If I said to you the subject is drinking in Shakespeare’s play, where does your brain go? Falstaff, probably. Maybe the Porter in Macbeth, Claudius in Hamlet, or poor Cassius in Othello.
It is shaped, sir, like itself; and it is as broad
as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is,
and moves with its own organs: it lives by that
which nourisheth it; and the elements once out of
it, it transmigrates.
LEPIDUS
What colour is it of?
MARK ANTONY
Of it own colour too.
LEPIDUS
‘Tis a strange serpent.
A&C doesn’t get much love, that I can see. We rarely quote it or reference its plot lines. Hardly anybody reads it at school. And when’s the last time you saw it performed? I wonder why that is? I can’t say I’m terribly familiar with it, having little more than “I read it once, back in college, when I read all the plays” experience with it. I’ve always heard that it’s problem is that it is too big to stage. Thus, fewer people get to see it, and it propagates down the line. People who’ve never seen it don’t tend to talk about it, or recommend it, etc…
I remember studying poetry in high school. William Carlos Williams and his chickens:
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
Or his poor old woman:
munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand
They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her
You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand
Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her
They are simple, yet so memorable. Both of those were some random lesson on some random day, thirty years ago. Yet when I found this link and this idea I knew exactly which ones to go get.
A new psychology study claims to have determined what makes poetry pleasing, and it’s using sonnet 18 as a thumbnail so you know I was going to click on it. What do they say is the secret?
Sensory imagery.
The sights, sounds, smells. Those are what make the poem leap off the page and into your brain, where it stays. The Williams poems I selected are pretty obvious examples, the first reducing it all down to the red wheelbarrow next to the white chickens. You may ask yourself, “Why are we studying this?” or “What am I supposed to get out of this?” but you can’t deny the image that pops into your brain. I never really knew what to do with “glazed with rain water,” though. That’s just not a visual image for me.
My first that is that sonnet 18’s not really the greatest choice. What images does it paint, exactly? Show me “a summer’s day” or “rough winds” or “his gold complexion dimmed.” I think Shakespeare’s playing the game at a different level than Williams. Those aren’t sensory images in the “sights and sounds” category, those are deeper. Those are more about the experience of something you’ve felt. We’ve all experienced hundreds of summer days, days when it’s too hot or days when it’s too cloudy. We don’t have to paint a picture in our mind’s eye, we just feel it.
Earlier today I was talking favorite sonnets with someone and brought up 29, which I think is another great example. You can’t paint me a picture of “my state from sullen earth singing hymn’s at heaven’s gate” or “troubling deaf heaven with my bootless cries,” but damnit if I can’t feel it in my bones, can’t you? I remember reciting 29 on the fly at work one time and this girl stopped me and said, “What’s bootless mean?” and it so caught me by surprise that I didn’t even have an answer for her. She was thrilled to have stumped me, but I was left thinking, “If you’re stringing it together one word at a time, you’re missing the point. You have to feel it.”
Happy Holidays, everyone! It’s been a long time since I rounded up a Shakespeare gift guide. I’ve been pleasantly surprised over the years to see just how many Shakespeare games are on the shelves these days. I’ve also noticed that when they come up, either on Facebook or Twitter, there’s always a slew of people saying, “I had no idea this existed, OMG!” So why not take the opportunity to get them all together? Some of these I have played, some I have not. In full disclosure these are affiliate links, so if you end up purchasing something that looks good, it helps support Shakespeare Geek.
We have the regular Munchkin game at home, so late last year when I saw a Shakespeare version on Kickstarter I immediately backed it. The game is a fun take on the “dungeon crawl” where you’re one of a bad of explorers trying to arm yourself with weapons, battle monsters and collect treasure on your way to level 10. It’s primarily about the cards – draw a monster who comes with a fighting score, arm yourself from the cards in your hand in an attempt to boost your own fighting score to beat the monsters. The catch is that the rules allow the other players to gang up on you, hurling curses that lower your score, adding more monsters and so on, so it really puts the “melee” into the combat. The Shakespeare version comes with all themed cards, so you might run into “The Head That Wears The Crown” as your monster, a disembodied head that steals your headgear and uses its powers against you. Or maybe you get the “Good Deed in a Naughty World” card where you can undo bad stuff that happened to another player, and gain a level for yourself.
Ok, it’s only partially accurate to say I “have” this, as I used to have it, back in college. I think it’s probably even out of print now, but it is still available on Amazon from third-party sellers. This one’s quite easy to explain – it’s charades. All the clues are Shakespeare quotes. You get to say a part of the quote, but then if your partner doesn’t know it, you have to act out the rest. This one’s great fun for a theatre crowd who is at least somewhat knowledgeable about Shakespeare quotes, because some they’ll get, some they’ll have no idea, and some they’ll wrack their brain to remember how the second half goes. I vividly remember my partner reading, “Even now that old black ram is …” and pretending like I didn’t know the answer because I wanted to see how she acted out “tupping your white ewe.” 🙂 And then there was the kid, I forget his name, who swore that he was the Henry V expert and was waiting for Henry V quotes .. but then when one came around, he got it wrong.
