Lion Heart and Calf Skin

Act I establishes Philip Faulconbridge as the bastard son of Coeur de Lion (1.1.87, 139, 261).  King John tells him he can still inherit as the first-born son of his mother's marriage, i.e., as Faulconbridge's "calf, bred from his cow" (1.1.127).  But Philip renounces his inheritance and embraces his status as a royal bastard, complete with leonine imagery.  Indeed, he tells his mother she is not to blame for allowing Richard Coeur de Lion to seduce her, as "He that perforce robs lions of their hearts / May easily win a woman’s" (1.1.276-77).


Act II opens with the following stage direction:  "Enter, before Angiers, at one side, with Forces, Philip King of France, Louis the Dauphin, Constance, Arthur, and Attendants; at the other side, with Forces, Austria, wearing a lion’s skin."  This is perhaps a bit strange.  For example, although these two forces enter from opposite sides of the stage, they are in league; the Dauphin explains to Arthur that the Duke is on his (Arthur's) side to make amends to Richard Coeur de Lion's posterity (i.e., Arthur) by "rebuk[ing] the usurpation / Of thy unnatural uncle, English John" (2.1.9-10).  But for present purposes, let's be sure to zoom in on one very special aspect of the stage direction: It specifies Austria's costume.  He is "wearing a lion's skin."  This seems odd, but perhaps he is trying to channel Heracles/Hercules?  (Gallic shrug.)

Once King John and his forces enter, the Bastard immediately takes issue with Austria, razzing him after his first line for no apparent reason.  Faced with Austria's understandable bafflement, the Bastard reveals that he takes umbrage at his having the temerity to wear a lion's skin.

AUSTRIA: What the devil art thou? 

BASTARD: One that will play the devil, sir, with you,
An he may catch your hide and you alone.
You are the hare of whom the proverb goes,
Whose valor plucks dead lions by the beard.
I’ll smoke your skin-coat an I catch you right.
Sirrah, look to ’t. I’ faith, I will, i’ faith! 

BLANCHE: O, well did he become that lion’s robe
That did disrobe the lion of that robe. 

BASTARD: It lies as sightly on the back of him
As great Alcides’ shoes upon an ass.—
But, ass, I’ll take that burden from your back
Or lay on that shall make your shoulders crack.  (2.1.137-49)

So in these few lines, he calls Austria a coward and an ass, and threatens to take the lion's skin from him and/or beat him up.  He refers to the skin several times (as Austria's hide, skin-coat, and burden), suggesting both the lion skin and a threat upon Austria's person.

Still later in the same scene, when King Philip issues his call to arms, the Bastard briefly responds to Philip ... and then gratuitously pivots to poke at Austria again, now telling him he'd cuckold him (give him ox horns and make him a monster) if he were at Austria's home.  Once again, he is ringing changes on the lion skin theme (with the lion's hide standing ever more clearly for Austria's own skin, and referring to Austria's lady as his "lioness"):

BASTARD: Sirrah, were I at home
At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,
I would set an ox head to your lion’s hide
And make a monster of you. 

AUSTRIA:                            Peace! No more. 

BASTARD: O, tremble, for you hear the lion roar.  (2.1.300-06).

We see here that the Bastard also turns Austria's half-line into the first half of a rhyming couplet, a little poetic trick in Shakespeare which often seems to show dominance on the part of the one completing the couplet.


Finally, in Act III, an alliance is brokered between the warring kings; Austria supports it.  Constance, enraged by Austria's betrayal (he is no longer supporting her son Arthur against King John), exhorts him to "Doff [the lion's hide] for shame, / And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs."  Austria is beside himself at the insult and responds like a boastful fool, suggesting it's only Constance's status as a woman that protects her from his righteous vengeance; so the Bastard immediately calls his bluff.

AUSTRIA: O, that a man should speak those words to me! 

BASTARD: "And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs." 

AUSTRIA: Thou durst not say so, villain, for thy life! 

BASTARD: "And hang a calfskin on those recreant limbs." (3.1.137-39).

But Austria does nothing about it.  From that point on, Austria never speaks again without the Bastard shooting him down, even though his remarks are addressed to King Philip.

