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AWTEW reading thread
Okay, so the Olivia/Viola scene and the three queens fall into that same category as the Emilia/Desdemona scene. If we are actually thinking in terms of full scene divisions, you are absolutely right. But the scene in Richard III is 4.4 at that's a monster that takes forever. I was in that play (lo, these many years ago) and we always used to joke about how 4.4 was an act in itself. So, yes, Richard shows up but the time the queens have together is longer than many full scenes found elsewhere.
Yes, how does Helena so quickly work out that the widow is a landlady? Magic? Or is she just brilliant at reading non-verbal communication (unlike me)? Candy, I always seem to be ahead of you in commenting on the scenes, which is not fair, so I'm holding back on 3.6 until you've had a chance to say something.
Matthew, I am even more impressed with your knowledge of English actors now. I recognise some names on your list but by no means all. Incidentally, the casting in the BBC AWTEW follows your suggestions, with a handsome Bertram and a "well fed" Lavache. Lavache is played by this guy,
[image error]
(Paul Brooke) who has been in lots of things, Bridget Jones for example.
Incidentally, for me the real star of the BBC version is Donald Sinden as the King, a great perfomance.
Oh yes of course! I didn't know Paul Brooke's name but I recognize his picture instantly! He is one of those classic "I know his face but not his name" types that I've seen play ten-minute roles in a million movies and TV shows. Now, I'm even more eager to see the show. Thank you, Martin.
Mod
I am just behind you Martin as I read 3.6 this morning. Again, in this scene, I had my adrenaline start speeding. Things are going to explode or implode...and suddenly I am scratching my head...I had the idea this was a "comedy"...but it seem to me the events are heading towards a sadness.
I loved all the explanation of the soldiers that Parolles is a con artist, hilarious. And I love how they predict if he has to he'll return with some fancy gadget to show Bertram and distract from having been a coward. Good stuff. One of the lords seems to think so little of Parolles as he might treason, or kill to hide his cowardice?
I, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly
surprise him; such I will have, whom I am sure he
knows not from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink
him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he
is carried into the leaguer of the adversaries, when
we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship
present at his examination: if he do not, for the
promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of
base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the
intelligence in his power against you, and that with
the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath, never
trust my judgment in any thing.
But now Bertram...typical...has fallen for a princess or lady in Spain! And of course, Helena is going to be staying or friends with her. No...I'm not completely surewhat lady Bertram is speaking of, and is he actually matchmaking the First Lord with Helena...or a Spanish woman? Something is crazy!
BERTRAM
Now will I lead you to the house, and show you
The lass I spoke of.
First Lord
But you say she's honest.
BERTRAM
That's all the fault: I spoke with her but once
And found her wondrous cold; but I sent to her,
By this same coxcomb that we have i' the wind,
Tokens and letters which she did re-send;
And this is all I have done. She's a fair creature:
Will you go see her?
First Lord
With all my heart, my lord.
What suspenseful ending to a scene!
btw, I LOVE Paul Brooke, he has the most wonderful face. He has been in a lot of things, he was in a Ken Russle movie even Lair of the White Worm I believe.
We never quite get to the bottom of what Parolles has been up to, but my guess is that he's been trying to recruit the local girls into some prostitution racket.
There is one connection btween the last two scenes which I think is very interesting. Mariana says that girls who succumb to assaults on their virginity,
"are limed with the twigs that threaten them"
This is reference to a way of trapping small birds: you cover the twigs with sticky stuff (lime), and when the birds land on the twigs they get stuck and can't escape. This must have been active in the 19th century, because Lewis Carroll wrote,
I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search for grassy knolls
For wheels of hansom-cabs.
Of course the crabs come instead of birds because this is a nonsense poem.
In the next scene "2nd Lord" says of Parolles,
"I must go look my twigs: he shall be caught."
in other words, he is off to add the lime.
The idea is that Parolles will be trapped in the same way that he has set traps to catch young girls.
Mod
3.7 is like 3.6 in that it opens in the middle of a conversation. We guess that Helena's "she" in,
If you misdoubt that I am not she
refers to Helena, just as "him" in
Nay good my Lord, put him to it
refers to Parolles. As Candy observes, things are speeding up. Everything is happening over one day (and night), with the scene flipping back and forth between the men and the women. The scene changes are easy for us, because it's so like cinema, but for a reader like Voltaire Shakespeare's disregard of the unity of place seemed like a grievous fault.
I've read this short scene over several times now, and each time I find so much more in it. The women are planning a virtuous act, one still dressed (I take it) as a pilgrim. But it has the structure of a brothel scene, with the Widow as the bawd and Helena as a client, passing the gold. They are also planning swindling a man of his ring, which is more like two prostitutes working a hustle together. Helena has no doubt that Bertram will give the ring up,
This ring he holds
In most rich choice, yet, in his idle fire,
To buy his will, it would not seem too dear,
Howe'er repented after.
How does she know this? Lovers after all are often the worst judges of the ones they love. Is it because she has known Bertram for years? In a sense, she is the only one who knows Bertram, and he remains something of a blank to the audience and reader. But if she knows he will do this, why does she love him so much? Or does she guess he will do it, just as she guessed the Widow was to be her landlady? Or is there something like witchcraft at work here, so that Bertram has to act in the way Helena plans? If so, a pilgrim's habit seems an appropriate disguise for this worker of magic.
