Judi Dench on why she loves Shakespeare so much

From Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent: 

“Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon for humanity, and a bridge across cultures. His writing encompasses the minutiae of everyday life. When you come to do the plays you often recognise something that you’ve never been able to articulate. He’s able to express what it is to be human in the most concise way: ‘Nought’s had, all’s spent, / Where our desire is got without content.’ It’s all you need, it’s so spare – the gift of being able to convey so much with so little.

And his iambic pentameter – the rhythm of it is so to do with … now, you see, the hairs on my arm are standing on end. De-dum, de-dum, de-dum. It’s the rhythm of life, the beating of your heart. I know that sounds effete, but nevertheless it’s so primal.

There’s something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt or are yet to feel is all in there in his plays: oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, everything. If you need to understand jealousy, read Othello or The Winter’s Tale; if you’re in love, listen to Romeo and Juliet.

When I was at my lowest during the pandemic I kept thinking of Richard II’s line: ‘I wasted Time, and now doth Time waste me.’ Shakespeare has examined every single emotion. His writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone.”

If you like Judi Dench (who doesn’t?), this is a delightful book. I like that she doesn’t only talk about acting and tell behind-the-scenes stories, but also comments on the plays and the characters and you can see her love of Shakespeare shine through. See my Twitter thread here (or if you don’t have an account, read it here instead). 

Her performance shapes my interpretation of Lady Macbeth. 

Women Beware Women by Thomas Middleton

1/ The play begins with an elopement between the poor Leantio and the rich Bianca. The scene that follows has one of Shakespeare’s favourite themes: forced marriage. Fabritio wants his daughter Isabella to marry a rich fool, simply called the Ward in the play. He says to Guardiano, the Ward’s guardian that “she shall love him.” 

How absurd. Isabella’s aunt Livia has to speak up: 

“LIVIA I must offend you then, if truth will do’t, 

And take my niece’s part, and call’t injustice

To force her love to one she never saw. 

Maids should both see and like; all little enough; 

If they love truly after that, ’tis well. 

Counting the time, she takes one man till death, 

That’s a hard task, I tell you…” 

(Act 1 scene 2) 

These lines are more interesting: 

“LIVIA O soft there, brother! Though you be a Justice, 

Your warrant cannot be serv’d out of your liberty; 

You may compel out of the power of a father 

Things merely harsh to a maid’s flesh and blood; 

But when you come to love, there the soil alters; 

Y’are in another country, where your laws 

Are no more set by than the cacklings 

Of geese in Rome’s great Capitol.” 

(ibid.) 

Thomas Middleton immediately subverts your expectation however. You think it’s probably going to be similar to Shakespeare’s treatment of the forced marriage vs love marriage theme, you assume Livia to be a progressive woman who stands against tyrannical fathers, but no, the story goes in another direction—Hippolito, brother of Fabritio, has incestuous feelings for Isabella, and Livia helps bring them together!—how can Isabella know and why does she believe right away that Livia is telling the truth, that she’s the product of an affair and therefore not related by blood to them? 

Having done that, Livia manipulates Leantio’s mother and brings Bianca to the Duke. You think that Jane Austen’s Emma meddles in people’s lives and turns everything upside down just out of idleness? Just look at Livia—this woman needs a hobby. 

2/ Generally, I don’t think the poetry is anywhere near as good as in The Revenger’s Tragedy (long attributed to Cyril Tourneur, now sometimes attributed to Middleton but not definitively), but once in a while, there’s some interesting imagery: 

“GUARDIANO […] it’s a witty age, 

Never were finer snares for women’s honesties

Than are devis’d in these days; no spider’s webs

Made of a daintier thread than are now practis’d

To catch love’s flesh-fly by the silver wing…” 

(Act 2 scene 2) 

He brings Bianca to the Duke for his own advancement. Why does Livia? Probably just because she can. 

“LIVIA […] ’Tis but want of use; 

Her tender modesty is sea-sick a little, 

Being not accustom’d to the breaking billow

Of woman’s wavering faith, blown with temptations. 

’Tis but a qualm of honour, ’twill away; 

A little bitter for the time, but lasts not. 

Sin tastes at the first draught like wormwood water, 

But, drunk again, ’tis nectar ever after.” 

(ibid.) 

