Upcoming

Now that 'Don Quixote' and 'Leviathan' are all done, it's time to pick the next pieces to read.  They will be:

• Tom Jones - Fielding
• Letter Concerning Toleration - Locke

July has a big blob of vacation in it, so I don't know how the reading schedule will go.  No matter, I'm well ahead of any schedule I would have set for the year.  Through the end of June, I have finished 21 of the remaining 59 on the Great Books list.  The original plan sets a goal of 18 per year, so I'm pretty pleased with this progress.  In addition, I've read through almost all of Shakespeare's plays and still had time for the personal reading that I enjoy.


I'm very behind in actually writing up what I've read though.  I owe pieces on Rabelais, Hobbes and the second book of 'Don Quixote'.  I've written up 31 of Shakespeare's plays, so seven more to go.  (Only two more to actually read.)  And I have about half a dozen posts in mind about themes within Shakespeare.  (I know, I know, this blog has become very Shakespeare heavy.  If that bothers you, well, give it some time and I'll be done with it.  My Shakespearean revels soon are ended.)  I'm not sure when I'll get caught up on the writing but once I'm done reading two plays a week, time issues should straighten themselves out. 
Until then, thanks for sticking with me!

Don Quixote (Book One) - Cervantes

The basic idea behind Cervantes' brilliant 'Don Quixote' is well known.  An older man has read so many of the books on romantic chivalry that he loses his mind on the subject.  He goes out and decides to become one of the knights he has read about.  After a brief outing to be knighted by an innkeeper, he returns home and hires a neighboring peasant, Sancho Panza, to be his squire.
His misadventures start immediately.  He sees a plain with windmills on it and perceives them as giants.  He charges off and Sancho can't stop him.  He is dumped from his horse by a windmill arm.  He tells Sancho that this has been the work of an evil enchanter who has changed the giants to windmills (or vice versa).  This 'enchanter' becomes the method of his madness throughout.  This is Quixote's explanation for why things look different to him than to everyone else. 
Early on, he promises great riches to Sancho Panza.  The great knight will doubtlessly win a kingdom or two during his adventures and grant governorship of an island or something to his squire.  This is the way it is in his great 'histories' and no doubt it will happen again.  Sancho becomes fixed on the idea and is willing to go to great lengths for his future governorship.
Again and again they run into trouble.  Quixote sees some group of harmless tradesmen on the road and decides that it is an evil group with a captive princess.  He charges at them and causes some damage.  As soon as one of them catches his wits, he beats Don Quixote from his horse.  (Often Sancho Panza suffers a beating as well.)  They retreat and lick their wounds while blaming everything on evil enchanters.  This basic conflict is repeated again and again.
Meanwhile, all around them, actual romantic adventures are occurring.  Lovers are cheated from each other.  Money is taken and recovered.  Villainous men are brought to justice.  At one point, a romantic story is introduced as a lost manuscript, even though it has nothing to do with the actual story that is going on.  It's all quite entertaining.
Finally, some men from La Mancha find Don Quixote and, while entertaining his madness, bind him up in a cage and transport him home.  This is also explained as the work of enchanters and Quixote goes along with it, despite Sancho's efforts to clue him in on the trick.  The great knight is returned to his home and his worried niece and housekeeper.


I enjoyed this a great deal.  The storyline is a bit repetitive, but entertaining.  Cervantes goes to great lengths to find new ways of getting Don Quixote into trouble and then getting him out of it again.  Sancho Panza is wonderful, simply wonderful.  He is a trying hard to deal with an obvious madman but failing at each point.  He tries to point out the holes in Quixote's stories but gets no where.  And then greed takes over and he starts to find reasons to believe in the enchanter nonsense.
It's easy to see why the book was popular when it was written.  I found myself smiling often while reading it and even laughed out loud a few times.  I also had to share bits of it with my wife.  This is a very fun read.

Cymbeline - Shakespeare

Cymbeline is the name of an early English king.  He has a somewhat complicated history.  He had two sons by a previous wife, but they were taken from their nursery at an early age and disappeared.  He has a daughter by that previous wife, named Imogen.  He has since remarried but his new queen has a son from an earlier marriage named Cloten.  To make matters more complicated, Imogen has married herself to man named Posthumus Leonatus, whose father died heroically before he was bon.  This marriage is frowned upon by the king and Posthumus has been banished from England.  (Got all that?)
This is the situation as the play opens.  Very shortly thereafter these things happen:

• Posthumus makes a wager with an Italian that Imogen cannot be seduced.
• The Queen mixes a poison that is meant for Imogen.
• Cloten decides that he must marry Imogen and he won't take 'no' for an answer.
• Imogen insults Cloten by telling him that he is worth less than her husband's worst clothes.
• We are introduced to the king's lost boys who have been raised in the wilderness by a disgraced soldier.
• A Roman ambassador has come to collect tribute owed by England to Rome. 

