylls major \ufb01lms of the play, each were popular subjects in Victorian art. very different. Paul Czinner\u2019s whimsical 1936 version, with German Elisabeth Bergner as Rosalind, was the \ufb01rst sound \ufb01lm of any Shakespeare play. Christine Edzard\u2019s edgy 1992 version dressed Rosalind in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt in London\u2019s \u201ccardboard city\u201d for down and outs. Kenneth Branagh\u2019s lush 2007 \ufb01lm was set in 19th-century Japan and starred Romola Garai.","THE SLINGS AND ARROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE HAMLET (1599\u20131601)","","190 HAMLET DRAMATIS The ghost of King The ghost makes Rosencrantz and PERSONAE Hamlet is seen Hamlet swear to Guildenstern are greeted by the King and Hamlet Son of the dead king haunting the battlements avenge his Queen, then sent to and Prince of Denmark. He is of Elsinore castle. father\u2019s murder. spy on Hamlet. the nephew and step-son of King Claudius. 1.1 1.5 2.2 Act 1 Act 2 Claudius The newly crowned 1.2 Danish king who marries his 2.1 brother\u2019s widow, Gertrude. Claudius announces Ophelia informs her Fortinbras Nephew of his marriage to his father that Hamlet the Norwegian king and visited her in a state successor to the Danish brother\u2019s widow, of sorrow and undress. throne. He seeks vengeance Gertrude. against Denmark for his father\u2019s murder. I n Elsinore castle in Denmark, Hamlet\u2019s father was murdered King Claudius grieves for the by his uncle. Hamlet swears to Polonius Courtier and trusted death of the former king, his avenge his father. However, unsure adviser to Claudius. Father to brother. He hastily marries if he can believe the ghost, Hamlet Ophelia and Laertes. Gertrude, the dead king\u2019s widow, feigns madness to distract his and sends messengers to Norway, peers while he discovers the truth. Gertrude Mother to Hamlet Denmark\u2019s feuding neighbor, and former wife of the to prevent an invasion by the The courtier Polonius interprets deceased King Hamlet. She Norwegian Prince Fortinbras. Hamlet\u2019s strange behavior as a is now the wife of Claudius Gertrude\u2019s son, Hamlet, is also symptom of love for Ophelia. After and Queen of Denmark. grieving for the king, his father. informing the King of this, they use Horatio, a companion, informs Ophelia to spy on Hamlet. Hamlet Laertes Son of Polonius and Hamlet that the ghost of his father guesses what she is doing and brother to Ophelia. Laertes has has appeared on the battlements cruelly denies any affection for her. been studying in France, but at night, and takes him to see for returns to Denmark to avenge himself. The ghost tells Hamlet that To help assuage Hamlet\u2019s grief Polonius\u2019s death. the King and Queen send for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern University companions of Hamlet, whom he distrusts. Ophelia Daughter of Polonius and sister to Laertes. Horatio Trusted friend of Hamlet, to whom Hamlet reveals his plans. Ghost of Hamlet\u2019s father It orders Hamlet to avenge his father\u2019s death. Four players They perform in Hamlet\u2019s play.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 191 While watching the Hamlet is sent to Hamlet returns to Hamlet stabs traveling troupe of England to be killed. Denmark, discovers the Claudius and actors perform a play force-feeds him the in which a king is skull of his father\u2019s remaining wine. killed by his brother, jester, Yorick, and is Hamlet then dies Claudius betrays reminded of mortality. and the bodies are taken away by signs of guilt. Fortinbras. 3.2 4.3 5.1 5.2 Act 3 Act 4 Act 5 3.1 3.4 4.7 5.2 Polonius and Polonius hides in Gertrude\u2019s After the king Hamlet and Laertes are wounded agrees to help in a duel. Claudius offers Hamlet a Claudius use chamber to eavesdrop on Hamlet. Laertes kill Hamlet, poisoned goblet of wine, out of which Gertrude drinks. She dies. Ophelia to entrap Hamlet stabs at the curtain, Gertrude announces that Hamlet so that they killing Polonius. Ophelia can discover whether has drowned. he is in love with her. Hamlet accuses Ophelia of being false, and orders her to a nunnery. his old college friends, whom he help and Hamlet, believing the Horatio and Hamlet witness now distrusts. Instead, he focuses voice to be the King\u2019s, stabs at Ophelia\u2019s burial. Hamlet reveals on the arrival at court of traveling the tapestry and kills Polonius. himself to the mourners and players, and orders them to perform challenges Laertes to a duel. a play in which