If you think this one sounds familiar, you’re right – it’s a Shakespearean spin on the hugely popular “Cards Against Humanity.” If you’ve not heard of that one, maybe you’ve heard of the children’s version “Apples to Apples”? The idea is that you take turns throwing down a saying with some blanks to fill in, then the other players anonymously offer one of their cards to fill in the blank. The referee (whoever put down the initial card) then decides the winner of each round based on … whatever rules they choose, honestly. Often it descends into the most outrageous combinations available. For example, a starter card might be, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely ________.” You know the answer of course, but it’s not about that, it’s about what cards you have in your hand. Maybe you choose to play, “Cupid’s butt-shaft.” Getting the idea? Not your parents’ card game. Apples to Apples is completely safe, Cards Against Humanity is only to be played by the closest of friends, this one’s probably somewhere in the middle. Doesn’t have to be dirty and offensive…but it can be if you prefer it that way.
I admit I’d never heard of this one until I went looking, and I’m still not really sure how to play it, but just from the look of the cards alone, I want it. Every card appears to be a death, described and quantified. Lady Macbeth’s death, for example, gets a 0 for “Last Words” and a 4 for “Fairness”. Brutus, meanwhile, gets a 6 for Last Words and a 5 for “Gore and Brutality.” Not really sure how you score the game or how you win? But I like that it appears to have an opportunity for education since you’re almost certain to see cards for characters you’re not always intimately familiar with. And it looks like it wouldn’t take much knowledge of Shakespeare to get started.
The One I Still Don’t Understand
When the topic comes up, inevitably somebody suggests, “Shakespeare The Board Game.” But …
“Shakespeare Board Game”
“Shakespeare – The Board Game”
which one??? Although the one on the right over there is technically called “The Bard Game”, get it? Even Amazon’s got the title listed as “The Board Game”. In both, you play an entrepreneur who is trying to run a theatre by putting on the best plays. Are these two different versions of the same game? It seems like it, but I honestly can’t tell. The images are different – the “bard” game works you around a path on a board, while the other one appears more card oriented. I wonder if there’s some sort of cool backstory here where it started out life as the same game and then two people went in different directions with it?
That’s All For Now
There you have it, the best of the “games” based on Shakespeare. Did I miss any? I hope to put out a couple of these guides in time for Christmas, and I’d like to do something for “toys” to encompass all the crazy bobble heads and finger puppets that are out there (many of which currently adorn my desk). If you’ve like to see a particular category let me know in the comments!
Obligatory Awkward Self-Promotion
Available in long sleeve!And short sleeves!
I’m sure most of you know that I do have a line of Shakespeare Geek merchandise available on Amazon now, both short sleeves t-shirts and long sleeve.
I will not be doing a specific Shakespeare gift guide just for t-shirts, mostly because there’s over 100 designs available now.
Of course I’d love to sell many of them, those support the site more directly than the occasional affiliate link. Even if you’re not buying for yourself, maybe send a link to Grandma and Aunt Susan next time they ask you what you want? It’s all about getting more Shakespeare out there into the world. Thanks for your support!
So I was thinking about Hamlet this morning on the drive in to work (what, doesn’t everybody?) I realized that there’s a gap in my understanding of the timeline. Maybe I’m missing something obvious, but this is why I have this site, so I can brain dump random Shakespeare thoughts and have people either learn the same things I’m learning, or else correct me where I’m mistaken.
We all should know the basic plot from high school – Hamlet’s father (“Old Hamlet”) defeated Fortinbras’ father (“Old Norway”) years ago in fair combat, and won some lands from him. Young Fortinbras has a problem with this, and eventually invades Denmark by the end of the play. We also learn from the gravedigger that Hamlet was born on the day that “our last king Hamlet overcame Fortinbras.”
So “the grudge,” for lack of a better term, is as old as Hamlet. Am I right so far? That must mean that either:
Fortinbras is younger than Hamlet, and thus was born after the combat, and is avenging a dishonor that is just entirely abstract to him, or,
Fortinbras is older than Hamlet, so then I ask, how much older? If he’s old enough to remember the combat and to have taken it as a slight to his family honor, he had to be what, ten years old at least?
I might be missing a textual clue that tells me the actual answer. I was just pondering it in relation to how Hamlet (who is supposed to be thirty, by most interpretations) is still relatively whiny and immature. So if Fortinbras is ten years older than that, and still being referred to as “young” and of “unimproved mettle hot and full,” that seems a little strange. How old you gotta be in this world for people to stop calling you young?
You may have already heard, but Earle Hyman, perhaps most known to modern audiences as the grandfather on The Cosby Show, passed away this weekend.
But did you know, other than the occasional Shakespeare skit on that show (for which, we point to Bardfilm), that Mr. Hyman was in fact an accomplished Shakespearean actor? Here he is, from 2016, talking about How Shakespeare Changed My Life.
Rest in peace, Mr. Hyman. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Also, how did I not know about this series?! Looks like there’s a good 50 episodes of famous people talking about nothing but Shakespeare. I know what I’m doing over Thanksgiving break!