The first line shows Shakespeare's love of extra negatives
If you misdoubt that I am not she
instead of,
If you doubt that I am she,
and the riddling ending,
wicked meaning in a lawful deed
and lawful meaning in a lawful act
where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact
can almost be understood. The deed will be lawful because the participants are married, but it will have a wicked meaning for Bertram who does not know this ... and so on.
Again, the assault on virginity is compared to siege warfare,
the Count he woos you daughter
Lays down his wanton siege before her beauty ...
Mod
You've made an awesome observation that the pacing is much like cinema. Very good point.
I feel as if there is a bit of witchcraft or magic at work here with Helena. She has developed in my mind now very much from the beginning. I have a feeling I will finish this and read it again right away.
This scene does take re-reads...and I am spinning at the "lawful wicked not sin sinful act"
What!?
Mod
Martin said,
Again, the assault on virginity is compared to siege warfare,
I might wonder that Shakespeare is up to showing, especially in 3.7 that warfare pales to women's strategies..
:)
Candy, it occurs to me that the similar exhileration you felt with 12th night is because in that play too, everything converges into the events of a single day. The words "more matter for a May morning" helps fix the time, after which everything occurs on that same May day.
Incidentally, 12th night is a perfect example of the Shakespearean clock running at two speeds. The visits of Viola to Olivia take place over a few successive days, but at the end Orsino says to Antonio, "thy words are madness. Three months this youth hath tended upon me."
I think there is a sense of two clocks at work in AWTEW also. As a pilgrim (traditionally on foot), Helena seems to have done a round trip of southern Europe. This must have taken a long time. But Bertram is not yet disabused of Parolles character, and one imagines the French lords would have acted fairly swiftly to do so. You get the feeling that Helela's clock is running slower than Bertram's.
Candy, didn't see your two last posts before I posted the previous one. I suggest you charge ahead now, and let me know when you've finished so I don't include any spoilers before that. I'll do the same. (No one else is going to mind.)
Mod
And I also got a copy of the BBc production and after I finish the play...I'm looking forward to watching it...I'm massively excited!
:)
Hi everybody,Just wanted to drop by quickly to say I've been eagerly following this discussion and have been tempted to jump in many times, had real life not run heavy and persistent interference (which alas it did). Should you guys decide to have a follow-up discussion on another play, though, I'd very much like to try to keep pace and chime in at least on some level, though, if I may.
I'm a big fan of the BBC Shakespeare series, too, btw ...
Take care - and enjoy the rest of AWTEW ... and this discussion! (I know I will.)
The invented language of 4.1 really does sound like some European language that you've never heard before: a cross between Basque and Hungarian perhaps. Even these nonsense phrases show Shakespeare's skill, Oscorbidulchos volivorco!
Even so, I imagine this is a guide to how the actors are meant to sound, rather than a script to be followed. The actors are to take the same advice as that given to the soldiers,
"therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy, not to know what we speak one to another; so we seem to know, is to know straight our purpose: choughs' language, gabble enough, and good enough."
They must invent the gibberish for themselves. Equally the soldier who knows English (French really of course) can invent some crazy foreign accent of his own with which to address Parolles.
I find this scene wonderfully comic. It is interesting how little known the fooling of Parolles is, compared with, say, the fooling of Malvolio. Of course it occurs rather late in the play, and is interspersed with scenes of a much more serious nature, but even so, the humour I think is irresistable.
There are similarities with Malvolio. There is the same idea of the "overheard soliloquy". We glimpse the real man, to the disgust of the listeners. Like Malvolio, Parolles will be locked up in the dark,
Till then I'll keep him dark and safely locked.
Hey Martin,I know I've been making myself scarce but I am still here. I don't want to hold you and Candy back so, if you want to include spoilers, go ahead. But please just put in the standard "spoiler warning" or some such alert when you do. I'm reading all your comments, I just haven't had the chance to write much (writing takes longer).
Martin wrote: We never quite get to the bottom of what Parolles has been up to, but my guess is that he's been trying to recruit the local girls into some prostitution racket.Perhaps so, Martin. In any case, that Parolles is a nasty bit of work is obvious to every person in the play, save Bertram. Surely we are intended to read something in his failing.
At the same time, we do get to the bottom of what Bertram intends for Diana, which is hardly better than what you suspect Parolles was up to. Parolles is not the only one who needs trapping.
Further, how instructive that those good lords, eager to expose Parolles for what he is, are also ready to aid Bertram in his lecherous pursuit, his trapping of Diana.
Bertram and the whole of his crew are unutterably loathesome.
Addendum: I spell a few words with a pronounced limp, spelled "limp" and pronounced limp. Two are whimsey and loathesome, which I have apparently and unfortunately committed to memory as a result of their having been used in email addresses of old friends. What a hoot that you have outed me!
Mod
I'm not sure the portrayl of this crew as robbing women of their virtue is much worse than women taking a ring for trade! Although I suppose hundreds of years of wives would disagree with me, and Beyonce...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVEGf...
Matthew...hold us back? Don't worry, thats not possible. I'm juggling things too...won't be back till late tonight or tomorrow morning...
here's what I'm doing...art group with an outreach program in chicago soup kitchen (with Franciscan monks) ...I'ma ctually meeting another Goodreads participant for coffee this morning and he helps too. I'm hoping to get him to join us here either in this discussion or next one...
http://gnosticminx.blogspot.com/2009/...
