Shakespearean Collective Nouns (A Guest Post by Bardfilm)

~ ~ 9 Comments

Once again, Bardfilm offers a guest post for our edification—or, at least, for our amusement.

The English language offers a host of interesting collective nouns. You can describe a lot of geese as a gaggle of geese. More than a few whales make up a pod of whales. When you see tons of crows around, it’s natural (and fun) to say, “A murder of crows was on the neighbor’s back tree this morning.”
But what if you have a lot of Hamlets running around? How do you refer to the twenty-three Lady Macbeths you saw auditioning last night?
Here’s a list for exactly those instances. Think how useful (and fun) it will be to say, “I’m not looking forward to auditions. There’s a whole scrub of Lady Macbeths out there!” Without much more ado, here they are:

Shakespearean Collective Nouns

An innocence of Desdemonas.

A sack of Falstaffs.

An assignation of Bottoms.

An ide of Caesars.

A jealousy of Iagos.

A wherefore of Romeos.

A vengeance of Hamlets.

A fahrenfoul of witches.

An obscurity of Pericleses.

A gurgle of Ophelias.

A torrent of Lears.

An equivocation of Porters.

An infinite variety of Cleopatras.

A platitude of Poloniuses.

A poke of Gloucesters.

A scrub of Lady Macbeths.

A discontent of Richard IIIs.

Feel free to add your own options in the comments below. I know you’ve seen one too many Juliets—how would you describe them as a group?

Our thanks to kj, the author of Bardfilm. Bardfilm is a blog that comments on films, plays, and other matters related to Shakespeare in a relatively-informal manner.

Shakespeare on Boston Common 2011 : Commonwealth Announces New Season

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

And the winner is ….. All’s Well That Ends Well?
CommShakes continues to build itself back up to prominence after the disastrous Citibank years. I love going to free Shakespeare on the Common, I think it’s one of life’s great pleasures. I’ve seen all of their shows in recent years, excepting only their Hamlet where I mistakenly waited until the last weekend and got rained out :(. So each year I await the announcement of their new main show. This year, it’s All’s Well.
Here’s why I’m a bit troubled by that choice. I understood when they reinvented themselves with Comedy of Errors a few years ago – budget, mostly. But just recently I started the What Play Should I Tackle Next? thread where I listed 7 plays – some minor, some I simply haven’t experienced yet. All’s Well was one of them. Every play got two votes – except for two. Merry Wives, and All’s Well. This concerns me, I worry that audiences less familiar with Shakespeare will never have heard of this one, and simply won’t care.
What do we think? If you only get one Shakespeare in the park show a year would you be happy that it’s All’s Well That Ends Well?

Temptation is a fire that brings up the scum of the heart.

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

I saw this one go by and thought, “Are you kidding me? Do we really want to think that the best Shakespeare could come up with is something like ‘scum of the heart’?”  It didn’t help that there’s even places on the net where people asked “What play is this from?” and were told “Merchant of Venice.”  Not true.  Shakespeare does use the word “scum” four times in his work, but never in this context.

This one took me awhile to find. It is quoted often in the history books, and always with the word “Boston” next to it.  For awhile I thought that had something to do with a collection of papers or a particular essay that was being cited.  Then it dawned on me that this is an actual person — Thomas Boston, a Scottish church leader born in 1676 (so, not too long after Shakespeare).  Here, from Google Books, is the man’s own words:

Observe your hearts all times but especially under temptation. Temptation is a fire that brings up the scum of the vile heart: Do you carefully mark the first risings of corruption.

The greatest risk in life is not taking one.

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Alternate: The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.

Another one of these random attributions, with no good evidence for it being Shakespeare.  However some searching turns up the alternate version, which to my eye looks very close — “being too cautious” equals “not taking risks”, doesn’t it?

The alternate version does have a source – it comes from Indian politician Jawaharlal Nehru.