CURS MONOGRÀFIC DE SHAKESPEARE by Vicente Fores.
Asignatura:
- página Webà
mural.uv.es/casais
Temario:
Vamos a dar 5 o 6 (El mercader de Venecia) de las 13 comedias de Shakespeare.
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Diferencia
entre TRAGEDIA y COMEDIA:
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COMEDIA, sólo se puede dar cuando hay un problema que resolver |
TRAGEDIA |
|
EROS (placer, vida, alegría) |
TANATOS (superar, justificar, entender la muerte) |
|
VIDA |
MUERTE |
|
HAPPY END |
CATARSIS |
|
1 persona |
1 problema |
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Estructura
de la comedia:
|
Conflicto, problema En ‘Middsummer dream’ su hija se casa con otro que a su padre no le
gusta. |
Desarrollo la obra se desarrolla para darle salida al conflicto inicial, para
superarlo. |
Solución, happy end resolver el problema. |
Para entender lo que va a pasar a lo largo de la función hay que entender
el final, así que el elemento básico en Shakespeare es el TEXTO ya que es lo
único que nos ha llegado del autor, ‘todo
lo demás es ruido’ by Shakespeare.
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Convenciones:
Todas las obras de Shakespeare tienen como actores máximos y mínimos 15
personas. Esto fue el diseñado por Shakespeare, aunque en la actualidad se
utilicen más.
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Puesta en
escena:
La puesta en escena puede depender según el autor, la época, la moda...pero
aquí lo importante es lo que los actores dicen, lo que representan no que pinta
tienen. Da igual que este representado en China, que los actores vayan vestidos
de samuráis en vez de ‘knights’, que sean mayores o jóvenes... lo importante, como ya hemos dicho es lo
que Shakespeare quiere decir, el significado de sus palabras.
Es por eso que se dice que Shakespeare es universal, que se ha traducido a
casi todas las lenguas del mundo porque lo importante es el mensaje, lo que se
dice, la escenificación es lo de menos. A Shakespeare le da igual que
Romeo le da igual que la obra de Romeo
y Julieta esté representada con macarras, con jóvenes, que se maten, que no...
Lo que a él le interesa es que se entienda que él está hablando de las hormonas
y la locura juvenil.
- Shakespeare y Harold Bloom:
Shakespeare en su época hablaba de relaciones sexuales y problemas que esto
conlleva, el problema es que la gente de la época no entendía lo que él estaba
tratando de explicar, es por eso que se dice que Shakespeare iba por delante de su propia época. De esto habló Harold Bloom, uno de los
hombres que más a contribuido a propagar Shakespeare.
Su hipótesis era la siguiente: Shakespeare se anticipa a nosotros y nos
crea. Los modelos que define en sus obras, se crean en nuestra época (a partir
de la 2ª Guerra Mundial). En pocas palabras, dice que es el inventor del ser
humano moderno, y así es como llama a su propio libro ‘Shakespeare, the invention of the human’.
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La opinión
del profesor:
Bardolatry: estar locamente enamorado de algo, en este caso Shakespeare.
Él no considera a Shakespeare como un dios como harían en el caso del
‘bardolatry’, él lo considera bueno por sus defectos, por su humanidad, por su
generosidad.
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Publicaciones:
Había 2 tipos de publicaciones:
Shakespeare tiene 36 obras y sólo 19 se pudieron publicar.
Primero se empezó con las ediciones In-Quarto,
que eran ediciones piratas ya que el se conseguían a través de ir al
teatro, escuchar la obra y escribirla disimuladamente, o memorizarla para
escribirla después...Se trataba de ofrecer una obra cogida totalmente ‘word for
word’ pero evidentemente, estos textos se publicaban sin una previa revisión y
sin el permiso del autor. Por otra parte aquí encontramos la frescura de la
puesta en escena. Aquí se pueden encontrar diferencias, fallos...entre texto y
texto.
Todo este negocio no gustó a los herederos de los derechos de Shakespeare,
ya que estaban ganado dinero a su costa, así que éstos decidieron publicar las
obras de su querido amigo Shakespeare en tamaño In-Folio. Éstos recogerían 19
de sus obras y las publicaron bajo el título de ‘Complete Works of Shakespeare’.
El único manuscrito original (eso dicen) que se conserva del autor son 20
líneas que escribió y no eran propias.
|
Tragedy: endà beginning Comedy: beginning to the end. |
There are 5 essential comedies in Shakespeare:
Shakespeare, in the great majority of his comedies is dealing and protesting about the impossibility of women to act in a play. For example, in ‘12 nights’ we will only understand it if we accept that the female characters are represented by men.
Much ado about nothing
(mucho ruido y pocas nueces)
When we read this part, we think: ‘how is Claudius?’ Shakespeare wants us to be curious.
LEONATO
A victory is twice itself when the achiever brings
home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath
bestowed much honour on a young Florentine called Claudio.
Then, the messenger gives us information about this man but we still waiting to know him.
Messenger
Much
deserved on his part and equally remembered by
Don Pedro: he hath borne himself beyond the
promise of his age, doing, in the figure of a lamb,
the feats of a lion:
he hath indeed better
bettered expectation than you must expect of me to
tell you how.
The messenger gives us a metaphor about Claudius. He says he is young and seems innocent as a lamb, but in fact he is like a lion. He possesses power and strength.
There is a huge difference between any book written and its film because in the film will be shown what the director considers important and in the way he or she has interpret the book. That is why we usually dislike films extract from books because they drift away part of the book that may be us consider essential.
One example of this is that in the novel it is said that Claudio’s family is in Mesina, but in the film it does not appear.
Beginning:
Any comedy begins with the same structure. It is normal that we find a presentation of the characters. The characters start introducing or spotting out in the scene. Moreover, they show how they are related to and with.
Leonardo (patriarch) / Hero (daughter) / Beatrice (nephew)
The important in a comedy is how they get to the end, but it is not important the end.
Signior Mountanto: Benedick. Shakespeare put that name on purpose because is a way to have mockery of it because it sounds as a ‘Mi tonto’. Beatrice laughs at him.
Hero: is Leonardo’s daughter. She has a peculiar’s name. Shakespeare named her as ‘Hero’ and she seem to be pure and virgin, but that’s what the author wants us to think, it’s just a trick. She will be the opposite, she will be the hottest.
In Shakespeare we must find what the names mean because they carry lots of information about the characters. Possibly they are the opposite of what they really are, but give a lot of information indeed.
