Where to begin?

[Laurel]

Or we could begin with a history, since there wasn't a BNU Shakespeare's Histories class. Everyone, get your ideas in so we can decide on a play and begin with a bang by the first of the year.

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leakybucket wrote:
Sounds interesting, Laurel. Is there other interest in this idea? If so, does anyone want to suggest a first play?
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Why don't we start with one of the biggies to attract a big interest group. We could pick something from the old Shakespeare line-up. They were:

Hamlet
Macbeth
Othello
King Lear
Antony and Cleopatra

Midsummer Night's Dream
As You Like It
Much Ado About Nothing
12th Night

Bucky

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[leakybucket]

I think that doing Shakespeare in one year is highly ambitious and I have to commend you all for the ambition. I'd like to sign up.

I don't have a preference for which play to tackle first. I will confess I have not read them all, so I would look forward to much pleasurable learning.
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Doing Shakespeare in one year is too ambitious for me! I think there are some 35 plays! I'm in it for the long haul. I actually haven't read most of them and I'm sure many other people haven't either. I also like to do supplemental research, watch what videos are available, and usually get an audio as well. I think we need a whole month for each.

Bucky

[Laurel]

Shakespeare wrote 37, or perhaps 39 plays. Here's a list of the ones that are traditionally accepted as his. I like the idea of doing one play a month and spending three years plus on them. Then we could start over again!

Comedies

"The Tempest", "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Measure for Measure", "The Comedy of Errors", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Love's Labour's Lost", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Merchant of Venice", "As You Like It", "The Taming of the Shrew", "All's Well That Ends Well", "Twelfth Night", "The Winter's Tale", "Cymbeline", "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", "Troilus and Cressida"


Tragedies

"Coriolanus", "Titus Andronicus", "Romeo and Juliet", "Julius Caesar", "Macbeth", "Timon of Athens", "Hamlet", "King Lear", "Othello", "Antony and Cleopatra"


Histories

"1,2, and 3 Henry VI", "1 and 2 Henry IV", "King John", "Richard II", "Richard III", "Henry V", "Henry VIII"

[Everyman]

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ziki wrote:
Choisya,
thanks for trying to keep things in human perspective. ;-)

Previously Shakespeare was at least divided into comedies and tragedies. I didn't get to that but with this "say what you want whenever you want" style I won't either. Too haphazard for me.


ziki

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I agree. I did get to the BNU Shakespeare courses (several times), and the structure was nice but the time was too short -- four or five plays in four weeks. And only 9 plays covered out of 38.

But just a free-form floating discussion of anything Shakespeare is IMO going to be pretty useless.

[Everyman]

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ziki wrote:
Macbeth, tragedies first, comedies later.

Nothing like jumping right into the deep end. Maybe we should work on some of the easier plays first as we get to know each other and what each of us has to contribute.

Since BNU already did the major tragedies and comedies, and some of took those courses several times, maybe we should start out with some of the histories. There are two -- quadrologies?? -- sequences of four related plays: Henry VI through Richard 3 were written first but are chronologiclly second; Richard 3 through Henry V (which I personally consider a more interesting sequence) were written secomd but chronologically come first.

[Everyman]

although I expect B&N publish some nice copies with good notes etc.:-

A separate thread on editions of S wouldn't be out of order. There are several multi-volume editions (Riverside, Bevington, Yale, among others), and many single-volume series which have much more commentary (I have at least one play in each of the series Arden, Oxford, Pelican, Penguin, New Cambridge, Bantam, Folger, Signet). Each series has its strengths and weaknesses which might be fun to discuss.

[leakybucket]

Laurel Wrote:

Shakespeare wrote 37, or perhaps 39 plays. Here's a list of the ones that are traditionally accepted as his. I like the idea of doing one play a month and spending three years plus on them. Then we could start over again!

Comedies

"The Tempest", "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Measure for Measure", "The Comedy of Errors", "Much Ado About Nothing", "Love's Labour's Lost", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "The Merchant of Venice", "As You Like It", "The Taming of the Shrew", "All's Well That Ends Well", "Twelfth Night", "The Winter's Tale", "Cymbeline", "Pericles, Prince of Tyre", "Troilus and Cressida"


Tragedies

"Coriolanus", "Titus Andronicus", "Romeo and Juliet", "Julius Caesar", "Macbeth", "Timon of Athens", "Hamlet", "King Lear", "Othello", "Antony and Cleopatra"


Histories

"1,2, and 3 Henry VI", "1 and 2 Henry IV", "King John", "Richard II", "Richard III", "Henry V", "Henry VIII"

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I moved your post up here Laurel. It was getting pretty nested.

If we are going to do them all, I am willing to leave the choice of plays up to the moderator. The only thing I would want is a month's notice on the next play so I could order all the material I would want and have time to read or reread the play.

Otherwise any of the above would be fine with me!

Bucky

[Choisya]

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Everyman wrote:
although I expect B&N publish some nice copies with good notes etc.:-

A separate thread on editions of S wouldn't be out of order. There are several multi-volume editions (Riverside, Bevington, Yale, among others), and many single-volume series which have much more commentary (I have at least one play in each of the series Arden, Oxford, Pelican, Penguin, New Cambridge, Bantam, Folger, Signet). Each series has its strengths and weaknesses which might be fun to discuss.

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I have several editions too Everyman but I was trying to drum up some trade for B&N!

[Everyman]

Laurel Wrote:

Shakespeare wrote 37, or perhaps 39 plays.

