Shakespeare's plays can often seem extremely baffling to a modern audience. Not only is the language obviously of another era, but the poetry communicates in such an extraordinary style that, although we feel sure of its initial meaning, closer scrutiny seems to make it less rather than more intelligible. If we approach the critical body of work that clings to him, it is only more confusing. He's right-wing, he's left-wing, he's a neutral observer, an atheist, a Catholic, too learned, too little-read, overwritten, under-plotted, inspired or careless. The contradictions continue bewilderingly, and the texts we are told are botched, cut, re-written, misprinted, censored, interfered with, perhaps not even written by Shakespeare.
Characterisation is what pulls many to Shakespeare and we will look at words and actions to see how a sense of living, engrossing figures in a living world are produced. In this course we shall concentrate on two plays, one a tragedy, the other his last ‘Romance’.
In Lear we are almost immediately drawn into taking sides. What is it that has led his daughters to so dislike him? Do we support their adversarial behaviour? What does it suggest about the morality of his rulership that he so alienates people and makes such destructive policy decisions? The play starts with his abdication, but what we most want to know is, what was he like when he was king? And as we watch him fall into madness, we try, like detectives, to piece together the clues, or perhaps put back together the fractured parts of his personality in order to try to answer this unanswerable question; the judgement the whole play seems to depend upon.
The Tempest also starts with an ex-king, deposed this time, rather than retired. We watch as he uses his absolute power over his new subjects. As with Lear, we wonder whether what we see, his violent temper, his use of torture, his constant self-justifying, are indications of an unpleasantness present when he was king. Like Lear he dreams of bloody revenge. Like Lear, he fails. Are they both really ‘more sinned against than sinning’?
Both plays force us to judge, to sift evidence, to weigh deserts. Both give us powerful poetry through which we enter the characters’ hearts and minds. Both require our absolute involvement. Both represent Shakespeare at his most rewarding.
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