Arden fast

On the basis of James Fenton's recommendation (in An Introduction to English Poetry, Penguin 2003), I've switched to the Arden version of Shakespeare's plays, from Penguin. A brief glance through has confirmed that the notes on the text are quality and the introduction, albeit a little overfed, is good scholarship.

And, crucially, the textual notes are printed on the same page as the text itself. So no more floundering around between a million different sections of the book. I used to spend more time flicking back and forth, inevitably loosing my place, than actually reading the plays. For me, speed is of the essence.

They also look fantastic in their 3rd edition, printed, it seems, within the past five years. Excellent paper quality and print clarity.

Series editors are Richard Proudfoot (Proudfeet! ahem) Ann Thompson and David Scott Kastan.

Any last words?

Baz Luhrman had his cake and ate it. In the closing scene of his film Romeo + Juliet he engineers a compromise between two dramatic conventions. In the play, Shakespeare makes no specific allowance for Juliet to communicate with Romeo after she has woken from her drug-induced sleep, moments after Romeo knocks back the fatal poison. In most productions, Romeo is already dead by the time she wakes.

TJB Spencer (in the introduction to my Penguin version) points out however, that from the time of Garrick (1717–1779) until the 19th century many productions altered S’ version to allow for some dialogue between the lovers after Juliet wakes up; presumably this is before the poison takes effect on Romeo (incidentally, this would seem to contradict the apothecary’s assurance of its strength in V.1). Directors could presumably then squeeze out every drop of dramatic tragedy as the lovers discover the misunderstanding and Romeo dies by degrees in Juliet’s arms.

Back to Baz. Study his film version. You’ll see that Juliet does indeed wake before Romeo coughs his last. It’s an excellent scene. As Leonardo de Caprio soliloquies over Claire Danes’ ‘dead’ body, he keeps missing by a whisker her signs of life – he brushes her hand, she opens her eyes (then closes them); he strokes her cheek, she moves a finger. He drinks the poison and she sits up a moment later… but it’s too late. De Caprio sees she’s not really dead, they embrace and he tries to talk but can’t due to the poison’s effect. Baz allows the lovers a last emotional embrace, but no speech. It doesn’t look in the least bit contrived and provides a really satisfying conclusion, without enraging the purists.

Pros for altering the text seem to be: more speech for the actor playing Romeo; more emphasis on the tragedy of the lovers; more dramatic tension (see above); greater staging opportunities.

… at the expense of: emphasising the lovers story too much (there are other aspects at work here, like the reconciliation of the Houses later); there’s a bleakness to the fact the lovers didn’t get to say goodbye; a dialogue would necessitate a lot of boring, but important chat between the lovers, in as much as ‘what happened??’ which the audience already knows; butchering the classics.

I’m not sure exactly when S was elevated to the god-like status he holds now; but no director would dream of altering the text significantly today (there is a little room for manoeuvrability in editing S, since the ‘plays’ we read today are complied from various sources, some of which are damaged, incomplete or incomprehensible).

This is a sonnet by Ashley Hickson-Lovence also published on www.Londonpoetrysystems.com in the 'page poems' section.

This is the first time I've featured someone else's work on my blog. Since it is a sonnet and also of the 'Shakesperian' variety, I thought it was a good way to start. Expect more poets in the future.

The Master - Ashley Hickson-Lovence

A pleasing sight from any distance;

Ruby gleaming under the exposed sun.

Heart purring with an eager persistence,

Its penetration through London’s streets has begun.

Ascending up hills and mounting curbs;

She entwines herself within the mesh of the city.

She floats along, and no one is disturbed,

The pride of London that is so pretty.

Pumping with an increased velocity,

She circulates through North, South, East and West.

Why should love, for such beast evoke curiosity?

Is it wrong or uncommon to love the best?

Claret and bright, like the elusive fruit,

She is the heart of London, The Master of routes.

----

I haven't seen any more of Ashley's work, but this is very exciting. By the way, a Shakespearean sonnet follows the rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG, where every new letter indicates a new rhyme.

