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| 0974607800
| 9780974607801
| 0974607800
| 3.93
| 69,040
| Dec 1853
| May 01, 2004
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really liked it
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What! No Whales? 6 April 2024 In a way, looking at the modern workplace you could say that Bartleby is the employee that everybody dreads. For the firs What! No Whales? 6 April 2024 In a way, looking at the modern workplace you could say that Bartleby is the employee that everybody dreads. For the first few months, when he is on probation he is really good at his work, but then suddenly he simply just stops working and nobody can get rid of him. In fact, he is such a pain that instead of calling the cops (which he could do) he simply moves the office. That doesn’t work because then all the people from the old offices come and complain because, well, he is driving away business. My thoughts on the story is that Bartleby, of whom we know nothing about, suffered an immense tragedy and while at first tries to get on with his life, his depression gets the better of him, and he just simply cannot do anything. Yet he is also of the demeanour that he doesn’t want to seek help (because that would admit weakness), so he just stands there, passively, and does nothing. Mind you, an employee who refuses to move from his place of employment (and we learn that he is actually living in the office) will end up being a trespasser, and will eventually be forcefully removed. Like, this no doubt would have happened when the story was written, but Melville goes to great lengths to point out that the narrator doesn’t want to actually hurt him, or allow him to come to harm. Like, one interpretation is the idea that legal work is just really, really boring. Personally, having done thirteen years of legal work myself I would object to that, but being an office on Wall Street (though I find it interesting that we are never told the actual number) he no doubt does corporate law, and yes, that would be pretty dry and mind-numbing. Or, as is another thought, it is reflective of being an author or a writer. Like, sadly, for a lot of writers, nothing comes of their works until long after they are gone. As such, rejection after rejection, especially when you see that it is your calling in life, will eventually send you to where Bartleby actually is. Ironically, this seems to have been the fate of many authors, and artists, that we now consider to be the masters of their art. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Apr 04, 2024
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Apr 06, 2024
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Apr 04, 2024
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| 3150043808
| 9783150043806
| 3150043808
| 3.68
| 161
| 1819
| unknown
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really liked it
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A Modern Retelling 4 December 2023 I’m not quite sure if I can call this play a re-imagined version of Euripides’ Medea, though as it turns out Grillpa A Modern Retelling 4 December 2023 I’m not quite sure if I can call this play a re-imagined version of Euripides’ Medea, though as it turns out Grillparzer did write a trilogy based on the Ancient Greek story. Actually, it turns out that he had written some other plays based on Greek mythology as well, though it seems that it is pretty difficult to actually get copies of other plays, at least in English, which is a real shame. I would have quite liked to have seen how he explored the Greek myths. Well, I do have this one, and of course I have read it (which is why I am writing something about it). My thoughts about it is that it just feels like a rewriting of the Ancient Greek tragedy for a more modern production. For instance, the play is in five acts, and it does not follow the unities. Then again, unlike the French, I suspect that the Germans weren’t too particularly concerned about the way their plays were constructed. Actually, bad me – he wasn’t German, he was Austrian. Mind you, it is interesting because we don’t actually seem to get all that much exposure to plays from places that pretty much aren’t England. Okay, we do have access to some of the French playwrights, but once you go over to the German-speaking world, it is somewhat more difficult to get access to (and it seems that it is rather difficult to find his other plays on the internet – there is one book, but I can’t tell if it contains translations of the plays, or whether it is just a commentary). Well, I do sort of speak German, so I guess I can give it a go, one day, if I have time. Anyway, as I mentioned, it is pretty much the Euripidean play, which includes the murder of the children, and of Jason’s lover. However, whereas most of the action in the Euripidean play is told through heralds, it is acted out on stage here. Like, we have the conversation between Jason and Creusa, where we learn that before he went on the quest they were lovers, and as it turns out, when he finally returns, he happens to be married to a barbarian. Yeah, there is that idea that is brought out here, the idea of the civilised and the barbarians. In fact, this is a theme that exists in the original play, in that it was okay for Jason to discard Medea and marry a Greek because, well, she was a barbarian and didn’t count. There is also this idea of light and darkness. In fact, Medea at the beginning of the play describes her arrival in Greece as leaving the night and coming into the dawn. Mind you, when Jason discards her for Creusa, this starts a whole process of destruction that is wrought on the land. Creon says at first that only Jason is offered protection (the guy who sent him on the quest was found murdered). After some convincing, he allows Medea to stay, but clearly states that he does not like her. Then a report is heard that Medea was seen stealing the fleece, and the body of the king was found, so it was assumed that she killed him. She didn’t it was the brother – she had tried, and failed, to save his life. However, she is a barbarian, so she isn’t believed. Mind you, this idea still exists in our world today. Muslims are considered savages because they follow a religious book, as are the Africans. I still remember when they attempted to create fear of African gangs to attempt to bring down a government. The problem is that because the media is so intent on drumming up what is in effect a racist fear of what they consider savages (they don’t have the rule of law from where they come from, so the idea is that we when invite people into the country, they will basically live the way they live back home when in reality they want to come to our country because it is peaceful, and the rule of law operates). It is interesting how nothing has really changed in all the thousands of years since the original play was written. If you look different and speak differently, then you are treated with suspicion. Here Medea is exiled, but of course the same thing happens to Jason when he brings everything crashing down. However, one of the main differences is that the Golden Fleece plays a much more important role than it does in the Greek plays. In fact, the idea that Grillparzer seems to be exploring, and bringing out, is the idea that it is cursed. This is probably why Medea was burying it at the beginning of the play. Basically, everybody who has been involved with the fleece has had their lives destroyed (and this was certainly the case in Colchis). As I have mentioned, it is a real shame that getting one's hands on his plays is so difficult since I would like to have read his other plays, particularly the beginning of the trilogy to see the whole role that the Golden Fleece plays. As I also said, I guess I could attempt to translate it myself, or just get ChatGPT to do it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 03, 2023
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Dec 04, 2023
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Dec 10, 2023
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| 0060956321
| 9780060956325
| 0060956321
| 3.78
| 1,014
| 1808
| Jun 20, 2000
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Warriors in Love 22 March 2023 I have mentioned the idea of the three unities before – the Unity of Time, Place, and Action, and while it might sound Warriors in Love 22 March 2023 I have mentioned the idea of the three unities before – the Unity of Time, Place, and Action, and while it might sound like it is just stylistic, we do have to remember that at times during the early modern theatre it was actually illegal to write a play that didn’t stick to the three unities – and people complain out how narrow-minded publishers are these days. Mind you, it does sort of make some sense because you are very limited with what you can do on stage, and the special effects that we have these days simply weren’t available. Yet, despite that, there are ways and means of building the context without breaking the unities (and it is usually done through exposition). So, the play is set during the Trojan War and involves the battle between the Greeks and the Amazons. The thing that the Greeks find odd is why the Amazons are fighting on the side of the Trojans when they are more aligned with the Greeks. Well, it turns out that they have this tradition that they can only marry somebody whom they have bested in combat. Well, in this case, the Amazon Queen Penthesilea has fallen in love with Achilles, and much of the play involves the struggle between who will best the other. You know, it might not seem obvious (or it might just do so), that I found the play to actually be quite sexual. I suspect that this is why this play actually caused such a huge amount of controversy when it was released (though it seems that it might have had more to do with the violence, but then again this wasn’t necessarily the most violent play that was around at the time – I suspect that it was the outright sexual nature of the struggle between Achilles and Penthesilea). As I think of it, you could say that it is a struggle between two lovers to best each other, but the interesting thing is that Achilles is the one who eventually submits – though in typical Greek fashion (this play is not just based on a Greek story, but Kleist borrows a large number of Greek literary techniques as well, including the fact that the play is not split into acts), the main characters misunderstand each other and the result ends up being rather deadly. It is an interesting concept, though I suspect that Kleist might not have understood the nature of love in Ancient Greece the same way that we understand it, but still, considering the era in which the play was written, there is probably a particularly good reason for that. However, it is a very passionate play, where the main characters talk about their love for the other, and at times struggle with each other to win the other’s approval. Though it is interesting about how many love stories do explore the struggle as the two parties struggle with their humanity and human feelings, but also the fact that there are societal norms are that in place that dictate how relationships are to be conducted. Mind you, we live in a society that is remarkably free to pursue relationships, though there are still some cultural (as well as ethical) norms that we tend to follow. For instance, Leonardo di Caprio seems to get a lot of flack because he only seems to date women that are under the age of 25. It is also easy to forget that it wasn’t long ago that two people of the same sex were forbidden from having a romantic relationship (in fact it was outright illegal). Even now there is a segment of society that is quite vocal that we should return to those days. This play certainly does explore the nature of love, and also of how society shapes how we love, and how we chose our partners. In this instance, the Amazons are fighting against the Greeks not because they see the Greeks as enemies, but because they see the Greek men as being potential suitors, but the only way that they can claim a suitor is to defeat them in combat. Interestingly, we see Achilles break the social norm of the Greeks by actually going into combat intending on losing. This is certainly something that a warrior, and a warrior like Achilles, would necessarily do. The other interesting thing is that Kleist switches the story around from the way the original Greek set it up. In this instance, the Amazon Queen kills Achilles, but in the legend Achilles kills the Amazon Queen, and then falls in love with her. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Mar 19, 2023
