Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with shakespeare

How do I contact English, Literature, and Drama teachers in NYC?

grumblebee — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 14:26:08 -0800

I want to offer super-cheap ($10 to free) Shakespeare tickets to educators and their students in the NYC area. I'm interested in contacting both high school and college teachers. Would they likely welcome this or consider it spam? Is there some kind of message board or other resource I can use to contact these folks.

A play: Queen Elizabeth & Shakespeare & fart jokes. Ring any bells?

kestralwing — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 19:10:47 -0800

My friend's mom is trying to find a play that might be called "1601." Probably has as characters: Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Walter Raleigh, Shakespeare. She read it in the late 1960's, and it was full of many fart jokes, sexual allusions, etc. Was supposed to be set in Queen Elizabeth's drawing room... We're having no luck, turning to the hive mind.....

Which play should I see?

Area Man — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:00:37 -0800

My in-laws gave me a gift certificate to the Guthrie Theater. It will pay for two tickets (for me and my wife) to one play. Given the cost of babysitting, tickets, and dinner, this may be the only play I will see this year. I'd like to see something by Shakespeare. Here are my choices: As You Like It - performed by The Acting Company; Twelth Night - performed by Propeller; and, Taming of the Shrew - Performed by Propeller. Which play should I see? I'll note that I'm leaning towards either seeing As You Like It or Twelth Night, as I've seen Taming of the Shrew twice before and found the sexism made it less than enjoyable both times (I was also in a production of it during college, and found it offputting then as well.)

Analysis of a line from Shakespeare's Coriolanus

gkhan — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 04:38:04 -0800

You know how sometimes when you watch (or read) a Shakespeare play, you come across a something which makes you go "Holy crap, that's one of the greatest pieces of English I've ever heard, but I'm not quite sure what it means". This happens especially often for me because I'm not a native English speaker. Well, I just watched the movie adaptation of Coriolanus a few weeks ago and I need one of the lines explained to me. As background, the play is about a Roman general named Caius Martius who goes to war against another country called Volsci, and after conquering a city named Corioli, he returns home to a huge celebration and is given the name Coriolanus.

The part I'm wondering about occurs during the celebration, and is spoken (to no one in particular) by his mother, Volumnia. Here it is:

These are the ushers of Marcius: before him
He carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears;
Death, that dark spirit, in's nervy arm doth lie;
Which, being advanc'd, declines, and then men die.

The two first rows are pretty clear, I think: the noise refers to the praise and adulation he gets (which makes sense, given that the line is spoken at a celebration for him), and the tears to all the destruction he leaves in his wake.

The third line was a little harder, but after looking up "nervy" in the Oxford English Dictionary, I found the definition "Vigorous; sinewy; full of strength", which cited this exact line as an example, it's a little bit clearer (also realizing that "in's" is probably short for "in his" helped). "In his strong arm lies death", basically.

But I can't quite make out the fourth line. My instinct tells me that "advanc'd" refers to "advancing" in the sense of "moving forward", as in "the forces are advancing" (he is a general, after all), but that doesn't quite seem to fit. Can "advance" mean "to raise"? I've never heard the word used that way, but it would make sense given that the next word is "declines". But that makes the whole construction weird, because I've always read the construction "being X, Y" as meaning roughly "because of X, then Y", as in "being an honest man, I have to tell you the truth". But that can't be right, "because his arm is raised, it is lowered" is nonsensical. I guess the only explanation is that he first raises his arm, and then subsequently lowers it. That is not at all how I would parse that sentence naturally, but I can't really come up with another explanation.

To put it in plain modern English, I therefore read the last two lines as "Death lies in his strong arm, which raises and then lowers, and that makes men die". Is that a proper reading?

Assuming it is, what does it mean? What I'm currently thinking is that the death she is talking about is a metaphor for a sword. The sword in his hand is death, and when he swings it, men die. Probably even this is metaphorical (metaphors within metaphors!), meaning something like "When Coriolanus goes to war, no man can meet him on the field of battle and survive". Am I reading that right?