All of these things mix together in the expected (and unexpected) ways.  It ends with happiness for some and tragedy for others.  I won't spoil it except to say that it feels like a very busy play.


There is something of a remix feel to 'Cymbeline'.  It opens with an early English king rejecting his good daughter, much like King Lear.  There is a bloodthirsty queen, much like in 'Macbeth'.  There are 'lost' children like in several of the romances.  Imogen wakes in a grave next to the dead body of her supposed lover, like Juliet does.  Yet in all of these similarities, the outcome is different, or at least the path is different.
All different but I don't know if any of them are improved. 


Cymbeline is the king involved, but he is really something of a bit part.  The main part of the story is that of Imogen and Posthumus and their difficulties.  I'm curious about the reason for the naming.  (And I don't know if Cymbeline has a hard or soft 'c' sound.)  All in all, this is the least attractive title role that I've come across in Shakespeare's works.


I can see how it could be an effective play, but I can also see how people would pass it by for other, better works.  I guess you can put this on the list of plays that I probably need to see in order to really judge it.  As read, it is a lesser work by Shakespeare.

Poetry

A few weeks ago I came across this article regarding Salman Rushdie's advice on learning poetry as children.  'Speaking at the Hay Festival, the novelist described memorizing poems as a “lost art” that “enriches your relationship with language”.'  I've been thinking about it ever since.
I don't have a great memory for poetry.  Or lyrics.  I'm very good at remembering music, but not so good with the words (to my wife's regular amusement).  There isn't a single poem beyond nursery rhymes that I know by heart.
 But I've done large chunks of memorizing in the past, on stage.  A couple of weeks ago I reread 'Romeo and Juliet' and I was surprised by just how much of Romeo's lines I still knew.  Oh, I couldn't give them to you right now, but as I read them, they were completely comfortable in my mouth.  There is still something there.  I suspect that I've just done a poor job of hanging on to it.
So I'm going to learn some poems.  I'm going to know them by heart so that they are always with me.  Now I just need to figure out which ones...  I have a few in mind but I may need some help with suggestions.
I'm going to learn:
Li Po's 'Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon' (which I read about here)
 Something from 'Richard II'. Either one of the fine passages from the deposition scene or the 'let us sit and talk of the death of kings' speech.
Maybe something from 'Fox in Socks' which may seem like a strange choice but I've come to think of him as my spirit animal.
And I don't know what else I should consider. I love Tennyson's 'Ulysses' but that may be of an overly ambitious length. I'm not sure what else I should think about. Suggestions?

Update: I think I've fixed all of the weird text issues now.  Yeesh.

The Tempest - Shakespeare

The plot in the 'The Tempest' is on the thin side.  A former duke named Prospero was ousted from power and cast adrift with his young daughter, Miranda.  A loyalist smuggled his books of learning to him and Prospero became a wizard of sorts.  The two landed on an island with magic elements and Prospero took control.  Some years later, a boat went past his island containing the men who wronged him.  Prospero caused a storm, i.e. a tempest, and brought the men to his island.
While there, some of the men show their true colors and try for another power play.  The son of the king falls for Miranda, and vice versa.  Two of the lower class men fall in with the sole native of the island, Caliban, and plot to overthrow Prospero.  But Prospero's control over the island, helped by his servant fairy Ariel, is complete and he is in no danger.
As I said, the story is on the thin side, but the poetry is outstanding.  My favorite is probably Caliban's dream:

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

Very good stuff.  The cloud capp'd towers speech is also very nice:

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay'd: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex'd;
Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
Be not disturb'd with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I'll walk,
To still my beating mind.

I'd never read the Tempest before this.  Some months ago I bought a book that contains stories from Shakespeare for children.  My daughter recognized that the Tempest was a famous play and asked me to read that story to her.  I didn't want to since I wanted the story fresh for myself when I read it.  So I jumped the line and read the Tempest earlier than I would have otherwise.
Does it deserve the fame?  I'm not sure.  It doesn't read as a stand out from the romances.  I'd put at least half a dozen of the straight comedies above it.  But maybe the poetry reads better from the stage.  Or maybe the spectacle of the magic and storm plays better.  I honestly don't know.


It's always interesting to me how some of Shakespeare's plays are absolutely soaked in magic, while others are incredibly realist.  I read the Tempest while reading the history plays and the difference is striking.  Prospero's magic is over-arching.  Ariel is a (trapped) fairy who can perform seeming miracles.  Caliban is born of a monster of some sort named Sycorax, who had some evil magic.  The entire story depends on magic abilities to do incredible things.  It is all fantasy.