3/ I can’t help noticing that most of the non-Shakespearean plays I’ve read from 1580s-1630s present a much darker, more cynical view of humanity and make me feel disgusted with the characters. Only a couple of Shakespeare’s plays have a similar effect, such as The Merchant of Venice or Troilus and Cressida; the majority give one the impression that he loves people and loves humanity. The others—Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe, John Webster, John Ford, Thomas Middleton—depict a rotten world in which human beings are bestial and repulsive. There’s not enough light, so to speak. The bad are monstrous and numerous, the good get destroyed. 

In Women Beware Women, Fabritio forces his own daughter Isabella to marry an idiot for money and advancement; her aunt Livia tells her a false tale and Isabella has an incestuous affair with her own uncle Hippolito but carries on with her marriage to the Ward; Livia again acts as a bawd, bringing Bianca to the Duke; Bianca, having “forsook friends, fortunes, and [her] country” in order to marry the poor Leantio, now cheats on him and changes her tune, insults the husband’s family for their poverty and brazenly becomes the Duke’s mistress; the Duke is a bastard who covets someone else’s wife, but Leantio isn’t a good man either, as he more or less imprisoned Bianca in the house because “The jewel is cas’d up from all mens’ eyes”; Leantio later also has an affair with Livia; and the play ends with a bloody party (perhaps inspired by The Spanish Tragedy). 

The final scene is spectacular. 

“HIPPOLITO […] Vengeance met Vengeance, 

Like a set match, as if the plague of sin 

Had been agreed to meet here altogether…” 

(Act 5 scene 2) 

Livia is a striking character, a psychopath, one of the most villainous women I have come across in fiction—the other characters in the play commit sin because of lust or greed—Livia does all these things just because she can. 

Funnily enough: 

“BIANCA […] O the deadly snares 

That women set for women, without pity 

Either to soul or honour! Learn by me 

To know your foes. In this belief I die: 

Like our own sex, we have no enemy, no enemy!” 

(ibid.) 

I mean, sure, Livia ensnares Isabella and Bianca, but do they not have agency? Do they not have free will? Nobody forces them to have an affair and deceive others. 

Everybody in the play, except for the Lord Cardinal, is rotten to the core. The character of Livia is fascinating and memorable, but it’s a repulsive play.    

Hamlet (2009), ft. David Tennant

Directed by Gregory Doran (who did my favourite version of The Winter’s Tale), this is in some ways a strong production. There are some interesting choices and there are some questionable choices. Let me gather my thoughts. 

Firstly, it is set in modern day and there are CCTVs everywhere. Like Robert Icke later does in the 2018 version (with Andrew Scott), Gregory Doran also emphasises the surveillance theme of the play. Sometimes it works well, often it feels gimmicky, but I’m afraid that the CCTVs only create more questions: does it not get anyone’s attention that at some point Marcellus, Francisco, Barnardo, and Horatio run around in fear and wonder, clearly speaking to something unseen?

Secondly, I don’t like the casting of Patrick Stewart for both the Ghost and Claudius. Some of you may tell me that this doubling is nothing new and some reviewers have said it’s sometimes done, but why then does Hamlet ask Gertrude “Have you eyes?”? Why then does he say that Claudius is “no more like my father/ Than I to Hercules”? And more importantly, how are we to feel about Gertrude, if she moves on from her dead husband to his brother, who looks just like him? It’s interesting however that Patrick Stewart plays the Ghost as stiff and stern—cold even—indeed, what does it say about the relationship between Hamlet and his father that when the Ghost appears, there are no words of love, only calls for revenge? Hamlet has to avenge the murder of a father with whom he didn’t have a close, loving relationship. 

Thirdly, I don’t like Patrick Stewart as Claudius. He softens the character. The production removes some of the more insulting lines in the wedding scene: 

“KING It shows a will most incorrect to heaven, 

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient, 

An understanding simple and unschooled.” 

(Act 1 scene 2)

Imagine how insulting these lines are to someone such as Hamlet. In front of the whole court! Claudius aims to sting and Shakespeare lets us see from the very first scene that he is cunning and subtle. But Gregory Doran cuts these lines, and Patrick Stewart’s performance as a whole softens the character. It is one thing to play Claudius as even-tempered, but is this really a man who murders his own brother, usurps the throne, marries his brother’s widow, sets others to spy on his nephew then plots to have him killed, takes advantage of a courtier’s death to manipulate the son into being his pawn, and so on? I don’t buy it. 