I don't quite know why, but those lines really took my breath away when I heard them, and they have been bouncing around in my head ever since, so I'd really appreciate someone clarifying what they actually mean.

I want to read public domain books on an Android smartphone

vogon_poet — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 14:03:27 -0800

I want to read public domain books (especially Shakespeare) on my Galaxy S3. But all of the apps I can find are giving me trouble. What's the best-designed and most convenient solution? Reading eBooks on a smartphone is great, but recently I've been trying to read Shakespeare and it's been a problem. The Kindle app, which has a large selection of free Shakespeare plays, won't let me shrink the text enough to preserve line breaks, which makes reading frustrating. Most of the other systems I've tried (Nook, Kobo, Google Books) have the same problem, plus no free books.

Is there a way I can download free ebook versions of Shakespeare plays that are nicely formatted for smartphones? I'm also not averse to paying a few dollars, especially if I get access to a good gloss and footnotes, except that every free sample of Shakespeare (Pelican, Modern Library) I've tried to download doesn't include the actual text of the play, so I can't tell if they have the same problem. If any of the professionally-edited versions are good for smartphone reading, please tell me.

Finally, if you know of a particularly fantastic, beautifully-designed ebook program for Android, I would love to hear about it. I'm starting to envy iOS people.

Where can I host fair use vids w/o getting hit by copyright nonsense constantly?

John Kenneth Fisher — Sun, 21 Oct 2012 15:24:36 -0800

Where can I host videos for my Shakespeare play comparison website that won't a) cost me tons due to hosting and b) be YouTube knee-jerky on copyright violation? For my own interest and to enhance my appreciation of Shakespeare, I like to watch as many versions of each play as I can, and to share this with others, I'd put them online (example page here) via Youtube upload/embed.

Unfortunately, these keep getting hit with copyright violation despite my view these are clear fair use under both commentary and educational purposes (I get many emails, etc. from teachers thanking me for these, and have made a conscious decision not to put ads, etc.) which very much chilled my effort on this, despite my plans to list at list one scene from each play that I could find multiple filmed versions of.

I'd really like to go back to this and expand it, but I don't know where I could host my videos where they will respect fair use more than YouTube does. I could host them on my own server, and may, but the sheer quantity causes me to fear it one day popping up somewhere popular and my site getting slammed and costing me a fortune for a side hobby I can't afford.

Thanks.

Song identification filer: Indie Folk Version of Feste's Song?

lalalana — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 12:10:44 -0800

Song identification filter: I heard a song on Los Angeles independent radio the other day that included lyrics from "Feste's Song" from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Some how my duckduckgofu hath failed. Details follow. It was sung by an man with an Britishy accent that seemed more like Northern England or Scotland or Wales or maybe Ireland.

It was NOT Elvis Costello.

It seems as though the tune and the arrangement of the lyrics were not the same as other (traditional?) arrangement of the song. There may have been additional lyrics.

The vibe was sort of folky indie rock melancholy dark.

Some sample lyrics:
"With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
For the rain it raineth every day."

'A great while ago the world begun"

Hamlet's succession

Optamystic — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:24:58 -0800

Why wasn't Hamlet crowned King of Denmark immediately after his father's death? Wouldn't that have cleared up most of the conflict in the plot?

Besides Shakespeare, who are the writers with the greatest wit and rhetorical skill?

lunchbox — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:27:23 -0800

Besides Shakespeare, who are the writers with the greatest wit and rhetorical skill? Of all English authors, Shakespeare is clearly the most famous for his verbal skill -- e.g. innovative rhetorical devices, creative use of vocabulary/meter/rhyme, innuendo & multiple meanings, and the ability to put a thought in a pithy and witty form.

What other authors are out there have lines or passages that make you say "daaaaaamn, that was smooth!" I'm asking more about being witty/skillful/humorous rather than being philosophically profound or emotionally moving (although that certainly doesn't hurt).

Recommendations of particular books/poems are appreciated. (Even for Shakespeare himself, as I don't know which works are the best to start with if I want to appreciate his verbal wit.)