Is Prospero a hero?  That's the question that I kept asking myself.  He was betrayed and kicked out power.  He arrives at an island to find the former ruler has recently died.  He turns her son, Caliban, into a kind of slave.  He frees Ariel (and the others) from the trees where they were imprisoned, but then binds them to do his work. 
Even when the other men show up, it isn't clear if he is a good man or not.  He threatens their ship with a storm but keeps them safe.  He separates them and lets them believe that the others have died.  He 'allows' his daughter to fall in love with literally the first outside man she sees, but then she sets the man onto a pointless task.  In the end, all is revealed and forgiven.  Prospero gives up his books, and magic.  He is restored to his former position.  (Miranda and her new love will be happily married.)   
But is Prospero a good man?  I can't tell.  Something in his manner made me feel that he deserved little or no sympathy.  I wonder if I would feel differently after watching a few performances?

Upcoming

This post is something of a cheat and for that I apologize.  It's more of a status report than anything else. 
I want to set down some ideas on the remaining works of Shakespeare.  I've blogged about all of the comedies and histories.  I've blogged about five of the ten tragedies and the first of the five romances.  I have nine plays left to write about, though I've read all but five.  Since the beginning of May, I've been reading about two a week and I'll be done with the full 38 the first full week of July. 
Unfortunately, I've had trouble writing about more than two of them per week, so I've fallen behind.  That's not that big of a deal, I suppose.  In fact, I'm not entirely certain what I'll fill the blog with once I'm done with the Bard. 
Something will turn up. 


I'm really enjoying 'Don Quixote' and I'll be done with that around the first week of July as well.  After that I want to tackle either Tristam Shandy or Tom Jones.  Any suggestions?

Pericles - Shakespeare

Near the end of his career, Shakespeare wrote five plays that are comedies, but somewhat different than the ones that he had written earlier.  These plays are often called 'Romances' or 'Late Romances'.  (The Wikipedia entry that I've linked is a pretty good explainer as to why they are treated differently than the earlier plays.)  The first of the romances is 'Pericles, Prince of Tyre'.


'Pericles' is told as something of a whirlwind of action.  The play opens with Pericles trying to marry the daughter of the king of Antioch.  The king forces all suitors to answer a riddle about the princess that reveals that she was forced into incest with the king.  Pericles guesses the answer but is horrified to say it to the king's face.  He demurs and asks for time to answer.  The king grants this and then tries to have Pericles killed.
Pericles flees to his home in Tyre and then flees again to go overseas.  He and his men go to Tharsus where they help relieve a famine.  He then leaves again and his ship is wrecked.  He is the only survivor and is cast up on the shore of Pentapolis.
He is penniless and enters a tournament for the hand of the daughter of the king of Pentapolis, Thaisa.  Thaisa likes the look of him and the king calls off the tournament and Pericles and Thaisa are married.
Some time later Pericles learns that the king of Antioch has died and he must hurry home or be thought dead and no longer be the prince of Tyre.  He leaves with Thaisa but another storm disturbs them.  During the storm, Thaisa gives birth and is thought dead.  The sailors convince Pericles to throw her overboard, which he does after sealing her in a coffin with jewels and a note.
The body washes up in Mytilene and it is quickly discovered that Thaisa is not dead.  She fears that the rest of the ship must have broken up and Pericles must be dead.  She is taken to a temple of Diana to serve there.
Meanwhile, Pericles has sailed back to Tharsus and left the baby there.  (He doesn't have any milk to give her.)  The baby is named Marina, as a nod to her birth on the ocean.  Marina is raised there but the queen thinks that her beauty is crowding out that of the princess and the queen plots to kill her.  This murder is interrupted by pirates (really) and Marina is sold to a brothel in Ephesus.
In the brothel, Marina refuses to be corrupted.  She talks client after client out of taking her virginity.  She even gets the chance to impress Cerimon, one of the nobles of the city.
After all of this time has passed, Pericles has gone back to Tharsus to pick up his daughter.  There, he is told that she has died.  In grief he sails away.  He happens to sail past Ephesus where Cerimon meets him.  Cerimon tries to lighten his mood by presenting the excellent girl Marina.  Father and daughter meet and are thrilled.  They then sail to Mytilene and find Thaisa.  The family is all reunited.


As I said, it's a whirlwind.  It feels crazy busy.  At least, it reads that way.  Maybe it settles down when actually played on a stage.  The action is built on coincidences, like in most of the comedies.  The ending is happy, like in the comedies.  However, it doesn't seem happy.  The family has been split by tragedy after tragedy.  Even as they are reunited, we feel the years that they have senselessly lost. 
In some ways, this felt to me like a rewrite of 'Comedy of Errors'.  That play opens with six family members split up into four groups and scattered away from each other.  They have a series of chance encounters that all bring them back together and it all ends happily.  In both plays, the mother is the last one to be involved and she has been biding her time in a religious order.
But 'Comedy of Errors' seems to fit better in its setting.  Instead of half a dozen different Mediterranean ports, there is only one.  The action all takes place within one day.  And the stakes seem lower.  It is much, much easier to see happiness on the horizon.