I love the subject matter, here. Not being particularly adventurous with my sonnets' themes (usually they're about love and relationships), I'm in a position to really admire this.

Ashley has completed a book of poems which cover a range of contemporary themes, which as yet, don't seem to have an online life. That's coming, and I'll tell you when it's here.

Xmas madness

Been a busy, tired week so no blogs. Have kept up with the R&J though. Would like to post about S's anthropomorphisms but it might have to wait for when I'm not cheekily tapping away in the office.

Also got my hands on a copy of the Baz Luhrmann film version, which, to be honest, I thought was fantastic at the time. I'll watch it Sunday after most of the xmas party mess is done with.

I also owe a post about sprung rhythm too. Haven't forgotton.

Baz is releasing his first new film since Moulin Rouge soon, called Australia with Hugh Jackman.

Maybe one to miss, I don't know...

Nip and tuck

Picked up a newish little book today called 'An Introduction to English Poetry' by James Fenton. Look inside it here.

So far lots of good points, and a few excellent ones. Fenton is pretty big on formal structure, which is surprising for a book published in 2003, and actually quite refreshing.

I should restate that - it'd be more accurate to say that he's not a fan of those poets who reject rhyme, formal meter and verse outright in favour of the 'open form'. Fenton thinks that boiled down, this form can only be distinguished from prose if we accept that it's written (or spoken aloud) in 'heightened speech', which is characteristic of all poetry.

And of the student of creative writing who wholeheartedly embraces the changes wrought by the modernist literary movement must remember: 'The taste that delighted in the rhythms of rap belonged to the same owner as the one that banished metre from poetry.'

It's a good message. I'm getting a lot more 'structured' in my old age, so this chimes with where I find myself today as a poet.

Fenton offers a great annecdote as well, which you'll have to buy the book to read in full. It compares the perspectives of an African poet and an American counterpart performing at the same event. The African poet, who performed with various instruments, is accused by the American poet of, well, cheating. Having to follow that performance, the American argued, was very tough because the audience had been geed up by the music. Therefore the African was 'selfish'.

The African's comeback was, in a nutshell, that Western poets seem to think they are on a pedestal, that for some reason they have a special right to be listened to, and to be heard with respect. He said that if he performed in a village in Africa he's got to be dead careful otherwise the audience interrupt him and take over the story!

His point was that every scrap of attention and appreciation is valuable and has to be fought for.

I think a lot of poets could do with remembering that in today's society, saturated as it is by entertainment and novella.

And that's the end of today's lesson.

Thanks, Mr Fenton.

Beautifully rendered horror

Just got back from watching the animated film 'Waltz with Bashir', about the Israeli assault on Lebanon in 1982, directed by Ari Folman.


Other names to remember are David Polonskey and Yoni Goodman, art director/illustrator and director of animation, respectively.

I like interesting visuals in films, aka 300, Sin City, Waking Life and so on, and this promised some war, too - an irresistible combination.

It didn't disappoint. Aside from being a very effective (and eventually devastating) portrayal of a segment of the conflict, of which I knew nothing, it offers a fascinating treatment of the subject of memory.

Basically, the director tries to piece together his memories of his experiences in the conflict, which are mysteriously absent. He talks to psychiatrists, and fellow soldiers to try to fill in the blanks of several days leading up to a notorious massacre, and determine what part, if any, he played in it.

The ending packs a huge punch, which left most of the cinema frozen in their seats until well into the final credits. For me, it offered a glimpse into the abyss. And we do need to be reminded of atrocities that almost get forgotten. It's also quite funny, which makes the conclusion, when it comes, even more crushing.

Yes, visually, it's superb. Lapped it up from beginning to end.

Check out the trailer here.

Work in progress

Wings, curling over warming zephyrs
Have won; I cannot rhyme on earth
So leap to flood my new-waxed feathers

In updrafts, rise with all my worth
Canyon high, and rake the ancient rays
In a strafing glide across the sky.