Bertram seems little troubled at having an Osric-like fop of a retainer, perhaps because, at bottom, he cannot plumb the difference between ignorance and apathy: he doesn't know and he doesn't care.
Well, I am getting increasingly lost here. William, where do the French lords help Bertram "in his lecherous pursuit"? Because I cannot find it. Who is the Osric like fop? (I hope we are reading the same play!)What is Beyonce? Am I supposed to look at their bodies are listen to the lyrics? I'd prefer to do the former ...
Hello Martin! I did hope to get your attention, but didn't intend to give you such a turn.French lords helping Bertram:
FIRST LORD
But you say she's honest.
BERTRAM
That's all the fault....
Will you go see her?
FIRST LORD
With all my heart, my lord.
Osric-like fop: Parolles!
Having finished reading the play for the first time over the Xmas holidays, I have, since then, been slowly re-reading it, trying to make sense of its major characters and themes with the aid of various readily available critical materials written for the general reader.
You and others have made some very intriguing, challenging, and helpful comments, including these:
1. that Parolles is Bertram's evil genius, a view that you, yourself, accept from and share with Tillyard;
2. that Bertram is behaving like any young man when he first rejects Helena, then marries her, and finally abandons her.
I mention these two comments in particular because I find them at odds with the view of the whole play that has settled comfortably, no doubt too comfortably, perhaps even smugly, in my own understanding.
So, what have we but a disagreement of the type that makes for horse races and the knowledge that winning isn't everything.
Okay, but I think we read it rather differently. It is after all Bertram who is trying to get "2nd lord" to meet to the girl, not the other way round. The point of the exchange, surely, is to make us see what Parolles ("this same coxcomb") has been up to in recruiting the friendship of young girls around Florence. Besides, 2nd lord cannot be expecting any action. The girl was "wondrous cold" and returned Bertrams's presents and letters.In 4.3 it's clear that Bertram's friends have been carefully distancing themselves from his follies:
1st lord: I perceive by this demand you are not altogether of his counsel.
2nd lord: Let it be forbid sir, so I should be a great deal of his act.
In other words the more the 2nd lord discovers of Bertram's follies, the more he feels implicated in them.
Parolles/Osric, yes, but of course, Parolles is playing the role of mentor, not retainer. Actually of course he's a sponger.
Incididentally I quoted Tillyard only because Jenna described him as "necessary" (what happened to Jenna?) I have read Tillyard's essay on AWTEW and disagree with almost everything he says!
As for Bertram, I still think his composition is the same as that of most men, and women too, and is summed up in this bit of wisdom from 4.3,
Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
I think the final unmasking of Parolles is hilariously funny, one of the greatest scenes of pure comedy in Shakespeare. Parolles accusation of "1st lord's" bed-wetting for example,
"in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him; but they know his conditions and lay him in straw."
The treatment of Parolles is side-splittingly funny, but it is cruel. The wartime background makes it palateable.
This may sound like a silly connection, but it reminds me of the stunt in M.A.S.H. when Hotlips and her man have their lovemaking broadcast over the loudspeaker system. It's a joke of wartime, terribly unkind although so funny, which you can imagine might really have been pulled off by some wild army officers.
Mod
:)
I suppose I'm the only person in the Western hemisphere who has not heard of Beyonce. Oh well ...The French lords give us a reference date: two months since Helena began her pilgrimage. Plausible, but it would still have been a dash for Helena I think. And then the Countess's letter, reports of Helena's death, Parolles exposure, the consummation of the marriage, the end of the war, the decision to return to France, all happen at once. A busy night!
I agree that Parolles is like Osric in being a creature of fashion, but I think he compares more with Oswald in Lear, in having no core. There is nothing at the centre of Parolles.
But is Bertram, as William says, "an upper class twit"? He might be. After all, Shakespeare defines his characters within certain limits (perhaps all dramatists do), and the actor decides where to place himself or herself between those limits. You could imagine a version of the play which takes that line, but it might not work too well.
I have just borrowed the Arden (G.K. Hunter) edition, which William has been using. Interesting. It makes the same comparison between AWTEW and Hamlet that I mentioned earlier, and you'll just have to take my word for it that I was not plagiarising! But it sees AWTEW Act I as holding the connecting point to Hamlet.
But I can see a broader connection ....
HAMLET SPOILERS HERE
Bertram resembles Laertes in his early departure to Paris, taking with him wisdom and blessing from his parent. He also has Laertes' simplicity. Laertes is easily manipulated by the King, just as Bertram is by Parolles. But more interesting, Bertram is like an opposite of Hamlet. Both have lost a father, both come under the King's control. Both see the King as an enemy. But Hamlet's intelligence and sensitivity are the opposite of Bertram's simplicity and insensitivy. Hamlet has a true friend in Horatio, who is contrasted with the indistinguishable Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the hollow men, the manipulators. Bertram has true friends in the indistinguishable first and seconds Lords (the Dumaine brothers), and a false friend in Parolles. The "twins" are the opposites in the plays, just as Parolles and Horation are opposites. Bertram and Hamlet reject the women who love them, leave the court, and travel back to it.