AUSTRIA: King Philip, listen to the Cardinal. 

BASTARD: And hang a calfskin on his recreant limbs. 

AUSTRIA: Well, ruffian, I must pocket up these wrongs,
Because — 

BASTARD: Your breeches best may carry them. (3.1.205-09)

The Bastard again interjects to cut him off with a rhymed couplet here:

AUSTRIA: Do so, King Philip. Hang no more in doubt. 

BASTARD: Hang nothing but a calfskin, most sweet lout. (3.1.229-30)

And a third time, when Austria criticizes King Philip's adherence to the alliance he's made rather than disavowing it as instructed by the Pope's legate:

AUSTRIA: Rebellion, flat rebellion! 

BASTARD:                                          Will ’t not be?
Will not a calfskin stop that mouth of thine? (3.1.309-11)

Off-stage, immediately after Act III, Scene 1, the Bastard finishes the job; he re-enters in Scene 2 with Austria's head.

Luck as a Quasi-Divine Gift or Favor

A passage from O'Brian's The Ionian Mission concerning Jack Aubrey's luck (pp. 267-68) reminds me a bit of Bilbo Baggins's luck in The Hobbit:

'The skipper's luck is in,' murmured Bonden[.] [...] 'I only hope it's not come in too hearty, that's all[.]' [...]

Joe nodded. Although he was a heavy man, he perfectly grasped the meaning of Bonden's 'luck.' It was not chance, commonplace good fortune, far from it, but a different concept altogether, one of an almost religious nature, like the favour of some god or even in extreme cases like possession; and if it came in too hearty it might prove fatal – too fiery an embrace entirely. In any event it had to be treated with great respect, rarely named, referred to by allusion or alias, never explained. There was no clear necessary connection with moral worth nor with beauty but its possessors were generally well-liked men and tolerably good-looking: and it was often seen to go with a particular kind of happiness. It was this quality, much more than his prizes, the perceived cause rather than the effect, that had made the lower deck speak of Lucky Jack Aubrey early in his career; and it was a piety at the same old heathen level that now made Bonden deprecate any excess.

And again in O'Brian's The Reverse of the Medal, p. 71:

It was a question of the man's luck, a quality or rather an influence that sometimes set all one way, for good or bad, and sometimes shifted like a tide, but a tide whose ebb and flow obeyed laws that no ordinary men could see. [...] [B]roadly speaking luck and unluck were held to have little or nothing to do with virtue or vice, amiability or its reverse. Luck was not a matter of deserts. It was a free gift, like beauty in a very young woman, independent of the person it adorned; though just as beauty could be spoilt by frizzed hair and the like so ill-luck could certainly be provoked by given forms of conduct such as wanton pride, boasting of success, or an impious disregard for custom.

In The Hobbit, luck is treated as a personal possession -- one that may be conferred at birth -- and naming it does not necessarily undermine or destroy it.  Here are some references to Bilbo's luck (from the HarperCollinsPublishers 2016 facsimile edition of the original 1937 Hobbit):

• ch. V, p. 89: [Bilbo's] tongue seemed to stick in his mouth; he wanted to shout out; 'Give me more time! Give me time!' But all that came out with a sudden squeal was; 'Time! Time!'  Bilbo was saved by pure luck. For that of course was the answer. 
• ch. VIII, p. 162: In the end he made as good a guess as he could at the direction from which the cries for help had come in the night -- and by luck (he was born with a good share of it) he guessed more or less right, as you will see.
• ch. VIII, p. 172: Knowing the truth about the vanishing did not lessen [the dwarves'] opinion of Bilbo at all; for they saw that he had some wits, as well as luck and a magic ring -- and all three are very useful possessions.
• ch. IX, p. 191: The luck turned all right before long: the eddying current carried several barrels close ashore at one point and there for a while they stuck against some hidden root.
• ch. X, p. 195: Dreary as had been his imprisonment and unpleasant as was his position (to say nothing of the poor dwarves underneath him) still, he had been more lucky than he had guessed.
• ch. XII, p. 218: 'Now is the time for our esteemed Mr Baggins, who has proved himself a good companion on our long road, and a hobbit full of courage and resource far exceeding his size, and if I may say so possessed of good luck far exceeding the usual allowance -- now is the time for him to perform the service for which he was included in our Company; now is the time for him to earn his Reward.'
• ch. XVIII, p. 293: When Gandalf saw Bilbo, he was delighted. 'Baggins!' he exclaimed. 'Well I never! Alive after all -- I am glad! I began to wonder if even your luck would see you through! [...]'