‘decorum’ means ‘act as you are’. If you are a professor you will think, behave, act, and speak as a professor.
In theatre nothing is what seems. We know that at Shakespeare’s time and in his plays, there were no woman acting. So, female characters were represented by men. Everything is put upside down.
|
comedy |
tragedy |
|
World of women |
World of men |
|
Erotic, sexual life |
Death, depression, darkness |
|
The most important character in the play is the woman. |
The most important character in the play is the man. |
Don Pedro de Aragón: sounds Spanish, exotic for British readers.
Messina: sounds the paradise for the British audience. When we see a play or a text set in Rome, Greek land… seems far far away, nothing to do with UK. The English audience thinks that what happens in Italy cannot happen in Uk, that can only happen in another country.
Theatre is there to hold up a mirror to nature. People could see themselves but that could be offensive, that is why they set the problems, the situation in another place far away. So, everything we see on stage seems new and exotic, that’s a theatre convention. For example, Romeo and Juliet can only happen in Italy, never in UK.
Messina is Italy and Aragón is Spain, they are not in the same place but that does not matter because it’s just far away and all sound great.
Everybody is getting prepared to meet each other. On the one hand, men are getting washed and dressed up, and women are expecting them. They also get ready. The meeting is in the yard.
Enter
DON PEDRO, DON JOHN, CLAUDIO, BENEDICK, and BALTHASAR
You embrace your charge too willingly. I
think this
is your daughter.
Her
mother hath many times told me so.
They
make jokes and that means intimacy and shows off a friendly relationship.
Leonardo
will feed up the whole army in Messina.
- That costs a lot of money.
- He tries to show that they are very rich, and the whole inheritance will be given to her daughter. So, in a way she is promoting her daughter.
- Leo’s aim is to marry her daughter with Claudius, a soldier.
- Leo wants to show that she is a good match.
‘Disdain’ = despecho, desprecio.
Benedick is very conscious of his success with women, but something had happened in the past between them.
¿Why they both hate each other?
|
Important web sites. - Shakespeare.uv.es à cmsà usuario - Shakespeare.mit.edu à contemporary version. |
In Shakespeare’s plays we find 2 editions minimum, the In-Folio (in 2 columns) and In-Quarto (7 books of Shakespeare were published in this format) today they are known as paper bags. The In-Quarto format can also be found in different types (In-Quarto 1, 2, 3 and 4). In 1594 was the 1st time that a Quarto was published. Romeo and Juliet was firstly published In-Folio and then In-Quarto because it was very popular.
These books can be found in the printer’s house because the printer did everything. Shakespeare did not receive any penny for his works.
‘The Globe’ was packed every day because it was cheap. Shakespeare was a rich man, he married to a woman who was 8 years older because she was pregnant. He had a daughter. He ran away from Stratford. He arrived in London and began to write. His 1st comedy is ‘the comedy of errors’.
In the comedy ‘Much ado about nothing’ we find 2 editions, the In-Folio (1623) I In-Quarto (1600). In the original manuscript we find:
- Adornments appear in the beginning of the page.
- The structures of the plays are 5 acts.
- The stage direction is presented in cursive.
- Names in abbreviation.
Shakespeare comedies criticized the British audience placing a performance that seems far far away, but in fact it’s projecting his own society.
See:
- Actors dressed up as women. We’ve to understand and get accustomed to that.
- Sex always had been interesting along the years and comedies deal with that. But how can we talk about sex in that time? Just do it politically.
- Shakespeare breaks the conventions and the laws during the performance, but when the play comes to end, everything is re-established. He does this to make the plays more attractive.
- Comedy has a happy end.
- Shakespeare always makes it as a dream, as a joke…always fantasy. Shakespeare’s plays takes place in no real places. He produces an environment far from reality.
Why are Puritans against theatre? Because theatre can led to chaos in their society.
Initial song:
The song talks about men and how they are deceivers. Beatrice is supplying the audience with relevant information. If we don’t find out what the lyric says, we will miss what is happening between Beatrice and Benedick. She is talking about men, but especially Benedick.
Shakespeare knows women more than men, more than women know each other because marriage was the only way to get sex, so men, and specially Shakespeare developed and analysed women in detailed. If they do not propose marriage, women will not accept the relation. Men asked for sex before marriage, but they in fact expect them to be refused by their girlfriends. If some women accept to have sex previously to marriage, probably she will not get married with that man ever.
Nowadays nobody think in the future, nevertheless, in the Elizabethan time survival and future was an everyday thought. The reason is because they had difficulties to survive properly due to the health assistance was horrible. On the other hand, it is worth to say that the population of London city has increased enormously since the Elizabethan era. At that time in London there were 300.000 people, nowadays 10.000.000 people.
To understand Shakespeare and his plays we must go back to that numbers.
The theatre had been closed 3 times in London. The 1st time that the theatre was close lasted 16 months. The actors ran away. Many of them went city to city with a wagon and performed in pubs. But this activity was dangerous because at the time there were many thieves in the roads.
So, why Shakespeare diverts from London to Messina? Because Messina is the opposite of London, the contrary of what they had. In Messina they will find the calm.
Benedick takes for granted that Beatrice is in love with him, but he ran away. He hates Beatrice, but when he listens that she is in love with her, he automatically shows his love to her.
John is the bad guy, he is a villain. At that time, they believe in the Devil. Devils make people unhappy and the only way to send this idea out was the comedies. They were distressed.
‘I know you old’= Bea tells that because she knows him very well.
End I
Benedick, Don Pedro and Claudio.
Benedick says that Bea is the most beautiful woman, and compares she with the 1st of May, nevertheless, he says that Hero is as the 31st of December, cold. But that’s Benedick thinks, nevertheless, Claudio is totally in love with Hero.
- ‘the jewel (Hero) and the casquet (heritance)
Strategy:
Don Pedro will impression Hero and her father, and convince her to marry him. Once they will be married, Pedro will obliged Hero to marry Claudio because at that moment he will have the total power over Hero and her father, he will be the king.
In the film take place 2 parallel actions:
1) the positive things that everybody know (light)
2) the mystery and darkness of secrets, the evilness (dark)
1st act end
Importance to identify the evil or the dark side of the story:
- We see John, Borachio (boracho) and Conrad (Comrad)= those names have an important and negative meaning.
