All quotes are from Peter Ackroyd’s Shakespeare: The Biography.
“The aim of the sixteenth-century actor was to impersonate a specific passion or range of passions as they impinged upon an individual temperament; the majority of characters and situations on the Elizabethan stage, for example, are concerned with the tension between reason and passion in human behavior with all its potentially comic or tragic consequences.” (page 229)
In a nutshell, so to speak.
“There are three plays of Shakespeare that seem to be without a primary ‘source’: Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Tempest, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. All of them are highly patterned, in a manner that seems intrinsic to the English imagination; they are all carefully an symmetrically structured, all touched by mystery or enchantment – two of them have elements of the supernatural – and all include dramatic entertainments.” (page 254)
I was tainted by a professor, bless his ivory tower soul, who deemed Love’s Labour’s Lost as a play to skip. Elsewhere in the text, the author makes two other points about Love’s Labour’s Lost, how there’s a missing companion play, noted in the records, as “Love’s Labor’s Won (Love’s Laboure’s Wonne, I think), and how the play is filled with internal references to current political situation, perhaps a bit of satire, or just mere whimsy. But I like the idea that some of the work was wholly generate from the imagination.
“As far as the great tragic heros are concerned, there is a corresponding belief in the ruling power of the self. Their destiny does not lie in the stars, in some abstract notion of Fate or, least of all, in some scheme of divine providence.” (page 261)
I’ve used it often enough, from memory, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” (From Julius Caesar, and I’m not bothering to look it up right now.) Having seen a masterful Richard III, by Austin’s own ASF, it was easy to see this idea carried out on stage.
“Shakespeare sees his characters as an actor would, not as a poet.” (page 263)
Halfway through the book, and the whole point is now clear.
“He also gave 95 per cent of the lines to the fourteen principal actor in the company; this was partly a matter of seniority, but it was also carefully planned economy of a practical manager.” (page 263)
William Shakespeare wasn’t just the author, he was also share holder in the theater’s business. Practical. But it goes further, too, because Shakespeare was also an actor, and as much as they had directors, that too.
“His amenability to actors is evident elsewhere. It has been remarked by generations of of actors that his lines, once remembered, remain in the memory; they are, to use the word of the great nineteenth-century actor, Edmund Kean, ‘stickable.'” (page 265)
“The purpose of Troilus and Cressida is now all but lost in a fog of conflicting critical commentaries. In that play he establishes a code of value, through the speeches of Ulysses, which is then undermined or ignored by all of the characters in the play.” (page 268)
Why I liked it the first reading, and several subsequent viewings, as well as protracted study. Two words from me: black comedy.
“Entire plays seem to be made up of parallels and contrasts and echoes. All of his characters have mixed natures. Despite the apparently orchestrated harmony of his endings, there are in fact very few genuine resolutions of the action.” (page 269)
Think but one word, a bit of literary taxonomy: modern.
“He could have jotted down notes or passages that occurred to him in the course of the day; other writers have found that walking through the busy streets can materially aid inspiration.” (page 274)
While it’s an analysis of the way Shakespeare worked, or might’ve worked, I can add that it works for me.
“It could in fact be argued that his texts were always in a fluid state, waiting for the actors to lend emphasis and meaning.” (page 275)
One of the points of the book, or what I’m getting, is that the plays as we know them, were refined, revived, and possibly edited on stage, more a collaboration rather than a single point of creation.
“All evidence suggests that some of his more accomplished dramas, such as The Taming of the Shrew and King John, are rewritten versions of his earlier originals.” (page 277)
Constant state of rewrite and updates.
“It was Shakespeare’s practice to combine elements from what would seem irreconcilable sources, and thereby create new forms of harmony.” (289)
I’m thinking of a musical interlude, something about “Into the new,” but I can’t name that (Austin) band at the moment.
“it has been calculated, however, that 80 per cent of Shakespearian scenes written for the Globe needed no props at all (footnote).” (page 356)
The footnote is reference for a source of the data and calculation, but the point being, this guy was working as a partner, with an eye on the bottom line. Fill the space with the words, the actors did the inflection, and the story carried the action. But an eye on that bottom line, still.
“It has often been supposed that Shakespeare borrowed his comic plots from Italian drama, but in the crossing they have suffered a sea change. It is characteristic of the English imagination, of which he is the greatest exemplar, to incorporate and to alter foreign models.” (page 320)
A favorite academic game is to guess the source material. With, I think about 30 plays a year going up, there was a lot of work involved trying to keep good scripts around. The Complete Works of Shakespeare, at, what, 37 plays now? It’s the final product after years of touring and working audiences, fine tuning a script.
This biography, so far, has painted picture, drawing on what appears to be solid academic research, of the poet as a player. From extant records of what was performed, the picture is easily discernible. But then, I have taste for this stuff, and I enjoy it mightily.
Laeti edimus qui nos subigant!
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