a king is murdered The King punishes Hamlet Laertes injures Hamlet with a by his brother. Hamlet sees that by sending him to England with poisoned blade, after which he is King Claudius is affected by the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with himself mortally wounded with play, and takes this as proof of guilt. the intention of having him killed the same blade. Gertrude drinks on arrival. On the journey, they poisoned wine intended for Hamlet On his way to Gertrude\u2019s are attacked by pirates. Hamlet and dies, causing Laertes to accuse chamber, Hamlet overhears the escapes and returns to Denmark. Claudius of murder. Hamlet stabs King in prayer, confessing to the the King and forces the remaining murder. Meanwhile, Polonius hides Laertes arrives in Elsinore and poisoned wine down his throat behind an arras (a tapestry) in demands vengeance for the murder before himself dying in the arms of Gertrude\u2019s chamber to spy on of Polonius. Grief-stricken by the Horatio. Fortinbras and his troops Hamlet. Hamlet berates his mother murder, Ophelia loses her mind arrive to take away the bodies. \u276f\u276f for remarrying. Polonius calls for and drowns in a brook, spurring on Laertes\u2019s hatred for Hamlet.","192 HAMLET H amlet is Shakespeare\u2019s But I have that within longest play, with perhaps which passeth show\u2014 IN CONTEXT the most challenging lead These but the trappings and role. It is also his most enduringly THEMES popular tragedy. The play is a story the suits of woe. Revenge, betrayal, honor, of kingship, war, madness, and Hamlet mortality revenge. It is also a story that centers on a troubled man whose Act 1, Scene 2 SETTING responsibilities to his father and Elsinore in Denmark to his kingdom are diametrically Hamlet has been read as the opposed to his instincts and story of an ill-fated hero, a victim SOURCES temperament. Unlike its source of fate and \u201coutrageous fortune,\u201d c.1185 \u201cAmleth,\u201d by Danish text about the legendary Danish as well as one about a mentally historian Saxo Grammaticus is king Amleth, which is described unstable, indecisive young man. the story of a legendary Danish as a romance, Hamlet is undeniably In both readings, the character prince whose uncle killed the a tragedy\u2014The Tragedy of and the world he inhabits are king and married the queen. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, overwhelmed by melancholy as it is listed in the First Folio. and corruption. 1580 French poet Fran\u00e7ois Shakespeare retains the details de Belleforest retells the story about Amleth\u2019s feigned madness Prince of Denmark in his Histories Tragiques, and need for revenge, but adds new Hamlet is a man of 30; he is a translated into English in 1608. information, such as naming the son, a nephew, a lover, a courtier, ghost\u2014also called Hamlet\u2014and and a university student of LEGACY adding a companion for the hero in Wittenberg. As the only male 1602 The \ufb01rst recorded the form of Horatio. Shakespeare heir to the former king, Hamlet performance is on July 26. also adds two other sons seeking should have ascended immediately revenge for their fathers\u2019 deaths: to the throne. That his uncle, 1742 English actor David Laertes and Fortinbras. Claudius, takes the crown is largely Garrick becomes the most because of Gertrude\u2019s \u201co\u2019er-hasty\u201d famous Hamlet of his day. A 2000 \ufb01lm adaptation starring Ethan (2.2.57) marriage, as the character Hawke sets Hamlet in New York City. herself describes it. The result is 1827 Irish actress Harriet The ghost is an apparition on CCTV, that, when the audience \ufb01rst meets Smithson plays Ophelia at and the play-within-the-play takes the Hamlet, he has been robbed of his the Od\u00e9on, Paris; the play is form of a video game. father, all trust in his mother, and a great success in France. the throne to which he is entitled. It is not surprising, therefore, that 1919 Poet T. S. Eliot argues he should be quiet, resentful, and that the character Hamlet moody in his \ufb01rst appearance. is an artistic failure. Claudius calls his subjects 1948 English actor Laurence together to discuss Fortinbras, Olivier\u2019s screen adaptation has Laertes, and Hamlet, respectively. dark, Freudian undertones. His priorities, in order of signi\ufb01cance, are relations political, 1964 Grigori Kozintsev directs a Soviet \ufb01lm of the play. 1996 British actor Kenneth Branagh directs a \ufb01lm version that runs for over four hours. 