Status Updates From The Complete Works of Willi...

One of the reasons I decided to read every Shakespeare play is that I had never read Hamlet. Now that I have read Hamlet, I can see why everybody finds it so fascinating. He's definitely one of the Bard's most compelling protagonists, and the the plot is incredible, but it's still a pleasure even when it's not focused on the main plot.

The Two Noble Kinsmen

Homosocial competition between best friends is initiated by incarceration as the condition of possibility for desire and terminated through conveyance of the object of rivalry as though she were a chattel. It is not identical to TGV, but it does bring the wheel full circle insofar as Emilia is not constrained to silence but her conveyance does restore male friendship.

Henry VIII

Somewhat episodic, packing disparate events into one presentation, perhaps of a piece with the romances. It lacks a central protagonist, but coalesces around episodes wherein we wait 'til the king's pleasure be known'--essentially elevating royal aesthetics to the law of the land--sovereign preference as sovereign decision. Thomas More appears very briefly but is deemphasized, limited to office.

"ADR. Back, slave, or I will break thy pate across.
E. DRO. And he will bless that cross with another beating:
Between you I shall have a holy head."
WHEEZE

"Good sister, let us dine, and never fret;
A man is master of his liberty:
Time is their master, and when they see time,
They'll go or come; if so, be patient, sister."
- 'Comedy of Errors', William Shakespear

"I to the world am like a drop of water,
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth (Unseen, inquisitive), confounds himself."
- 'Comedy of Errors', William Shakespear

"According to the statute of the town,
Dies ere the weary sun set in the west."
- 'Comedy of Errors', William Shakespear
Not really sure how this is a comedy and not a tradgedy, but I love it.

"But though thou art adjudged to the death
And passed sentance may not be recall'd."
- 'Comedy of Errors', William Shakespear

A Comedy of Errors
Finished: 25/03/2026

Obviously you could read/watch/perform Shakespeare for a lifetime and still find something new or react to a line, character, or setting in a different way. Ive always wanted to learn more about him and his work because so many artists I respect have such a profound admiration for him. This has been a good start.

The Tempest

Just lovely, of course. As though Shakespeare read Marlowe and said 'nope.' Caliban is a dangerous remainder who does not partake in the resolution; and of course enslaving Ariel is awful. This text in some ways looks at the thought experiment of CoE re: Occam's razor and Quine-Duhem from the other direction. Also: theater as governance.

Sonnets 23-30

A Comedy of Errors
Started: 23/03/2026

Cymbeline

Villainy is defeated so as to bring Britain back within Rome's ambit--it is definitely an odd result. The misogynist gossip about Innogen--that 'her beauty and her brain go not together'--is recognized as true about a different character later--but less about intelligence and more about the familiar shakespearean problem of inferring a person's interior intention from their exterior signs.

Sonnets, 7-22

The first comedy - finally!