Someone has called it a nuanced performance but I don’t think so—a nuanced performance is one that shows Claudius as a ruthless man but also a good king and an adoring husband—the best Claudius I have seen so far is Robert Shaw.  

I do think David Tennant is very good as Hamlet however. The best Hamlet I have seen is still Kevin Kline, who conveys better something of “the sweet prince” that Hamlet once was, but David Tennant does convey very well the intensity and volatility and sardonic wit of the character, and also some vulnerability—it is much better than the performance of Andrew Scott, who plays Hamlet like a psychopath that anyone would want to remove from court. 

Penny Downie is also very good as Gertrude, playing her as a tragic character, and I like Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius.

What about the ending? 

“KING Gertrude, do not drink. 

QUEEN I will, my lord; I pray you pardon me.” 

(Act 5 scene 2)  

There are different ways of playing this moment. Gertrude may carelessly drink from the cup, too absorbed in the duel to notice. Or Gertrude may know the cup to be poisoned, and deliberately drink from it, as Juliet Stevenson does in the 2018 production. Or she may have a little pause, think, and then drink from it, which is what Penny Downie does here, and I think it works very well. 

One interesting thing Patrick Stewart does, which I don’t see in other version of Hamlet, is that at the end he shrugs and drinks from the poisoned cup himself. It adds something tragic to the character. But at the same time, the consequence is that it makes Hamlet even more passive—for the entire story, Hamlet doesn’t take any action (apart from staging the play wherein he catches the conscience of the king), and at the very end, he only slashes at Claudius’s hand—admittedly the sword is envenomed, but he still appears less active as he hands over the cup to Claudius and the King drinks it himself. 

Not the best rendition, but interesting and worth watching. 

Brief thoughts on Roman Polanski’s Macbeth

The trouble with Macbeth, I think, is that it’s such an exciting play—full of plot and action—that people sometimes seem to forget that the greatness of the play is in the happenings in the minds of the Macbeths. The clearest example is Kurosawa’s loose adaptation Throne of Blood, enjoyable enough but stripped off the characters’ thoughts, stripped off all depth and complexity. Roman Polanski’s film also seems to focus more on the external violence—it is bloody, full of graphic violence (and nudity)—if not for Jon Finch. I have seen Jon Finch as Henry IV in the BBC Television Shakespeare and he’s so much like a Shakespearean actor, so much better than Michael Fassbender (who doesn’t know how to speak the lines) and Denzel Washington, that I didn’t realise till after watching the film that it was the first time he did Shakespeare. You see him tempted by the witches; you see him struggle before and after the deed; you see him slowly lose his soul as he's in blood stepped in so far; you see that by the end, to him life’s a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. 

The problem with the film though is that Francesca Annis is a weak Lady Macbeth. When you see different versions of Macbeth, you might sometimes wonder if Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness could be abrupt—some people think perhaps the text is cut and we’ve lost a scene or two—but Trevor Nunn’s production demonstrates that there is nothing wrong with the pacing or structure, as Judi Dench shows from the very beginning that Lady Macbeth is more vulnerable than she thinks, that she has started to crack much earlier, so her descent into madness comes as no surprise. That abruptness is in Joel Coen’s film, as Frances McDormand is so evil, so unmoved at the beginning and doesn’t show the gradual change. Orson Welles and Kurosawa solve “the problem” by making some changes and creating a reason to explain Lady Macbeth’s shock and insanity. Francesca Annis doesn’t play Lady Macbeth as evil like Frances McDormand, but her insanity also seems abrupt because we don’t quite see her conflict, her struggle, her vulnerability. 

There are also some questionable choices. Why have the Macbeths discuss killing Duncan at the party, in front of everybody? Why depict so much nudity? Why do we need to see a completely naked young boy (Macduff’s son)? Why depict Macbeth and Macduff fight in front of everybody like it’s a spectacle, like they are gladiators? Not to mention the ending?  