I think it's interesting they all come to appreciate Bilbo's luck, but Tolkien still lets us know Bilbo was even luckier than any of them suspected.  

But I would also note that Bilbo's reference to his own luck in conversation with Smaug proves somewhat unwise (ch. XII, p. 229):

'I am the clue-finder, the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number.'
'Lovely titles!' sneered the dragon. 'But lucky numbers don't always come off.'
[...]
'I am the friend of bears and the guest of eagles. I am Ringwinner and Luckwearer; and I am Barrel-rider,' went on Bilbo beginning to be pleased with his riddling.

Smaug "thought he understood enough" of Bilbo's riddling talk, and reveals some of that understanding, to Bilbo's increasing unease (ch. XII, p. 230):

'Let me tell you I ate six ponies last night and I shall catch and eat the eight others before long. [...] Ha! Ha! You admit the 'us'[.]  Why not say 'us fourteen' and be done with it, Mr Lucky Number?'

Constancy: The Star to Every Wand'ring Bark

Julius Caesar, 3.1.64-71:

CAESAR (after CASSIUS joins his plea to that of METELLUS and BRUTUS):

I could be well moved, if I were as you:
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me:
But I am constant as the northern star,
Of whose true-fix'd and resting quality
There is no fellow in the firmament.
The skies are painted with unnumber'd sparks,
They are all fire and every one doth shine,
But there's but one in all doth hold his place:

Sonnet 116, ll. 2-8:

... Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 

Naming: Romeo and Juliet vs Julius Caesar

Romeo and Juliet 2.2:

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Julius Caesar 1.2:

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.

And of course, Mercutio tries to conjure Romeo with his beloved's name in Act II, Scene 1.  Of course, he's using the wrong name since he doesn't know Juliet has supplanted Rosaline in Romeo's affections.

P.S. The problem with posting these things as I encounter them in the text...  Another naming passage has cropped up in Julius Caesar 3.3.27-36:

THIRD PLEBEIAN: Your name, sir, truly.
CINNA: Truly, my name is Cinna.
FIRST PLEBEIAN: Tear him to pieces! He’s a conspirator.
CINNA: I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet!
FOURTH PLEBEIAN: Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses!
CINNA: I am not Cinna the conspirator.
FOURTH PLEBEIAN: It is no matter. His name’s Cinna. Pluck but his name out of his heart, and turn him going.

(Text in first two quotes from MIT digital Shakespeare.  Text and line numbers in the third from Folger Digital Texts.)

Variations on a Theme: Bid me ... Farewell

There's a sort of symmetry in these scenes.

From Richard III 1.2.213-219:

GLOUCESTER: Then bid me kill myself, and I will do it. 

LADY ANNE: I have already. 

GLOUCESTER: Tush, that was in thy rage:
Speak it again, and, even with the word,
That hand, which, for thy love, did kill thy love,
Shall, for thy love, kill a far truer love;
To both their deaths thou shalt be accessary.

From Richard III 1.2.251-253:

GLOUCESTER: Bid me farewell.  

LADY ANNE:  'Tis more than you deserve;
 But since you teach me how to flatter you,
 Imagine I have said farewell already. 

From Much Ado About Nothing 2.3:

BEATRICE:  Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.   

BENEDICK:  Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.  

BEATRICE:  I took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.  

BENEDICK: You take pleasure then in the message? 

BEATRICE:  Yea, just so much as you may take upon a knife's point and choke a daw withal. You have no stomach, signior: fare you well. 

From Much Ado About Nothing 4.2:

BENEDICK:   Come, bid me do any thing for thee.  

BEATRICE:   Kill Claudio.  

BENEDICK:   Ha! not for the wide world.   

BEATRICE:   You kill me to deny it. Farewell.

