SHAKESPEARE

ISN'T BORING

I love Shakespeare.

Unfortunately, a fair few people have the impression (whether they've seen his plays or not) that Shakespeare is boring, difficult to understand and only enjoyable if you have an English degree or like watching paint dry.

I don't think any of this is true. Shakespeare had something for everyone and was able to write plays that appealed to audiences across a wide social spectrum.

From sword fights, bawdy humour, witches prophecies' and ghosts, to mistaken identities, verbal sparring, tragic love stories, comedies and histories. From intrigue, plotting, revenge and murder, to questioning morality, pondering mortality and asking what it means to be human.

Hoping to prove my point that Shakespeare is the opposite of boring, I set out a few of my favourite bits below:

JULIUS CAESAR

Or maybe you fancy letting Shakespeare have a go at you?

LEARN MORE:

HAMLET

If you've ever seen The Lion King, you already know this story. King gets murdered by his brother, who usurps the throne, and the former king's son spends the rest of the time doing nothing about it... until he does. The endings are a bit different, though, in the play (*spoiler alert*) everybody dies (which is not uncommon in Shakespeare, tbh).

During that bit where "nothing happens", a lot of internal stuff is happening, to be fair. Hamlet is in limbo between action and inaction because he can't make up his mind what to do. And rest assured he is most definitely not singing Hakuna Matata while he does.

Instead, he pretends to be mad so he can lull his uncle into a false sense of security. Problem is, having a sharper mind than the rest of the court combined, even his feigned madness has infallible logic to it.

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in ’t."

- Act II, Scene II

Many people associate Hamlet holding the skull with the famous "To be or not to be" speech. However, that is not the case.

When Hamlet returns to Elsinore (having been unceremoniously shipped to England by his usurper uncle to get him out of the way) he stumbles upon a gravedigger who is (unbeknownst to Hamlet) digging a grave for the tragic Ophelia, whom Hamlet once loved (or still loves, or maybe never did). He grabs a discarded skull and asks the gravedigger whose it is.

Turns out this empty sphere of bone belonged to Yorick, a court jester whom Hamlet knew well as a kid. Hamlet reminisces about how Yorick used to set the whole place laughing, and how he carried Hamlet on his back a thousand times, and within seconds Hamlet comes face to face with mortality. Yorick's, his own, and everybody else's.

"To what base uses we may return" he exclaims to his friend Horatio. If Yorick's come to this, so has Alexander the Great and so has Julius Caesar:

"Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,
Should patch a wall t' expel the winter’s flaw!"

- Act V, Scene I

HENRY V

Henry V is one of Shakespeare's history plays. He reigned in England in the early 15th Century and had outstanding military successes in the Hundred Years' War against France.

Now, I'll be honest. I haven't actually read or seen Henry V (yet). However, there is a speech which I love. It is Henry's reaction to receiving a present from the Dauphin (French prince).

Henry had lain claim to some Dukedoms in France, and the Dauphin is clearly displeased. He sends a couple of messengers to Henry with a casket-full of tennis balls, and basically says "these are more suited to your temperament, you cannot win dukedoms by partying. You'll happily accept these tennis balls in lieu of the dukedoms."

The Dauphin is clearly mocking Henry (who, according to Shakespeare at least, led a riotous youth), but Henry's having none of it. He tells the messengers:

"...I will rise there with so full a glory
That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,
Yea, strike the Dauphin blind to look on us.
And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his
Hath turned his balls to gun-stones, and his soul
Shall stand sore chargèd for the wasteful vengeance
That shall fly with them; for many a thousand widows
Shall this, his mock, mock out of their dear husbands,
Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down,
And some are yet ungotten and unborn
That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin’s scorn."

- Act I, Scene II

Henry's basically saying "we'll see who's laughing after I'm done with you. Even people who haven't been conceived yet will have cause to curse you for starting this."

Note the repetition of the word mock, it resembles the sound of tennis balls being struck in a game, as well as a sort of martial rhythm. This is Shakespeare's genius at work: conveying feeling not only through words, but through sound and repetition as well.

He ends the speech by saying that the Dauphin's taunt will turn sour in his mouth when everyone is crying, instead of laughing at it:

"His jest will savor but of shallow wit
When thousands weep more than did laugh at it."

- Act I, Scene II

Henry V also contains the famous St Crispin's Day speech given by Henry on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt. He's trying to motivate his men because they are greatly outnumbered by the French:

"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day."

- Act IV, Scene III

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

This, together with Hamlet, is one of my favourite plays. It's basically a razor-sharp, battle-of-wits Elizabethan rom-com.

Enter Benedick: a cocky ladies' man whose last thought on earth is that of marriage. Enter Beatrice: an intelligent, independent woman who does not want to be tied down to a man, no matter what anyone thinks.

Now, it's clear that these two know each other, but there's also a faint undercurrent of hurt feelings and regret there, so we can guess that something happened between them in the past, and it is this that's turned them against each other. And what follows is some of the funniest verbal sparring in all of Shakespeare.

BEATRICE:

"I wonder that you will still be talking, Signor Benedick.
Nobody marks you."

BENEDICK:

"What, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?"

BEATRICE:

"Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet
food to feed it as Signor Benedick? Courtesy itself must
convert to disdain if you come in her presence."

- Act I, Scene I

Gradually, and with the help of their friends, who trick them into thinking each is in love with the other, they soften up to the idea of love. They must awkwardly team up to save the marriage of Beatrice's cousin Hero and Benedick's friend Claudio, and Benedick's galantry in the face of Beatrice's despair for her cousin finally wins her over.

In the end, the verbal sparring turns into confessions of love:

BENEDICK:

"I do love nothing in the world so well as you: is not that strange?"

And:

BEATRICE:

"I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest."

- Act IV, Scene I

When you realise that their names literally mean "she that blesses" and "he who is blessed" the ending should've been pretty obvious from the start, shouldn't it?

THE WINTER'S TALE

This is another one I haven't read/seen. However, it contains one of Shakespeare's most famous stage directions:

"Exit, pursued by a bear."

Need I say more?

JULIUS CAESAR

Another of Shakespeare's histories.

Julius Caesar has been murdered. Quite literally stabbed in the back by a group of conspirators who wished to stop him becoming the dictator of Rome. The conspirators claim that they did this for the good of Rome: they thought Julius Caesar was too ambitious (even though he'd already refused the crown - which in turn made him more popular with the people). One of the conspirators was Brutus, who had been friendly with Caesar and got manipulated into taking part in the conspiracy.

Cue the famous line spoken by Julius Caesar when he sees that his friend has betrayed him: "Et tu, Brute?" (And you, Brutus? or You too, Brutus?) now often used in common parlance in any sort of "backstabbing" situation.

The speech I love is one of the best examples of rhetorical irony in Shakespeare's work.

This is Mark Antony speaking at Caesar's funeral. He deftly turns public opinion against the assassins by manipulating the emotions of the people. Reminding them that they once loved Caesar, he rouses the mob even as he states his intentions against it:

"...The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man."

- Act III, Scene II

Rather than quoting the whole speech, I think it best that you listen to it. Here it is, eloquently portrayed by the brilliant Damian Lewis.