Just the sound of wind, the haze
The earth, a misty emerald eye
And here, flecked with tigered forest swathes

There, creased by flowing silver tracts
Flung thundering from hidden caves.
And higher, 'till the smoking cataracts

Fall away beneath, to where
The West gale drives against the East
Who, in turn, rebuffs the charging air

Poor old Romeo

Yes. At a crucial juncture in Romeo and Juliet. Tybalt, the Capulet, just killed Mercutio dishonourably, leading Romeo, fired with righteous anger, to weigh in and balance the ledger by filleting Tybalt.

I know what happens in this play, after years of cultural absorption, even though I've never read it. But now I see how finely balanced the situation is. The play's disastrous outcome is caused largely by this confrontation which is precipitated by Mercutio, who goads Tybalt into violence after the Capulet hard man had already rejected his challenge.

The interpretation of events as offered by Benvolio favours the Montague Romeo and saves him from possible execution.

Romeo intially tries to stop the fight between the rowdy Mercutio and Tybalt, partly because of his new links to the Capulet (he's just married Juliet in secret so Tybalt is his cousin) and because all are wary of the Duke's threat of death against family members who quarrel openly in the streets.

Yet Tybalt sneakily manages to kill Mercutio. Romeo blames himself for turning down Tybalt's offer of a duel in the first place (Tybalt's initial quibble was with Romeo), a choice which Mercutio condemed at the time as a 'vile submission'. Romeo, believing his marriage to have made him 'effeminate', thus assumes partial responsibility for Mercutio's death and curses his earlier mildness.

And thus Romeo, getting nowhere fast on the path of peace, changes tack, avenges Mercutio, risking execution or, as it happens, exile. For a revenge hero, this is the only honourable thing to do. Yet Romeo who was up to now a love-struck teenager has become a killer.

Like I said, the situation is poised so delicately, that blame cannot be easily apportioned for what comes later. Fate, it seems, works in the details, not simply in the broad brush strokes we normally assign to it. The inevitability with which the tragedy proceeds feels naturalistic, and truly 'meant to be'.

To me this is how the world really works. We like to find straightforward rationale for actions, or a narrative that explains why something happened, or indeed, who was to blame.

Compare this with the tragedy of Othello, wherein all the trouble comes from one direction - Iago. Doesn't that character's single-minded maliciousness seem a bit of a blunt instrument dramatically, when compared to the scarily fluid train of events in Romeo and Juliet, where no-one can really determine who 'caused' the tragedy?

Poor old Romeo.

J

Tales from... Ted

I've been reading Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid, to be precise, the story of Narcissus, the beautiful boy doomed to fall in love with his own reflection.

A passage stood out for me, when poor Narcissus laments his impossible love:

'Who are you? Come out. Come up
Onto the land. I never saw beauty
To compare with yours. Oh why do you always
Dodge away at the last moment
And leave me with my arms full of nothing
But water and the memory of an image.
It cannot be my ugliness
Or my age that repels you,
If all the nymphs are so crazy about me.
Your face is full of love
As your eyes look into my eyes
I see it, and my hope shakes me.
I stretch my arms to you, you stretch yours
As eagerly to me. You laugh when I laugh.
I have watched your tears through my tears.
When I tell you my love I see your lips
Seeming to tell me yours - though I cannot hear it.'

Starting with Narcissus, Hughes is opening up into a broader theme of unfulfillable longing, where time, not body is the barrier; the boy cannot reciprocate himself his own love. That is his 'destitution'. Hughes on the otherhand seems haunted by the ghosts of the past that leave him with 'arms full of nothing/ But water and the memory of an image.'

I can see him sitting seeing, through his tears, the face of Sylvia Plath, his first wife. Perhaps this is Hughes' destitution.

I'm no classics scholar, and I don't know how closely this translation approximates the original. The Dryden et al. version, completed in 1717, and available here doesn't contain a version of this passage. So it's possible Hughes dropped it in, expanding the scope of Narcissus' internal dialogue.

There's probably a technical term for this kind of thing. Elizabeth Cook's Achilles is a recent example of a modern rework of an old story. It's also brilliant.

Thanks to http://phoooonehoooome.blogspot.com/2006/09/very-long-poem.html for the Hughes text.

