The Heart of It All

Of all the major characters in King Lear Cordelia has the fewest lines (116 lines, barely edging out Cornwall and less than her two sisters).  Yet, her actions are central to the play: her refusal to flatter her father leads to her banishment, her rescue of Lear restores his sanity, her senseless death leads to Lear's own death. The history of this play is also full of questions and controversies about her character.  Is her refusal to flatter Lear an act of honesty or defiance?  Is her portrayal in the Folio significantly different from the Quarto?  Is there a connection between the Fool and Cordelia (the two never appear on stage together)?  Why did Nahum Tate's adaptation of the play, in which Cordelia survives and marries Edgar, essentially replace Shakespeare's original from 1681 to 1838? FOCUS on a speech, a scene or a controversy and explain Cordelia's importance to the play.

Much Madness Is Divinest Sense

Emily Dickinson, writing around 1862  in America (approximately 250 years after the death of Shakespeare), composed this poem that reflects some of her views about the relationship between insanity and wisdom:

Much Madness is divinest Sense-
To a discerning Eye-
'Tis the Majority
In this, as all, prevail-
Assent- and your are sane-
Demur- you're staightway dangerous-
And handled with a Chain-

What is Dickinson saying in this poem?  How is it related to observations in King Lear, made by Lear or the Fool or others, about the connection between foolishness and wisdom, madness and insight?  Would various characters share Dickinson's view -- or disagree -- or nuance these observations?  Does the play as a whole endorse or reject the ideas in this poem?

"Fortune . . . Turn Thy Wheel"

King Lear is a play in which many of the major characters undergo suffering -- everything from exile, imprisonment, madness, filial ingratitude, madness, mutilation, despair, to extreme physical deprivation. Yet , at the same time, many of these same characters have ideas about the purpose and limits of suffering.  What are some of the those ideas?  How are they related to the idea of a cosmic moral order, that idea that the world is just if we could only discover its deeper meaning?  How is it related to the ideas about moral order expressed in other plays, such as Richard III or the Merchant of Venice? Do the events of the play endorse or undermine these ideas?  What is this play telling us about suffering?

"The Excellent Foppery of the World"?

In Act 1, Scene 2, Gloucester and his illegitimate son Edmund reveal two contradictory views of human agency.  Gloucester looks to the heavens to explain the troubles of the world: "These late eclipses of the sun and moon portend no good to us.  Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by sequent effects"(1.2.109-12).  Edmund mocks his father's beliefs and instead places the blame for human misery squarely in the hands of humans.  He asserts:

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that
when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of
our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters
the sun, the moon, and stars as if we were villains
on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves
thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance;
drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced
obedience of planetary influence; and all that we
are evil in, by a divine thrusting on  (1.2.125-33).

What do we make of these philosophical speeches?  Do these speeches tell us about the character of Gloucester and Edmund?  Do they expound on a major theme or debate in this play?  Given the events of the play and the reaction of the characters, does one of these views prove correct?  Is our belief  in God "the excellent foppery of the world"?  Is this a play in which the divine controls human agency or humans themselves?

Much Ado About Nothing in Lear

In the very first scene of King Lear Lear asks his daughters the measure of their love.  The older sisters try to outdo each other in the hyperbolic humungousness of their lover, but the youngest Cordelia can only manage to assert "Nothing, my Lord."  Lear, not quite believing his ears retorts "Nothing?"  Cordelia affirms her original "nothing" to which Lear responds "Nothing comes from nothing"(1.1.96-99).  In rapid success we have five mentions of "nothing" that begins a veritable feast through out the play.  What do you make of the use of "nothing" in this scene?  Does it reflect a similar use of "nothing" in other parts of the play?  Is nothingness a theme of this play?  Why make such a big deal out of "nothing"?

"Out On Thee, Seeming!"

Through out Much Ado About Nothing characters miscommunicate and misunderstand each other, sometimes through deception.  In several scenes, characters confuse the appearance of things and their reality.  In Act 4, Scene 1, for example Claudio arrives at his wedding to Hero believing that she is lewd (since she appeared to be so when Borachio seduced Margaret) when in fact she is chaste.  Confused by appearances he denounces her appearance as a chaste woman at her wedding as a false appearance.  He states:

     Out of thee, seeming! I will write against it.
     You seem to me as Dian in her orb,
     As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.
     But you are more intemperate in your blood
     Than Venus, or those pampered animals
     That rage in savage sensuality (4.1.57-62)

Thus he curses false appearances, not realizing that he himself is still confounded by false appearances.  This mistake leads to the disruption of his wedding and the ill health of his would-be bride.  Yet on the other hand, deception and misunderstanding also leads to Beatrice and Benedick's union and the reconciliation of Hero and Claudio at the end.  What is the play telling us about communication or miscommunication?  About truth and deception?  About appearance and reality?