O Romeo, Romeo, do I explain you?

Flood — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 17:54:43 -0800

Taking children, ages 16, 15, and 10, to see Romeo & Juliet. Should I explain it to them first? On Sunday, I am taking my three nieces to this production of Romeo & Juliet. My nieces are 16, 15, and 10 years old. They are all smart for their age, but they do not really know Shakespeare - or Romeo & Juliet. I am nearly positive that none of them know the double suicide ending.

The 16 year old studied Hamlet at the end of last year in High School. The 15 year old will be studying Romeo & Juliet in the last marking period of this year. The 10 year old knows nothing.

I know that by seeing the play, Shakespeare is much more accessible. However, would they benefit from some back-ground before the play starts? If so, how much? And what exactly should I explain?

I have studied Shakespeare, and seen his plays performed several times. I am well educated, but I am not a literary scholar. My own knowledge of Romeo & Juliet is imperfect.

I know that just the experience of being in the theatre will make the event enjoyable - but is there anything else I should do to make the play more accessible and enjoyable - given the ages of the kids above.

Any thoughts on enhancing this theatrical experience for this age group are greatly appreciated

The Shakespeare of Brazil...

Bwithh — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:50:05 -0800

Who are good candidates for reasonably being labelled "The Brazilian Shakespeare"? Any time period will do but they have to be *famous* writers or playwrights or poets etc

Thanks for suggestions!!

A drum a drum! Macbeth doth come!

Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:44:10 -0800

Macbeth: Looking for a good annotated version of the Scottish play, geared toward a lay reader without a lot of Shakespeare knowledge, rather than an academic or expert. Open to one with a modern "translation" on each facing page. Interested in hardcopy, not electronic format. Thanks!

Who wrote "To out-[Person] [Person]"?

nicwolff — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 08:23:36 -0800

A bunch of supposedly literate people at Christmas dinner couldn't decide from what piece of classical English literature we all half-remember the phrase "to out-[Person] [Person]", or "it out-[Person]s [Person]". We were all sure it was from Shakespeare, but a quick regular expression search of Gutenberg found nothing. Can you think of examples of that construction?

What theater-themed short story involving a wallflower actor am I having trouble remembering?

noyb42 — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:35:51 -0800

I am trying to find the name of a short story that involved a socially awkward actor brought out of his shell romantically by Shakespeare's words. Read the story in the 90s, although it might be much older than that. The plot involved an actress and a wallflower actor in the same play. The former is romantically interested in the latter, but he always makes a hasty retreat after each rehearsal. The actress eventually catches him backstage before he leaves and thrusts a copy of Romeo & Juliet in his hands. They perform the balcony scene, leading into a courtship that may or may not have been entirely comprised of acting out famous theatrical romances. Feel free to flag this question if it's all too common a plot device, but this is all I remember.

For some reason my mind is telling me it was written by Isaac Asimov, although I haven't had much luck googling on that front.

A kid-friendly "Merchant of Venice"?

e-man — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 22:11:31 -0800

Please recommend a video production of "The Merchant of Venice" best suited for an 8-year-old. This summer we took our 8-year-old daughter to her first Shakespeare play - the Bard on the Beach production of "As You Like It" - and she loved it. At the festival site she also saw posters for "The Merchant of Venice". Fascinated by the costumes and sets in the pictures and by what little of the story-line we could explain to her, she insisted on seeing that, too. Unfortunately by that time all remaining performances were either sold out or on days that conflicted with our existing schedules. So we compromised by promising to find a production of "Merchant" on video or DVD.

The Bard production of "Merchant" was, supposedly, one that somewhat toned down the anti-Semitic aspects - and we're looking for one that does the same. This is not because we're Jewish (we aren't) but because several of her friends are. I'd rather not expose her to concepts that might confuse or distress her unnecessarily, or get her in trouble if she talked about them in the wrong context, or that she's simply not yet able to process.

Any suggestions from the Hive-mind?

How do I categorize sentence structures?