2001 Director Peter Brook directs a multilingual Hamlet in Paris with actors speaking Japanese and Swahili.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 193 social, and domestic. Although Elsinore castle, the setting for the play, Prayer scene this may seem justi\ufb01able, is in fact Kronborg, an ancient fortress prioritizing Laertes and his wish on the Danish island of Zealand. It was During the 19th century, to travel abroad above Hamlet\u2019s rebuilt in the 1580s and appears here scholars and actors went obvious grief seems irresponsible as it did in Shakespeare\u2019s day. to great lengths to excuse and callous in Hamlet\u2019s eyes. Hamlet of wickedness in This explains the bitterness of Claudius calling him \u201cson\u201d: his pursuit of vengeance. his opening words in the play, \u201cA little more than kin and The prayer scene, in which which are a response to less than kind\u201d (1.2.65). Claudius confesses his guilt and Hamlet stalls his O, vengeance! Why, what Despite his dark mood and vengeance, was removed an ass am I? Ay, sure this is somber appearance, Hamlet from the play until the 1880s. most brave, That I, the son commands love and respect from At this moment, Hamlet his peers. He is the \ufb01rst person begins to speak in violent of the dear murder\u00e8d, Horatio thinks to tell about the and disturbing terms of Prompted to my revenge appearance of the ghost, and it is damnation, a topic of great Hamlet, not the king, whom the debate both in the 16th and by heaven and hell, players \ufb01rst greet at court. In the 19th centuries.\u00a0Wishing to Must, like a whore, unpack play\u2019s closing scene, Horatio states damn someone to eternal that Hamlet has \u201ca noble heart\u201d hell\ufb01re is not a Christian my heart with words (5.2.311), echoing Ophelia\u2019s early sentiment, and whether or And fall a-cursing like claim that he has \u201ca noble mind\u201d not such an attitude might be (3.1.153). In fact, Ophelia speaks of thought justi\ufb01able in Hamlet\u2019s a very drab, Hamlet as though he is a symbol of search for vengeance, A scullion! hope, calling him \u201cTh\u2019expectancy Victorian audiences did not Hamlet and rose of the fair state, \/ The wish to hear these words glass of fashion and the mould of spoken on the stage. Act 2, Scene 2 form, \/ Th\u2019observed of all observers\u201d (3.1.155\u2013157). Notable modern performances of the scene Unstable Hamlet include David Tennant\u2019s Hamlet is also described in less Hamlet (2009, above). This hit positive terms. He is full of \u201cturbulent stage production was \ufb01lmed and dangerous lunacy\u201d (3.1.4), \u276f\u276f for a special TV version by the BBC. Hovering his dagger above the head of Patrick Stewart\u2019s Claudius, in the \ufb01lm version, he delivers the speech as a voiceover rather than directly to the audience.","194 HAMLET \u201cmelancholy\u201d and \u201cunmanly grief,\u201d the Player King\u2019s ear. Hamlet has A poster advertises the 1868 grand with \u201cA heart unforti\ufb01ed, a mind chosen drama as the medium opera Hamlet by French composer impatient\u201d (1.2.96). He is, in other through which to test the truth of Ambroise Thomas. The story became words, unstable and rash. the ghost\u2019s story. First, he explains popular in France after a translation by to the players that the function of adventure novelist Alexandre Dumas. Although Hamlet elicits respect plays and acting is, \u201cto hold, as for his nobility and receives \u2019twere, the mirror up to nature, to \u201ccatch the conscience of the King\u201d censure for his attitude, he has show virtue her own feature, scorn (2.2.607). The power of drama to a distinctive need to offer other her own image, and the very age move individuals to tears, guilt, people advice. He tells Ophelia to and body of the time his form and and happiness is powerfully choose a nunnery over marriage; pressure\u201d (3.2.21\u201324). Drama is, in explored both here and in the scene he advises the players on their Hamlet\u2019s view, a way of revealing in which the chief player delivers a acting techniques, and he truths about real life. It is with this speech to Hamlet about the fall of reprimands Laertes for weeping logic that he claims that a play will Troy. This monologue focuses on at Ophelia\u2019s funeral. What makes the intensity of the grief of Hecuba, Hamlet think he has more right to whose husband, Priam, has been mourn than Laertes, her brother? slaughtered by the Greek enemy. From what experience, and with Hamlet is clearly moved by the