- They speak in prose, meanwhile the rest of the characters speak in verse. Kings always speak in verse and only when they are mad speak in prose, as in King Lear. So, when Shakespeare writes in prose means that he is introducing something odd or different.
Act 2.
In Elizabethan time, fathers decided the marriages. So, Leonardo tells Hero what she has to do, he wants Hero to tell ‘yes’ if she receives a proposal from the prince. As we can see, women had no voice.
Schrew= father must marry all his daughters.
Party:
‘Woe’= keyword: going to bed, sex, premarital sex. Men asked for sex before marriage, but they in fact expect them to be refused by their girlfriends. If some women accept to have sex previously to marriage, probably she will not get married with that man ever.
Claudio is jealous of Pedro because he thinks that he is telling Hero to go to bed with him because John has told Claudio so, but finally they get married without any other pre-marriage.
- the power of words made Claudio to got jealous.
- Strategy and Claudio falls.
The audience of the time would not understand why he was jealous, they thought for granted that he must be proud of having a friend that those that for him.
Bea and Bene’ plan.
Boys make Bene to listen that Bea is in love with him, and girls do the same with Bea, so both are in love and desire one another.
‘Let’s play love Gods’
Song.
The song that appears at the beginning of the film appears again. Originally in the text, the song appears for the first time in this moment and not in the first scene.
Music was related with culture. So they were showing that Messina has a great level of culture.
Shakespeare dreams in a society where everybody appreciates and had culture. With culture, anyone can stop being an evil. Renaissance= to be tolerant, open.
Shakespeare tells you that anyone can change what they think they are and be another thing. In theatre is possible.
http://shakespeare.uv.es/ àinterface IIà 2 important web:
1. internet Shakespeare editions.
2. open source Shakespeare.
When we select a play, then we find the library, the annex… It is also important his life and themes. In ‘life’ it’s relevant his maturity, early maturity and last plays. The ‘stage’ explain us how was all at the time, the ‘society’, the ‘history’…
Here we can find a link to the English Theatre Globe, if not www.Shakespeares-globe.org.
- Molier died working in yellow on the stage that is why wearing yellow in a play is taboo.
- ‘decorum’ = ‘you’re what you’re, and you’ll be what you’re’ ‘if your father is a doctor, you will be a doctor’.
In 1623 the Complete Works of W. Shakespeare were published In-Folio. This was 7 years later after his death (1616), but his plays were already published In-Quarto before his death and he did not care. His unique interest was his sonnets and in his publication. Obviously, he did not drifted away his plays, but his benefit came not for selling books, because that was the publisher’s business, but for getting money from the performances in the Globe. He was shareowner of the Globe. When he left Stratford, he was very poor, but when he came back, he was a very wealthy man. Once there, he bought several houses and land.
Surprisingly, the most popular play at the time was not Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet, but Titus Andronicus. The Elizabethan audience found really interesting. Nowadays nobody wants to perform it, and the reason is that rape, violence, blood, cannibalism… is served. At that time, Titus Andronicus was his best-seller because people were craving for these sensations.
The justice at the time was a bit ambiguous. In fact, justice was never served and behave correctly would not mean that you would survived. It was a very unjust society.
As we said the other day, London theatres were closed 3 times because of the plague (peste). So, in order to avoid human contact and to stop with the deaths (+ than 30 people everyday), they chose that solution.
Death was absolutely close to the people. Most of women died giving birth, or in the dentist or doctor because their methods were not really hygienic at all or were not correct. Amazingly, many people survived, possibly because humans, after animals, are the strongest being in the world.
Elizabethan world stinks, it was an ignorant world where more than the 70% of the population was illiterate, nevertheless, we find that there were a great amount of books sold at that period. Who read that books? Kings and queens never read or write because they had someone who did it for them.
In-Quarto edition, the text was copied from the play in performance, that means someone had paid to watch it and he wrote the dialogs down in a paper, and this information will be published later on as Shakespeare’s plays. The printer, the editor, the publisher and the seller was the same person. At that time the copy right has not arrived, so all the benefits were for the one who got the text.
The percentage of benefits in a book are: 10% author, but if it is a translator 2% o 3% (if you are good 5%) and if the book has copy right, you won’t see a penny, but only the amount of money you have decided with the editor. All the money, in that case, go to the author (because he has copy right). 30% editor, 30% printer and 30% to the bookshop. To sum up, everyone makes money, but not the author.
Author at that time was not very important. As we can see in some cover pages, Shakespeare’s name do not even appear because nobody cares who the author was.
The comedy means physical contact, however, the tragedy never has contact till the end, where the characters die.
A very typical image is the fools (bufones). They are people who entertain the audience. Sometimes they use words not in the correct form or way in order to make laugh but this can only be reach by high-class people who will be the ones that will fully understand the real sense of the jest.
At that time, upper-classes speak in verse.
Shakespeare’s plays, at least 29 of them, have been the top of successful representation in the whole history. He knew what people wanted and that was his key to success. People needed to enjoy, and he achieved his aim indeed, that is why his plays are still making money. The money he got has been spent in Stratford-upon-Avon because he wanted to leave London and come back to his village so as to enjoy his life.
‘Much ado about nothing’
End:
Obviously we come across a happy ending with a musical piece. Comedy is part of life, it is the cycle of life; birth and death, nevertheless, the tragedy is just death, never rebirth again. Comedy uses this rebirth in order to eliminate all the problems and be rebirth implies to be a new man or woman far from sins and problems. The case of Hero is the same as we have explained, she reborn as a new virgin.
John:
He is aim is to hurt everyone because he has envy. He’s evil. In a comedy is always an evil element but is destroyed by goodness. The Elizabethans thought that man should find the equilibrium.
Period of changes:
The period of Renaissance was a time for changes. Things that have been strongly believed were going jelly and falling down. Renaissance means to reborn again. New things are coming up, for instance, the earth was not flat, was round. The discovery of new races in the world such as blacks, Indians… Also the surprising thing that they have their own language. It was also shocking that they did not believe in God, and that they have other different and odd Gods. Those questions that humans asked at Shakespeare’s time were reflected in his plays.
Woman:
Hero, has not any voice in her own life, but her father, who will decide her whole life. In this case she was absolutely lucky due to she do love her future husband, but the vast majority of cases at that time had not the same luck. A great example is ‘The Taming of the shrew’, where the protagonist, Catherine does not love his future husband. But we must notice that nobody at the time care about love.