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Mar 21, 2023
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Mar 23, 2023
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Paperback
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| 3150000645
| 9783150000649
| B0018ZIMJM
| 3.45
| 9,508
| Jun 14, 1800
| 2001
|
liked it
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The Tragedy of Elizabeth 5 December 2022 The thing that sort of strikes me with this play is that in part it is recent history, relatively speaking (th The Tragedy of Elizabeth 5 December 2022 The thing that sort of strikes me with this play is that in part it is recent history, relatively speaking (the events occurred about 200 years before the writing of the play), but it sort of makes me think about the Greek tragedies, though they were written about events that were separated by a dark age, whereas Schiller would have had access to quite a few historical records for his production (though like a lot of dramatisations of historical events, Schiller has inserted his own ideas and characters into the play – Mortimer for instance). Anyway, this play is about how Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England after murdering her husband, and was then imprisoned, apparently for the murder, but in reality, because she was a Papist, and at the time the English really didn’t like Papists (particularly since the previous monarch, Bloody Mary, had a reputation for killing protestants). Actually, the fact that the names were shared probably had something to do with it as well, but Schiller is clear throughout the play that Mary was an ardent Papist, and despite pressure, refused to renounce the Pope, which eventually cost her her life. This is basically a play of political intrigue, and quite a long one though, however it sort of didn’t really grab my attention all that much, namely because it really did seem to drag in parts. Sure, some people argue that this is really only to build up the characters, but the other thing is that the play is written entirely in blank verse. That is actually something that surprised me because blank verse also exists in German, something I didn’t realise. Of course, I read a translation, but the translator had also written it in blank verse as well. Mind you, Shakespeare also wrote in blank verse, but nothing was wasted in any of his plays – it felt like there was a lot of wastage in this one. Anyway, the intrigue involves a plot to rescue Mary, which of course ends up coming undone, and the plotters also turning on each other so as to save their skins. Yet, the interesting thing is that Mary was actually imprisoned in a castle, and her gaoler actually mentioned that his job is to keep her alive. It wasn’t even a single room either, she had the whole castle to herself, and the conspirators were also able to come and go. Yet, there are two conspiracies operating against each other, one of them attempting to free Mary, the other attempting to convince Elizabeth to sign the death warrant. They even go as far as to set up an attempted assassination to do this. Okay, killing a monarch is a pretty big thing, which is probably why they need Elizabeth’s signature on the warrant. However, as we know in history, some side comments such as ‘will nobody rid me of that troublesome priest’ have resulted in murders that have been regretted. I guess (and I am only assuming here), this is why further checks and balances have been put in place (I believe this happened at least twice in English history). Of course, it ends up that Elizabeth signs the warrant anyway, and it ends up in the wrong hands, so of course, Mary is executed. Yet, Elizabeth is painted as the bad guy in the end, something that I suspect the English populace wouldn’t have considered. Then again, the events are being viewed by an outsider, and that does help us view the events in a different light. The ending of the play has Elizabeth either banishing or imprisoning the members of her counsel, blaming them for the death of Mary. However, considering the mess that came about from the Stuart dynasty after Elizabeth’s death, I suspect the English probably don’t have too much love for Mary. Also, her name was Mary, and as I mentioned, Elizabeth’s predecessor, also named Mary, had the well-earned moniker of bloody. Look, it does put an interesting twist on events, and I did find myself feeling a little more sympathetic towards Mary, though of course there is the whole ‘murdered her husband’ issue, which I’m sure probably should weigh a lot more on the reason for her imprisonment, and of course, there would also be the fact that I’m sure the Scots would be demanding her back – well, probably not her son James, since that meant that he was sort of king – yeah political intrigue really does play deep in these times, but then again nothing has changed, particularly since we live in an era in which we have a pretender living in a mansion still claiming that an election was stolen from him because, well, he simply can’t believe that people wouldn’t want to vote for him and that the woke left are just a bunch of radicals. One thing I have learnt in all my years is that if you believe that everybody hates a certain person because, well, you hate that person, then you are going to be sorely disappointed. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 25, 2022
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Dec 04, 2022
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Nov 25, 2022
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Paperback
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| 1406811386
| 9781406811384
| 1406811386
| 3.45
| 582
| 1788
| Aug 31, 2006
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it was amazing
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The Beginnings of the Dutch Revolt 1 Sept 2022 – Melbourne I think I’ve just discovered the German version of Shakespeare plays. Not so much the ‘Germ The Beginnings of the Dutch Revolt 1 Sept 2022 – Melbourne I think I’ve just discovered the German version of Shakespeare plays. Not so much the ‘German Shakespeare’ but the plays that German highschool students have to suffer through and come out the end absolutely hating it. Then again this play is written by Goethe, and since Goethe is considered the ‘German Shakespeare’, I probably shouldn’t be all that surprised. It is a shame though because this is actually a pretty cool play about a pretty cool time in history. While I’m tempted to call Egmont the Dutch Braveheart, namely that his execution at the hands of the Spanish Habsburgs sparked a forty year insurgency that pretty much brought about the end of the Spanish supremacy in Europe, there are some differences. While I’m not all that familiar with Braveheart (having only watched the film), Egmont doesn’t come across as a warrior in the same way that Braveheart does. However, it is clear from the play that he is a very influential and much-loved lord in the Netherlands. While it might seem to be the tragedy of Egmont, I’d probably instead describe it as the tragedy of Phillip II of Spain. Okay, there is a lot of background to this story that unless you are familiar with the Reformation, and European history, you might not quite understand it. Anyway, the Spanish royalty had inherited the Holy Roman Empire, which was a loose collection of states under the rule of an Emperor. The thing is that the Emperor really ruled in name only, and the people that had the power were the lords of the various states. However, when the Spanish inherited the crown, who were absolute monarchs in Spain, they attempted to apply the same rule over the Holy Roman Empire. Oh, and there was also this Catholic vs Protestant issue as well. Anyway, throughout the play we hear of how mobs are storming the northern cities, fighting against the Spanish, and pretty much going around destroying any symbol of Catholicism in the churches. In fact, if you go into the churches in the Netherlands today you will notice that all of walls are whitewashed, which hails back to this period in history. Mind you, looking at the walls, I do wonder if it is possible to remove the whitewash, but I suspect that it isn’t, and if you did attempt to remove it then you would pretty much destroy whatever is on the walls underneath. I do remember being in a church in Utrecht and some of it had fallen off, and I could see a part of the artwork underneath. Goethe uses a very interesting technique in this book, a technique that Homer uses in The Odyssey. The entire first act consists of scenes where the characters simply speak about Egmot, and he doesn’t appear on stage until act 2. The next interesting thing is that Egmont only interacts with the characters once, with the exception of Ferdinand, which highlights a conflict in that Ferdinand is a good friend to Egmont, but is also loyal to the Spanish Empire. This is particularly the case in the last scene where they are speaking in Egmont’s cell. What stands out is that Egmont is painted as being a Christlike figure. Through the first part of the play we are told how he is a good and wise leader. Then when he enters the first section of the scene, where he is speaking to his chancellor, we see him making wise and just decisions on the state of affairs. So, it is clear that Goethe is painting a picture of Egmont as being a wise and just man. However, there is one very important scene, set in Brussels, where the mob is crowding, which represents the chaos that is erupting across the Netherlands (yes, Brussels was part of the Netherlands at that time). However, Egmont enters the scene and pretty much calms everybody down, and brings an end to the rioting that was breaking out across the city. This calming influence is important because when he is removed, it is no longer there, and history pretty much tells us what happened. It is interesting that even though we know what is going to happen when he visits the Spanish duke, and the fact that Orange decides not to come, he goes anyway. This is where Egmont once again speaks of his loyalty to the Spanish king, however the core issue of the conflict arises – while he is loyal to the King, he is also protestant. Further, the main issue of the freedom of the Netherlands is constantly raised – the King wants authoritarian rule, however the Dutch certainly do not want this. The thing is that when he is arrested, which is another reflection on Egmont’s Christlike nature, is that pretty much all of his friends and allies desert him. However, like in the film Braveheart, when he is executed, these allies suddenly reappear, which results in the 40-year insurgency that drove the Spanish crown to bankruptcy. It is a very interesting time in history, and the play itself is masterfully crafted. Then again, this is not surprising since it appears that it took Goethe a decade to write. Then again I do get the impression that he is something like a perfectionist. It is a shame that a lot of these plays are pushed down students' throats during high school so that later on in life they aren’t able to appreciate the beauty of the work. ...more |
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2
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Aug 29, 2022
not set
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Sep 2022
not set
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Sep 09, 2022
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Paperback
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| 3150000459
| 9783150000458
| 3150000459
| 2.92
| 13,143
| 1772
| 1986
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really liked it