I also wonder if the Manson Family’s murder of Polanski’s wife Sharon Tate in 1969 had any impact on his mind and his vision for Macbeth—the film came out in 1971—not only because the film is so bloody and violent, but also because Macbeth’s death is depicted in such a cynical way and doesn’t seem tragic. 

Overall, it’s still worth seeing, for Jon Finch (unless you boycott Roman Polanski’s films, which is perfectly understandable). It’s also an interesting approach.   

On Trevor Nunn’s production (Ian McKellen – Judi Dench). 

On Joel Coen’s film. 

On Orson Welles’s film. 

On Throne of Blood. 

Addendum on 20/5: I forgot that I saw the Ralph Fiennes version onstage, which I wrote about here and here. 

Some Shakespearean performances I wish to have seen

As I have been reading Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent (a very enjoyable read) and just updated my list of favourite Shakespearean performances, here’s a shortlist of performances I wish to have seen:

• 17th century: 

Richard Burbage as Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth (obviously, he worked directly with our man) 

• 18th century: 

Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth (because William Hazlitt calls her “Tragedy personified” and this is her most famous role) 

• 19th century: 

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (I mean, have you seen Sargent’s painting? I’ve also seen the dress in person) 

Sarah Siddons as Hermione (because of some commentaries I’ve read in The Winter’s Tale Casebook)  

• 20th century: 

Vivien Leigh as Lady Macbeth (I’m curious about her performance) and Cleopatra (come on, she must have been great in the role) 

Diana Rigg as Lady Macbeth (the best Regan I have seen, she would have been great as Lady Macbeth) 

Ralph Richardson as Falstaff (he’s part of the trinity, and extraordinary in everything I’ve seen) 

Judi Dench as Gertrude with Daniel Day-Lewis as Hamlet (come on, that sounds amazing, I also like Judi Dench’s analysis of Gertrude and the play) 

Judi Dench as Isabella (I like her comments on the character) 

• 21st century: 

Frances Barber as Cleopatra (she is Cleopatra, I have heard her on audio and wish I had seen her onstage) 

Give me your list. 

My 50 favourite Shakespearean performances onscreen and onstage

The 30 list was first published on 29/12/2023. It is now updated. 

In chronological order. 

Robert Shaw as Claudius in Hamlet at Elsinor (1964)  

Michael Aldridge as Pistol in Chimes at Midnight (1965) 

Olivia Hussey as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (1968) 

Leonard Whiting as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet (1968)

Diana Rigg as Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968) 

Laurence Olivier as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1973) 

Jeremy Brett as Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost (1975) 

Marc Singer as Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew (1976) 

Ian McKellen as Macbeth in Macbeth (1979) 

Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (1979)

David Gwillim as Hal/ Henry V in the Henry IV plays and Henry V (1979) 

Anthony Quayle as Falstaff in the Henry IV plays (1979) 

Jon Finch as Henry IV in the Henry IV plays (1979)  

Tim Pigott-Smith as Hotspur in Henry IV, Part 1 (1979) 

Kate Nelligan as Isabella in Measure for Measure (1979) 

Anthony Hopkins as Othello in Othello (1981) 

Bob Hoskins as Iago in Othello (1981) 

Michael Hordern as Lear in King Lear (1982) 

Anton Lesser as Edgar in King Lear (1982) 

Penelope Wilton as Regan in King Lear (1982) 

Michael Pennington as Posthumus in Cymbeline (1982) 

Robert Lindsay as Iachimo in Cymbeline (1982) 

Robert Lindsay as Edmund in King Lear (1983) 

Diana Rigg as Regan in King Lear (1983)

Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (1984) 

Robert Lindsay as Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (1984)

Richard Briers as Malvolio in Twelfth Night (1988) 

Frances Barber as Viola in Twelfth Night (1988)  

Kevin Kline as Hamlet in Hamlet (1990) 

Ian McKellen as Iago in Othello (1990) 

Imogen Stubbs as Desdemona in Othello (1990)

Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia in Twelfth Night (1990) 

Antony Sher as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale (1999) 

Ian Hughes as Autolycus in The Winter’s Tale (1999) 

Ralph Fiennes as Coriolanus in Coriolanus (2011) 

Vanessa Redgrave as Volumnia in Coriolanus (2011)

Amy Acker as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing (2012) 

Adrian Lester as Othello in Othello (2013) 

Don Warrington as Lear in King Lear (2016) 

Miltos Yerolemou as the Fool in King Lear (2016)

Thomas Coombes as Oswald in King Lear (2016)

Ian McKellen as Lear in King Lear (2018) 

Ben Whishaw as Brutus in Julius Caesar (2018) 

Kathryn Hunter as the Witches in Macbeth (2021) 

David Oyelowo as Coriolanus in Coriolanus (2024) 

Mathew Baynton as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2024) 

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The Devil’s Law-Case by John Webster

1/ You know what, 1580s-1630s plays are bonkers. But before we get there, let’s talk about the poetry. 

