Time to get down to work....

Yesterday I met with my course advisor to talk about my progress at the institute and to discuss ideas for my dissertation. I have decided that the focus of my study will be Word of Mouth: Gossip and Lies. I am debating to focus all of my efforts on Shakespeare's cannon, or to extend my reach to include other playwrights of early modern drama. This would allow me to write about such works as Christopher Marlowe's Edward II and Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women. However, I would like to make sure that my scope is not too big for my paper, so I may end up just sticking to Shakespeare - After all, there is a plethora of material that pertains to my area of interest. I still do not have a supervisor for my dissertation, but I hope to find one soon that is as excited about my topic as I am. Wish me luck!

A Character Study of Edgar in King Lear

I attended a fabulous lecture this week by Ewan Fernie, Chair of Shakespeare Studies and Fellow at the Shakespeare Institute. The topic of his seminar revolved around the presence of possession in the character of Edgar in King Lear.

Edgar is Gloucester's legitimate son. His half-brother Edmund, frustrated with his social status as a bastard son, frames Edgar of plotting to kill their father. Edgar is forced into exile in order to avoid the rage of his father and his own imprisonment. At the end of the following speech he adopts the disguise of "Poor Tom," a mad Bedlam. This personae carries him through the majority of the remaining action of the play.

EDGAR
I heard myself proclaim'd;
And by the happy hollow of a tree
Escaped the hunt. No port is free; no place,
That guard, and most unusual vigilance,
Does not attend my taking. Whiles I may 'scape,
I will preserve myself: and am bethought
To take the basest and most poorest shape
That ever penury, in contempt of man,
Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth;
Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots;
And with presented nakedness out-face
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars, who, with roaring voices,
Strike in their numb'd and mortified bare arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, sprigs of rosemary;
And with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheep-cotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their charity. Poor Turlygod! poor Tom!
That's something yet: Edgar I nothing am.

“Edgar I nothing am.” – This line cements the casting off of Edgar’s self as he deconstructs himself into the personae of Poor Tom. What does it mean to be ‘nothing’? Perhaps it is the abandonment of self for a time. Perhaps he is a shell of his former state; or contrary to that belief, perhaps he is liberated to be more than himself. In this the actor has to play multiple characters, layered on top of each other in the fabric of the dialog.

I found the topic fascinating as Fernie described Poor Tom as being “more alive than Edgar.” He is possessed – someone or something speaks through him – and this possession allows him to speak in “communal voices”. His feigned madness allows Edgar to speak truths he may have otherwise stifled.

From an acting perspective, I was also struck by Fernie’s questions to his listeners: Does the actor possess the character; or does the character possess the actor? Is human identity threatened by acting? Is there an inherent risk of possession in acting?

He says, perhaps even Shakespeare was aware of possession as a necessary condition.

UK Special Keys

As if studying in England isn't hard enough, now I have to think while I am typing. I noticed today while on a University of Birmingham computer that not all of the keyboard keys are the same. It doesn't look like much of a difference, but when typing emails and quotations it gets a bit confusing...

Taming of the Shrew in Performance

In our weekly seminar, we were joined by esteemed director Lucy Bailey, who is set to direct January's production of The Taming of the Shrew at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In order to aid her research of the play, several fellows of the institute lectured on various points concerning the neighboring texts, domestic duties of the 16th century and sources related to the play.

First, Michael Dobson explained the "neighboring texts" of the time - most notably The Taming of A Shrew, The Woman's Prize or The Tamer Tamed (1611), Sauny the Scott or the Taming of the Shrew (1667), A Cure for a Scold (1735), and Catherine and Petruchio (1754).

Next the lovely Tara Hamling spoke a bit about domestic duties of the time and the implication of furniture in the home. What I found most interesting is the concept of a person's bed being symbolic of wealth and representative of a person's life cycle. You are born in bed. You sleep and fornicate in your bed. Ultimately you die in your bed. This is a concept that will be explored the the upcoming RSC production which will include a literal or figurative bed as part of the stage design.

Martin Wiggins finished up the findings with an extensive list of sources Shakespeare likely used to compose The Taming of the Shrew - All of which are a little outside my knowledge base and have prompted me to conduct a massage Google Search on the subject.

This particular topic of the week has sparked my interest and I may investigate how to incorporate such dramaturgy products into my dissertation work.

My Studies

A few people have asked me about my program of study, so I thought I would include the description provided by the Shakespeare Institute. Enjoy!

MA in Shakespeare Studies

The programme provides an unrivalled opportunity for graduate level study of all aspects of Shakespeare, drawing on the specialisms of a team of Shakespeare scholars. One of the programme’s areas of specialization relating to its location is performance study, and students will be able to see Shakespeare performed at the Stratford theatres of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and use the RSC archives at the Shakespeare Centre. The combined resources of the Shakespeare Institute's own library and the library of the Shakespeare Centre provide an impressive and rarely equalled resource. The MA in Shakespeare Studies has a strong reputation both in Britain and abroad, and has provided a gateway towards research and an academic career for many of its students, as well as a valued qualification for enhancing employability in a variety of areas including teaching and the arts.

The Shakespeare Reading List... *drum roll*

Words cannot describe the excitement I felt this morning as I opened the preliminary reading list for The Shakespeare Institute – at list until I saw how many books were listed. Granted, I am not expected to read them all, but my goodness it is long! Luckily I have several of these books already in my arsenal, including The Empty Space and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.

Now I just have to decide where I should start. Any suggestions?