Sense are deceiving, the devil shows us a view that it is not true. Shakespeare uses eyewitnesses and overhearing in order to get private information, but that could conclude in 2 different ways: to be killed as in Hamlet (Polonio) or helps you to discover the truth.
Our author is surprised how a man can kill someone who love by watching, hearing…something that manipulates your ideas.
On the stage things are not real, may be seems evil but it’s not, it’s just to learn, to improve ourselves. In Shakespeare everything is different of what we see.
Rebirth:
The constant struggle of good vs. bad, the white vs. black. Shakespeare doesn’t want to distinguish, that’s stupid and easy, he wants complexity as real life has. He wants to know why people kill for love, he wants to analyse these things, the human movements. That is why is said that he has so modern thoughts.
In tragedies, some elements are comic and vice versa. Hero is ‘death’. The comedy brings death because there is the possibility to rebirth, but in tragedy death is at the end because there is not other chance that death.
EVALUATION PLAN
2 PAPERS:
one of the comedies. A topic and a character analysis. 1 character.
2 comedies and compare them, but the link is a topic.
No less than 10 pages.
2 QUIZZES: WEB. The same days of the datelines at any time of the day.
Opensourceshakespeare.com (complete works)
‘concordance’ = all the words that he uses of all his plays. (2191) times the use of the word ‘love’. That helps to the ch analysis.
Renaissance includes music but Shakespeare had done it before. Shakespeare plays were 3 o 4 hours and had music, eat, drink, sex… That’s why puritans did not like theatre.
Conventions:
Shakespeare wants to please the queen and he performed 90 times in front of Elisabeth Queen.
FILM:
The king decides to be a battler during 3 years and convinces his colleges to do the same. That implies no girls, no sex…but suddenly, these 4 girls appeared and they fall irremediably in love with them.
All these characters are upper-class and they speak in verse. They use iambic pentameter. That forms part of the rhythm. All these show us that they belong to a higher class. Despite did not sound natural, actors performed in a rhythmic way. That helps actors to memorize the text.
In Shakespeare, it’s important to play with sense and perception. That’s how we perceive what is happening. The main aim of Renaissance and Elizabethan period is to achieve harmony and re-establish order. Chaos must been drifted away, things should be balanced out.
All plays starting with chaos end with order (Comedy) and all plays starting with order end with chaos (Tragedy). Ex: if a prince wants to become a king and breaks the law, chaos is set and the most probably is that at the end, he dies.
Elisabeth I was revolutionary, the vast majority of the people were against her, but one of his followers was Shakespeare. That’s why it’s said that they had a great relationship, but officially nobody knows it. People knew that Shakespeare had the protection of the queen. That’s not free, he was the one who produced the Elizabethan’s world that she wanted to show off.
Despite this good relation, there were also some differences. Elisabeth was anarchist, she was against Catholic Church, she rejects to be married and to have children. On the other side, we find Shakespeare, who was brought up with legal problems because his father was a hidden catholic and he must ran away. Elisabeth hated Catholics, she hated Spain and Catholics were totally persecuted in her queendom. Shakespeare was catholic and she hated that. He criticized the English society but he accepts queen’s protection. Curious and suspicious relationship. Shakespeare wrote about things that were happening in the court and were lately performed with other names and set in other places. Normal people would never identify the characters, but the members of the court did, because they were themselves. The way to distance the play is to put the setting out.
Reading week.
Comedy of errors
Nobody in a comedy will commit suicide. Comedies never end because they are cyclic. Comedies are considered as ‘pro-live’, that it’s why audience feels more comfortable in a comedy than a tragedy. People want to laugh and forget their own problems. Comedies question political and monarchic issues, but they do it with humour. ‘we are not going to kill ourselves, we’ll fight to survive…’ that’s what Shakespeare thought.
Shakespeare put on the stage what was on everyday life corruption, monarchy, problems with rents, debts… That’s why Shakespeare sound so universal because the people at the time had the same problems as we have today even though, people at the time laugh and had fun with jokes that we do as well.
The audience must know more than the characters on the stage and all the confusions that take place are because the characters did not know what is happening and they have a lack of information. The public understands the doubling of the characters, but the characters do not understand it until the end.
Summary[1]
Egeon, a merchant of Syracuse, is condemned to
death in Ephesus for violating the ban against travel between the two rival
cities. As he is led to his execution, he tells the Ephesian Duke, Solinus, that he has come to Syracuse in search
of his wife and one of his twin sons, who were separated from him 25 years ago
in a shipwreck. The other twin, who grew up with Egeon, is also traveling the
world in search of the missing half of their family. (The twins, we learn, are
identical, and each has an identical twin slave named Dromio.) The Duke is so
moved by this story that he grants Egeon a day to raise the thousand-mark
ransom that would be necessary to save his life.
Meanwhile, unknown to Egeon, his son Antipholus of Syracuse (and Antipholus' slave
Dromio) is also visiting Ephesus--where Antipholus' missing twin, known as Antipholus of Ephesus, is a prosperous citizen of
the city. Adriana, Antipholus of Ephesus' wife, mistakes
Antipholus of Syracuse for her husband and drags him home for dinner, leaving Dromio of Syracuse to stand guard at the door and
admit no one. Shortly thereafter, Antipholus of Ephesus (with his slave Dromio of Ephesus) returns home and is refused
entry to his own house. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse has fallen in love
with Luciana, Adriana's sister, who is appalled at the
behavior of the man she thinks is her brother-in-law.
The confusion increases when a gold chain ordered by the Ephesian
Antipholus is given to Antipholus of Syracuse. Antipholus of Ephesus refuses to
pay for the chain (unsurprisingly, since he never received it) and is arrested
for debt. His wife, seeing his strange behavior, decides he has gone mad and
orders him bound and held in a cellar room. Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse
and his slave decide to flee the city, which they believe to be enchanted, as
soon as possible--only to be menaced by Adriana and the debt officer. They seek
refuge in a nearby abbey.
Adriana now begs the Duke to intervene and remove her
"husband" from the abbey into her custody. Her real husband,
meanwhile, has broken loose and now comes to the Duke and levels charges
against his wife. The situation is finally resolved by the Abbess, Emilia, who brings out the set of twins
and reveals herself to be Egeon's long-lost wife. Antipholus of Ephesus
reconciles with Adriana; Egeon is pardoned by the Duke and reunited with his
spouse; Antipholus of Syracuse resumes his romantic pursuit of Luciana, and all
ends happily with the two Dromios embracing.
