http://journal.bookfinder.com/2009/05/worst-mothers-in-literature.html

8. Gertrude from Hamlet by Shakespeare

The fact that she marries her brother in law, who killed her husband, is proof that she’s nuts but what really makes Gertrude a certifiable psycho is that despite all the adultery and killing she tries a little too hard to show compassion to Hamlet giving the kid a serious Oedipus complex.

Mostly blogging this one because Gertrude’s on the list.  I’m not sure I even agree.  I tend to have more sympathy for Gertrude.  She certainly never says “Screw what my son thinks, I’m doing what’s right for me.”  Maybe she was in an unhappy marriage with Hamlet’s dad and is glad to be free of it.  Maybe she was having an affair with Claudius right along.  Maybe she’s just still in mourning over her husband so deeply that she doesn’t even fully recognize what she’s done.  I’m leaving out the Oedipus stuff, since that’s all baggage that Freud brought to the table well after Shakespeare put words to paper. What do we Shakespeare geeks think?  Should she be higher, lower?  Is there a better mother to put on the list?

Imagine Will Shakespeare on his death bed, visited by his friend Ben Jonson.  What would they talk about? Such is apparently the premise of The Careful Glover, a new play by Jim Baines:

Ben arrives and meets spirited, restless Judith almost immediately. She takes him to her father, where the two swap memories, sing songs and get soused. It is in these moments that Will admits to having one more script almost finished, one that should get tongues wagging again back in London. Will gets Ben to promise to get the play produced.

I think I’d like this one. Maybe somebody here can help me with something, though.  Does this sentence make any sense?

There are some yawning minutes in Act II when Will is awash on his own version of Macbeth’s moor, a storm raging in a transparent nod to Shakespeare’s fondness to show nature’s fury when earthly relationships — individuals, families, countries — go awry.

Is that a Macbeth thing, or a Lear thing? Took me a couple of readings of “moor” to realize he wasn’t talking about Othello. 🙂

I, too, am unfamiliar with this “Accelerated Reader” program and perhaps I’m the better off for it.  Books are assigned a point value, and students, upon reading those books and passing a test, are awarded those points.  It’s unclear what happens when you reach your point goal. Putting aside the debate over whether any of that is a good idea, we jump to the meat of the matter, the point list.  For a formula that is supposedly based on reading difficulty and word count, we get a list in which the big fat Harry Potter books score a 44 out of 50, while Hamlet scores a 7.  Gossip Girl (I thought that was just a movie, shows how old I am) even rated an 8. I think the problem should be obvious.  Hamlet, being a play rather than an overrated novel written specifically to turn into a movie franchise, has far far fewer words than JK Rowling’s juggernaut.  It’s all dialogue.  Even with a brief swag at it, you look at say 800 pages of Harry Potter compared to the maybe 30-50 pages that it takes to print Hamlet, and it’s no contest. That would be even somewhat acceptable if the other variable, reading level, was realistic.  And that, obviously, is where it fails.  Maybe Harry Potter gets a 2nd or 3rd grade reading level, while Hamlet gets 10th grade.  Who knows, but really, who cares? Harry is still going to win. I think this system needs a third variable.  Maybe we call it “depth”, “value” or even “relevance”. Harry Potter books?  2. Hamlet? 1000 Now we can have a conversation about relative merit. http://lyndalepress.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/gossip-girl-vs-hamlet/

And now for your amusement I present “Clear’s Own” view of Shakespeare:

I was studying Shakespeare recently and I realized something that no one else seems to have figured out. He really, really sucks. Seriously, why am I the only one who has noticed this? Well, I assume I won’t be the only one after I inform the world.

He then goes on to rant about the poor quality of Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet and Julius Caesar (misunderstanding, or at least misrepresenting, some key bits) in a somewhat amusing manner:

The morning after Romeo nails Juliet, he goes strolling through the city and runs into his A-hole enemy, Tybalt. Still feeling good from whatever sex hormones are running through his blood, he tries to ignore him and his best friend dies as a result. I feel for you, Romeo. We’ve all done stupid things because of sex. For instance, I once told a girl I’d slept with that I’d help her move. What a waste of a Saturday that was.

I don’t believe for a second that this guy actually thinks Shakespeare stinks, but I got a kick out of his delivery. http://clearsown.blogspot.com/2009/09/bored-of-avon.html

Oh, the irony!  On many levels! Today, a coworker new to Twitter asked me what the deal was with spam bots.  He’d just signed up 5 minutes ago, he said, and there were already 10 strangers following him. I explained that yeah, that happens, and that in general if it’s a complete stranger saying something completely unrelated to anything you’ve just said, and providing a link, it’s spam.  But, I pointed out, the problem is often directly related to the number of followers you get.  I as a ShakespeareGeek with a smaller niche audience don’t see nearly the problem as much as a celebrity with a million or so followers. No sooner had I said that than I get an email telling me that Willy’s Wily Wenches are now following me. Something’s funny about it, though.  Too alliterative.   More effort went into that name than the typical spam name.  And then there’s Willy …   I dare to click. My guess is correct – it actually *is* a Shakespeare reference!  Turns out that Willy’s Wily Wenches, based out of Texas it looks like, is some sort of  all-female “Reduced Shakespeare”, as best I can tell.  Even their tagline, “Getting revenge on history”, shows that they’ve got some appreciation for their subject matter and are really working the whole “Yes we realize that boys played all the girl parts” thing to death. I wonder how many “willy” jokes they make in any given show. http://www.willyswilywenches.net/welcome.htm Welcome, Wenches.