Mr. Bad Example — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 08:31:05 -0800

I'm looking for academic linguistic papers and/or books on classification of sentence structures. (Should I turn on the languagehat signal?) I'm doing a PhD thesis on authorship attribution and Elizabethan drama, and I'm reaching a point where I need to start extracting and manipulating my data. What I'm trying to do is see if there's a stylistic difference between authors based on the grammatical patterns of the sentences they use. (E.g., "The king rises", determiner-subject noun-intransitive verb.)

The problem I foresee is that since sentences are such flexible modular things, especially in this sort of text, I could wind up with a number of patterns that's way too large for me to do anything statistically meaningful with. Has anyone done any work on categorizing this sort of linguistic data into broad-but-manageable areas for anything close to this type of research?

I'm trawling through the MLA Bibliography and JSTOR as usual, so this isn't (too much of) a "Do my homework for me!", but I thought I'd pick Metafilter's collective brain.

(Also, this isn't a "Did Shakespeare actually write Shakespeare?" thing; those people are nuts.)

Something wicked this way comes.

Ljubljana — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 04:09:34 -0800

I have some questions about Macbeth, especially the "three weird sisters." Given that some people today are deeply upset by Harry Potter, I'm trying to imagine how audiences 400 years ago reacted to the witches in Macbeth.

If we accept that people at the time generally believed that witches were real -- King James certainly did -- I'm wondering how people reacted when the witches came out and started doing incantations and black magic in 4.2. Wouldn't this be upsetting to a 17th-century audience? Or at least the church?

I also find it puzzling because the witches basically triumph in the play. They decide to destroy Macbeth and the poor guy ends up widowed and headless in the end. They also correctly predict the accession of Banquo's offspring to the throne (i.e. King James) -- wasn't this a risky thing for Shakespeare to do? To say that witches foresaw (and aided) the rise of the current king? And to show the murder of one of the king's distant relatives? Even the whole theme of regicide would seem risky to me. I have read (online) that King James loved the play and banned the play, so if anyone has any information about what really happened I would love to hear it. Recommendations for books about Macbeth are also welcome!

TL;DR: How did early audiences react to Macbeth? How did King James react to Macbeth? And how risky was the play for Shakespeare?

What was the Shakespeare quote about the perfect prince?

ldthomps — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 06:54:57 -0800

Looking for a Shakespeare quote about the prince having been the ideal every man wished to be. [Asking for a friend] Someone's describing one of the princes (Hamlet? Hal?), and says something to the effect that he was the model of perfection for all men or that he was once the ideal every man strived for. Except "model," "epitome," and "paragon" don't seem quite like the right word.

It makes the friend think of a cardboard cut-out of a person that you might stand next to for a picture. Standard? Placard? What was the quote?

Extra bonus clue: the cover of her copy of the play was red.

Shakespeare on prevarication

the mad poster! — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 12:35:00 -0800

Trying to find this Shakespeare passage: two guards talking idly, something about prevaricators being first in line for hell, etc. Ring a bell for anyone? thanks!

Looking for Lady Macbeth

crossoverman — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 21:34:27 -0800

I am looking for great performances of Lady Macbeth. Please point me towards any recordings (video, audio) of Lady M's finest moments. I don't need whole productions of Macbeth, just great performances of Macbeth's wife. Online, preferably. I am particularly looking for performances of Act 1, Scene 5 "unsex me here", Act 1, Scene 7 "I have given suck" and Act 5, Scene 1 "Out damn spot!"

The only film version I'm really familiar with is Polanski's Macbeth (which I believe excises "unsex me here"), but I'm sure there are lots of great clips online of theatrical performances.

What Shakespeare play best fits an unofficial wander-around-town performance?

jeffmshaw — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:13:41 -0800

If you were doing an outdoor guerrilla community Shakespeare play, where each scene was performed in a different public place, which one would you choose? Some friends of mine want to put on an unofficial Shakespeare Around Town play, where we wander from site to site in town between each scene change (i.e., start in one park, walk to another).