Characters[2]
Antipholus of Syracuse - The twin brother of
Antipholus of Ephesus and the son of Egeon; he has been traveling the world
with his slave, Dromio of Syracuse, trying to find his long-lost brother and
mother.
Antipholus of Ephesus - The twin brother of
Antipholus of Syracuse and the son of Egeon; he is a well-respected merchant in
Ephesus and Adriana's husband.
Dromio of Syracuse - The bumbling, comical slave
of Antipholus of Syracuse. He is the twin brother of Dromio of Ephesus.
Dromio of Ephesus - The bumbling, comical slave
of Antipholus of Ephesus. He is the Syracusan Dromio's twin brother.
Adriana - The wife of Antipholus of
Ephesus, she is a fierce, jealous woman.
Luciana - Adriana's unmarried sister
and the object of Antipholus of Syracuse's affections.
Solinus - The Duke of Ephesus; a just
but merciful ruler.
Egeon - A Syracusan merchant, husband
of the Abbess (Emilia), and the father of the two Antipholi. He is, like his
Syracusan son, in search of the missing half of his family; he has been
sentenced to death as the play begins.
Abbess - Emilia, the long-lost wife of
Egeon and the mother of the two Antipholi.
Balthasar - A merchant in Syracuse.
Angelo - A goldsmith in Syracuse and a
friend to Antipholus of Ephesus.
Merchant - An Ephesian friend of
Antipholus of Syracuse.
Second Merchant - A tradesman to whom Angelo is
in debt.
Doctor Pinch - A schoolteacher, conjurer,
and would-be exorcist.
Luce - Also called Nell. Antipholus
of Ephesus' prodigiously fat maid and Dromio of Ephesus' wife.
Courtesan - An expensive prostitute and
friend of Antipholus of Ephesus.
Location: we are not in UK, but in Syracuse. This place is a Greek island and all the names sound very Greek.
Rhythm: In order to make people laugh is better a quick rhythm instead of a slow one. Usually comedies follow a rapid speed because it sounds more comic, nevertheless, tragedies follow a slower speed.
Dromio is the one who will make us laugh. He plays with contrasts and uses a confusing way of speaking. Clowns are the must intelligent because they are the smartest due to they have grown up in the street and they know how to survive.
Shakespeare ends the acts with some couplets. The 3rd act is the peek.
We find the shoe as a symbol of virginity[3].
Overall Analysis[4]
The Comedy of Errors is light, frothy entertainment, driven by coincidence and
slapstick humor, its events confined within a single day. There are hints of
Shakespeare's later forays into deeper character development, especially in the
early laments of Antipholus of Syracuse for his missing twin, but
the story remains largely on the surface. Characters are mistaken for one
another, but they do not pretend to be other
than what they are--there are no disguises here, only resemblances. The plot,
so concerned with outward appearances, appropriately turns on the exchange of
material objects--a Courtesan's ring, a gold chain, and the thousand
marks that Egeon needs to save his life. Virtually all
interior life is absent, and the action is entirely physical.
There are
intimations of disturbing, even tragic issues in the story, of course--the plot
depends on an initial threat of execution, and the play is filled with
unsettling subjects. There are broken families, a troubled marriage, slavery,
grief and anger, frequent violence, and a beheading lying in wait at the end of
the day. But the play is not about these
issues--it touches them briefly before skating on to happier, funnier subjects.
The audience's moments of unease are brief and quickly give way to laughter.
And indeed,
because this play is a comedy, everything that threatens the laughter is
eliminated at the end. It is not only the characters' confusion that is
relieved by the final scene, in which the "errors" are explained and
resolved; all the darker, unpleasant issues are resolved, as well. Duke Solinus begins the play as a figure of unbending,
almost tyrannical legalism; he ends it as a forgiving father figure. The broken
halves of Egeon's family have been separated for more than 20 years; now they
are put back together, and wife and husband fall into one another's arms as if
time and distance had not intervened between them. The marriage of Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana is threatened by mutual jealousy; their
reconciliation, once their misapprehensions have been cleared away, is the work
of a few moments. And even the poor, abused slaves, the Dromios, quickly forget
their beatings and bruises and embrace. The ease with which these problems are
overcome points to the central theme of the play: Love and felicity will
triumph over all.
Study Questions[5]
Compare and
contrast the characters of the Antipholus brothers
Antipholus of Syracuse is arguably the strongest
character in the play, since he is the only figure to whom Shakespeare grants
an interior life. He describes himself early on in the story as unhappy and
plagued by feelings of incompleteness--sentiments that drive his quest for his
missing family members. Antipholus of Ephesus, by contrast, feels no such
sense of incompletion: While the Syracusan brother is a questing figure, his
Ephesian twin is well satisfied with his lot in life. He is an established
figure, rather than a wanderer, with a wife, a home, a business, and an important
place in the community. His outrage at having his identity questioned and his
comfortable life turned upside-down is understandable, then, but since anger
rather than good humor is his defining emotion during the play, he is a less
appealing character than his brother. His treatment of his Dromio is also less
sympathetic: While both slaves are frequently beaten, Dromio of Ephesus seems to have the worst of it,
since the sense of humor that Dromio of Syracuse uses to mitigate his master's propensity for violence is largely
absent in the angry, humorless Antipholus of Ephesus.
Discuss the
perspectives on marriage offered in The Comedy of
Errors.
The central
marriage in the play (aside from the long-separated Egeon and Emilia) is that of Adriana and Antipholus of Ephesus--and it does not seem to be
a happy one. Other characters--the Abbess and Luciana, specifically--locate the blame in the
jealousy of Adriana, who is, indeed, portrayed as the kind of violent, shrewish
woman often found in English dramas of the period (including Shakespeare's own The Taming of the Shrew). Still, the playwright's
sympathies seem to lie more with the volatile Adriana than with her simpering
sister or the platitude-spouting Abbess, both of whom mouth conventional
marital wisdom of the era--and both of whom are wrong about the root of
Adriana's husband's "madness." They say that Adriana has been too
jealous and driven her husband insane with her bullying and prodding, when it
is a woman's place to be docile; in fact, her husband's odd behavior has
nothing to do with her and is the result of highly improbable circumstances.
Many critics have argued that far from supporting Luciana and the Abbess in
their condemnations, Shakespeare is satirizing perspectives on marriage that
would soon be out-of-date even in his era.