SERIOUS MEASURE FOR MEASURE SPOILERS HERE
But of the so-called problem plays, the extraordinary parallel is really between AWTEW and MM. G.K. Hunter calls them "obvious twins", but they are surely opposites again, or at least mirror images. The plays are so close, you can imagine an acting troupe with roles assigned in one play easily adapting to the other play:
Isabella/Helena
Angelo/Bertram
Mariana/Diana
Lavache/Pompey
The Duke/The King
Escalus/Lafew
Lucio/Parolles
It is a mirror image in that the bed-trick works the other way round. In MM the heroine substitutes Mariana (the abandoned wife) for herself for Angelo to make love to; in AWTEW the heroine substitutes herself (the abandoned wife) for Diana for Bertram to make love to. Bertram is led from folly to folly; Angelo from crime to crime. Forgiving Bertram is no harder the letting a schoolboy off a classroom punshment. Forgiving Angelo is, for Isabella, the ultimate test of Christian forgiveness.
Martin wrote:1. In other words the more the 2nd lord discovers of Bertram's follies, the more he feels implicated in them.
Yes, quite. But neither he nor the 1st lord act to prevent what you call Bertram's follies, and your calling them so is a measure of our disconnect, Martin.
2. Parolles/Osric, yes, but of course, Parolles is playing the role of mentor, not retainer. Actually of course he's a sponger.
Yes, his status is that of mentor, but the role he plays, by virtue of his class, is that of retainer--as are in effect, the French lords. And a sponger, of course. The question that remains: what are we to make of the fact that Bertram alone cannot see Parolles for what he is? Your answer: it's just a guy thing. Good that you have the Arden, which contains an Parolles/Osric link--but now that I want it, I can't find it!
3. Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.
Yes, a great summing up, not only of the play itself, but of much of life. Words to reflect on and live by, if only we could.
The Parolles/Osric link is on page xlviii of the Intro, "he is (like Osric) appearance without reality ..." --- easy for me to find since I've just been reading the Intro.William, I wonder if you haven't been influenced by the GK Hunter Intro, which is very negative about the play as a whole? In the one-page Preface, Hunter acknowledges a debt to the Cowden Clarkes, Tillyard and Dover Wilson. The Cowden Clarkes were Victorian editors. Dover Wilson was a bit of an ass. Tillyard's essay on AWTEW preceded the Hunter edition by 7 years, and was clearly a major influence. Hunter's ideas are almost a parody of Tillyard's. He sees the play as an artistic mess which it is the job of the critic to tidy up as best he can. The verse is "laboured and complex" (Intro, part 5). He pulls out what he calls a section of "workaday" verse to illustrate his ideas, comparing AWTEW with Midsummer Night's Dream. (The use of a word like "workaday" to describe Shakespeare's writing shows the limits of Hunter's critical abilities.) Here he follows Tillyard, who is at pains to show the inferiority of AWTEW compared to MM. Tillyard is the better critic, but the result is still unconvincing.
Tillyard is much better on MM, recognising that the dislike of Isabella's character is a male critic's reaction against a woman they would not care to be married to. But on AWTEW he misses the mark. I think there is a similar problem with AWTEW that the critical heritage up to 1950 had been so masculine. Helena's pursuit of an inferior man upsets male pride: he wants her to go after a noble hero he can project himself onto. Her "empowerment" in the play interests him less than it would, say, a modern feminist critic. Tillyard's starting point is that the play is a failure. He begins "It is agreed the All's Well is in some sort a failure." He therefore doesn't need to explain why he thinks it is, he assumes that can be taken for granted and the reader will agree. His job, then, is to explain just why it fails, and this he proceeds to do. It is caused by Shakespeare's "feebleness of execution". Shakespeare, it seems, was half asleep when he wrote it. To give an idea of Tillyard's assumptions, he describes the lively opening which we all enjoyed so much where Parolles and Helena debate virginity as "feeble and indecent" -- one would prefer to think Shakespeare had not written it, but (comparing it with similar speeches in the other plays) "their words [of Parolles and Falstaff:] belong to the same author".
Incidentally, Tillyard, as he frankly admits, never saw a performance. ("Who of its judges have seen it acted? Not I at any rate ...") This astonishes us today, but AWTEW and MM were considered too indecent in the 19th century to show on the stage, and the legacy of relatively few productions of these plays continues to this day.
I've just looked at the goodreads reviews (never thought of doing that before),http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10...
Quite interesting. On balance the women readers are more sympathetic to the play than the men it seems.
A good summary of the stage history of AWTEW athttp://www.rsc.org.uk/allswell/about/...
They refer to the BBC version under the name Moshinsky (the director) rather than Miller (who was producer). It turns out that this version was quite important.
Mod
:)
Hi ...I am very under the weather with a cold. I feel like crap! Just a mess...so sorry I am AWOL...but this morning I beganw atching the BBC production. I had finished reading the play a couple of days ago. I am not responding to the previous posts yet...I will later, maybe tomorrow.I was suddenly hit by a couple of the Kings words this morning...and so I dare to back track in order to maybe see some insight into Bertram and his generation?
But when I watched bit of the play via BBC I was struck by a couple of things the King says ...and they really tell us, secretly perhaps an awful lot about Bertram.I agree he is not a wide swathed character and why does he reject Helena....? William has mentioned reading an argument that Bertrams rejectoion is of a kind of blanket authority and actually may be admirable that he refuses to have a wife picked for him...