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The Tragedy of the Lovesick 23 Aug 2022 – Strasbourg Well I’m sitting on what is sort of a high-speed train heading into Switzerland, though I don’t th The Tragedy of the Lovesick 23 Aug 2022 – Strasbourg Well I’m sitting on what is sort of a high-speed train heading into Switzerland, though I don’t think it is high-speed in the traditional sense since I didn’t have to pay for it, which is the case for the high-speed routes in France. However, this one does feel like it is going pretty fast. Anyway, I’ve just left Strasbourg, and while I could be sitting on the train reading, I felt that it might be an idea to actually write a review instead, especially considering that I finished reading this play last night. They refer to this as a domestic tragedy namely because it takes place in a petty kingdom in Italy. From what I read of the introduction, this play was written during a period of German history when there was a distinct rise in the interest of plays, particularly those of Shakespeare, which had started going around Germany. Their tragedies took on the context of involving kings and queens, classic stories, or, like this one, the domestic tragedy. When I think of a domestic tragedy, I usually think of the works of Chekov or Ibsen, where the action is taking place in a middle class household, however at the time this was written, while the middle class existed, it hadn’t become the dominant class that it would in the 19th Century. This play is based on an Ancient Roman story from Livy where the Roman Virginius killed his daughter rather than let her be ravaged by the decimvur Appius Claudius. Having not read Livy I’m not familiar with the story, however I understand that this play was based more on other dramatisations of the story rather than the story itself. So, we have the Prince who you could say is a hopeless romantic. He meets Emilia at church in the morning (the action of the play takes place over a single day) and immediately falls in love with her. The problem is that he is engaged to be married, as is Emilia, and not to each other. Also, adding insult to injury, Emilia is pretty creeped out by the prince. So, the prince gets his chamberlain to arrange something to happen to get Emilia into the Princes’ house. So, the chamberlain arranges for her coach to be attacked by some ‘bandits’, and then have some of the princes’ men save her. Of course, everything goes wrong, including Emilia’s fiance being killed, and when Emilia lands up in the princes’ house, it become evident to everybody that she is basically a prisoner. So, based on the Roman story above, we can pretty much guess was happens. In a way this is a tragedy of a lovestruck individual pursuing unrequited love, and attempting to manipulate the situation to make them look like a hero. Actually, it makes me realise how even today there are people that will outright abuse women, with some deluded attempt to force them into submission, or to make it seem that they are the hero, and if the woman sees her knight in shining armour coming in to save the day, they will fall madly in love with them. The reality is that this never goes well. In fact, it generally goes pretty badly. The reality is that if love is unrequited, then that is never going to change (generally, though it does happen, I would prefer to not get people’s hopes up). The sad thing is that I have heard stories from the pulpit where the pastor is forever chasing the woman that eventually becomes his wife until they give in and acquiesce. Yeah, that happens occasionally, but I don’t think it is all that helpful to tell that story to an audience of love sick romantics. The problem is that I don’t think there is anything that can help love-sick romantics to get over it. That’s what they are told, but in many cases they simply do not want to hear the words “she’s/he’s just not in to you”. What the bigger problem is the person that is good for them (as in the case with the prince and the contessa) might be right before them, but because they are blinded by love, then they simply don’t see it. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to be able to control human emotions, particularly if that person displays no emotional intelligence. That is what I really struggled in the customer facing roles that I had because I’d take too much of the abuse to heart. Well, from what I have read on the internet, I’m not the only one, and there are a lot of people out there that face situations that are much, much worse, and get paid quite a lot less that what I was getting paid. Anyway, my take home thoughts on this play is the tragedy of how human emotions can cloud reasonable judgement. Sure, it is clear that the prince is an emotionally immature individual – not strictly evil, but immature – however the fact that he has power means that this can, and does, cause some serious problems in his kingdom. In another sense, this could easily be transplanting into the modern world, even into a highschool, however I would probably end it somewhat different, where both Emilia’s father, and the prince, and of course the chamberlain, also suffer from the consequences of their actions – namely a stage littered with dead bodies. ...more |
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Aug 22, 2022
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Aug 23, 2022
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Aug 25, 2022
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Paperback
| ||||||||||||||
| 0451526864
| 9780451526861
| 0451526864
| 3.74
| 2,703,845
| 1597
| May 1998
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liked it
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Not a Typical Romance 29 Jun 2022 You know I could just post this, and pretty much leave it at that because, well, this sums up Romeo and Juliet quite Not a Typical Romance 29 Jun 2022 You know I could just post this, and pretty much leave it at that because, well, this sums up Romeo and Juliet quite nicely. [image] There is a bit of a catch though because as I was reading it, or at least the commentaries at the end, I’m starting to think that the first two acts are supposed to mislead the audience into believing that what they are watching is a comedy. The problem with this reading of the play today is we pretty much know how it ends. Interestingly though, the concept of Romeo and Juliet as lovers has entered into a social conscience, though of course many of us ignore the part where they kill themselves at the end (sorry about the spoiler, but as I mentioned, we all pretty much know the play). There are a few reasons that I postulate the idea that Shakespeare’s intention is to mislead us. One of the suggestions was that at the time, plays were generally based upon the Greco-Roman model, so tragedies tended to involve historical events and historical characters. While some might point to Macbeth and Hamlet, we need to remember that these plays were actually based on real individuals, it is just that we really only know them through the plays. Okay, many of the audience may not have known about them in the same way they would have known about Richard III, but they were historical characters. On the other hand, comedies tended to involve normal people, in the sense that the normal people in the comedies would be minor nobles. In a way, you could equate them with the modern middle classes. They were generally made-up characters, and while there might have been some action, nobody would have died. If we consider the Roman comedies, many of them involved Roman citizens in regional localities, and we sort of see the same with the Shakespearian comedies. So, when the audience sat down to watch Romeo and Juliet for the first time, they would have simply assumed that it was a comedy. The thing is that the play is entirely fictional. Okay, it wasn’t original since Shakespeare did borrow the story from stories that existed on the continent, but there aren’t any historical characters that we can point to, nor are there any events that we can point to either. I also suspect that the first two acts would have been quite amusing. Finally, there is also the very romantic dialogue passing between the two star-crossed lovers – and then Mercutio dies. That would have been a complete shock – much like a huge twist that nobody expected. I can just imagine that for the first part of the play everybody is laughing and enjoying themselves, and then there is the fight in the piazza, and suddenly Mercutio is slain. This is then followed up with Tybalt being killed by Romeo. That incident would have no doubt completely shocked the audience because this was not supposed to happen. Another interesting thing that I noticed is that I can almost picture Romeo and Juliet as two teens in love, which is what they are. Sure, we all see them as being lovers in the traditional sense, but we tend to forget that they are both teenagers, so in my mind, this is some sort of high school romance. They are two young individuals coming of age, and in doing so suddenly discovering that they have attractions toward the opposite sex. This differs from Shakespeare’s other romances in that we assume that they are mature adults. However, Shakespeare clearly tells us that Juliet is only fourteen years old. I have to admit that these commentaries were actually quite interesting, and gave me a different perspective on the play. I say this because, well, I have never been all that interested in Romeo and Juliet – we are so familiar with it that I have to admit that I find the concept rather boring. However, the commentaries that I read at the end of the version that I read point out a few things. Like, the feud between the two families is one of those simmering dislikes as opposed to outright hostility. The fact that Capulet knew that Romeo had snuck into the party, and didn’t eject him, and also prevented Tybalt from ejecting him, is a case in point. In fact, the feud was only perpetuated by Tybalt’s brashness. Another interesting thing is that the entire younger generation of the two families is basically killed. In fact, the events are so tragic that both patriarchs make amends at the end and seek to bring the animosity to an end. However, it still seems to be an instance of the hot-headedness of the younger generation that perpetuated the feud. No doubt the patriarchs would fight when they were younger, but as they grow older, they become more mellow. It is just that their children are then brought up hating the other, and as it goes with the youth, they perpetuate the war. I’m still not a particularly big fan of the play though, namely because it is so well known, and it doesn’t seem to have the intricacies of many of his other plays. However, reading it for the first time has shed some more light on its structure, and what is going on. Oh, come to think of it, the original title of the play completely destroys my theory about Shakespeare attempting to trick the audience into thinking that the play is a comedy. ...more |
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Jun 17, 2022
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Jun 28, 2022
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Jun 17, 2022
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Mass Market Paperback
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| B07QMQKV6N
| 3.45
| 31
| 1606
| Mar 25, 2019
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it was amazing