Discuss the role
of magic in the play.
There is frequent discussion of enchantment in The Comedy of Errors: Antipholus of Syracuse notes that Ephesus is
well-known for its witches and sorcerers, and he blames the peculiar events of
the day on enchantments. By the final scenes, other characters seem to have
come to the same conclusion--Adriana has summoned an exorcist to remove evil
spirits from her husband, and the Duke of Ephesus himself declares, upon seeing
the twins together, that the supernatural must be at work. But, in fact,
everyone is wrong, and there is a perfectly natural (if improbable) explanation
for everything that has transpired. In this sense, The Comedy is the antithesis of later plays, like
A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which
enchantment plays a dominant role in the plot. The inhabitants of Ephesus
believe that they are enchanted, but events actually serve to debunk their
superstitions. The role of magic is embodied, in fact, not by a real sorcerer
but by the fraudulent, ridiculous Doctor Pinch, whose presence suggests that
wizardry is nothing but ludicrous fakery.
At the time plagiarism was not considered as we know it today. Shakespeare was updating the classics, it was a rebirth of classics and tragedies. Shakespeare copied but he improved what he copied.
Twelfth nights
Shakespeare is saying: despite you are different, you are the same.
Character List[6]
Viola - A young
woman of aristocratic birth, and the play’s protagonist. Washed up on the shore
of Illyria when her ship is wrecked in a storm, Viola decides to make her own
way in the world. She disguises herself as a young man, calling herself
"Cesario," and becomes a page to Duke Orsino. She ends up falling in
love with Orsino—even as Olivia, the woman Orsino is courting, falls in love
with Cesario. Thus, Viola finds that her clever disguise has entrapped her: she
cannot tell Orsino that she loves him, and she cannot tell Olivia why she, as
Cesario, cannot love her. Her poignant plight is the central
conflict in the play.
Orsino - A
powerful nobleman in the country of Illyria. Orsino is lovesick for the
beautiful Lady Olivia, but becomes more and more fond of his handsome new page
boy, Cesario, who is actually a woman—Viola. Orsino is a vehicle through which
the play explores the absurdity of love: a supreme egotist, Orsino mopes around
complaining how heartsick he is over Olivia, when it is clear that he is
chiefly in love with the idea of being in love and enjoys making a spectacle of
himself. His attraction to the ostensibly male Cesario injects sexual ambiguity
into his character.
Olivia - A
wealthy, beautiful, and noble Illyrian lady, Olivia is courted by Orsino and Sir
Andrew Aguecheek, but to each of them she insists that she is in mourning for
her brother, who has recently died, and will not marry for seven years. She and
Orsino are similar characters in that each seems to enjoy wallowing in his or
her own misery. Viola’s arrival in the masculine guise of Cesario enables
Olivia to break free of her self-indulgent melancholy. Olivia seems to have no
difficulty transferring her affections from one love interest to the next,
however, suggesting that her romantic feelings—like most emotions in the
play—do not run deep.
Sebastian - Viola’s
lost twin brother. When he arrives in Illyria, traveling with Antonio, his
close friend and protector, Sebastian discovers that many people think that
they know him. Furthermore, the beautiful Lady Olivia, whom he has never met,
wants to marry him. Sebastian is not as well rounded a character as his sister.
He seems to exist to take on the role that Viola fills while disguised as
Cesario—namely, the mate for Olivia.
Malvolio - The straitlaced
steward—or head servant—in the household of Lady Olivia. Malvolio is very
efficient but also very self-righteous, and he has a poor opinion of drinking,
singing, and fun. His priggishness and haughty attitude earn him the enmity of
Sir Toby, Sir Andrew, and Maria, who play a cruel trick on him, making him
believe that Olivia is in love with him. In his fantasies about marrying his
mistress, he reveals a powerful ambition to rise above his social class.
Feste - The
clown, or fool, of Olivia’s household, Feste moves between Olivia’s and
Orsino’s homes. He earns his living by making pointed jokes, singing old songs,
being generally witty, and offering good advice cloaked under a layer of
foolishness. In spite of being a professional fool, Feste often seems the
wisest character in the play.
Sir Toby - Olivia’s
uncle. Olivia lets Sir Toby Belch live with her, but she does not approve of
his rowdy behavior, practical jokes, heavy drinking, late-night carousing, or
friends (specifically the idiotic Sir Andrew). Sir Toby also earns the ire of
Malvolio. But Sir Toby has an ally, and eventually a mate, in Olivia’s
sharp-witted waiting-gentlewoman, Maria. Together they bring about the triumph
of chaotic spirit, which Sir Toby embodies, and the ruin of the controlling,
self-righteous Malvolio.
Maria - Olivia’s
clever, daring young waiting-gentlewoman. Maria is remarkably similar to her
antagonist, Malvolio, who harbors aspirations of rising in the world through
marriage. But Maria succeeds where Malvolio fails—perhaps because she is a
woman, but, more likely, because she is more in tune than Malvolio with the
anarchic, topsy-turvy spirit that animates the play.
Sir Andrew Aguecheek - A friend
of Sir Toby’s. Sir Andrew Aguecheek attempts to court Olivia, but he doesn’t
stand a chance. He thinks that he is witty, brave, young, and good at languages
and dancing, but he is actually an idiot.
Antonio - A man who
rescues Sebastian after his shipwreck. Antonio has become very fond of
Sebastian, caring for him, accompanying him to Illyria, and furnishing him with
money—all because of a love so strong that it seems to be romantic in nature.
Antonio’s attraction to Sebastian, however, never bears fruit. Despite the
ambiguous and shifting gender roles in the play, Twelfth Night remains a
romantic comedy in which the characters are destined for marriage. In such a
world, homoerotic attraction cannot be fulfilled.
Viola transforms into Cesario to serve Orsino. Her survival depends on her change. Once more we see that in Shakespeare sexes are ambiguous. At the time women were not allowed to act, so the easy way to do it is to transform a woman into a man (what he really was). The illegal blending of the Renaissance was attractive. Homosexuality was completely illegal but ambiguity was very ‘in’ in the Renaissance. Homosexuals were developing their survival in the society because Renaissance society plays a more flexible position, nevertheless, lesbian were not normally punished.
Shakespeare changes sexuality in an humoristic way. We don’t find change in sexes in a tragedy, but we do in a comedy. Through the comedies we can see that Shakespeare was really tolerant and open-minded in their plays.