Bring in the Clowns

In Act 5, Scene 1, Borachio confesses to Don Pedro and Claudio about his deception of them.  In the process he makes an observation about Dogberry, the constable and clown of Messina, and his charges: "I have deceived even your eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, . . . "(5.1. 242-3). What is Borachio saying in this observation?  Is it applicable to that other clown of comedy, Lancelet Gobbo of Merchant? In general what features do these two clowns have in common?  Are there significant differences?  Do you have any ideas about the role or purpose of the clown in Shakespearean comedy?

Courtly Love Under the Microscope

Sir Philip Sydney, a contemporary of Shakespeare, composed a series of love sonnets dedicated to his beloved Stella.  Sonnet 12 begins with this description of his beloved:

Cupid, because thous shin'st in Stella's eyes,
That from her locks, thy day-nets, none 'scapes free,
'That those lips swell, so full of thee they be,
That her sweet breath makes oft they flames to rise,
That in her breast thy pap sugared lies,

In the conventions of courtly love, the poet immortalizes his beloved by praising her ideal beauty.  Compare this description to the interchange between Claudio and Benedick in Much Ado:

Claudio: In my eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

Benedick: I can see yet without spectacles, and I see no such matter.

Later in the play Benedick reflects on the qualities of a woman necessary to "transform [him] to an oyster": One woman is fair, yet I am well; another virtuous, yet I am well; but till all graces be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace"(2.3.28-30).

What is this play telling us about courtly love?  Does it embrace or criticize this tradition?  How does it relate to the bawdy jokes and fears about cuckoldry that is found through out the play? What is the relationship between courtly and "real" love?  How do the ideals of courtly love aid or impede the pursuit of the beloved (of finding a suitable marriage partner)?

Taming Beatrice's Wild Heart

In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero and Ursula trick Beatrice into thinking that Benedick is in love with her.  In this scene Beatrice is described as a "lapwing" (3.1.25) and a "haggards of the rock"(3.1.37), both wild birds, but she is also described as being "limed"(3.1.109) and killed "with traps"(3.1.112).  Once she is convinced of Benedick's love, she instructs herself:

Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand (3.1.115-18)

Compare this speech with Portia's profession of love to Bassanio once he has mastered the secret of the casks:

But the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn, happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed
As from her lord, her governor, her king.  (3.2.161-9)

What are these plays telling us about a woman's place in love and marriage?  Is this a traditional, patriarchal view of marriage in which the man is dominant?  Is this a realistic view of marriage in which compromise is essential for happiness?  What future is in store for such headstrong and independent women as Beatrice and Portia in the institution of marriage?

Love Is a Battlefield?

In the first scene on Much Ado About Nothing Leonato describes the relationship between his niece Beatrice and Benedick as "a kind of merry war . . . They never meet but there's a skirmish of wit between them"(1.1.59-62).  Later in the play Benedick himself comments on his feelings about Beatrice, " . . . I stood like a man at a mark with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards and every word stabs" (2.1.242-5). These metaphors and similes suggest a comparison between war and love -- or at least the relationship between the sexes (or at least Benedick and Beatrice's relationship). What do war and love have in common?  What is the goal or purpose for each?  What is the method?  What is the value?  Does this comparison provide an optimistic take on the eventual union of Beatrice and Benedick -- or suggest something more problematic?

Who Wears The Pants in Portia's Family?

When Bassanio correctly chooses the casket with "Fair Portia's counterfeit" enclosed, Portia expresses her consent to marry him when she states (in the third person), "Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit / Commits itself to yours to be directed / As from her lord, her governor, her king" (3.2.67-69).  These words suggest a traditional marriage arrangement in which the husband is in charge and the woman is submissive.  Yet, one act later, she sneaks off to Venice, dressed in men's garments, to save Bassanio's dear friend Antonio from almost certain death.  She masterfully takes charges of the trial and cleverly sets a legal trap for Shylock. Furthermore, she tests Bassanio's fidelity by demanding her ring in the person of the young clerk Balthasar -- a test he fails.  She even teases him with the prospect of infidelity when he can't produce the ring:

I will become as liberal as you:
I will not deny him anything I have,
No, not my body nor my husband's bed.
Know him I shall, I am well sure of it (5.1.242-5)

Her thinly veiled threat of adultery is hardly part of a conservative notion of  marriage.  So what is going on in this play?  Is her consent to a traditional marriage and submission to Bassanio insincere?  Is she using subterfuge and trickery as women's weapons in a man's world? Does she change her mind?  What is it saying about marriage and male-female relationships? Who is really wearing the pants in this relationship?