I wonder William, if we might not find a clue to Bertram's attitude in the following words of the King?
The King says to Bertram some telling things I believe. He talks about how a good King had treated hose who were from humbler stations equally. This good king morally... bowed to their low ranks which made the lower ranks proud of his humility.
So like a courtier, contempt nor bitterness
Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,
His equal had awaked them, and his honour,
Clock to itself, knew the true minute when
Exception bid him speak, and at this time
His tongue obey'd his hand: who were below him
He used as creatures of another place
And bow'd his eminent top to their low ranks,
Making them proud of his humility,
In their poor praise he humbled. Such a man
Might be a copy to these younger times;
Which, follow'd well, would demonstrate them now
But goers backward.
Below is a familiar enough sentiment to today...there are some people who only like everything new. They want to reject all tradition and old things for new...and the King says each of these gaps in morality betweent he generations when Bertram arrives to his sick bed...
All but new things disdain; whose judgments are
Mere fathers of their garments; whose constancies
Expire before their fashions.'
Anyways...I know this is backtracking...but it seems relevant somehow. Unfinished business if you will.
Meanwhile...I'm drinking lots of liguids and resting...hopefully will be back on traack with the posts here in a day or so...
Our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not, and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.Somewhere and recently (what a memory, eh?) I read/heard a remarkable equivalent to this statement, which goes somewhat as follows:
We are, none of us, thoroughly as bad as we are in our worst moments.
To which I want to add this:
... nor as good as we are in our best.
Surely this applies as much to our judgments about books, plays, poems, and the like, as to anything else.
PS to Martin: Found the Osric reference in the notes to I.i.200 on page 15 of Arden, with reference to of a good wing:
There may also be a reference to flaps or "wings" on Parolles' costune..., so that conspicuous ones on Parolles' costume would be a proper subject for ridicule....--N.S. gives "wings" to Osric in Hamlet, V.ii. "I like the wear well" has an obvious reference if this is true.
Here's to the minutiae of everyday life.
Candy, the King isn't talking about another king, but about Bertram's father. (It must be the medication they've put you on to get you over this cold. The best thing is honey and lemon in hot water -- no side effects.)
I like your motto William, which might stand as a moral to the play.
Another, more or less equivalent, moral to the play is suggested in Essential Shakespeare Handbook (Dunton-Downer & Riding):AWTEW should be read as the older generation reads the younger in the play: with open-minded acceptance of even the most improbable developments, and with faith in the unexpected good in human nature: "briars shall have leaves as well as thorns/And to us sweet as sharp."
Since this bit of silver-headed, grey-bearded wisdom comes from Helena, we might see her remarkable self as a bridge spanning the gap that separates the two generations.
You asked, Martin, what I thought of the BBC version. It was what the performance of any play with great potental ought be: revealing.Two memorable scenes, for me:
1. II. i.: Helena's first encounter with the King, who lies in his bed. Beginning at line 150 or so, when she rushes to the King's bed, clasps his hands, strokes his head, and pronounces what Arden calls her "incantation against sickness," through to the end of the scene, when the King takes her face in his hands, draws her to him, and they kiss. Unforgetable.
2. V. iii.: Helena's entrance, lines 299-303. The camera, showing her entrance only indirectly, slowly pans across the faces of the astounded assembly, Diana, Lafew, the King, the Countess, and ends on the face of Bertram, whose "Both, both. O pardon!" is thereby made quite, quite believable.
But, I'm a sucker for sentiment. The hard-headed amoung you may find these two scenes over the top.
Mod
Excuse me.
Oh dear, did I post random illogical thoughts the other day Martin and all...sorry if so. Oops.
And here I thought I'd had a great revelation heh heh but it was just my fever.
I DID know that the ill King was talking about Bertram's father. What I found interesting was it seemed to me that his observations of an older generation could show the gap of how Bertram was behaving...because he might be one ofthose people who is obsessed with new ways.
And...then coincidently (?) William posted the quote about reading the play as the older generation reads the younger in the play. Which...as I watched the BBC performance it seemed to be to be an insight into the different attitudes...perhaps of the young Bertram to the described King's thoughts.
Anyways...hardly a big deal...I may have read something into the scene that wasn't there as I was not feeling well.
SPOILER
I did find a great reward at the end of the play. I was interested inhow the play leaps to the ending, I suppose we didn't need to see the bedroom switcheroo in action...not seeing it...played into the suspense of whether Helena's plan succeeded or not. I found myself so nervous I thought someone was going to die accidently or something.
Again, I was really impressed with how war strategy is compared to human social strategies. Sneaking up on Parolles to catch him at his con. Helena's strategies were so good that they impressed Bertram so fully he fell in love with her in a second.
By the end of the play...I also thought Parolles was a scoundrel...but perhaps not as repulsive as I first felt him to be...I had softened on him...and I'm not sure why. I guess it was I felt more compassion for him as he became a spectacle and a game at the hands of the others to "out" him. In some ways...this feeling might be like that between adversaries...or warriors...how do I say this? His attitude is the reason women must be very cunning and strong about their virtues as some men are approaching the lovemaking as strategy as war or game. It's as if...Parolles can't help it, it's his nature. He's actually "harmless" to virgins as long as virgins remain strategic etc.