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Love and the Fall of Carthage 11 July 2021 So this play is set in the dying days of the Carthaginian Empire, and since the previous plays of Martson’s Love and the Fall of Carthage 11 July 2021 So this play is set in the dying days of the Carthaginian Empire, and since the previous plays of Martson’s that I had read had been fictional stories (to the extent that I hadn’t heard of them) I thought that this was a fictional story as well. Actually, it turned out that it isn’t. I’m not sure whether you could consider it a true story though, but it does seem that Sophonisba was a real person, and there are also a number of characters in the play that are based on historical people, including Jugurtha, who caused a few problems for Rome in the ensuing years. The play is set during the second Punic War, and Sophonisba has just been married to the Lybian king Masinissa. In fact, she had a choice between one of two kings, Syphax and Masinissa, and she decided to go with Masinissa. Well, Syphax wasn’t too impressed with that, so when Scipio decided to take the war to Carthage, he joined his side. Noting that he had a pretty big army, the Carthaginians decided that they would annul Masinissa’s marriage (since it hadn’t been consummated), and give Sophonisba to Syphax. Well, that is pretty much where everything goes pearshaped because it turns out that Syphax isn’t a particularly decent guy, since he pretty much leaves the battle to go and consummate his marriage, which means that the Carthaginians lose, especially since Masinissa decides to jump ship and join Rome due to the betrayal. Now, the play is actually a tragedy, though it is a romance in part, which is what differs from the historical account (if the Roman account is anything to go by, because we all know that thing about history and winners). According to the Wikipedia article, the story seems to follow what was indicated in the accounts that we have, namely that Sophonisba was a virtuous woman, and that the marriage to Syphax was against her will. However, due to her unswerving loyalty towards Carthage, the Romans could not have her live, and thus she was put to death, which is where the tragedy lies. This is despite the fact that Masinissa still wanted to consummate the marriage after Syphax’s defeat. However, Martson paints Syphax in a much less desirable light, in that he not only betrays both Rome and Carthage, but that he calls a witch to cast a spell on Sophonisba so that she would fall in love with him. Mind you, in English plays of this era, when people go to witches, you know that things end up pretty badly, and this is definitely the case here. Like, Syphax goes to bed thinking that he is lying with Sophonisba, and wakes up to discover that he was actually sleeping with the witch. I suspect this is because it doesn’t matter how powerful the witch happens to be, one simply cannot override human free will. Yeah, talking about beds and wedding nights, the first scene is rather interesting as well because it seemed like everything decided to go into the bedroom with Masinissa and Sophonisba, and they end up having a war council here. Yeah, it seemed like pretty much the bedroom happened to be a major thoroughfare. Then again, we might laugh at the absurdity of the situation (and there have been some comedy sketches of this type, one I remember coming from an English comedy duo called The Two Ronnies). Yet the reality is that with the nobility this was actually quite common. First of all, they would make sure that the marriage was consummated, and secondly, it was to make sure that the woman was a virgin. Yeah, in Early Modern Europe, and even beforehand, there wasn’t a concept along the lines of privacy in the bedroom, at least where the nobility was concerned (and I suspect that the peasants didn’t have much privacy as well). In a way, I do quite like these plays, especially the ones that explore the lesser-known aspects of history. They do suggest that truth is stranger than fiction, and as such it isn’t surprising that the playwrights would base their stories on historical events since they tend to be much, much better than things that happen to be made up. Mind you, they also end up changing things a bit as well, as I pointed out with Syphax. I get the impression from the Wikipedia article that he certainly wasn’t as bad as the play makes him out to be, and he certainly didn’t leave the battlefield when he discovered that he could bump pelvises with a woman that he happened to like. Then again, why let the truth get in the way of a good yarn? ...more |
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Jul 09, 2021
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Jul 10, 2021
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Jul 09, 2021
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Kindle Edition
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| 1854596969
| 9781854596963
| 1854596969
| 3.50
| 296
| 1605
| Apr 01, 2003
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really liked it
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The Joys of Cuckolding 2 February 2021 One of the things that struck me with this play were some of the similarities to King Lear, and I note that the The Joys of Cuckolding 2 February 2021 One of the things that struck me with this play were some of the similarities to King Lear, and I note that the Wikipedia Article suggests that it is a prototype of some of Shakespeare’s other plays, one of them mentioned is As You Like It. Of course, As You Like It appeared four years before this play, whereas King Lear appeared three years after (or the first recorded performance was three years after), so I’d probably lean more to seeing this play as influencing King Lear, particularly with some of the characters. The play is set in the city state of Genoa, and Pietro has taken control of the city from the previous duke, Giovanni Altofronto. However, it comes to light that Pietro’s wife is sleeping with another guy, Mendoza. The interesting thing is that Altofronto disguises himself as a fool, and becomes Pietro’s conscience, particularly at this time where he is depressed because he has been cuckolded (namely his wife is cheating on him). What ends up happening is that Mendoza seizes power, but with the help of Pietro, Altofronto deposes him and takes back his rightful position. This is sort of why I consider it to be a forerunner of King Lear, not just because we have the fool who is playing the conscience of the king, but that there is a lot of political maneuverings which results in a third person becoming the ruler, only to be quickly deposed. Mind you, there are a lot less deaths in this play than there are in Shakespeare, and I sort of suspect that Shakespeare is one of the few writers that seems to be able to get away with killing off a lot of his characters, particularly the major ones. One of the things though has to do with the cuckolding of the duke. Look, people certainly don’t like it when it happens to them these days, but there is this idea that back in those days it is an affront to a person’s masculinity, which is why it was considered to be so disastrous. In fact, the way the play moves, Mendoza, the one doing the cuckolding, does eventually take Pietro’s realm, after taking his wife. In a way the suggestion is that if a man cannot control his wife, how is he able to control his realm. Actually, it certainly does come across that Pietro does become quite a weak character. Like, he steps aside to let Altofronto to take back his kingdom, after helping remove Mendoza. Though, when the big reveal comes, they reveal themselves to their wives, as opposed to Mendoza, though it also suggests that the way to the ruler is through the women that he loves. This was obviously the case with Pietro, but it has has been turned around to hit Mendoza. Mind you, looking at this play from the modern world, one could argue that there is a bit of sexism in it, especially the idea that a man needs to control his wife (though the insinuation is that it is okay for the man to sleep around). Then again, from my university days, there was this idea that a guy shouldn’t go out with a girl that it is known to cheat, because, yeah, this whole masculinity thing. Yet, it has nothing to do with controlling the woman, but rather the man being good in bed. The idea at university was that your masculinity was defined by how well you could perform, and a cheating girlfriend does a lot to undermine one’s masculinity. Interestingly though, Altofronto does remind Pietro that there are a number of famous people from legend who had also been cuckolded. There was Arthur, but honestly, things really didn’t turn out all that well for him. There was also Menelaus, whose wife started a war because she ran off with the dashing Paris. Also, there was Heracles, and honestly, nobody ever questioned his masculinity. So, his whole point here was to remind Pietro that things certainly weren’t as bad as it seems, that that he should actually feel bad that his wife had run off with the guy that ended up taking his realm off of him. ...more |
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Jan 28, 2021
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Feb 03, 2021
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Jan 28, 2021
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Paperback
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| 0719057035
| 9780719057038
| 0719057035
| 3.26
| 81
| unknown
| Jun 24, 1999
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did not like it
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Reminds Me of Baby Sitter: Killer Queen 20 December 2020 I thought that it was only recently where a sequel completely butchers the original, but it se Reminds Me of Baby Sitter: Killer Queen 20 December 2020 I thought that it was only recently where a sequel completely butchers the original, but it seems as if they have been doing similar things for centuries, not that sequels were all that common until recently. Yeah, this is a sequel to Antonio & Mellida, and where the first one was a light-hearted romance, this one is much, much darker. In fact, it is more a tragedy than a comedy, or you could sort of put it into a similar vein of your typical action film. So, the play is set after the original (obviously) and it turns out that Piero was only pretending to be Andrugio’s friend, and instead ends up killing him. So, Antonio, who is visited by Andrugio’s ghost, is commissioned to exact revenge for his murder. We also have Maria, Antonio’s mother, rock up, and of course, being the slimeball that he is, Piero decides that he is going to marry her because, well, that is what all Shakespearian villains do (not that I am suggesting that this play is in the league of Shakespeare, because it isn’t). Yeah, it was quite disappointing to have the story suddenly become so dark and nasty. Where as in the first play Piero is basically a jerk, in this play he is much, much worse. It almost seems as if Marston was trying to take the same idea and turn it into a tragedy instead (and failing pretty badly at it as well). I guess it had a lot to do with becoming rather attached to the characters in the previous play, and when we find out what happens afterwards, we sort of want to go back to the original one and pretend that this one never happens (good luck with that mind you). In fact, it sort of reminded me a bit of this Netflix movie I watched – The Babysitter. This first one was pretty good. In fact, it was so popular (which is surprising for a straight to Netflix film, which I tend to equate with straight to DVD films – if people actually remember what a DVD was) that they decided to make a sequel. Well, let’s just say that there is no way I can unsee the sequel, and they certainly butchered a lot of the good things that came out of the first film. In fact, what the second film ended up doing was creating a bucket load of plot holes. Seriously, nobody believes him that it happened when there happens to be two missing cops, and a dead fireman? Look, I don’t want to give too much away, though I do wonder at times if it is okay to completely spoil a book that I really don’t like. Mind you, some of the nasty messages that I get from users who are upset that I ruined a book that they wanted to read (which makes me wonder why they are bothering to read reviews anyway, especially reviews on Goodreads that generally don’t follow the standard form that most reviews take) that it is probably not a good idea, even if you don’t like the story. Another thing is that I felt that maybe Marston should have written the play detached from the first one, but then again it does help not having to reintroduce a whole heap of new characters. Yet, it isn’t as if that is all that hard to do because, well, he did it the first time, so why not do it again. Sometimes I wonder whether it is just lazy writing. Oh, and another point, Dildo doesn’t appear in this play, so that’s another point off a rather disappointing sequel. ...more |
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Dec 17, 2020
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Dec 18, 2020
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Dec 17, 2020
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| 0156632772
| 9780156632775
| 0156632772
| 3.72
| 11,293
| 1936
| Mar 18, 1964
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really liked it