What play fits this aesthetic best? Considerations:

* Should almost certainly be a comedy. One of us has an irrational aversion to Shakespeare's histories, and tragedy doesn't seem like summer fun. Will happily entertain arguments to the contrary.

* The fewer main roles, the better.

* Minimalist sets and costumes that travel easily.

* Potential to do a truncated version that's still fun and makes sense.

We have some ideas, but I'd like to hear the wisdom of the hive mind before getting into our first impulses for consideration.

Fine Literature in Shakespeare's time

telstar — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 16:14:01 -0800

I've heard from more than one academic source that Shakespeare's plays weren't considered particularly "high art" in his time, being somewhat more on the level of TV sitcoms of today. How accurate is that assessment? If it is accurate, what was considered highbrow literature at the time and why?

The Beginners Guide to Theatre Acting

TheOtherGuy — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 05:13:48 -0800

Thespians of Metafilter: What should I, a humble stage acting newbie, expect when auditioning for a role with his local theatre company? In April our town will host its annual arts festival, and the local theatre company will be putting on a production of King Lear. The troupe advertised on a mailing list that I follow that they are seeking local people who would like to audition for a role. The notice specifically indicated that no previous acting experience is required and that all audition pieces will be given on the night. Apart from that, the details on the process were quite vague.

But being a fan of Shakespeare, and declaring 2011 my year of new experiences, I am determined to give it a go!

The auditions are in the middle of next week, so I don’t have a whole lot of time to prepare. I have no real acting experience; unless you count my role as ‘Shepherd No 2’ in my pre-school Christmas play. But I am quite at ease in speaking and being creative in front of a crowd.

I am keen to hear any tips, advice or insight into what can I expect.

Specifically.

- Is it worth watching a film version of the play beforehand? I am familiar with the plot (Old man loses his shit when one of his daughters doesn’t feed his ego), but perhaps watching a film version will give me more insight into the characters.
- How do you like to prepare for an audition? Immerse yourself in some actors mindset? or keep your brain flexible for improvisation
- Are there any good, quick reads that might get my brain in gear?
- A beer beforehand. Brilliant plan to loosen up? or a well-worn path on the road to disaster.

Any advice on auditions, stagecraft or insight into what I might expect will be gratefully received. I have had a look at some previous AskMe questions: but they mostly seem to involve singing in musical theatre and discussions of the finer points of acting by those who are familiar with the process. I need more the Cliffnotes version!

I’ll be sure to let you know how I go!

All the world's a site, And all the men and women merely vloggers.

John Kenneth Fisher — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 20:50:26 -0800

If one were to collect scenes from Shakespeare films to compare how different productions approached them differently, what scenes should be selected? Ok, let me explain. I have a weird obsession with comparing different ways of doing things. I love covers of songs and remakes of films and all kinds of things like that, just to see how the little (or not so little) differences affect the whole.

I also love shakespeare, and, because I was bored one day, I took the Hamlet productions I had on film and cut out their versions of Act II, scene ii (The "You are a fishmonger" sequence.) and put it on the Youtubes.

And I got a real kick out of the comparison, and will likely add to it shortly. And I'd like to do some more with the various plays, but while I know Hamlet inside and out, my knowledge of the other plays, and more importantly their filmed versions, varies from heavy to almost nil.

So my question becomes: What scenes, sequences, etc. in the Shakespeare canon have the most interesting variances in how they appear on film, as well as hopefully being interesting scenes in their own right?

Everyman Shakespeare

Paquda — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:51:39 -0800

Is the 'Everyman Shakespeare' series available in other formats? There is a series of cheap paperbacks of Shakespeare's plays called the "Everyman Shakespeare" that I see around used book stores a lot (totally different in content, in spite of the name, from the hardcover "Everyman's Library" editions of Shakespeare.) These paperbacks are interesting: for one thing, they don't modernize the spelling, which I haven't come across in any other affordable edition of the plays. The physical format bothers me, though--really cheaply-printed. Was the content of the series ever published in any other format, like a hardback 'Complete Works' volume?