In 17th century’s English dramatic poetry, one may say that Webster is second only to Shakespeare—perhaps I don’t know what I’m talking about, but David C. Gunby calls him “a tragedian second to only Shakespeare” in my copy and I do love Webster’s poetry the most among Shakespeare’s contemporary playwrights. His best play is still The Duchess of Malfi, but The Devil’s Law-Case has many great passages:   

“CONTARINO […] For women’s resolutions in such deeds, 

Like bees, light oft on flowers, and oft on weeds.” 

(Act 1 scene 1) 

Or: 

“CAPUCHIN For pity’s sake, you that have tears to shed, 

Sigh a soft requiem, and let fall a bead 

For two unfortunate nobles, whose sad fate 

Leaves them both dead, and excommunicate: 

No churchman’s prayer to comfort their last groans, 

No sacred sod of earth to hide their bones; 

But as their fury wrought them out of breath, 

The canon speaks them guilty of their own death.” 

(Act 2 scene 3) 

Or: 

“ROMELIO […] O how this wicked world bewitches, 

Especially made insolent with riches! 

So sails with fore-winds stretch’d, do soonest break, 

And pyramids a’th’top are still most weak.” 

(ibid.) 

It’s amusing that Webster gives these lines to such a heartless fiend like Romelio. 

2/ There are some funny bits. For example, Crispiano, a lawyer, prefers money to “wenching”: 

“CRISPIANO Wenching? O fie, the disease follows it; 

Beside, can the fing’ring taffetas, or lawns, 

Or a painted hand, or a breast, be like the pleasure 

In taking a client’s fees, and piling them 

In several goodly rows before my desk?...” 

(Act 2 scene 1) 

What a nutter. 

“CRISPIANO Come, come, leave citing other vanities; 

For neither wine, nor lust, nor riotous feasts, 

Rich clothes, nor all the pleasure that the devil 

Has ever practis’d with, to raise a man

To a devil’s likeness, e’er brought man that pleasure 

I took in getting my wealth…” 

(ibid.) 

Probably one of those men who love amassing wealth much more than spending it (why though?). 

But generally, I don’t find Webster a particularly funny writer. Ariosto, a bad-tempered lawyer who later acts as judge, is clearly meant to be a comic character, but I don’t find him funny.  

3/ Some lines remind me of Shakespeare: 

“LEONORA I do look now 

For some great misfortunes to follow. 

For indeed mischiefs are like the visits 

Of Franciscan friars, they never come 

To prey upon us single…” 

(Act 3 scene 3) 

Does anyone look at that and not think about “When sorrows come, they come not single spies/ But in battalions”? 

The beginning of the scene, when Romelio chides his sister Jolenta for grieving, also makes me think of Hamlet: 

“ROMELIO Why do you grieve thus? Take a looking glass, 

And see if this sorrow become you; that pale face

Will make men think you us’d some art before,

Some odious painting: Contarino’s dead. 

JOLENTA O that he should die so soon! 

ROMELIO Why, I pray tell me, 

Is not the shortest fever the best? And are not bad plays 

The worse for their length?” 

(ibid.) 

I’m not sure—Shakespeare also adds some funny lines in the middle of a sad or intense scene, such as in King Lear or The Winter’s Tale, but in my head this exchange seems a bit harder to get right—how are those last lines meant to be played? to cause laughter?—Jolenta is in deep anguish. 