General Works

BATE, Jonathan, The Genius of Shakespeare (London, 1997)

COX, J.D., and D.S. KASTAN, eds., A New History of Early English Drama (Columbia, 1997)

HONAN, P., Shakespeare: A Life (Oxford, 1998)

KASTAN, D.S., ed., A Companion to Shakespeare Studies (Oxford, 1999)

KINNEY, Arthur F., The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare (Oxford, 2011)

McDONALD, Russ, Bedford Companion to Shakespeare: An Introduction with Documents (Basingstoke, 1996)

ROSENBAUM, Ron, The Shakespeare Wars: Clashing Scholars, Public Fiascoes, Palace Coups (New York, 2006)

SHAPIRO, James, 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (London, 2005)

WELLS, Stanley, and Margreta De GRAZIA, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (Cambridge, 2001)


Textual Studies

BLAYNEY, Peter W.M., The First Folio of Shakespeare (Washington, D.C., 1991)

ERNE, Lukas, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (Cambridge, 2003)

ERNE, Lukas, and M.J. KIDNIE, Textual Performances: The Modern Reproduction of Shakespeare's Drama (Cambridge, 2004)

GIDDENS, Eugene, How to Read a Shakespearean Play Text (2011)

GREG, W.W., The Shakespeare First Folio (Oxford, 1955) OP

JOWETT, John, Shakespeare and Text (Oxford, 2007)

KASTAN, David Scott, Shakespeare and the Book (Cambridge, 2001)

PROUDFOOT, Richard, Shakespeare: Text, Stage, and Canon (London, 2001)

WELLS, Stanley and Gary TAYLOR, with John Jowett and William Montgomery, William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion (Oxford, 1987; reprint New York,1997).


Shakespeare Criticism

BARKER, Deborah and I. Kamps, eds., Shakespeare and Gender (London, 1995)

BATE, Jonathan, ed., The Romantics on Shakespeare (Harmondsworth, 1992)

CHEDGZOY, Kate, ed., Shakespeare, Feminism, and Gender (Basingstoke and New York, 2000)

DOLLIMORE, J. and A. SINFIELD, eds., Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism (Manchester, 2nd edition, 1994)

DRAKAKIS, John, ed., Alternative Shakespeares (London, 1985)

HARRIS, Jonathan Gil, Shakespeare and Literary Theory (Oxford, 2010)

HAWKES, T., ed., Alternative Shakespeares vol. 2 (London, 1996)

HENDERSON, Diane, ed., Alternative Shakespeares vol. 3 (Abingdon, 2008)

KAMPS, I., ed., Materialist Shakespeare (London, 1995)

KERMODE, Frank, Shakespeare’s Language (London, 2000)

McDONALD, Russ, Shakespeare and the Arts of Language (Oxford, 2001)

LOOMBA, Ania, and Martin ORKIN, eds., Post-Colonial Shakespeares (London, 1998)

SMITH, D. Nichol, ed., Shakespeare Criticism (Oxford, 1916) Frequently reprinted. OP

TAYLOR, Gary, Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present (London, 1990)

TAYLOR, Michael, Shakespeare Criticism in the Twentieth Century (Oxford, 2001)


Shakespeare in Performance

BARTON, John, Playing Shakespeare (London, 1984)

BATE, Jonathan and Russell JACKSON, Shakespeare: An Illustrated Stage History (Oxford, 1996)

BENNETT, Susan, Performing Nostalgia: Shifting Shakespeare and the Contemporary Past (London and New York, 1996)

BROOK, Peter, The Empty Space (London 1968)

BULMAN, James, ed., Shakespeare, Theory and Performance (London and New York, 1996)

DESSEN, Alan, Recovering Shakespeare’s Theatrical Vocabulary (Cambridge, 1995)

HODGDON, Barbara, The Shakespeare Trade: Performance and Appropriations (Philadelphia 1998)

HOGDON, Barbara, and W.B. WORTHEN, A Companion to Shakespeare and Performance (Oxford, 2005)

HOLLAND, Peter, English Shakespeares: Shakespeare on the English Stage in the 1990s (Cambridge, 1997)

JACKSON, Russell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film, 2nd edn. (Cambridge, 2007)

KENNEDY, Dennis, Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance (Cambridge, 1993)

MASSAI, Sonia, ed., World-Wide Shakespeares: Local Appropriations in Film and Performance (2005)

ROTHWELL, Kenneth, A History of Shakespeare on Screen: a Century of Film and Television (Cambridge, 1999)

STYAN, J.L., The Shakespeare Revolution: Criticism and Performance in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge, 1977) OP

WELLS, Stanley, ed. Shakespeare in the Theatre: An Anthology of Criticism (Oxford, 1997)


Introductory Works in Related Areas

a) Early Modern History and Culture

AUGHTERSON, Kate, The English Renaissance: An Anthology of Sources and Documents (Abingdon, 2001)

BRIGGS, Julia, This Stage-Play World 2nd edn.(Oxford, 1997)

LOEWENSTEIN, David, and Janell MUELLER, eds., The Cambridge History of Early Modern Literature (Cambridge, 2002)

PECK, Linda Levy, ed., The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991)

SHARPE, J.A., Early Modern England: A Social History, 2nd edn. (London, 1997)

b) Early Modern Theatre History

BENTLEY, G.E., The Profession of Dramatist in Shakespeare’s Time, 1590 - 1642 (Princeton, 1971) OP

GURR, Andrew, The Shakespearean Stage 1574 - 1642, 3rd edn. (Cambridge, 1992)

GURR, Andrew, The Shakespearian Playing Companies (Oxford, 1996)

GURR, Andrew, and Mariko ISHIKAWA, Staging in Shakespeare’s Theatres (Oxford, 2000)

STERN, Tiffany, Making Shakespeare: From Stage to Page (London, 2004)