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A Political Martyr 4 July 2020 I never realised that T.S. Elliot actually wrote plays, but then again I’m not all that familiar with his works, which, A Political Martyr 4 July 2020 I never realised that T.S. Elliot actually wrote plays, but then again I’m not all that familiar with his works, which, to be honest, I should really consider rectifying. This particular play was written for the Canterbury Festival in 1935 and depicts the events that lead up to the murder of Thomas Beckett by four knights who took King Henry II’s statement ‘will nobody rid me of that troublesome priest’ a little too literally. Mind you, murdering a priest really didn’t go down all that well in 12th Century England, though the knights did end up fleeing, but from what I gathered from the notes included in the text, they weren’t exactly welcome anywhere. Elliot used the Ancient Greek style of playwriting for this particular piece, with the setting being Canterbury Cathedral, and the action is his murder. He also has a chorus of women, and there are only at most three people communicating with each other at one time. Okay, the events take place over a number of days, considering that Beckett’s Christmas sermon is included, and Beckett was murdered on 29th December, but I’d say that the events are all close enough so as to sit well with the unity of time. There are a few interesting things in this play, though the focus tends to be mostly on Beckett’s martyrdom. For instance, we have the tempters that are encouraging Beckett to flee to the continent, which not only brings back images of Socrates in the Crito, where there is a discussion between Socrates and his friends as to whether he should escape from Athens. Of course, images of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane are also apparent, particularly where Christ is tempted to flee the cross. In a way, Beckett can see his martyrdom approaching, and he chooses to stand firm and face it. Yet I struggle to see this as a martyrdom in its true form. Like, the whole conflict between Henry and Beckett seems to come down to two possibilities – the struggle between the Church and the State, and the struggle between England and continental Europe. In a way, the struggle between the church and state had been brewing for quite a while, and in reality, England sits on the outer edges of the church’s domains. Yet, I can see images of Brexit as well, something that seems to permeate through the ages. So, the idea of church and state is the question of who holds the greater authority – the King, or the Pope – London, or Rome. For centuries kings had risen, and fallen, at the will of the Popes, and pretty much all continental policy was formed out of the Vatican. While the kings held dominion over temporal affairs, and the Pope holding dominion over spiritual affairs, the reality of the situation was that Rome pretty much pulled the strings. This is where the whole Beckett controversy arose. Basically Henry wanted a weaker church in England, namely so that he could do things without having to get permission from Rome. When the previous Archbishop died he decided to appoint his old friend Beckett, who had been Lord Chancellor. Well, it turned out that loyalties didn’t seem to stick, or you could say that Beckett saw his allegiance to God is greater than his allegiance to the king. I suspect things like that still happen these days, especially when judges are appointed to the Supreme Court and the people that appointed them suddenly discover that these judges actually have a mind of their own. Another interesting idea is the whole Brexit mess. Okay, I’m certainly one of those people who has accepted the fact that Brexit will happen, despite not thinking that it will be a good idea. Then again, a united Europe certainly does scare an awful lot of people, and attempting to break it apart is the goal of a number of not very pleasant people. However, it seems that this struggle between Europe and England has been going on for centuries. It’s like England, or even Britain, don’t see themselves as being a part of Europe because of, well, the moat. Mind you, moats are absolutely wonderful things, but it certainly seems that Brexit really isn’t anything new. So, yeah, I really don’t see Beckett as being a martyr, at least not in the traditional sense. No, it seems to have more to do with the conflict with state power. It was clear that Henry really didn’t appreciate Rome meddling in his affairs, which was why he decided to install Becket as archbishop. However, one also gets the impression that he really didn’t mean to have Beckett killed, it was just that these knights decided to act out on their own. Mind you, one interesting thing that the editor does say is that the actual historicity of the event is pretty difficult to determine considering that much of what was written, was actually written by Beckett sympathisers. As such, we tend to have resources that tend to support Beckett much more than Henry. ...more |
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Jul 2020
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Jul 03, 2020
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Jul 01, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0486419282
| 9780486419282
| 0486419282
| 3.80
| 4,316
| 1892
| Apr 21, 2016
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it was amazing
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Castles in the Sky 10 February 2020 I’m glad I spent a bit more time looking into this play instead of just rushing out a review as I normally do becau Castles in the Sky 10 February 2020 I’m glad I spent a bit more time looking into this play instead of just rushing out a review as I normally do because Ibsen certainly does deserve to be explored somewhat deeper than most other books and plays (well, not quite, because plays, especially these days, seem to fall into the realm of art and literature). I do actually appreciate that Ibsen’s plays don’t tend to end all that pleasantly since it does set them apart from most of the stuff that seems to be floating around these days – like, everything has to have a happy ending for some reason, but I guess that is what the audience expects – oh, and gratuitous sex scenes, if what my author friends indicate. Anyway, as you can probably guess from the title this play is about a master builder. Well, I probably should say architect because tradies don’t seem to regularly, if ever, form the basis of a theatrical production, and when they do, they tend to be portrayed as rather crude, and comical. Well, being a middle-class professional myself, I guess it is difficult to relate to tradies in that way, though I suspect that there aren’t all that many tradies out there that would go and visit the theatre (though I hope I’m wrong on that account). Another thing that I’ve noticed about these couple of plays in particular is that the main character seems to have a haunted past. Well, not so much in this piece since our master builder seems to have in part lived a charmed life. Not quite, because his wife’s ancestral house burnt down killing their children. Yet, he also seemed to have luck go his way as well, having pushed all competition out of his town so that not only is he a master builder, but he is the only builder. The thing is that this woman suddenly rocks up and claims that ten years previously he had visited their town, built a grandiose church, and promised this girl that in ten years he would give her a kingdom. Well, this particular girl has decided that she will hold him to his word and claim that kingdom, though this does sort of seem to be something that he said on the fly to a little girl. Yeah, I guess the moral here is that one needs to be careful what they say to people, least they be held to it. But our master builder is an interesting character because while it seemed as if the fire was an accident, he sort of indicates that he saw some flaws in the building, but didn’t act on them. Though it turned out that the fire didn’t come about because of the flaws, but elsewhere. However, what he did do was subdivide the land and sell off a number of dwellings for a substantial profit – so it seemed as if everything worked out well for himself. Yet it also seems as if he has moved away from building grandiose structures to simply building houses. I guess the money is a lot better, as well as the demand. The other interesting thing is that he has some employees, and one of them really wants to take over the business, but of course our Master Builder has a reputation to uphold, and he is simply not going to just let anybody take over the business. In fact, he ends up looking for an excuse to get rid of them. Personally, I don’t find him to be all that sympathetic, nor do I find him all that repulsive either. In a way he seems to be this character that has been caught up in his own delusion that he can will what he wants to happen. In a way, he dwells in a castle in the sky (a term that is thrown about throughout the play). Because things have gone right for him, and have also positioned himself in such a good position, he has been caught up in that delusion – God loves him and has rewarded him for his service. Woah, that certainly can open up a whole can of worms, which is a rabbit hole that I certainly won’t be diving down at this time (as I believe I have dived down there a number of times in the past, and no doubt will do so again in the future). So, this seems to be a play focused on a person nearing the end of his life, caught up in a delusional world where everything seems to go right for him. I guess one could claim that this is also partly autobiographical, but one also wonders whether it is possible to change the opinions or outlook of a person that has reached that point in their life. Usually, by this time we are pretty much set in our ways, and also somewhat caught up in our delusions. Still, this is a pretty good play, and maybe it is not so much an exhortation to the elderly, but to those of us who don’t want to think about this stage of life just yet. ...more |
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1
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Feb 05, 2020
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Feb 07, 2020
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Feb 05, 2020
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Paperback
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| B0DM2GCNCG
| unknown
| 3.73
| 1,520
| 1886
| Jan 15, 2017
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liked it
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Hauntings from the Past 20 January 2020 I found this play a little more difficult to get into than some of Ibsen’s other plays, though I do note that i Hauntings from the Past 20 January 2020 I found this play a little more difficult to get into than some of Ibsen’s other plays, though I do note that it was written somewhere near the end of his life. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is any better, or worse, than some of his more well-known plays. In a way, it still has that rather dark and edgy feel to it and the play definitely does not end in a way that leaves you walking out of the theatre with a smile on your face. In fact, considering a lot of the movies that seem to come out of Hollywood, I sometimes wonder how people like Ibsen survived as a playwright when their plays, well, don’t end in the way a Hollywood movie ends. Like a lot of Ibsen’s plays, this one deals with relationships, and also dark skeletons that exist in the closets of the characters, or at least two of the main characters – that being Johannes Romers, and his perpetual house guest Rebecca West. In fact, Rebecca has been a house guest since the suicide of Romers’ former wife (see, his plays are pretty bleak, though I guess you do have Hollywood movies where the main characters have some nasty skeletons in their closet as well). The thing with Romersholm, the house, is that it is old and falling down. In a way, it seems to reflect the nature of the monarchy at the time. I notice that Romers happens to be a liberal/progressive politician, that is representing the new way of looking at things, yet ironically he lives in a house that represents the old. Of course, like a lot of plays, were are dealing with members of the upper-middle class, but the catch is that the lives of these people are really all that great. Yeah, these plays really do seem to make you feel uncomfortable, but also they help us understand that the lives of the upper classes aren’t as wonderful as we think they are. In fact, they can be pretty disastrous, especially when the nasty secrets come to the fore and start to shock those who desire to drift into that realm. In fact, I still remember speaking with people who were convinced that being rich and famous would make their lives so much better, when in reality being rich and famous means that you no longer have any time to yourself, and can no longer simply go out for a quiet walk – no wonder Howard Hughes locked himself away, and Richard Branson bought an island. However, this play isn’t about the dangers of being rich and famous, but rather the hauntings that the characters’ pasts just seem to keep on dragging up. Yet, many of us have pasts which we cannot escape from, and many of us seek to do what we can to keep them hidden and buried, but it seems that the longer we try to keep them buried, the more damage that it causes when it is finally revealed. However, there is also the catch that you really can’t go around telling everything the truth because the reality is that nobody really wants to hear the truth. Sure, this whole rant probably has nothing to do with the play, but still, these are thoughts that went through my mind as I was reading it and following the events that were occurring in the twilight of Romersholm. ...more |