Squaring the Circle: The Role of the Trials

The Merchant of Venice presents a world in conflict in which the characters need to navigate between opposing and conflicting values.  They need to attend to their romantic interests as well as their financial and legal obligations, to balance justice and mercy, to juggle their friends and their lovers. Each of the three trials in the play (the trial of the caskets, the trial of the contract of the pound of flesh and the trial of the rings)  is an attempt to resolve these dilemmas.  Each trial confronts a seemingly irresoluble conflict -- only to miraculously solve the problem.  In the world of comedy, we can have our cake and eat it, too.

Choose ONE of the trials.  What are the values at stake?  How is the conflict resolved?  What is this trial telling us the nature of these values?  Are they really conflicting?  Is there a strategy to resolve the problem?  Or is it only in the never, never land of the play that we can ever hope to square the circle?

Shylock: Villain or Victim?

The character of Shylock has fascinated actors, audiences and scholars for generations.  On the one hand he exhibits stereotypical characteristics of the villainous "Jew": he is obsessed with money, he is an implacable enemy of his Christian neighbors, and he insists on following the law even when common sense dictates mercy and pity.  On the other hand he is shown to be himself the victim of the prejudice and cruelty of his Christian  neighbors.  No better evidence for Shylock's victimhood and the plays portrayal of his humanity is his speech from Act 3, Scene 5.  As his Christian neighbors question his pursuing his rights in taking a pound of Antonio's flesh, Shylock retorts:

     I am a Jew.  Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,
     senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
     subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by
     the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
     If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?  And if you wrong
     us, shall we not revenge? (3. 1. 57-66).

What do you think?  From your reading of the play is Shylock supposed to be a villain or victim (or perhaps a bit of both)?  Is he a  Jewish stereotype or a fully developed character that happens to be Jewish or somewhere in between?  What is your take on the character of Shylock?

"In truth I know it is a sin to be a mocker": Comedy, Mockery and the Outsider

In Act 1, Scene 2 of  The Merchant of Venice Portia complains about her potential suitors to Nerissa.  Although she admits that "In truth I know it is a sin to be a mocker"(1.2.57), that admission doesn't prevent her mocking the foibles of her suitors to great comic effect. Her suitors are all foreign-born outsiders who fail to conform to the proper etiquette and standards of Belmont (and presumably to Shakespeare's audience as well).  One way Shakespeare's comedy operates seems to be to expose and satirize the outsider (not unlike some television sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory that satirizes geeks, another outside group)

What about the other outsiders in this play such as Morocco, Shylock and perhaps even Portia herself?  Are they too held up to ridicule for refusing to conform to conventional norms?  Are they merely stereotypical figures (the Black African, the Jew, the Single Woman) that serve as the butt of the play's jokes?  Or is there something else going on?  Do these characters have a different role in the play?  Do they rise above being a stereotype?

Amor Vincit Omnia?

In Act 1, Scene 1 of The Merchant of Venice Bassanio finds himself in trouble: He is in debt up to his ears and he needs to escape his creditors.  His plan is to ask the person whom he owes the most to lend him even more money for a new "get rich quick" scheme.  As he explains to Antonio:

                              But my chief care
     Is to come fairly off from the great debts
     Wherein my time, something too prodigal,
     Hath left me gaged.  To you, Antonio,
     I owe the most in money and in love,
     And from your love I have a warranty
     To unburden all my plots and purposes
     How to get clear of all the debts I owe. . .
     I owe you much, and, like a willful youth,
     That which I owe is lost.  But if you please
     To shoot another arrow the self way
     Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,
     As I will watch the aim, or to find both
     Or bring your latter hazard back again,
     And thankfully rest debtor for the first. (1.1.134-41;153-9)

Notice how Bassanio characters his relationship to Antonio.  They have a bond of "money" and "love" and their interaction is both affectionate and financial.  This interconnection of money and love further emerges when Bassanio revels his scheme to erase his debts: to marry Portia and her fortune.

Is Bassanio "in love" with Portia or is he just "using" her to pay his debts?  Is he really a friend of Antonio or just his "gravy train"?  Or is it more complicated?  What is this play saying about the values of money and love?  Are the two opposing values?  Is one more important than the other?  Does, as the saying goes, "love conquer all"?