Hamlet: Lost in Translation and Citation

I recently re-read Madeleine L'Engle's Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1980).  On page 29, she explains why she provides no more than the author (if known) for her quotations:

most of the writers I want to quote in this book are writers whose words I've copied down in [...] a commonplace book.  I copy down words and thoughts on which I want to meditate, and footnoting is not my purpose; this is a devotional, not a scholarly notebook. [...] I am only now beginning to see the usefulness of noting book title and page, rather than simply jotting down [the author's name].

On page 41, L'Engle refers to "a French translation of Hamlet, in which the famous words Hamlet utters when he first sees the ghost of his father, 'Angels and ministers of grace defend us,' are rendered, 'Tiens, qu'est[-ce] que c'est que ça?'" 

I found this intriguing, but she did not name the translator or her source.

In my initial google searches for French translations of Hamlet, I came up with:

• "Anges du ciel, à moi! le voilà! le voilà!" (1847 verse adaptation by Alexandre Dumas père and Paul Meurice) 
• "Anges, ministres de grâce, défendez-nous!" (1862 translation by Guizot and François-Victor Hugo) 
• "Anges du ciel, à moi dans cet instant suprême!" (1876 verse translation by Alcide Cayrou)

All perfectly defensible, but of course I was really looking for a far less satisfactory translation.  

So I re-instated the grammatical fault and searched for "Tiens, qu'est que c'est que ça" -- and hit pay dirt.  It appears in an unsigned review/article called "Mme. Sarah Bernhardt's Lady Macbeth," published in 1884:*

Here we come to a dead end, as the author does not further identify "the gentleman who undertook to transfer 'Hamlet' into French vernacular prose." (My google searches on Partridge did not suggest any noted Shakespearean scholar or translator by that name; instead, they led me to Tom Jones, in which Benjamin Partridge goes to see Hamlet and has all the wrong reactions.)  

Now, we might ask, why is L'Engle quoting and criticizing a non-standard translation of Hamlet into 19th century French vernacular prose, which (even assuming it exists) she probably never read for herself but only encountered in this article (given that she faithfully reproduced the article's ungrammatical French)?

Well, she's talking about what has been lost in updating or modernizing the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.  She acknowledges that the older book "needed changing," but fears "[w]hat has been gained in strength of structure has been lost in poverty of language" -- and also, in theological imprecisions that can encourage certain heresies.  

So I'm inclined to agree that even an apocryphal vernacular translation of Hamlet can be used as an illustration in this context.  But I'd actually still love to read the whole thing, as it sounds hilarious -- whether or not so intended.

FN* I found it on p 8  of The Critic: A Literary Weekly, Critical and Eclectic, Vol. II (New Series), July to December 1884, edited by Jeannette Leonard Gilder and Joseph Benson Gilder (New York: The Critic Company, 1884).  Volume II appears to be devoted to "The Critic and Good Literature." The review/article appears in the first section of the volume, denominated No. 27 (July 5, 1884).  It seems to have been published originally in The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Vol. 57 (June 14, 1884) at 777.

An Echo of Lewis Carroll in Prince Caspian?

Just re-read this passage in Prince Caspian (ch 7):

The gloomiest of all was Giant Wimbleweather. He knew it was all his fault. He sat in silence shedding big tears which collected on the end of his nose and then fell off with a huge splash on the whole bivouac of the Mice, who had just been beginning to get warm and drowsy. They all jumped up, shaking the water out of their ears and wringing their little blankets, and asked the Giant in shrill but forcible voices whether he thought they weren’t wet enough without this sort of thing. And then other people woke up and told the Mice they had been enrolled as scouts and not as a concert party, and asked why they couldn’t keep quiet. And Wimbleweather tiptoed away to find some place where he could be miserable in peace and stepped on somebody’s tail and somebody (they said afterward it was a fox) bit him. And so everyone was out of temper.

In Alice's Adventures of Wonderland, a giant Alice weeps a pool of tears, which dampens a hapless mouse:

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again. 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, 'a great girl like you,' (she might well say this), 'to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

She then shrinks down again (by means of a fan with which she has absent-mindedly been fanning herself) and suddenly slips and then --

splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. He first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, 'and in that case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. [...] However, she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high. 

'I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. 'I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.' 