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Jan 16, 2020
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Jan 19, 2020
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Jan 16, 2020
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Audiobook
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| 0486421279
| 9780486421278
| 0486421279
| 3.70
| 19,376
| 1891
| Aug 14, 2002
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it was amazing
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The Tragedy of Herod 1 July 2019 This is certainly quite different, though the suggestion was that Wilde wanted to try something a little more challeng The Tragedy of Herod 1 July 2019 This is certainly quite different, though the suggestion was that Wilde wanted to try something a little more challenging, and he certainly did do that – a play in French. Actually, it is more than just a play in French namely because it is also a drama, and one that has clearly been modelled on the plays of the Ancient Greeks – namely that it is basically a one act play, and deals with a character with a tragic flaw, namely Herod the Tetrach. The story is probably one of those more familiar ones, at least for those who happen to be familiar with the New Testament. It is based around the story of when John the Baptist was beheaded. It goes along the lines of Herod having John locked up because he was basically condeming Herod for marrying the wife of Herod’s brother (while he was still alive I believe). However, Herod really didn’t want to execute him because, well, with John being a prophet and all that, he really didn’t want to get on the wrong side of the people (not that it would have affected him all that much). So, one day at a party, no doubt after he had had a bit too much to drink, he asked his step daughter to dance for him, and when his stepdaughter, Salome, refused, he told her that he would give her anything she wanted. Well, she said ‘The head of John the Baptist on a silver platter’. That is the problem with swearing oaths, you sort of open yourself up to being in a very awkward situation. Since this is a one act play, the entire play actually takes place down in the cells, which is sort of a little odd because it does feel as if Herod has decided to take the party down stairs. Then again, when you are writing as play like this you do tend to be quite restricted, particularly when it comes to the three unities – time, place, and action. This is clear what Wilde was trying to achieve here, particularly since French plays, at least during the era of Racine and Moliere, stuck to these unities really closely. Anyhow, the reason that Salome wanted John’s head was because she wanted John to give her a kiss, and not surprising, being a prophet and all that, John refused. Then there is the dance, Wilde suggests that it is the dance of the seven veils, though a part of me feels that it may be a little anachronistic (not that I actually know what the Dance of the Seven Veils actually is, but I’m sure I can find out easily enough – it turns out to be something that Wilde himself created). Yeah, this whole marrying the wife of one’s brother – that is sort of allowed in the Jewish law, though it technically isn’t quite a marriage. The idea was that if your brother died without leaving a child, then you would take his place, and were obligated to provide children for your brother’s wife, namely so that your brother’s line could continue. Personally, I don’t think that this was quite the case here, namely because if it was, John would hardly have been kicking up a stink and making accusations of incest. Yeah, and with this incest thing, Wilde places the suggestion that he has a thing for Salome (though she isn’t his blood daughter, but still, it does seem a bit dodgy). Obviously we also have Herodias, who happens to be Herod’s wife, and yeah, she’s sort of aware of Herod’s tricks, so she really isn’t all that impressed. I also note that she was quite pleased with Salome’s request because, well, she wasn’t particularly happy with John either, you know, with all that condemning her for incest. Herod is the main character though, and he certainly comes across as one of those Greek tragic heroes. He starts of somewhat cocky, and in a way quite full of himself. Yet it is clear that Salome has manipulated him somewhat, namely because of his desire to see her dance, and to the point that he was willing to give her anything. Yet when the request came, it was something that we knew was going to happen, but in part didn’t want it to happen. His response was worthy of the ancients themselves. This turned out to be a pretty good play, one that I hadn’t heard of previously, though of course we generally don’t hear much of Wilde’s plays beyond the Importance of Being Earnest. It certainly does confront us with the fact that there are times that we will make stupid oaths simply to get what we want, only to discover that our oaths have come back to haunt us. I guess this is why Christ warned us against making such oaths, because they are dangerous things. Then again, I do quite appreciate the simple concept of letting your yes be yes and your no be no. ...more |
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Jun 29, 2019
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Jun 30, 2019
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Jun 29, 2019
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Paperback
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| 1533011516
| 9781533011510
| 1533011516
| 3.29
| 537
| -431
| Apr 28, 2016
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liked it
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If not Euripides, then Who? 6 October 2018 One annoying thing about this play is that when I typed the name into Goodreads I ended up with a whole heap If not Euripides, then Who? 6 October 2018 One annoying thing about this play is that when I typed the name into Goodreads I ended up with a whole heap of books on monkeys. The other thing is that this particularly ancient Greek tragedy seems to be rather obscure. I would say that it was written by Euripides but it turns out that there is an awful lot of doubt as to his authorship. In fact it seems as if the only reason it had been lumped with his works is because the original compilers simply assumed that it was one of his. The problem is that there is debate, even now, as to whether he wrote it, though the fact that we have it suggests that there might be some credence because it would have come down to us as a part of the volume of Euripedan plays that managed to escape the destruction of the ancient world. The play is set during the Trojan War, though if I hadn’t had mentioned that and you guessed then chances are that you would have been right, namely because out of all of the settings of the plays that we have, the Trojan War, and the events surrounding it, seem to be pretty common. Then again, the subject seemed to be pretty popular among the Greeks, and I suspect that that probably had a lot to do with Homer and his writings, though no doubt they would have had access to a lot of other things that we don’t have access to. So, the play is set during one of the scenes in the Iliad, where Odysseus is going on a scouting mission into the Trojan camp. At the same time Rhesus, the king of Thrace, arrives to assist the Trojans. However, the Trojan’s aren’t all that happy because the Thracians basically took their time to turn up. Well, Rhesus has an excuse of his own, namely that he happened to be fighting his own war with the Scythians, and they couldn’t spare any troops to assist the Trojans. Anyway, Odysseus rocks up, and is about to kill Hector, when one of the pesky gods (Athena) gets in the way and tells him that he can’t kill Hector, but he can go to town on Rhesus, which he does. That’s a rather interesting event, the fact that the deus-ex-machina happens in the middle of the play as opposed to the end, which is what one would expect in Euripides’ plays. It also turns out that Rhesus is the child of a muse, who is rather upset that her son has been killed, and desires to exact revenge on all those involved. Hmm, it seems that Odysseus has added another divine enemy to the list of divine enemies that seems to be lining up waiting to exact some form of punishment on him. I can’t say that this was a particularly delightful play, but it is one that I can now add to the collection that I’ve read. Mind you, the only version that I have of it happens to be a part of a collection that was given to me by some lady at church, namely because she didn’t feel that this particular collection would be appropriate to send to Africa to form a part of a school. I’d probably disagree, considering the library of one of the Bible Colleges that I did a couple of subjects at had some very interesting books amongst their collection. Then again, some Christians seem to want to censor any works that don’t line up with their own doctrine – Harry Potter comes to mind, as does a number of other works of literature. However, the whole Euripidean authorship is something that intrigues me, which is why I suspect it was never included among the Penguin collections that I happen to have. If it was Euripidean, then so be it, but if it wasn’t, it actually adds to our collection of playwrights from the ancient world. The problem is that we don’t know who wrote it, or when it was written. It could quite well have been written during that period of Athenian history when the empire was in decline, and the great playwrights had become a distant memory. Maybe the author wanted it to be attributed to Euripides, just in case it survived, or maybe was using Euripides’ plays as a template to write his own. In fact, it could be the case that the only reason the plays of the great Tragedians survived was because they were actually written down and kept, where as the lesser known playwrights were forgotten, simply because the plays were not transcribed to paper, and like the Doctor Who episodes of old, were thrown out because they needed the space. ...more |
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| 9781566631112
| 1566631114
| 4.02
| 5,749
| -405
| Sep 01, 1997