4/ The premise of The Devil’s Law-Case is some standard complications: Ercole and Contarino both love Jolenta; Jolenta also loves Contarino, but her brother Romelio wants her to marry Ercole, who has more money; Jolenta’s mother Leonora, a widow, also wants her to marry Ercole because she herself loves Contarino. The play however is bonkers—it is full of lies and disguises, schemes and plots, twists and turns—one thing piles upon another—the whole thing is bananas. It’s also quite different from The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi as the other two are tragedies whereas this one is a tragicomedy. Anyone who thinks Cymbeline is “unresisting imbecility” should check out The Devil’s Law-Case. 

One good thing about the play is Webster’s poetry. 

“… Courts adieu, and all delights, 

All bewitching appetites; 

Sweetest breath, and clearest eye, 

Like perfumes go out and die; 

And consequently this is done, 

As shadows wait upon the sun. 

Vain the ambition of kings, 

Who seek by trophies and dead things, 

To leave a living name behind, 

And weave but nets to catch the wind…” 

(Act 5 scene 4) 

Another good thing is that Romelio, the villain, is a brilliant character. Avaricious, calculating, deceitful, ruthless. No morals, no conscience. 

“CAPUCHIN […] Will you pray with me? 

ROMELIO No, no, the world and I 

Have not made up our accounts yet. 

CAPUCHIN Shall I pray for you? 

ROMELIO Whether you do or no, I care not. 

CAPUCHIN O you have a dangerous voyage to take. 

ROMELIO No matter, I will be mine own pilot: 

Do not you trouble your head with the business. 

CAPUCHIN Pray tell me, do not you meditate of death? 

ROMELIO Pew, I took out that lesson 

When I once lay sick of an ague: I do now 

Labour for life, for life! Sir, can you tell me 

Whether your Toledo, or your Milan blade 

Be best temper’d?” 

(ibid.) 

And later, when he asks for food and Capuchin hands him a book, presumably a Bible: 

“ROMELIO Pew, I am not to commence Doctor: 

For then the word, devour that book, were proper. 

I am to fight, to fight sir, and I’ll do’t, 

As I would feed, with a good stomach.” 

(ibid.) 

Should you read The Devil’s Law-Case? Perhaps only if you’re a specialist. It’s no wonder that Webster is now only known for The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. 

The Winter’s Tale revisited: thoughts on the play and some commentaries

Alexandra Gilbreath as Hermione and Antony Sher as Leontes (my favourite production). 

I have just reread The Winter’s Tale. What a wonderful play! The final scene is one of the greatest, most moving scenes in Shakespeare, but I forgot that the play as a whole was like a fairytale, including the figure of the tyrant. I also picked up The Winter’s Tale Casebook, a collection of essays edited by Kenneth Muir. 

1/ My top 5 is Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, The Winter’s Tale, Measure for Measure. Is it not strange, when you think about it, that the last three plays took centuries to be understood and appreciated? King Lear is now generally recognised as the highest peak of Shakespeare, but Measure and Measure and The Winter’s Tale are still not particularly popular even though their status has now risen among some Shakespeare fans and critics. 

What is it about the development of taste over the centuries that early critics didn’t see the power of The Winter’s Tale but modern critics (and I) do? I can’t help wondering. But it’s amusing to see that Charlotte Lennox (the author of The Female Quixote) is among the ones insensible to the beauty of the resurrection scene and of the play as a whole. 

The usual complaints are these: 

a) The plot is improbable—Charlotte Lennox says “what reason could [Hermione] have for chusing to live in such a miserable confinement when she might have been happy in the possession of her husband’s affection and have shared his throne?”, but she’s not the only one expressing such sentiments; 

b) Leontes’s jealousy lacks a motive—Robert Bridges for example says “the jealousy of Leontes is senseless, whereas in the original story an adequate motive is developed.” 

The latter is not a surprise. Detractors—Tolstoy for instance—sometimes complain about the lack of motive in Shakespeare. But that’s his thing—it’s not only that Shakespeare doesn’t give motive to his characters (in some cases), sometimes he perversely removes the motive stated in his source story. I myself see nothing wrong or unconvincing about it. Shakespeare is fascinated by jealousy and explores it throughout his career, and in his final play about jealousy, pushes to the extreme the idea “They are not ever jealous for the cause/ But jealous for they are jealous; ’tis a monster/ Begon upon itself, born on itself.” 