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

Alice's efforts to befriend the Mouse are not well-received.  She addresses it in French with "the first sentence in her French lesson-book" (Ou est ma chatte?) and quickly apologizes for her faux pas (I quite forgot you didn't like cats).  The Mouse expresses his indignation in "a shrill, passionate voice."

Eventually a motley assortment of bedraggled animals exit the pool, "all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable."

3 Henry VI: Opening Boasts

So it starts out with boasting by six named characters in the York faction:
(1) the Duke of YORK, aka Richard Plantagenet;
         (a) his eldest* son EDWARD, Earl of March;
         (b) his fourth* son RICHARD;
(2) his wife's brother's two elder sons:
         (a) the Earl of WARWICK, aka Richard Neville;
         (b) the Marquess of MONTAGUE, aka John Neville;
(3) the Duke of NORFOLK, aka John Mowbray (seemingly a Lancastrian by birth).

Edward and Montague show York their bloody swords; Richard one-ups them by showing him the Duke of Somerset's head.  Rough jests and boasting ensue.

But I thought this one was pretty fun – Warwick starts with a hawking/falconry metaphor and then goes straight to ... gardening?

WARWICK:
Neither the King, nor he that loves him best,
The proudest he that holds up Lancaster,
Dares stir a wing if Warwick shake his bells.
I'll plant Plantagenet, root him up who dares.
Resolve thee, Richard; claim the English crown.
(1.1.45-49)

Oh, great – now the Lancasters have come in.  Time for a rematch?  Yes, but not on the crass physical plane, since Henry VI doesn't want to make a shambles of the Parliament House!

KING HENRY:
[...] frowns, words, and threats
Shall be the war that Henry means to use.–
Thou factious Duke of York, descend my throne
And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet!
I am thy sovereign.

YORK:
                                  I am thine.
[...]

KING HENRY:
And shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?

YORK:
It must and shall be so.  Content thyself.
(1.1.72-76, 84-85)

Hmm.  How's that whole war of words thing workin' out for you, Henry?


* Of his 7 "surviving" children (i.e., those who did not "die young").  Apparently Richard Plantagenet and Cecily Neville produced 13 children, but nearly half died in infancy.  Of the surviving children, the birth order was: Anne, Edward, Edmund, Elizabeth, Margaret, George, and Richard.  Both Edward and Richard became kings (Edward IV and Richard III), George became a duke, while poor Edmund – who died at age 17½  – only ever got to be an earl.

Note for future reference: Duke > Marquess > Earl

Vying for Control by Creating/Completing Rhyming Couplets

This is something I've noticed before, in Richard II.   Here, in 1 Henry VI 4.5, it is a contest of wills between Talbot and his son.

Talbot's first speech (ll. 1-11) is entirely unrhymed.  It ends as follows:

Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,
And I'll direct thee how thou shalt escape
By sudden flight.  Come, dally not, begone. 

John's six-line response (ll. 12-17) plays off this with a rhyming line, and ends with a completed rhyming couplet (giving his father no opening to complete a rhyme):

Is my name Talbot, and I am your son,
And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,
Dishonor not her honorable name
To make a bastard and a slave of me!
The world will say he is not Talbot's blood
That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.

The next four lines (ll. 18-21) are a back-and-forth where each of Talbot's lines is countered in rhyme by his son:

TALBOT: Fly to revenge my death if I be slain.
JOHN: He that flies so will ne'er return again.
TALBOT: If we both stay, we both are sure to die.
JOHN: Then let me stay, and, Father, do you fly.  

And indeed John's rejoinder in l. 21 is the start of a 13-line speech with six rhyming couplets ll. 22-33.  Thus, John again ends with a rhyming couplet that gives his father no purchase to complete a rhyme ("Here on my knee I beg mortality, / Rather than life preserved with infamy.").

The next ten lines (ll. 34-43) are once again a back-and-forth where John counters each of his father's lines in rhyme:

TALBOT: Shall all thy mother's hopes lie in one tomb?
JOHN: Ay, rather than I'll shame my mother's womb.
TALBOT: Upon my blessing I command thee go.
JOHN: To fight I will, but not to fly the foe.
TALBOT: Part of thy father may be saved in thee.
JOHN: No part of him but will be shame in me.
TALBOT: Thou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.
JOHN: Yes, your renownèd name. Shall flight abuse it?
TALBOT: Thy father's charge shall clear thee from that stain.
JOHN: You cannot witness for me, being slain. 