I alos think the play is wildly hilarious revelation about marriage...or married life. Instead of the romantic pedestal of lovers that stay true despite war, or arranged marriages...this is almost feeling like such a joke. Maarriage seems a lot more like depending on "the criminal mind" or the wily manuevering of a chess game/sneak attack war...then idealistic virtues. Helena comes off as a military power to be reckoned with!
I think this is really a good example of a play that will be much more enjoyed on a second or third reading. There is something different about knowing everyone and then the plot and suspense has a new life.
Here's what G. K. Hunter (Arden) says about "the most obviously perverse section of the play--the denouement."Shakespeare seems to aim at emphasizing the virtue of forgiveness; the greater the crime to be forgiven the greater the virtue of the person forgiving. The major victory at the end of the play is not the achievement of a husband but the ransom of wickedness by the overflowing power of mercy--and this is what the Countess forecasts:
... He cannot thrive,
Unless her prayers, whom heaven delights to hear
And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath
Of greatest justice. (III. iv. 26-9)
Helena's remarkable entrance in this last scene of the BBC production is the filmic equivalent of Hunter's vision and the Countess' forecast.
Okay everyone, the read is officially over, so there is no need to cry spoiler anymore. I agree with your notes on the BBC production William, and Candy I thought you made great points in message 137.
I've been busy, and am a bit tired, but I wanted to throw in a few things:
I think making Diana a Capulet is a lovely touch. Diana seems to rise in dignity as the story progresses. Finally she ends up in the same family as Juliet. I think the connection would have amused contemporary audiences, as they recalled Shakespeare's earler success.
Bertram's affection for Lafew's daughter is suppressed in the earlier part of the play, as it would have given a reason for not wishing to marry Helena that might have prejudiced the audience against her. But it is important in assessing Bertram's motives. They are not as mean as Matthew suggested.
I think the bed-trick is meant to be erotic. It happens offstage for obvious reasons, but one is meant to imagine the effect the mistake might have had on Bertram. Helena too no doubt derived every pleasure from it, a fact that would have been intolerable for a Victorian audience to have to consider.
Helena's magic powers continue ... the Widow and Diana become her willing servants and follow her back to France. She "knows" she will have a child by Bertram. And yet she does not guess the King has gone to Roussillon.
Candy's feeling towards Parolles :
It has been pointed out that morally Parolles is no worse than Falstaff. A problem for poor old Parolles is that no one in the play likes him (including Bertram at the end). With so many negatives it is hard to feel positive. Despite all his talk he is disempowered man, just as Helena is empowered woman. Parolles and Helena are contrasting opposites, and their first encounter sets the direction of the whole play. Parolles is "broken down" by the two French lords, and is a ruined man thereafter, an object of disgust or charitable pity. Bertram is "broken down" by Helena and her female accomplices, but from that a new man is created.
Mod
I think it says a lot to how I feel about the play, and the characters. I really didn't expect to enjoy this so much...although I'm not sure why I felt that trepidation.
I am still a little overwhelmed with work, and am also tired...just a quick check in here...I should have more time and energy this weekend.
I think the idea that all of us are less than ideal or perfect people...we all have flaw, personality or make mistkes is a great lesson inthis play.
Martin...I agree...the "wedding night" is such an erotic notion...and Helena is doing something wrong on so many levels. The Countess and diana when they hear the plan almost seem to have to make sure they remember it's actually LEGAL! Reminding the audience too...because it's wrong what Helena doss...but it isn't breaking any laws. I just find it faboulous to imagine the the deed and it's funny, nefairious, naughty, sexy and wrong all at once and correct!
somehow...the lies that Parolles tells, his cons, his broken downness..Bertrams negative attitude his lack of love for Helena...
Well...all of this is messing around with the idea of legislating morality...which we simply are not able to do...nor is it wise.
But...the joy in this play is that such bad behaviour is leveled out with karma and good acts...and maybe even love heals bad behaviour?
William, the idea of forgiveness in this play is interesting. do you think people have actually forgiven each other or have they actually "won" what they wanted...therefore are happy? I think examining Hunter's theory of forgiveness in this play is very interesting...because it seems more like there is another larger force at work here...of trickery...of bad behaviour and then a LEAP! But I must sleep on your perspective and Hunters perspective of "forgiving" in this play...
As I said a second ago...I see this play as more to do with the attempts we make at legislating proper behaviourr, with customs, laws, rules, manners ideals...but all of these can not be legislated. So maybe I feel the complete opposite of Hunter's ideas...I believe Hunter's perspective is a lot more idealistic than what I've taken from this play. I believe there is a satire about our "higher ideals' here somewhere...and maybe even...bad behaviour heals bad behaviour! Ha ha!
Anyways...I hope to hear more from everyone...and I'll be back in the morning...
Candy, really interesting you should see in the play the theme of "legislating morality", which really opens a new window for me. I had tended to assume that in AWTEW this theme was not there, simply because, in the comparable M for M, it is so often explicitly stated,. . . Now, as fond fathers,
Having bound up the threatening twigs of birch,
Only to stick it in their children's sight
For terror, not to use, in time the rod
Becomes more mock'd than feared.
-- the Duke talking about the laws against licentious behaviour not being applied,
But shall all our houses of resort in the suburbs be
pulled down?
