Amongst the time spent with family, I was able to finish King Lear. To start: a HUGE FREAKING PLAY. As far as Shakespeare goes, this one has more believable human motivation and decision making. Most of Edgar's decisions (The brother set up for a crime he didn't commit) - playing the madman even after he'd in all likelihood be safe and/or exonerated - seem ridiculous, but nearly everyone else, I get. You kind of get the feeling that everyone is in the right and everyone is in the wrong (except for Cordelia and Kent).
The dialogue is some of the most enjoyable I've seen yet. Kent insults the steward Oswald in what is without a doubt one of the top ten put-downs of all time (sound now, alarums for I will spoil thee):
"A knave, a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, action-taking, whoreson glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch, one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition." Kent does beat him into clamorous whining, case you were worrying.
I can see Samuel Jackson running through any or all of it with a few judicious M%$#&$@!*%amp;S thrown in, for good measure (for measure).
I've been trying to memorize a line from many of the plays of Shakespeare I've read this year, and that one, while awesome, is not my favourite from Lear. Edmund's "Now, gods, stand up for bastards!" goes into my list alongside Murderer #1 from Macbeth telling the king he's got the stomach for dirty work, and despite my hate of it overall, Merchant of Venice's excellent description of learning vengeance and violence from the hypocritical Christians stated by Shylock.
I'm not optimistic about a Comedy of Errors. If he had to tell us it is a comedy in the title, Methinks the laddie doth propound too much. I'll read it and get back to you.
-Mike
No comments:
Post a Comment