As for the former, there are two interpretations of the resurrection scene: the mythic one and the realistic one. I’m inclined to go with the realistic reading, but the vision of resurrection in the final ending still fills me with awe and wonder—that she lives in isolation after 16 years isn’t illogical to me—do people forget that Leontes for no reason accused her of not only adultery but also treason? That he imprisoned her and put her on trial? That he caused the death of their son Mamillius? That he banished Perdita and she doesn’t know when she can ever see her daughter again? Leontes needs penance and Paulina is there to make sure he never forgets what he has done. 

2/ I like Robert R. Price’s remark from 1890: 

“And so, in dramatic art, The Winter’s Tale is, I think, Shakespeare’s experiment in constructing a diptych. This experiment no poet, to my knowledge, had ever tried before him, and none that I know of has ever tried it since. Thus, received as a bold experiment in dramatic art, The Winter’s Tale may well stand last in time of the works of Shakespeare’s genius, the final stretching forth of that genius to accomplish a design never before essayed. 

The play is, then, as I conceive it, a genuine diptych in construction. It is made up of two plays, the first a tragedy and the second a comedy, so joined together in the middle as to produce a final result that belongs equally to each.” 

That is indeed something that makes The Winter’s Tale different from everything else by Shakespeare, and most narratives in general. And I love that. When I first read The Winter’s Tale, I thought it lacked harmony even though I loved the play—the shocking rage and intensity seem to appear out of nowhere then vanish into thin air, the play slows down, the mood changes—but I no longer find it odd after watching the Antony Sher production—the two parts go together perfectly well, and the ending is wonderful. It’s a bold experiment that shows Shakespeare’s mastery of mood, pacing, and structure. 

But how does he do it successfully? I like that Ernest Schanzer writes in his essay “The Structural Pattern” that “the two halves of the play consist not only of a series of contrasts but also a series of parallels.” In both halves, Shakespeare paints a picture of harmony and happiness that is violently interrupted by a tyrant. In both halves, Perdita is “committed to the mercy of the waves.” In both halves, Camillio plays the same role of helping the victim of the king escape. In both halves, there’s a climax with Hermione in the centre. 

“The first half culminates in Hermione’s death, the second in her ‘resurrection’.” 

3/ Mark Van Doren says:

“Shakespeare disappoints our expectation in one important respect. The recognition of Leontes and his daughter takes place off stage; we only hear three gentlemen talking prose about it (v ii), and are denied the satisfaction of such a scene as we might have supposed would crown the play. The reason may be that Shakespeare was weary of a plot which already had complicated itself beyond comfort; or that a recognition scene appeared in his mind more due to Hermione, considering the age and degree of her sufferings, than to that ‘most peerless piece of earth’ Perdita.” 

“Our”? Speak for yourself! I don’t agree—the resurrection scene is more important—Shakespeare understands pacing and tension (better than anybody) and knows that two reunion scenes so close to each other would very much reduce the emotional impact—that’s why he leaves one offstage. 

In “Six Points of Stage-Craft”, Neville Coghill defends the scene of the gentlemen telling each other about the first reunion: 

“… in practice this scene is among the most gripping and memorable of the entire play. Whoever saw the production of it by Peter Brook at the Phoenix Theatre in 1951-2 will remember the excitement it created. I know of at least two other productions of the play in which this scene had the same effect, and generated a mounting thrill of expectation needed to prepare us for the final scene.” 

4/ In the same essay, Nevile Coghill defends the “Exit, pursued by a bear” scene, which many people have derided: 

“… [Shakespeare] deliberately underlined the juxtaposition of mood, achieved by the invention of the bear, in the speeches he put into the mouth of the Clown, grisly and ludicrous, mocking and condoling, from one sentence to another: 

[…]

If Shakespeare did not mean it that way, why did he write it that way? So far from being crude or antiquated, stage-craft such as this is a dazzling piece of avant-garde work; no parallel can be found for what, at a stroke, its effects; it is the transformation of tragedy into comedy; it symbolizes the revenge of Nature on the servant of a corrupted court; it is a thundering surprises; and yet those Naturals that are always demanding naturalism cannot complain, for what could be more natural than a bear?” 

That’s a good point. I have learnt to always assume that Shakespeare knows what he’s doing—sometimes one may think something seems wrong or something is a flaw, until one sees a critic defend it, or even better, sees a production which works perfectly, demonstrating again that Shakespeare understands drama better than anybody. 