Fool, jester and clown: is to entertain. He is the tutor of Olivia and the advisor to the kings. They could say what nobody could say. They were very smart characters. They were the most anti-system in Shakespeare’s plays.
Love at 1st sight: 2 young people. Renaissance love. The 2nd half. They will recognize themselves because this person is the other part.
20.11.07
Token; ring, the possibility to link. Symbolically much more interesting. Representation of marriage. Olivia wants to marry Ceasario=viola. Love at 1st sight: Shakespeare’s convention.
Malvolio: ‘volio mala’= malquerido, mal amado. He is the only puritan character in the play. Puritans thought that they were selected by God to guide the sinners into the right path.
For English culture, Shakespeare based on Eros, sexuality, overcoming, problems…but puritans did not. They think everything is in the Bible. They think that if they study the Bible by heart, they will reach the highest level of knowledge.
27.11.07
Song. At the end love is the most important. Here we have 3 happy endings. In the comedy we find one who was unhappy. Shakespeare does not want everything to be Disney and happiness. He also wrote about depression, frustration…Why is Malvolio unhappy? Because he wanted to reach too much. He can not marry his mistress and climb the social ladder. His ambition is against social and religious believes and that it’s why at the end is punished and considered as a mad men. He is considered mad and he is marginalised. Insane people were in the borderline. To be mad was even worse than to have an illness.
Break the rules openly: to sin by words and imagination was allowed only on the stage. Malvolio thinks aloud about sexual contact with his mistress and he confesses his sin openly on the stage. In real life that could not be so, but we are on the stage where things are not real.
Dreams. When they are dreaming and nobody knows what they are thinking, they are not sinning. Dreaming is the same as on the stage. You can dream or act whatever you desire because it’s not real. IN fact that was a reflection of the real desires of the people, but it was the only way to escape.
The taming of the shrew
The play starts with a father who establishes a difference between his both daughters. The young one, Bianca, could not be married before the old one, Katherine. Their father shows preference to Bianca.
Marriage situation
Marriage was a market indeed. Fathers only had an ambition: to marry up her little daughters. In this play we will not find the romantic situation of love, but the economic. We will see the exploration of love and the benefits that it will bring. For instance, Lucentio wins Bianca’s heart, but he is given permission to marry her only after he is able to convince Baptista that he is fabulously rich. Had Hortensio offered more money, he would have married Bianca, regardless of whether she loved Lucentio.
Love at first sight
Bianca is unveiled in the street and the students are celebrating that they have finished their exams. Then, a visual contact between the boy and the girl which means falling in love and then he tries to persecute her to get her love.
Differences between both sisters
As we see previously, Bianca acts like a real lady. She falls in love with a man and she is obedient, nevertheless, Katherine behaves like a wild animal and him lover, Petruccio, as well. They fight each other. She never obeys her father.
The whole play is a dream: A man who dreams taming a woman. We say that it’s a dream because it’s something impossible.
Characters:
Katherine [7]
Widely reputed throughout Padua to be a
shrew, Katherine
is foul-tempered and sharp-tongued at the start of the play. She constantly
insults and degrades the men around her, and she is prone to wild displays of
anger, during which she may physically attack whomever enrages her. Though most
of the play’s characters simply believe Katherine to be inherently
ill-tempered, it is certainly plausible to think that her unpleasant behavior
stems from unhappiness. She may act like a shrew because she is miserable and
desperate. There are many possible sources of Katherine’s unhappiness: she
expresses jealousy about her father’s treatment of her sister, but her anxiety
may also stem from feelings about her own undesirability, the fear that she may
never win a husband, her loathing of the way men treat her, and so on. In short,
Katherine feels out of place in her society. Due to her intelligence and
independence, she is unwilling to play the role of the maiden daughter. She
clearly abhors society’s expectations that she obey her father and show grace
and courtesy toward her suitors. At the same time, however, Katherine must see
that given the rigidity of her social situation, her only hope to find a secure
and happy place in the world lies in finding a husband. These inherently
conflicting impulses may lead to her misery and poor temper. A vicious circle
ensues: the angrier she becomes, the less likely it seems she will be able to
adapt to her prescribed social role; the more alienated she becomes socially,
the more her anger grows.
Despite the humiliations and deprivations
that Petruccio
adds to her life, it is easy to understand why Katherine might succumb to marry
a man like him. In their first conversation, Petruccio establishes that he is
Katherine’s intellectual and verbal equal, making him, on some level, an
exciting change from the easily dominated men who normally surround her.
Petruccio’s forcible treatment of Katherine is in every way designed to show
her that she has no real choice but to adapt to her social role as a wife. This
adaptation must be attractive to Katherine on some level, since even if she
dislikes the role of wife, playing it at least means she can command respect and
consideration from others rather than suffer the universal revulsion she
receives as a shrew. Having a social role, even if it is not ideal, must be
less painful than continually rejecting any social role at all. Thus,
Katherine’s eventual compliance with Petruccio’s self-serving “training”
appears more rational than it might have seemed at first: by the end of the
play, she has gained a position and even an authoritative voice that she
previously had been denied.
Importance of clothes in the play
Lucentio transforms himself into a scholar, and Tranio transforms himself from a servant into an aristocrat. The clothes help to achieve this effect and it really works on people because Tranio appears to be a gentleman and people treat him as a gentleman. However, as Petruccio says, no matter what a person wears, his inner self will eventually shine through—Lucentio, for instance, may appear to be a tutor, but as soon as the courtship with Bianca develops, he must revert to himself again, nevertheless, one cannot escape one’s past simply by changing one’s clothes.
Techniques to tame Katherine:[8]
Petruccio uses a number of different techniques to “tame” Kate:
- he tells her father that she has already agreed to marry him when, in fact, she has not. - At the wedding, he humiliates her by wearing absurd clothing, arriving late, and riding a broken-down horse, and then he exerts his authority over her by forcing her to leave immediately.
- When they reach his house, he decides to “kill [her] with kindness,” pretending he cannot allow her to eat his inferior food or sleep on his inferior bed because he cares for her greatly. The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy, and Petruccio’s techniques are somewhat fantastical. But both Kate’s apparent willingness to comply with Petruccio’s demands and Petruccio’s desire to court Kate’s love make considerably more logical sense if we accept the explanation that, beneath their conflicts, they legitimately love one another.