--- that is, will this new legislation causes all the brothels to be demolished?
Isabella's famous lines on men with legal authority playing at God:
...but man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority, . . .
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
These are just a few examples.
But you are right, it is equally there as an important theme in AWTEW.
Have you seen the BBC version all through yet? I wondered what you thought of it.
I've watched that youtube clip 3 times now, and am so impressed with all the insights squeezed into such a short space. Amanda Dehnert is a professor at Northwestern University. I may send her an email saying how much we liked it.
Mod
I have massively enjoyed watching the BBC production.
William, I want you to know I am giving some serious analysis to Hunter's concept of forgiveness in this play. As I am doing so...I find piece after piece that convinces me that Shakespeare might not be aiming for such an ideal. At first, I thought maybe I am cynical and can not see forgiveness in the characters...
...but what I am seeing in watching the performance a couple of times, in order to really sink in...and consider and compare all the comment shere...
...is that the play refers to the planets so many times...I feel there is a dare...is love and will power a part of destiny? Is our situation set in stone...set by planets (destiny) or do we use the energy of the planets like alchemists.
Helen says she is from a baser star. I wonder does she mean earth? In manyreligions and philosophies...earth isn't in "heaven"...it is below ...baser...Is the idea explored that we are fallen to earth...and always of a baser sort than the gods in the stars. This is a Christian and pagan gnostic common idea. We can emulate the stars above for our acts (as above so below) and we might also be wise to use our wills to set our selves free from destiny?
Helen's cure of the King is portrayed as a combination of sexual energy and lust...and alchemy or incantation. I found this so amazing.
One other quick note...as I might just return with odd thoughts here in a few separate posts...is...
the entire discussion of virginity between Helen and Parolles has a new flavour than the first time I read it a couple weeks ago with you all here.
Now...when I watched the two characters/actors...I see Helen actually might be seeing herself in Parolles and she is part suspicious and part in admiration. She knows he has made "something of himself" by his will (okay, lies & bragging is one way of looking at him). I notice it is Helena that goads him into the discussion of virginity. And by the end of their talk...she seems to see herself in him.
I now see them as the same struggling kinds of souls who have made the best they can with their sheer willpowers.
I also now see...and incredible joke in their discussion as she asks him advice how to protect and fend her virginity like a fort or precious commodity...only by the end of the play to be obsessed with getting rid of her virginity. It is her virginity that holds back her dreams and marriage. And Parolles for all of his talk about invading virginity...helps Bertram NOT get a virgin. It's a farce!
anyways, these are thoughts I've been thinking...
What do you make of the idea, William, that maybe this isn't such an idealistic play with forgiveness...or do you think I am too hard core in my feeling it is actually a different force?
Well, Candy, these exchanges we have had about AWTEW in particular and about literary meaning in general, were great fun for me. I have shared facts or opinions gleaned from others that were helpful to me. At the same time, I have, for the most part, held off giving my own opinions where to do seemed only to refute the views of others. (For example, your view that Bertram's pursuit of Diana as an intended conquest is reasonably described as "falling" for her, and Martin's view that Bertram's licentious pursuit of Diana is a species of youthful "folly"--about which I have commented, though elliptically.) In all of this, for the most part, put me down as agreeing with Pope:
'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Such differences of opinion are a wonder to me; I rejoice in them and neither expect nor need to have them reconciled: a point of view not broadly held.
Having said that, let me respond as genuinely as I can.
First, about AWTEW and forgiveness: I am persuaded of the sense of Hunter's remarks and would, for forgiveness, substitute redemption. I see Helena as an agent of mercy who, in ransoming wickedness, redeems the boy Bertram, who, nonetheless, will never mature into the man Hamlet. This leads to my next response.
Second, about Amanda Dehnert: I certainly wish that I had seen her production of AWTEW. Even so, her views on the "all's well that ends well" notion are dreadfully uninformed by modern analyses of ethical ideas. However, she does provide the following insight: And then they're going to have a life together, and what's that life going to be like? In other words, the story of Helena and Bertram hasn't ended; therefore, all isn't well just yet, is it? Dehnert's remark (unintentionally) reflects the medieval caution against counting people happy before they are in their graves. Just so, the King's parting, "All seems well...." seems a type of memento mori for those of us who need the reminder.
William, you are a shocker at putting words into my mouth. Where did I say that Bertram's licentious pursuit of Diana was a species of youthful folly?
Meanwhile, it is great to have you expressing an opinion (or at least, coming close to expressing an opinion) at last, however elliptically expressed!
(But I don't get this "modern analyses of ethical ideas" .... could you elaborate?)
Mod
I have notes here from watchign the BBC production which I was just coming to share.
As for our sharing of opinions and such about thecharacters...I have a very different feeling...I don't feel any of us have even begun to discuss this play...as we were sharing perspectives as we read along...I for the first time this play. I am not written in stoen and I have many new feelings about these characters more developed than I did a month ago...seeing as I've only just begun to explore them.
I am very open-minded to discussing the motives etc...and do not feel any of us should be stuck on one perspective. It's only this weekend that 3 of us here have completed the play...and Matthew also was not familiar and I assum e when he has time will join us with his perspective.
Having said that...I believe there is a potential for a common understanding of the characters. I think when we apply motives onto Bertram...we are revealing our own experience...not the final cause.