The Joker vs Richard III: Evil in Shakespeare and Popular Culture

The movie The Dark Knight stages an epic battle between the forces of good (as represented by Batman) and the forces of evil (as represented by the Joker).  Much like Richard III, the Joker is the embodiment of evil.  Both characters are physically, if not emotionally deformed.  Both characters scheme and deceive to gain power over others.  They both are willing to use violence and murder to achieve their ends.  Yet, there are also significant differences between these two characters.  Do these differences make a difference?  Is one of these characters a more realistic portrayal of evil?  Does one of these texts demonstrate a more insightful understanding of evil, its nature, its sources, it consequences?  Or chose another exemplar of evil from popular culture (such as Hannibal Lector from Silence of the Lambs or Tony Soprano from The Sopranos or Walter White from Breaking Bad).  Does the portrayal of evil differ from Shakespeare's in significant ways? Is it more or less valid than Richard III?  Who understands evil better, Shakespeare or popular culture?

"O Coward Conscience"

The night before the Battle of Bosworth Field, Richard has a dream in which he is tormented by all the people he had killed to achieve and secure his throne.  Upon awaking he exclaims: "O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!"(5.3.191).  In the rest of the speech Richard argues with himself over his guilt in the murders -- and whether he should be pitied.  Consider as well the speech of the Second Murderer about conscience in Act 1, Scene 4.  When the Second Murderer feels a spasm of conscience and hesitates to carry out the murder of Clarence he complains about it;
      I'll not meddle with it.  It makes a man a
     coward: a man cannot steal but it accuseth
     him; a man cannot swear but it checks him; a man
     cannot lie with his neighbor's wife but it detects
     him (1. 4. 139-42).
In fact that Murderer does not participate in the murder or even the rewards of the deed. Given the many acts of treachery, deceit and murder in this play, what is the play saying about conscience and morality?  Is it an impediment to success?  A necessary bulwark against immorality?  Important but ineffective?  Effective but problematic?  Are these two speeches in agreement -- or this a debate across the acts of the play and social classes of the characters?  What the point of "coward conscience"?

Spiders and Tigers and Boars -- Oh My!

The enemies of Richard III -- and there are many of them in this play -- often compare him to an animal.  Anne, a widow by Richard's hand (and later his wife) taunts him by saying "Never hung poison on a fouler toad"(1.2.161). Queen Margaret, widow of Henry VI who was also killed by Richard, warns her replacement about him: "Why strew'st thou sugar on that bottled spider, / Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?" (1.3.256-7).  Later she warns Buckingham: "O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog!/Look when he fawns, he bites; and when he bites, / His venom tooth will rankle to the death." (1.3. 308-10).  Queen Elizabeth, on hearing that her brother and son have been imprisoned by Gloucester, exclaims, "Ah me! I see the ruin of my house. /  The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind"(2.4.54-55).  What is going on with all these animal metaphors?  Is there a pattern?  A deeper significance? Is it telling us something important about Richard's character?  Or is there an irony her (since it is the language of his enemies)?  What is the purpose of animal imagery?

Politics, Privilege, Power

In Richard III various characters claim and discuss various rights and privileges that they do or should possess.  Queen Margaret, the widow of Henry VI, tells the current queen,"
This sorrow that I have by rights is yours, / And all the pleasures you usurp are mind"(1.3.178-9).  Richard complains (before becoming king) that

      . . . The world is grown so bad
     That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.
     Since every Jack became a gentleman,
     There's many a gentle person made a Jack (1.3.71-4).

Each of these characters asserts a world in which each possesses a right to rule. Yet, the various characters who profess and utilize these rights and privilege acquire them through treachery, deceit and often murder.  Consider how Edward the current king, obtained the throne.  His brother Richard, acting on his behalf, murdered the previous king and his son.  His other brother, Clarence, is also implicated in the death of Edward, despite taking a vow to defend the king and his family.  What is this play saying about political power?  How is it related to justice or morality?  Does might make right?

Was Ever Woman in This Humor Wooed?

In Act 1, Scene 2, Richard woos Lady Anne, the daughter-in-law of the former Henry VI, whom Richard killed, and the widow of Edward, the former Prince of Wales, whom Richard also killed. For most of the scene she curses Richard, comparing him to poisonous or vicious animals and even the devil himself.   For example she says," Never hung poison on a fouler toad. / Out of my sight! Thous dost infect mine eyes." (1.2.161-2).   Yet, by end of the scene she not only refuses to kill Richard, she is wearing his ring as a token of affection.  How are we to make sense of this scene?  Has she been seduced by Richard?  Does she begin to believe his words and love him?  Or is she merely resigned to her fate and cannot resist his encroachments?  Or perhaps she thinks he is her best chance at regaining prestige and power at court?  What is really going on between Richard and Lady Anne?