In the essay Neville Coghill argues several times against S. L. Bethell, who calls the play naïve, antiquated, outmoded, etc. I especially like this point he makes about the final scene (and the fact that Shakespeare does the anachronistic thing of naming a contemporary man as the sculptor): 

“The spiritual meaning of the play in no way depends on [Hermione] being a Lazarus or an Alcestis. It is a play about a crisis in the life of Leontes, not of Hermione, and her restoration to him (it is not a ‘resurrection’) is something which happens not to her, but to him. He had thought her dead by his own hand (‘She I kill’d’, v i 7) and now finds her unexpectedly alive in the guardianship of Paulina. […] That is the miracle, it seems to me, for which Shakespeare so carefully prepared. 

It had to be a miracle not only for Leontes, but for the audience. His first dramaturgical job, then, was to ensure that the audience, like Leontes, should believe her dead. For this reason her death is repeatedly reasserted during the play by a number of characters, and accepted by all as a fact. Shakespeare’s next care was to give credentials to the statue. The audience must accept it as a statue, not a woman; so the Third Gentleman names its sculptor, an actual man, Giulio Romano; a novel trick to borrow a kind of authenticity from the ‘real’ world of the audience, to lend solidity to the imaginary world of the play; it seems to confer a special statueishness.” 

I like that. And this scene is one of the most wonderful and affecting scenes in Shakespeare.  

5/ In my first reading of The Winter’s Tale, I didn’t particularly like Autolycus. But now I do, partly thanks to Ian Hughes’s hilarious performance in the Antony Sher production, partly because Scott Newstok argues in How to Think Like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education that the character of an unrepentant thief is Shakespeare’s joke (The Winter’s Tale is based on Pandosto by Robert Greene, who is now mostly known for calling Shakespeare “an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers”), and partly because I now see him as part of the sun-burnt mirth of the second half of the play. 

Updated: 

My first blog post about the play is here. My post about the play and G. Wilson Knight is here. 

On the narrowness of Jane Austen

A recent (stupid) conversation on the hellsite previously known as Twitter has made me realise something interesting. When it comes to range of characters and experiences in writing, the extreme of range would be Shakespeare, who seems to contain everyone and everything (also able to depict a wide range of characters though not as much as Shakespeare are, I would say, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Cao Xueqin); and the polar opposite in this regard would probably be Jane Austen. 

I mean, even compared to other great authors who write about domestic life, Jane Austen’s remarkably narrow: she mainly writes about the landed gentry; servants are neither heard nor seen; other races are not mentioned, except in the unfinished Sanditon; almost all the conversations between male characters take place with a woman present; her characters barely discuss politics or social issues; her novels only depict a tiny part of society; etc. She’s narrower than Henry James, Edith Wharton, George Eliot, even Charlotte Bronte (I’m thinking of Shirley and the Luddite uprisings). 

Isn’t it extraordinary then, how popular she is? Her novels are read and beloved and adapted around the world. And even though the majority of her readers and fans are women (and some philistines think Jane Austen’s novels are only for women), we know that Jane Austen is admired, even loved, by quite a few male writers and lovers of literature. Clearly there’s something universal about Jane Austen’s novels, about her themes of love and courtship and people misperceiving things and misunderstanding each other and misunderstanding themselves—these things happen to everybody regardless of background, regardless of race, regardless of nationality, regardless of gender, regardless of religion. And perhaps, it’s precisely because she leaves out discussions of politics and social issues and leaves out her own opinions that her novels have such wide appeal, that readers of different views and background can all claim her as their own (I have seen conservatives call her conservative and feminists call her feminist, for example). 

When I think about Shakespeare’s popularity and influence around the world and throughout history, it’s easy to understand as Shakespeare is so large and there’s a Shakespeare for everybody: those who don’t like tragedies can go for the comedies; those who don’t like comedies can go for the histories; those interested in politics have the Roman plays; those fond of fairies have A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest; those preoccupied with race have Othello and The Merchant of Venice; those interested in the subject of colonialism (and part of a national independence movement) find something in The Tempest, and so on and so forth. The wide appeal of Jane Austen’s novels, despite their narrowness, is in a sense more puzzling and thus more fascinating. 

What do you think?