what authority does he lecture the extent of Hecuba\u2019s sorrow and actors on stagecraft? And from by the actor\u2019s ability to engage what motive does he send Ophelia emotionally with the speech. He off to a convent? considers both himself and his mother inadequate in comparison, The play\u2019s the thing because Gertrude fails to mourn The ghost has informed Hamlet for her husband\u2019s death, and that his father was murdered with Hamlet struggles to motivate a poison administered into his ear himself to seek revenge. while asleep in his orchard. This very same scenario is played out Mother complex in The Mousetrap, the play Hamlet It is no accident, then, that chooses to stage before the King Hamlet\u2019s Mousetrap is not entirely and Queen. The Player King\u2019s motivated by the discovery of brother emerges from the shadows Claudius\u2019s guilt. He is also using of an orchard to pour poison into Poor Yorick One subject that is inseparable suicide case) merits a Christian from the play concerns the nature burial, and casually digs up of existence. Perhaps the most bones from graves to clear iconic image in Shakespearian space. In a play in which all is tragedy is that of Hamlet admiring contemplated by Hamlet, the Yorick\u2019s skull. This is the moment gravedigger is a welcome voice when Hamlet recognizes the that trivializes the otherwise reality of death. He contemplates overwhelming subject of death. the difference between the living head of his father\u2019s jester, with In 1930, G. Wilson Knight its lips, tongue and wit, and the argued that Hamlet\u2019s \ufb01xation grotesque remnants of his body. with death poisons everyone around him, and that it is he Yorick\u2019s skull is given to who triggers the entire tragedy. Hamlet by a gravedigger, who is Although Hamlet claims to able to see humor in the tragedy. be a victim of fortune, it can be He speaks in a pragmatic way argued that he is ultimately about whether Ophelia (an alleged responsible for his own fate.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 195 \u2026but, O, what form of prayer the play proper, during which he is shakes off responsibility for his Can serve my turn? \u2018Forgive often paralyzed by indecision, a actions, namely delaying revenge, character \ufb02aw that proves fatal. murdering Polonius, rejecting me my foul murder\u2019? Ophelia, and having Rosencrantz That cannot be, since Outrageous fortune? and Guildenstern executed. In the I am still possessed Hamlet is not a man in a good play\u2019s \ufb01nal act, Hamlet speaks of Of those effects for which position. He has left the university providence and the inevitability of at the age of 30 and returned to live his defeating the King. If, however, I did the murder\u2014 at home; his father has died and he the so-called outrageous fortune is My crown, mine own cannot reconcile with his mother removed from the equation, what is ambition, and my queen. after her remarriage; and he is left is a series of bad decisions that May one be pardoned and forced to take on the responsibility have ill consequences. \u276f\u276f of avenging his father\u2019s murder in retain th\u2019offence? secret. Although Hamlet\u2019s famous You are the Queen, your Claudius question is \u201cto be or not to be\u201d husband\u2019s brother\u2019s wife. (3.1.58), it is the question he asks But\u2014would you were not Act 3, Scene 2 immediately after that haunts him so\u2014you are my mother. more than anything: \u201cWhether \u2019tis the play to test his mother\u2019s nobler in the mind to suffer \/ The Hamlet conscience. Indeed, much of slings and arrows of outrageous Hamlet\u2019s melancholy stems from fortune, \/ Or to take arms against a Act 3, Scene 4 anger with his mother, whose sea of troubles, \/ And, by opposing, marriage to Claudius he thinks end them\u201d (3.1.59\u201362). incestuous. The Player Queen makes a speech about \ufb01delity, in Hamlet chooses to suffer the which she swears never to remarry outrageous fortune that he believes in the event of her husband\u2019s is an external attack rather than an death: \u201cThe instances that second internal con\ufb02ict. Assuming the marriage move \/ Are base respects position of a self-confessed victim of thrift, but none of love. \/ A of fate, much like Romeo, Hamlet second time I kill my husband dead \/ When second husband kisses me in bed\u201d (3.2.173\u2013176). With this play-within-the-play, Hamlet seizes control of events by taking up arms against his troubles in a way that is otherwise rare