I think most scholars go with at least 38; the Two Noble Kinsmen is, I think, pretty well accepted by now; it was written with Fletcher, but the Oxford Companion calls it unequivocally "almost certainly Shakespeare's last writing for the stage." King Edward III is the primary "on the cusp" play; computers say S wrote much of it, but of course a computer says what its programmer tells it to say.Tucker Brooke's "The Shakespare Apocrypha" gives fourteen plays (including Edward III) which have at various times by various people been attributed to Shakespeare in whole or part. I'm not enough of a scholar to know how strong the claims of any of them are.

[ziki]

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Everyman wrote:

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ziki wrote:
Macbeth, tragedies first, comedies later.

Nothing like jumping right into the deep end.

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LOL, gotta say something here. It's the best way to find if I can swim...heheh. BTW I just like the three witches.

ziks

[ziki]

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Choisya wrote:
I have several editions too Everyman but I was trying to drum up some trade for B&N!

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ROFL...but maybe the BN edition will win anyhow... those folks left here now is the most faithful bunch...

:-)
ziki

[ziki]

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Everyman wrote:I agree. I did get to the BNU Shakespeare courses (several times), and the structure was nice but the time was too short -- four or five plays in four weeks. And only 9 plays covered out of 38.

But just a free-form floating discussion of anything Shakespeare is IMO going to be pretty useless.

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HA, maybe BN could incorporate those 'old' BNU courses to start with here and we would have more time to work through it in slow motion...then we can come up with next step as we are supposed to be soooooo active here. Or we develop side steps...

ziki

[Everyman]

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Choisya wrote:

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Everyman wrote:
although I expect B&N publish some nice copies with good notes etc.:-

A separate thread on editions of S wouldn't be out of order. There are several multi-volume editions (Riverside, Bevington, Yale, among others), and many single-volume series which have much more commentary (I have at least one play in each of the series Arden, Oxford, Pelican, Penguin, New Cambridge, Bantam, Folger, Signet). Each series has its strengths and weaknesses which might be fun to discuss.

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I have several editions too Everyman but I was trying to drum up some trade for B&N!

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Are there B&N Editions of Shakespeare? I looked for one for Twelfth Night, and didn't find it. Maybe they're coming out with them more slowly in their Classics editions? Or maybe they figure the field is already overcrowded?

[Laurel]

I looked, too, but couldn't find any.

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Everyman wrote:

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Choisya wrote:

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Everyman wrote:
although I expect B&N publish some nice copies with good notes etc.:-

A separate thread on editions of S wouldn't be out of order. There are several multi-volume editions (Riverside, Bevington, Yale, among others), and many single-volume series which have much more commentary (I have at least one play in each of the series Arden, Oxford, Pelican, Penguin, New Cambridge, Bantam, Folger, Signet). Each series has its strengths and weaknesses which might be fun to discuss.

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I have several editions too Everyman but I was trying to drum up some trade for B&N!

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Are there B&N Editions of Shakespeare? I looked for one for Twelfth Night, and didn't find it. Maybe they're coming out with them more slowly in their Classics editions? Or maybe they figure the field is already overcrowded?

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[ziki]

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Laurel wrote:
. Am I the only blind one?


yes ;-)

ziki

[Choisya]

Maybe Ziki, but as we have discussed elsewhere, there is a feeling amongst readers here that the reason B&N changed the website so drastically was because they want to get more sales from their input. I don't find this an unreasonable position, especially when we discuss so many classics which are out of copyright, available on the internet and very cheap to buy. I can buy the majority of the classics, British, American & European, new over here for under $1 and they also have good Introductions and Notes by leading UK scholars. My UK edition of Moby Dick was £1.50 for instance and has a 26 page Introduction and 22 pages of Explanatory Notes. What sort of a profit is a bookseller going to make from that? Presumably B&N are relying on making money from books like The Thirteenth Tale & Meaning of Night and will be subsidising Shakespeare and other old classics. Although I do not buy from B&N, because more money would go to the postal service than to B&N, I do think we classics readers owe them some sort of 'duty of care' if we want to continue discussing our favourites here - hence my drumming up trade

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ziki wrote:

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Choisya wrote:
I have several editions too Everyman but I was trying to drum up some trade for B&N!

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ROFL...but maybe the BN edition will win anyhow... those folks left here now is the most faithful bunch...

:-)
ziki

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[ziki]

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IlanaSimons wrote:
I only tweaked the headline of your thread so that we could keep it as the ongoing one. Offical now: This thread is for the discussion of Shakespeare.

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Nah, I don't think this will do....they'll need to set up a Shakespeare department. Better so or it gets too unmanageable.

ziki

[Choisya]

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Everyman wrote:
Are there B&N Editions of Shakespeare? I looked for one for Twelfth Night, and didn't find it. Maybe they're coming out with them more slowly in their Classics editions? Or maybe they figure the field is already overcrowded?

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I don't know about individual editions but they do an inexpensive Yale edition of the full works, with notes etc:-

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0760759391

[Everyman]

I have the Yale Shakespeare, didn't know B&N published it. I find the notes in it pretty minimal, so it stays on the shelf most of the time and the edition I keep by my computer is the Bevington.

[Laurel]

I bought the Yale Shakespeare in a set of individual volumes years ago, a volume per play. (It might have been a Book-of-the-Month Club promotional.) It's all I've used for the plays ever since--wonderfully easy for carrying around. I don't think I could handle all the plays in one volume.