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One Final Play 29 August 2018 – Sydney Well, as it turns out, this was Euripides’ last play, the reason being that he died before he could finish it. T One Final Play 29 August 2018 – Sydney Well, as it turns out, this was Euripides’ last play, the reason being that he died before he could finish it. This is sort of a bit of a turn of events where Greek plays are concerned because most of the time the reason we don’t have the plays is because they have been lost (you can probably blame Julius Caeser for that, among other people, but then again the Great Library did seem to be a bit of a fire magnet). However, just because he didn’t finish it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily incomplete, namely because somebody else came along at a later date and decided to fix up what Euripides didn’t get to do. The problem is that when you have situations where a genius dies and his work is incomplete, basically anybody who comes along to finish it off is basically going to do an incredibly shoddy job – this was the case with Herge’s final Tintin album. So, this play is basically about the time when the Greeks are trying to get to Troy but the gods seem to be against them because, well, the winds are blowing in the wrong direction. That can be a bit of a problem when all you have are ships that are powered by sail. Well sort of since not only were they powered by sail, but they were also powered by the fact that they also had lots of people with really strong arms pushing and pulling on the oars in unison (slaves if you will, but I don’t think the people who staffed the oars were slaves in every instance, but then again this is ancient Greek drama, so the normal people basically don’t matter anyway). You could say that this is a tragedy namely because the events here in Aulis basically resulted in the whole mess that Orestes landed up in, though if we follow through his life we learn that he was a pretty hot headed individual anyway. However, the story isn’t so much about Orestes, but rather about Agamemnon, his daughter Iphigenia, and a few others – Clytemnestra probably shouldn’t be forgotten because she does happen to be Agamemnon’s wife. Well, long suffering Clytemnestra – it turns out that Agamemnon wasn’t her first husband, and the reason that she is the wife of Agamemnon is because he basically killed her first husband and took her as his wife. Gee, I sense a bit of hypocrisy here since I get the impression that while it was okay for him to steal somebody’s wife, when Paris did the same thing to his brother, the entire Greek nation gets up in arms and goes to war. Then again Paris wasn’t Greek, and even today there is still a lot of people who are incredibly uncomfortable with inter-racial marriage, especially when they happen to marry one of us white barbarians. The thing is that Agamemnon is being pretty sneaky. Then again if he had went to his wife and said ‘can you send our daughter to me, I have to sacrifice her so that Artemis will change the direction of the winds’ I suspect that he wouldn’t have received a positive reply. So, instead, he says that he has arranged for her to be married. Well, sort of because it ends up being a lie, namely because he did actually want to sacrifice her so that Artemis would change the direction of the winds. Talk about a dedicated man – this guy is willing to sacrifice his own daughter to save the unfaithful wife of his brother. Then again, as some have suggested, there is the whole oath that they swore to defend Helen’s, or should I say Menelaus’, honour. Or was it, there is also the suggestion that Helen really was just an excuse to destroy a powerful city at the entrance to some very important trade routes – hey, it isn’t as if anybody else has gone to war based upon some really flimsy proposition. Actually, let us consider the anti-war aspects here for a second, because there are some, particularly with Agamemnon wanting to sacrifice his daughter. The thing is that I never really thought about the whole idea of sacrifice when I initially read the play, but while this whole ‘oh, no, he’s going to sacrifice his daughter’ mentality, we sometimes forget that there are a whole bunch of men, somebodies son nonetheless, who are also going to be sacrifice into the meat grinder that happens to be a war. Funnily enough, these young men tend to be the ones who end up in the firing line, while the kings and commanders, the important people if you will, usually end up sitting the whole thing out from a tend at the top of a hill. You know, we can’t have the generals in the firing line because who is going to lead the men otherwise. Well, it seems that this didn’t particularly bother Alexander, or Napoleon. Still, we shouldn’t forget that this is Ancient Greece that we are talking about, and as it happens, these guys are going to be in the thick of battle – we know that from the Iliad. However, I guess Euripides is drawing on the fact that while wars are played out between the kings and the generals, the pieces they are fought with armies, and it is the individuals who make up these armies that end up being the ones who suffer the consequences, and in fact they happen to be the ones that never come home. Does that make the generals and kings cowards though? I guess that is a question that I’ll leave up in the air for the time being because it does raise some interesting thoughts. Well, the story is great, but the play itself, well, honestly, I can’t tell which is Euripides and which isn’t, but then again I read the English and not the Greek, and even though I sort of understand Greek, I certainly am not fluent in it so I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. Actually, I suspect that you have to have a pretty good eye, and also a pretty good understanding of the author’s style, to be able to pick up some of these differences. Honestly, while I do like my books, I’m certainly not that good that I’d be able to spot such things. ...more |
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| 0195077083
| 9780195077087
| 0195077083
| 3.70
| 709
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| Oct 29, 1992
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Curse of the House of Cadmus 10 July 2018 – Brisbane Well, it seems that Euripides has taken the story of the Seven Against Thebes and completely rewri Curse of the House of Cadmus 10 July 2018 – Brisbane Well, it seems that Euripides has taken the story of the Seven Against Thebes and completely rewritten it, and then given it a title that has absolutely nothing to do with the story either. Okay, there is the whole Cadmus being a Phonecian thing, but my understanding was that by the time we get to the whole Oedipus mess they were no longer Phonecians but Greek, though I should note that this is really only about five generations. Still, I suspect that the original people who went to see the play probably knew about as much as I did when I started reading it. Mind you, Euripides has shaken things up a bit here because it was my understanding that Jocasta hung herself at the end of Oedipus Tyrannos, and also that Oedipus disappeared off to Colonus pretty much after the story as well. Well, it seems that in this version he is hanging around in the back rooms of the palace while all of the mess between Polyneices and Etocles is going on. Then there is the whole Antigone affair where she disobeys Creon and buries her brother, only to be banished. Once again, you never think that Oedipus is somewhere in the background, though Euripides is pretty clear that he is in this play (even though he doesn’t make an appearance). The introduction to this play talks about how at the time it was performed Athens was facing a siege by Sparta, and it was very clear that she was probably not going to win the war. However, if we know our Greek mythology we know that Thebes manages to withstand the siege, even though everything ends up in a complete mess anyway. For instance, when the whole Antigone episode is finished we find that Creon is a completely broken man with absolutely nothing left. In fact, it appears that the whole Theban dynasty has been gutted, and what for – disobeying a god (though to the Greeks that was probably a pretty big deal). In a way there is a suggestion that this curse goes all the way back to Cadmus, the Phoenician founder of Thebes. Interestingly I discovered that Cadmus was said to have originally brought writing to the Greeks, though this has since been debunked on the grounds that the Phoenician alphabet that we inherited developed after the Bronze Age collapse, and made its way to Greece sometime during the dark ages. They did have a form of writing back then, but we basically are unable to read it. [image] So, Cadmus sort of kills a dragon, plants its teeth into the grown and out pops a bunch of warriors (sounds somewhat familiar, doesn’t it) and Cadmus then gets them to fight each other, which they do until only five remain, and those five then start building the city of Thebes. The problem that Cadmus faced is that it turned out that the dragon was Apollo’s pet (of course it was), so he now has to do penance for killing the dragon, which basically involved him being turned into a dragon. Oh well, I guess that’s the life of the Greek heroes. Look, I could go on through Pentheus, who upset Dionysius (by basically banning his worship, and then locking him up), but it then comes down to King Laius, Oedipus’ father and Creon’s brother. He was basically told that he wasn’t allowed to have any children, and if he did then really bad things would happen (such as his son killing him and then marrying his wife). Well, he decides to refrain except that he gets drunk one night and conceives a child, so he decides that the best thing to do is bind his legs together and toss him on a mountain to die. Yeah, story of Oedipus’ life and all that. Look, it really seemed as if the gods, or particularly Apollo, really had it in for the Thebans because after this whole Oedipus affair things really started getting out of hand because the prophecy, as we know, came true. I’m not sure if this is a whole fate vs free will type of play that Oedipus Rex was, but rather an examination of the absolute mess that Thebes has landed up in. Sure, they beat off the Argives, but at what cost. Well, maybe Creon could have been a little nicer, and a lot less stubborn, but it seems as if the whole Laius affair really wasn’t going to end any other way but really, really badly. ...more |
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| 019504553X
| 9780195045536
| 019504553X
| 3.52
| 804
| -423
| Feb 09, 1995
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A Question of Burials 30 June 2018 – Grafton Well, I am slowly getting through the last few plays of Euripides that I have yet to complete and it is in A Question of Burials 30 June 2018 – Grafton Well, I am slowly getting through the last few plays of Euripides that I have yet to complete and it is interesting that the commentator at the beginning of this play seems to want to write it off without giving it much thought. In a way he seems to believe that it is one of those forgettable plays, however I would beg to differ namely because it does address some rather interesting aspects of Ancient Greek society, and in fact there is one idea that I feel confronts us every so often as well. The story occurs after the events in Seven Against Thebes, namely when the sons of Oedipus go to war, Polynices who is attempting to regain the throne after his brother Etocles refused to step down, despite there being an agreement that he would do so. Basically, the two sons kill each other, leaving the throne of Thebes to Creon, and the invaders’ bodies are basically left outside the city to rot. The wives and mothers of the dead then flee Thebes to Elusius and make a case to Theseus, King of Athens, to help them in their need. Initially Theseus is reluctant to help, but then he marches on Thebes, drives back the defenders, and retrieves the bodies and returns them to Athens, where all but one, Capaneius, are burnt in a pyre. Capaneius, who was struck down by Zeus, is placed in a sacred tomb, due to the fact that he was struck down by Zeus. One idea that is explored here is the idea of leaving the dead unburied. In our minds that might not be such a problem, yet even in our secular age there still seems to be this desire to bury the dead, or even simply leave a memorial. This, I doubt, has any real religious reason as to the unburied dead having a tormented afterlife and more to do with there being a memorial. There are many graves that are in fact empty. However, this wasn’t the case with the Greeks, who had a vastly different view of the afterlife than we do, and having a proper burial, or even having their bodies burnt in a funeral pyre, was of utmost importance. In a way it is still this idea of remembering the dead, but also a way of showing respect to