Status Updates From The Complete Works of Willi...

The Tragedy of King Lear

This is the folio version, which is more theatrical and economical. than the earlier 'history.' It has things that the quarto version lacks, and cuts a bit that the earlier presents. The scene progression is substantially identical, so it's not a large difference of plot--more that the local rhetorical changes shade significances differently. It's cool enough to warrant the time.

The Winter's Tale

Sovereignty internalizes Iago, and when jealousy--a property of the oikos--becomes a focus of the polis, we should expect disaster. The well known historical and geographical problems of this text are features of genre; complaining about them is to miss the point somewhat. My reading of the end is that it's deceptive theatricality rather than a supernaturalism.

Im reading hamlet rn i cant really update my progress but yeah

Coriolanus

Almost single-minded, this one distinguishes itself by excluding almost all secondary matter, underplots, and suchlike, focusing instead on the principle class conflict in Rome. Though it is working itself out in the political process, the protagonist can't adapt to the theatricality of civic governance and must revert to soldierly virtues. Politics as extension of war by other means, maybe?

The plot of Twelfth Night again leads me to wonder how easy it might have been to bamboozle an Elizabethan Englishman with a clever disguise. But rather than call it "unrealistic," I'll just say it's amazing what people will believe in spite of what's right in front of them.

Pericles

It's difficult to overstate the effect of this play after the brutal run of Othello, Lear, Timon, Macbeth, A&C, and AWEW, all of which forefront desolating disloyalty. The family reunion here has a sweet but non-naive innocence that makes a surly old marxist weepy. The romance roots are patent, as the text is melodic,' driving forward incessantly, with no time for harmonizing parallel subplots.

All's Well That Ends Well

It's readily apparent why this one makes people nervous--coerced marriage (as in R&J, MND), a cruel handling of a fool (as with Malvolio), a bed trick (MFM), a theater of infidelity (Othello, MAN), all zipped up nifty as the title alleges (which comes from a refrain within the play). One cool part is that Helen steps into a learned techne much like Portia and with similar success.

Antony & Cleopatra

Astute and disciplined Antony is presented as a reckless voluptuary in his later years--the complex historical process of the disintegration of the second triumvirate is stripped down to an interpersonal dispute based on his akrasia. Great meta-theater moment toward the end when Cleopatra rejects the impending spectacle of herself on stage payed by a 'squeaking boy.'

Shakespeare's take on the character of Brutus in Julius Caesar had me researching the real man's historical reputation, which is surprisingly ambiguous when you consider how unkindly people tend to look upon regicides throughout history. This is a very effective play about the way the logic of power drives people to extremes—it doesn't condone the assasination, but it does not ultimately condemn the assassin.

Macbeth

In the broadest strokes, we might describe the story here as the witches act ultra vires, against the will of Hecate, to engineer the destruction of the Scottish aristocracy and importation of English forms of governance. The play highlights the familiar problem of interpreting the interior of a person from their exterior--Macbeth is too paranoid, whereas Duncan is like Lear, too trusting.