But at this point John's own unrhymed couplet (ll. 43-44) finally gives an opening for his father to complete the rhyme (ll. 45-46) -- the one and only instance in this scene.  Indeed, Talbot immediately wastes his chance for verbal one-upmanship, yet again leaving an opening for his willful son to complete the rhyme (l. 47):

JOHN:
You cannot witness for me, being slain.
If death be so apparent, then both fly.
TALBOT:
And leave my followers here to fight and die?
My age was never tainted with such shame.
JOHN:
And shall my youth be guilty of such blame?

John's last speech in this scene (ll. 47-51) is rhymed, ending with a rhyming couplet (foreclosing any further verbal jiujitsu).  His father's last speech -- likewise in rhyming couplets -- thus bows to the inevitable as he realizes he cannot persuade or overmaster his son (ll. 52-55):

There here I take my leave of thee, fair son,
Born to eclipse thy life this afternoon.
Come, side by side together live and die,
And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.

Exeunt.

Shakespeare 2020 Reading Schedule

My first direct encounter with Shakespeare was probably when I was about 9 or 10 years old.*  I went through Hamlet easily enough since I didn't really sweat comprehension.  My mom was impressed, until she asked me to tell her what the story was about.  My brilliant answer: "Something about a prince?"  But I liked our old pocket-sized Folger General Reader editions of Hamlet and King Lear, and I like to think I came back to them more than once.

When I was in 6th grade, my class did a few scenes from Macbeth.  All the girls had to audition with the sleepwalking scene; I think the boys had the dagger scene.  While everyone else was talking about how mystified they were by Lady Macbeth's speech, I wandered off by myself to solve the puzzle.  And then I got it.  Clearly she was remembering different things, experiencing different moods, from moment to moment! That insight informed my reading of the lines, and I became one of our three Lady Macbeths.  (I got the sleepwalking scene and Banquo's ghost scene, both of which I love to this day.)**

In college, I probably took three courses featuring Shakespeare on the syllabus -- one was an entire semester on Hamlet and its manifestations or influence in later works of literature.  I'm fairly sure my first viewing of Kenneth Branagh's Henry V was at the campus movie theatre.  I also remember schlepping out to the Folger Theatre in D.C. one time to see a dazzling production of Othello.***  There was a lot of serendipity in that evening, which only heightened the effect.

Since moving to NYC, I've rather wantonly indulged my Shakespeare cravings.  I particularly remember a revelatory performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Delacorte in 2007 (with Lauren Ambrose and Oscar Isaac), a really fun production of Henry V in which Governor's Island played the part of France (NY Classical Theatre 2011), and many more.  In 2017, I took a class on Shakespeare and the Middle Ages with Signum/Mythgard and read another 10 plays along with some of the medieval works that informed or underlay them.

So I've read and seen many of the plays over time - but not all.  And I certainly haven't read through all or even most of the poems (just a handful of sonnets, including the one I memorized for a friend's wedding in 1999, and "The Rape of Lucrece" in 2018).

It's time to remedy that, so I'm going to use Ian Doescher's Shakespeare 2020 Project reading schedule as a rough guide, though I'm starting late and will skip the four I've read or re-read since September 2019.