those who have also died. In a way, leaving the corpses of the dead unburied was a means of heaping scorn upon those who had died, and was also a means of dealing with one’s enemy and having a tormented afterlife. Once again, the play was written and performed while Athens was at war, and can be considered an anti-war play, as was the case with a lot of the plays at the time. One interesting thing about the battle here (all battles occurred off stage and generally had a messenger come along to report on what happened, no doubt a reflection on how plays basically developed from what one could consider poetry readings) is that Theseus does not press his advantage. He basically goes in, meets his goal, and then leaves. His goal is not to overthrow Creon, but to retrieve the bodies of those who had fallen. This is also an important idea in that when one goes to war, sometimes, if one is not careful, a victory can pretty quickly turn into a defeat if one lets one’s emotions run too high. In this case the war had nothing to do with overthrowing Creon, and everything to do with retrieving the bodies of the fallen. In a way it reminds me of the first Gulf War, where the objectives were to liberate Kuwait, and not to overthrow the regime in Iraq. We all know what happened when we then decided to go down that road ten years later. Not surprisingly, there is also a debate about the merits of democracy. The totalitarian argues that a democracy is nothing short of mob rule, and there are those that are simply persuaded by those with fine sounding arguments. It is interesting that our modern democracies aren’t direct democracies like those of the Ancient Greeks. In a way there is a system of checks and balances, if only to make sure that some idiot with a fine sounding argument doesn’t come along and create laws that could be incredibly disastrous (and Nazi Germany is a case in point here). Sure, we have our limits, and our flaws, but where we have a system where everybody votes on laws directly, then we could come up with some incredibly worrying trends. Yet there is an argument in favour of a dictatorship, and that is that dictatorships get things done. However, there are flaws in that unless you have a benevolent dictator, then you are going to find that your freedoms are curtailed. Sure, a dictator gets things done, and China is a case in point here, but when you discover that not only is freedom of speech curtailed, but you will also find that a lot of other freedoms simply do not exist. In fact, it is rare that you will find a dictatorship where everybody benefits, or has any freedoms at all. Sure, there might be economic progress, but you will also discover that there will also be an awful lot of scapegoats. In the end the end goal of the dictatorship is for the dictator to maintain his power. Oh, and as for economic progress, well, you’ll probably discover that somewhere along the line the regime has basically cooked the books. One interesting thing I noticed in the play is that one of the characters, Evadne, bemoans the death of her son, and how with her son’s death her life is now a misery. Well, this was important back then, especially since women had no rights whatsoever, and the children were responsible for the care of the elderly. Well, when it came to the men being elderly wasn’t really something that happened all that much, with having to go and fight wars and such, but this is not really the case with the women. They needed progeny to survive, and when children were killed then it is likely that they would be left out in the cold. The other thing Evadne mentions is about having a second chance at life so that she could avoid the mistakes that she made in the first go. Well, that would be wonderful, wouldn’t it, if it wasn’t for the butterfly effect. Basically, if you avoid one mistake, well, you will pretty quickly discover that the life you are now living is nothing like the life you lived previously, and all of the sudden you are faced with a new set of challenges. Yeah, it would be great to avoid the mistakes that we made the first time around, but sometimes our situations are beyond our control, and sometimes the mistakes that we avoid mean that we end up missing out on the good times that we have had. Still, one does sometimes wander what would have happened if only … ...more |
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| 1854596381
| 9781854596383
| 1854596381
| 3.83
| 1,703
| -425
| Apr 01, 2002
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Jealousy Abounds 14 June 2018 It was when I was reading Racine’s version of this play that made me realise that there were a bunch of Euripidean plays Jealousy Abounds 14 June 2018 It was when I was reading Racine’s version of this play that made me realise that there were a bunch of Euripidean plays that I had yet to review. I’ve pretty much read all of them back in the deep dark distant pre-Goodreads days, but Euripides is one of those authors that I really can’t do justice in writing a review based off memory (or the Wikipedia entry), much in the same way that while I have read [book:Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), it would besmirch Gene Wilder’s name if I were to write a review without actually reading it again. As it turns out, the Racine version and this version are two completely different beasts – well, sort of. For instance, there isn’t this insane love triangle. In fact, the whole idea of love really doesn’t seem to come into it, but I suspect that has a lot to do with the cultural context of the respective plays. Okay, people in 17th Century France didn’t really marry for love either, sex yes, money yes, but not really love, but I better not go down that path that is fraught with danger. Sure, the Greeks did have an understanding of love, but not in the sense that we understand it, and when it came to women, well, as far as the Ancient Greeks were concerned they just existed to bare children. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that there wasn’t any jealousy, and this play goes to demonstrate that. The thing is that Andromache, Hector’s wife, was taken back to Greece as a slave by Achilles’ son Neoptolemos. She did have a child, but the child was thrown from the walls of Troy by the Greeks least he grow up and seek revenge against his father’s death by coming after Neoptolemos. Anyway the catch is that Andromache has had another child, this one Neoptolemos’ (which is another point where Racine departs since Neoptolemos and Andromache never got jiggy with it in his play) and this seems to raise a concern for Hermionie (who happens to have problems baring children herself). This is where it gets a little complicated because all of Achilles’ relatives don’t want anything to be done to the boy, and they particularly don’t want anything to done to Andromache. However, Hermione, who happens to be Menelaus’ daughter, basically wants both of them dead, and Menelaus is sort of on board with this (though his father isn’t all that thrilled about the idea). Anyway, after getting her to hold off for a bit, Orestes comes along, and they both run off together and put paid to Neoptolemos as he is returning home from Delphi (why they ended up killing him is beyond me – maybe it’s the jealousy factor). Yeah, the guy who wrote the introduction seemed to think this was a bit of a problem play as well. Then again, at the time Athens was at war with Sparta, and they do seem to heap scorn upon Menelaus, who happens to be king of Sparta. In fact they carry on about how much of a war monger he is, and he should have basically left Helen to her own devices and stayed home (though I suspect Agamemnon, who wanted to extend his imperial control, may have had a problem with this). He then leaves to go and put down a rebellion in a city that is supposed to be owing fealty to them, so yeah, I get a feeling that this play is a bit of an anti-Spartan tirade. I could argue that this has something to do with the plight of women, and the plight of slaves, but then again, this is Ancient Greece, and Euripides really doesn’t come across as being one of those anti-slaver type of dudes. Pro-women, yeah, he seemed to have a problem with the treatment of women, if his plays are anything to go by, but the slaves, well, they weren’t even Greek (in most cases, and at least in Athens) so technically they basically didn’t count. Anti-War, well, yes, but then again that seemed to be a regular theme at the time, particularly since Athens seemed to be on the losing side for most of the conflict (and how they lasted as long as they did is a miracle in itself, but then again it did have a lot to do with their navy, and the non-existence of siege engines). I’m probably going to put this down as one of Euripides’ lesser plays, though it still has some charm about it. Maybe one of the reasons that Racince sexed it up a bit was to give it a bit more depth, and a lot more bite. I think I’m going to go with Racine for this one. ...more |
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| 0763678023
| 9780763678029
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| 3.87
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| Feb 10, 2015
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The Graphic Novel 24 March 2017 I’ve just discovered this amazing new website. It’s called Reddit. Okay, I’m sure many of you have already head of it, o The Graphic Novel 24 March 2017 I’ve just discovered this amazing new website. It’s called Reddit. Okay, I’m sure many of you have already head of it, or are probably even users as well, it is just that while I had heard of it, and even visited it on occasion, I never really appreciated how useful it is until much more recently. In a way it is like Facebook, but your posts are not only anonymous, but you basically interact with everybody in the community you are posting, and you aren’t bugging your friend’s and family with posts that they are probably not interested in (and you can filter out the posts that you aren’t interested it, such as those on Curling, unless you like Curling). Anyway, the reason I raised this is because I posed a question to the Shakespeare subreddit (there is literally a subreddit on anything and everything, including Curling, not that I’m subscribed to it), and that was what was people’s opinion on turning Shakespeare into a graphic novel, and whether it could be considered butchering a classic. Okay, the words I used were a bit stronger, namely heresy, but I’m sure you get what I mean. Well, the general response was that nobody had a problem with it, though a number of people did mention that they probably wouldn’t read it. I actually found this version in an comic book store in Sydney that was closing down, so I ended up picking it up quite cheaply. My initial impression of it was that it was okay, and the artwork was reasonably good, and it was definitely much better than that Manga version of Julius Caeser I read quite some time ago. However, it is still Macbeth, and I’m really not a big fan of this particular play. I still remember when I had returned to school after a five year absence, and one of the first essays I had to write was on Macbeth, and I proceeded to describe Macbeth as ‘a d*ckh**d’. Needless to say my English teacher, who was very prim and proper, wasn’t at all impressed, and was informed that such language was not appropriate in a formal essay (at which point I then proved her wrong by quoting a ‘line’ out of another book). I’m not sure if I really need to go into the themes in Macbeth here, particularly since I have done it in my previous post on the actual play, and also have written a blog post on a version that I saw at The Globe in London. However, there were a couple of interesting things picked up, namely that back when the events of the story that Shakespeare borrowed the idea from castles didn’t exist in England (and Scotland), namely because they only appeared after William the Conquerer invaded. Also, the suggestion was that King James was a descendant of Banquo, however modern research proves that this is not quite the case. Anyway, this is Elizabethan theatre we are talking about, and much like modern Hollywood, historical accuracy is usually pushed to the side if it happens to get in the way of a good tale. ...more |
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