in the course of the action of Hamlet (right, Ladi Emeruwa) \ufb01ghts with Claudius (left, John Dougall) in a production by the Globe Theatre that was set to play in 205 countries during a world tour between 2014 and 2016.","196 HAMLET The tragedy spirals out of control O, what a rash and bloody accidents. Both the characters\u2019 because the characters within deed is this! choices and their fortunes do the world of Denmark make poor Gertrude indeed seem outrageous. choices that lead to a catalog of even worse outcomes. Not only Act 3, Scene 4 Revenge does Hamlet defer taking revenge First and foremost, Hamlet is a on Claudius, but he accidentally conversation with her son. Add tale of revenge. The revenge motif stabs Polonius, which leads Laertes to these tragic events Ophelia\u2019s repeats throughout the play, not just to seek vengeance against him. drowning, Claudius\u2019s poisoning in having three avengers all seeking He rejects Ophelia in such a of the wine goblet, Gertrude the same thing, but in the terrible humiliating and devastating way accidentally drinking it, and cycle of destruction and grief that that, when she learns of her father\u2019s Laertes being wounded by his own proceeds from any desire to exact murder at the hands of her former poisoned blade, and this tragic vengeance on an enemy. lover, she loses her sanity and, world is riddled with fateful potentially, her dignity. Polonius, As a revenge story, Hamlet too, is no blameless character. He follows conventions established by exhibits poor judgement when the English playwright Thomas Kyd he dispatches a spy to France to in The Spanish Tragedy (1587), trail his son, when he convinces which was one of the most popular Ophelia to trap Hamlet, and revenge tragedies of the period. especially when he proposes Shakespeare includes a ghost, a hiding behind the arras in order play-within-a-play, and a deathly to eavesdrop on Gertrude\u2019s object in the form of Yorick\u2019s skull, to echo the revenge tradition. The DEATH TOLL Rosencrantz and Polonius is Gertrude and Ophelia is Guildenstern stabbed through King Hamlet drowned. are beheaded. are poisoned. a tapestry. Hamlet, Claudius, and Laertes are stabbed and poisoned.","THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN\u2019S MAN 197 hero is forced to compromise his Horatio and Marcellus. Hamlet This haunting depiction of Ophelia\u2019s own conscience in order to carry refers to the ghost as \u201cold mole\u201d death was painted by British artist out an attack on the original and \u201cthis fellow in the cellarage\u201d John Everett Millais in 1852. The criminal, in this case Claudius. (1.5.153), which draws a knowing \ufb02oating \ufb02owers correspond to the audience\u2019s attention to the actor play\u2019s description of her garland. As well as their brutality, calling from beneath the stage revenge tragedies were known for \ufb02oor, rather than any disembodied, does not delay and even swears to their meta-theatrical jokes, which spectral voice. However, Hamlet is \u201cdare damnation\u201d (4.5.131) in order Shakespeare incorporates into his no simple revenge hero: he is torn to have revenge on Polonius\u2019s play when the ghost calls out to between hatred for his uncle, love murderer. Although his behavior is for his father, disgust for his rash and is exploited by the king, Now cracks a noble heart. mother, and distrust of the ghost. who also wishes Hamlet dead, Good night, sweet prince, He deliberately delays his attack Laertes\u2019s motivation and intent are And \ufb02ights of angels sing on Claudius, choosing instead not dissimilar to those of Hamlet. to ruminate on his actions and The third avenger is Fortinbras, thee to thy rest. on his existence. Hamlet\u2019s whose own father was murdered Horatio approach places him in direct by Hamlet\u2019s father, the former king. contrast with Laertes and Whereas Hamlet delays and Laertes Act 5, Scene 2 Fortinbras, who also seek revenge rushes in, Fortinbras tactfully against their fathers\u2019 murderers. assembles his army and plans When news of Polonius\u2019s death to invade Denmark, making his reaches Laertes, he \ufb02ies in the vengeance political rather than face of all custom and duty in personal. Laertes and Fortinbras order to challenge the king, risking lack Hamlet\u2019s tragic \ufb02aw\u2014the his own reputation by committing doubt and indecision that lead treason. Unlike Hamlet, Laertes Hamlet inexorably to his fate. \u25a0","YOUTH S A STUFF WILL NOT ENDURE TWELFTH NIGHT (1601)"]