A midsummer night’s dream
This play almost disappeared in the 18th century because it has too many sex and reality. They use the invention of dreams to be able to talk about things that were not allowed to say in real life. Dreams cannot be controlled, so you are not a sinner if you are dreaming.
This play carries also animalism when Bottom is transformed into a donkey and has sexual intercourse with Titania.
End of the play:
Waking up of a dream (puck)
Puck asks for forgiveness:
PUCK [9]
If we shadows have
offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd
here
While these visions
did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.
Shadows: was the name of ‘cinema’
Slumber land: Disneyland
Visions: ways of perceiving the future. The Bible, the religion…all is packed in visions.
The audience is exposed to visions that could understand or not, the same as going to the church and understand the sermon or not. Many kings were illiterate because they had their servants to do so. In theatre we see things that cannot happen in reality.
Fairies and odd elements were among Elizabethan population. They were ignorant, so they did not know; they did not differentiate the worlds. The worlds were not clear-cut as it is today. So A midsummer night’s dream was too complex and to little understandable, so they rejected. It was the Victorian society who rescues it.
Plot[10]
Theseus,
duke of Athens, is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta,
queen of the Amazons, with a four-day festival of pomp and entertainment. He
commissions his Master of the Revels, Philostrate,
to find suitable amusements for the occasion. Egeus,
an Athenian nobleman, marches into Theseus’s
court with his daughter, Hermia,
and two young men, Demetrius
and Lysander.
Egeus wishes Hermia to marry Demetrius (who loves Hermia), but Hermia is in
love with Lysander and refuses to comply. Egeus asks for the full penalty of
law to fall on Hermia’s head if she flouts her father’s will. Theseus gives
Hermia until his wedding to consider her options, warning her that disobeying
her father’s wishes could result in her being sent to a convent or even
executed. Nonetheless, Hermia and Lysander plan to escape Athens the following
night and marry in the house of Lysander’s aunt, some seven leagues distant
from the city. They make their intentions known to Hermia’s friend Helena,
who was once engaged to Demetrius and still loves him even though he jilted her
after meeting Hermia. Hoping to regain his love, Helena tells Demetrius of the
elopement that Hermia and Lysander have planned. At the appointed time,
Demetrius stalks into the woods after his intended bride and her lover; Helena
follows behind him.
In
these same woods are two very different groups of characters. The first is a
band of fairies, including Oberon,
the fairy king, and Titania,
his queen, who has recently returned from India to bless the marriage of
Theseus and Hippolyta. The second is a band of Athenian craftsmen rehearsing a
play that they hope to perform for the duke and his bride. Oberon and Titania
are at odds over a young Indian prince given to Titania by the prince’s mother;
the boy is so beautiful that Oberon wishes to make him a knight, but Titania
refuses. Seeking revenge, Oberon sends his merry servant, Puck,
to acquire a magical flower, the juice of which can be spread over a sleeping
person’s eyelids to make that person fall in love with the first thing he or
she sees upon waking. Puck obtains the flower, and Oberon tells him of his plan
to spread its juice on the sleeping Titania’s eyelids. Having seen Demetrius
act cruelly toward Helena, he orders Puck to spread some of the juice on the
eyelids of the young Athenian man. Puck encounters Lysander and Hermia;
thinking that Lysander is the Athenian of whom Oberon spoke, Puck afflicts him
with the love potion. Lysander happens to see Helena upon awaking and falls
deeply in love with her, abandoning Hermia. As the night progresses and Puck
attempts to undo his mistake, both Lysander and Demetrius end up in love with
Helena, who believes that they are mocking her. Hermia becomes so jealous that
she tries to challenge Helena to a fight. Demetrius and Lysander nearly do
fight over Helena’s love, but Puck confuses them by mimicking their voices,
leading them apart until they are lost separately in the forest.
When
Titania wakes, the first creature she sees is Bottom,
the most ridiculous of the Athenian craftsmen, whose head Puck has mockingly
transformed into that of an ass. Titania passes a ludicrous interlude doting on
the ass-headed weaver. Eventually, Oberon obtains the Indian boy, Puck spreads
the love potion on Lysander’s eyelids, and by morning all is well. Theseus and
Hippolyta discover the sleeping lovers in the forest and take them back to
Athens to be married—Demetrius now loves Helena, and Lysander now loves Hermia.
After the group wedding, the lovers watch Bottom and his fellow craftsmen
perform their play, a fumbling, hilarious version of the story of Pyramus and
Thisbe. When the play is completed, the lovers go to bed; the fairies briefly
emerge to bless the sleeping couples with a protective charm and then
disappear. Only Puck remains, to ask the audience for its forgiveness and
approval and to urge it to remember the play as though it had all been a dream.
Dreams are lies ‘if you look at me, you’ll see I am not Helena but an actor, I’m a man’ all the visions are lies. What we see in dreams are things that cannot be done in reality because they are sins.
Differences between one end and the other:
In the 1st end we find Puck’s monolog. He says exactly the opposite. He is fat of the nightmares the people have. Double existence of reality: dreams and reality. The nicest night is when you not dream.
Beginning:
Importance of the moon because we sleep at night. Shakespeare prepares us. The whole play will last 4 days and 3 nights that correspond to the 3 acts of the Greek origin:
1. conflict, crisis,
2. reach the point of inflection,
3. conclusion
- he uses Greek names
- old place, old time(1603): nothing to do with reality.
- Strong religious accusation: representation of Satan, you have the sin. (appears in Merchant of Venice)
- It’s a sin rebels against the will of your father. If she does it is because she has been seduced by that man by rhymes and tokens. He has bewitched her.
- He invents the ‘privilege of Athens’. It’s not true, but it sounded convincing. People will thing that in old times things work like that.
- He allows women to speak and to express their opinions. He was accused of feminist but he was not so, but contemporary. Shakespeare understand women because he looks through their eyes.
Harold Bloom: Shakespeare is modern.
[2] http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/characters.html
[3] The shoe or slipper is a ... symbol of the
female genitals," Sigmund Freud wrote in a footnote to the first of his Three
Contributions to the Theory of Sex, which implies that the foot slipping
in and out of the shoe (and in and out again, all over the countryside while
the prince searches for his mate) represents the eager penis on the prowl. But
fur?
[4]
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/section7.rhtml
[5] http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/errors/study.html
[6]
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/twelfthnight/characters.html
[7]
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/characters.html
[8]
http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/study.html
[9] http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act5-script-text-midsummer-nights-dream.htm