:)
Now...back to the BBC production. I was quite impressed with the sets. Immediately I was struck by how the director ndd set design was emulating famous classic paintngs. First was a Vermeer feeling with the floors and back lit rooms. When two lords are discussing Bertram and his affairs with Diana...they are a t a table dressed in a classic still life of a "vanitas" or vanity...or memeto mori painting of 17th Century Dutch painters. And the men are discussing the vanities of motives
Rembrandt was a huge influence on the lighting of the play and it was extremely effective....and the sick bed scenes seemed picked right out of a Caravaggio painting.
I found these settings to help support and develop the narrative and I was immensely impressed.
As for forgiveness, I am glad you used the idea of redemption William.
I believe there is a force beneath all the motives that comes with the passage of time (and experience?) in this play. But the result is redemption or forgiveness...but those are not the forces.
I believe this play highlights NOT forgiveness...but rather...empathy.
The characters are shown to have intermeshing flaws, motives , lies, and strategies...and the relationship between Helen and Parolles is brilliant and offers an audience an opportunity to witness their trajectories and their connectness.
and quick ntote...I was so involved into he BBC version that I was quirte shocked and taken aback when it is Parolles with short hair and simple clothes talking with Lfew!!! I almost feel over I had gotten so involved. I had to take a double lookie loo!
And like Lafew I was onion-eyed at the ending...splendid version!!!
Yes, I think that BBC version is great, especially Sinden as the King. I particularly liked the sexual chemistry between the King and Helena. I will watch it again with an eye to Old Master compositions!Candy, you are right that we have not begun to discuss "The Play", but of course the problem with Shakespeare is that if we do we might never stop.
About the title: it was apparently a phrase current in Shakespeare's time. He did not invent it, although he has helped in making it immortal. It sounds like a platitude. Shakespeare's earlier comedies have unrevealing titles ("As you like it" etc), but that cannot be the intention here, since it is used in the play, twice by Helena and also by the King, in the closing lines,
The king's a beggar, now the play is done:
All is well ended, if this suit be won,
That you express content; which we will pay,
With strife to please you, day exceeding day. . .
This last line echoes the last line of 12th Night,
And we'll strive to please you every day.
which is the end of Feste's song that can be seen either as a collection of platitudes, like the lyrics of an average modern pop song, or as the story of our journey through life. In other words it either means nothing or a great deal. I think we are meant to feel the same about the carefully chosen title "All's well that ends well". When you are in love, and the future is in doubt, that means a great deal, just as, when in love, the pop song platitudes seem to be the deepest wisdom. Normally it does not end well, but for Helena it does -- she makes it happen -- and for her the words have great meaning.
The King's earlier
All yet seems well
followed by
All is well
makes me think of All shall be well
It seems impossible that Shakespeare could heve known of Julian of Norwich (amazing how in my life everything returns to Norwich!), who lived 200 years before he did, and whose most famous saying is "all shall be well", or more fully, "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well".
(The church where Julian lived and wrote is a walk of about 2 miles from where I live)
And a book, "All Will be Well" has a small following in goodreads! See
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27...
With your comments about the visual character of the BBC production, Candy, you have sounded one of the few consonant chords in our discussion:-- Lighting by Rembrandt
-- Art Direction by Caravaggio
-- Set Decoration by Vermeer
I don't think you're near enough to the National Gallery, Martin, to pop out for a cuppa' and stop in for a peep at a Rembrandt or a Vermeer. With his feet on the ground in (or very near) Manhattan, Matthew can take the 5th Avenue bus to the Met for Rembrandt, then walk across the Park (I think) to the Frick Collection for Vermeer. Candy and I are completely out of luck: as best I can determine, there isn't a Vermeer anywhere in Canada.
Have a look for us, Matthew.
Mod
But William I like your credit list of fthe film very much. Well said, better than I can.
I have seen many of these paintings...during various trips so of that I am glad.
William, I am in Chicago right now. I am from Canada but I went and eloped with my sweet boyfriend to Vegas in Oct...and have been here in Chicago ever since.
The art to be found in Chicago is stunning! I love the Art Institute. But none of those three painters that I know of yet in Chicago on display.(Both my husband and I are artists, both painters. We don't have a living room. I've covered the walls and floors with cardboard and plastic and it is our studio.) We get to galleries every where we travel. We were at those galleries this summer in fact.
Martin, it seems to me that W.S. was very familiar with all likes of folk music and I wouldn't find it too much of a stretch to think he'd heard your ancestral neighbours tune.
I think my basic feeling...walking away from this play is that all the characters were aware and often verbally accounted for the bad behaviour in other characters. I felt the reference to celestial bodies and movements and locations to mirror the characters behaviours at times. And I believe the road to forgiveness is followed through observing others, and feeling empathy.
I guess for the moment that is my nutshell...
:)
No, you haven't missed anything Candy. All will soon be revealed.
Women only scenes: Nice list Matthew. Actually Viola and Olivia don't get a complete scene together without some male interruption, I believe. Similarly in Richard III 4.4 Richard himself turns up. There is Coriolanus 1.3, and there are two scenes in Much Ado. Of course you get scenes with a pair of women (Portia and Nerissa for example) but what I find interesting about this scene in AWTEW is the dynamic of so many women on stage.
More later, must sleep .....