Twelfth Night 📚: January 2-8 ✔ (2/12/20)
Henry VI Part 1: January 10-16 ✔ (2/16/20)
Henry VI Part 2: January 18-25 ✔ (2/23/20)
Henry VI Part 3: January 27-February 2 ✔ (2/26/20)
Comedy of Errors 📚: February 4-8 ✔ (10/19/19)
Taming of the Shrew: February 10-15 ✔ (3/1/20)
Titus Andronicus: February 17-22 ✔ (3/8/20 - first encounter)
Romeo and Juliet 📚: February 24-March 2 ✔ (3/22/20)
Richard III 📚: March 4-12 ✔ (3/28/20)
Julius Caesar 📚: March 14-19 ✔ (3/29/20)
Two Gentlemen of Verona: March 21-25 ✔ (4/1/20 - first encounter)
King John 📚: March 27-April 1 ✔ (4/5/20 - possibly first encounter)
Richard II 📚: April 3-9 ✔ (4/12/20)
Venus and Adonis 📚: April 13-17 ✔ (4/12/20)
Hamlet 📚: April 19-28 ✔ 📚 (4/19/20)
The Rape of Lucrece 📚: April 30-May 4 ✔ (4/22/20)
Sonnets 1-80 📚: May 6-8 ✔ (5/7/20 - first encounter)
Othello 📚: May 11-18  ✔ (5/16/20)
Sonnets 81-154 📚: May 20-22 ✔ (5/24/20)
Love’s Labour’s Lost 📚: May 26-June 2 ✔ (5/31/20)
Pericles 📚: June 4-9 ✔ (6/14/20 - first encounter)
Cymbeline: June 11-18 ✔ (7/3/20)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream 📚: June 19-21 ✔ (7/1/20)
King Lear 📚: June 22-30 ✔ (7/4/20)
A Lover’s Complaint: July 2  ✔ (7/2/20 - first encounter)
The Passionate Pilgrim: July 3 ✔ (7/2/20 - first encounter)
The Merchant of Venice: July 12-16 ✔ (7/21/20)
Much Ado About Nothing 📚: July 20-26 ✔ (7/12/20)
As You Like It: July 28-August 3 ✔ (7/30/20)
Macbeth 📚: August 5-10 ✔ (8/6/20)
Troilus and Cressida 📚: August 12-20 ✔ (8/10/20 - possibly first encounter)
Antony and Cleopatra 📚: August 22-29 ✔ (11/10/19 - first encounter)
Coriolanus: August 31-September 10 ✔ (8/16/20 - first encounter)
All’s Well That Ends Well 📚: September 12-19 ✔ (10/8/19)
Measure for Measure 📚: September 21-27 ✔ (8/30/20)
Henry IV Part 1 📚: September 29-October 5 ✔ (9/23/19)
The Merry Wives of Windsor: October 7-13 ✔ (9/6/20)
Henry IV Part 2 📚: October 15-22 ✔ (9/7/20)
Henry V 📚: October 24-31 ✔ (9/7/20)
Henry VIII 📚: November 2-9 ✔ (9/9/20 - first encounter)
Edward III: November 11-17 ✔ (9/10/20 - first encounter)
Timon of Athens: November 19-24 ✔ (9/15/20 - first encounter)
The Winter’s Tale 📚: December 1-7 ✔ (9/20/20)
The Tempest 📚: December 9-14 ✔ (9/21/20)
The Two Noble Kinsmen 📚: December 16-23 ✔ (9/29/20)
The Phoenix and Turtle 📚: December 27 ✔ (9/6/20 - first encounter)
A Funeral Elegy: December 29-30 ✔ (9/9/20 - first encounter)

UPDATE: As of September 29, 2020, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Essentially a 13-month program, because I gave myself credit for works read in September - November 2019.

FN * At some point, my maternal grandmother gave me a children's book called Tales From Shakespeare, by Charles and Mary Lamb.  I'm not sure the timing of this gift, and I don't remember connecting it to the individual Shakespeare plays in my parents' bookcase when I was a child.  By the time I made the connection, as a teenager, I was dismissive of the mere children's version.

FN **  I think everyone got the parts they most desired; we probably weren't as subtle as we may have imagined.  Tina wanted to be a witch, and deliberately read the sleepwalking scene badly; Emily wanted to be the doctor (appropriately enough, as she's the only one of us with a PhD); Annie more modestly wanted to be the nurse (although in real life she did, in fact, accomplish her ambition of becoming a physician).

FN *** It was probably January 1991, perhaps even the very last night of the production.  The curtains opened on a large, empty bed.  Othello and Desdemona silently entered, cast off their robes in a single moment, and passionately embraced.  Blackout.  Their sudden and complete nudity was shocking and dramatic in such a small theatre; it established in a matter of heartbeats both the connection between those two and the contrast in their skin color.  The rest of the play proceeded as usual, except that both Iago and Emilia were played by Black actors.