J

Plays of Shakespeare

I have decided that I need to read Shakespeare. So, I'm going to try to read all the plays before my 27th birthday.. Yes, it's a big undertaking. I feel quite excited right now, like I'm about to leave on a journey - I'll send you postcards.

... And post them up here. As I travel, I'll publish my impressions of what I'm feeling and reading, and generally, anything that jumps out at me. There could be a fair amount of this.

Am I being realistic? Well, the challenge is to read 37 plays before November 19th 2009, which as of today is 321 days away! Blast off. That has to be a good sign.

I've already read several of the works (see below), so that eases the burden. I'd like to read them all really, but I'll leave the ones I've already read till last.

But, as always with the Big Willie, nothing's totally straightforward. It wouldn't be Shakespeare if there weren't a few twists, correct? One problem concerns the order of play. I had intended to read the 37 in chronological order rather than completely randomly, or, say, by category: 'tragedy', 'comedy', and 'history'. I wanted to get a feel for S's development over his writerly life, see what impulses he followed and what avenues he ignored or pursued at length in his next play. Also, I thought this would stop me getting bogged down in 'History', or over inflamed by 'Tragedy'. Simple? Nope.

A quick search of the internet told me that there is no commonly accepted order in which the plays were written and performed. There appears to be a huge variation in people's opinions as what came first, second, third, last etc etc. For the record, I'm going to use the version from William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, by Stanley Wells and Gary Taylor, with John Jowett and William Montgomery (1987) Penguin, which is as follows:

The Two Gentlemen of Verona; The Taming of the Shrew; Henry VI, Part II; Henry VI, Part III; Henry VI, Part I (w. Thomas Nashe?); Titus Andronicus (w. George Peele?); Richard III; The Comedy of Errors; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Richard II; Romeo and Juliet; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; King John; The Merchant of Venice; Henry IV, Part I; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Henry IV, Part II; Much Ado About Nothing; Henry V; Julius Caesar; As You Like It; Hamlet; Twelfth Night; Troilus and Cressida; Measure for Measure; Othello; All’s Well That Ends Well; Timon of Athens (w. Thomas Middleton); King Lear; Macbeth (r. Middleton); Antony and Cleopatra; Pericles (w. George Wilkins); Coriolanus; The Winter’s Tale; Cymbeline; The Tempest; Henry VIII (by Shakespeare and John Fletcher; known in its own time as All is True); The Two Noble Kinsmen (w. Fletcher)

The page which that list is taken from is available here:

http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/static/cs/uk/10/minisites/shakespeare/readmore/chronology.html

At various time, I've already read: The Taming of the Shrew; Hamlet; Macbeth; Twelfth Night; Othello; A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Looking at the unread list, even now it doesn't intimidate me. After all, you can only read one word at a time. Hm, maybe I should be intimidated after all.

I'm not going to stick religiously to this list. I was half-way through Romeo and Juliet when I decided to do this, so it makes sense to finish this fine work first before moving on.

Like any journey, when you get there, things are never anything like how you imagined them to be. But before I leave, I'll point out a few ports of call I'm particularly looking forward to. The Tempest - for the elemental fantastical themes, Titus Andronicus - for the violence, and The Merchant of Venice, for the predicament to end all predicaments.

Wish me luck. And farewell!

J

Chronology of shakespeare's plays

http://www.bardweb.net/plays/timeline.html

new order

This is the first post of a new set. I'll try to update regularly and post some poems up. The old posts need to all be formatted so they look pretty. I don't have the time straight away, and, let's be honest, it's boring. So when I get round to it, I get round to it.

In the meantime. I've been trying to get my head around 'sprung rhythm' which was championed by English poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. GMH was a religious man nearly all of his life, and his body of work has been described as 'love poetry to god'. This is a good start, but my limited reading has shown me that he used poetry to question his faith as much as affirm it.

GMH never claimed to have invented sprung rhythm; in fact, he said it had been present in the work of many English poets, 'from Chaucer down'.

In my next post, I'll try to get to the bottom of the technicalities of sprung rhythm.

J