So I’m reading Shakespeare. And I’m watching Shakespeare.[1] In particular, I am studying the Henry IV plays and Henry V. And I notice something: all these low characters (Falstaff, Prince Hal) speak in prose, while all the high characters (Henry IV, Henry V) speak in verse. This does not come as a shock. I think that for a layperson to really appreciate Shakespeare, he must admit the poet’s defects—which are many. And perhaps his biggest defect is how much he sucks up to authority.

It is hard not to see Shakespeare’s personal story as anything but a 16th century Horatio Alger: poor young man goes to the big city and comes back home triumphant. And therefore, it is hard not to see Shakespeare as primarily a businessman rather than an artist. He apparently did not write anything the last several years of his life. It is doubtful that this is due to the high standards he had by this time, because his last few plays were garbage. Maybe the old man (My age!) just felt he didn’t have it in him any more. But doesn’t it make more sense that his fortune was secure and that it was always about the money?

One of his last plays, Cardenio is lost to us. There is probably a reason for this, like: it was not very good. It is believed to be based upon Don Quixote. So perhaps Shakespeare and Fletcher[2] can be forgiven, because as I know, Don Quixote is a damned hard book to adapt; it’s the novel version of The Illiad. But this does provide a nice contrast: Shakespeare as the landlord during his last years compared to Cervantes, who pretty much died with pen in hand.

Shakespeare Apologists

I tried to find some information on how much of the various plays were verse and how much prose. I’m sure I’ve seen this kind of information before, but I couldn’t find it online. Instead, I found the following on Cummings Study Guides:

This is the ultimate. It would make Christian apologists proud. “Yeah, it’s true that Shakespeare clearly thinks that royalty are better than common men, but there are exceptions so it isn’t true!” Let’s see the logic here. Hamlet—an enormous part—is sometimes written in prose. The same goes for a minor character in Coriolanus. Does this need comment?!

The witches in Macbeth and Caliban, son of a witch, in The Tempest are written in verse. Maybe the fact that they are not, you know, part of the normal world has something to do with this? Consider, if you will, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

It is hard for me to speak of The Merchant of Venice, because I don’t know it very well due to the fact that it is such an offensive play—far more offensive than Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Let me only say that the evidence here is pretty unsatisfying. Are we really to believe that Shakespeare, the landlord, really thought it was the dirty world of money?

And Much Ado About Nothing? I just don’t see how a comedy written almost entirely in prose is an argument against the original claim.

The Case for Shakespeare

Let me make the case that Shakespeare wasn’t a classist asshole: he was. But everyone was. He wasn’t writing in modern America. You have to take an artist in the context of his time. I make this case to people about film all the time: Citizen Kane is not a great film because it is better than films today; it is a great film because it was head-and-shoulders better than anything in 1945. So why should Shakespeare be held to a higher standard?

Now let me demolish this argument, which I think is as strong a defense as one can make for Shakespeare: Cervantes. Miguel de Cervantes was very much a man of his time. He too was a classist. He was a Catholic. He was in no way a modern man. And yet, Don Quixote and Exemplary Novels transcend this in a way that Shakespeare’s work never did.

Still, I accept the argument I made above for Shakespeare. But I also accept the fact that Shakespeare was simply one of the best five or so playwrights in London at the end of the 16th century. I don’t think he was the best at that time and place, much less the best in the English language or (Gasp!) ever. This is what I find so frustrating about Shakespeare. There is so much to like. Hell, I memorize speeches from his plays for no reason but the joy of it. There are characters I love like Benedick and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. But there are also characters I despise like Claudio and Hero in Much Ado About Nothing. Why can’t people see this? Why are good plays by Ben Jonson and John Webster and many others so rarely performed, while bad plays of Shakespeare are finely tuned to make them palatable? I don’t know. It is all about history, I suppose. But so are the Nazis. That doesn’t mean we honor Nazism as the greatest form of governance the world has ever know![3]

[1] It is wrong to say that I, or anyone, watches Shakespeare. Each play gets so much help from editors, writers, directors, costume designers, art directors, and perhaps most of all, actors, that any Shakespeare play or movie is a collaboration, with That Bard giving less than he gets. It is perhaps also wrong to say that we read Shakespeare. Gary Taylor has pointed out that pronunciations have changed so much since the late 16th century, that when reading Shakespeare, we are reading another language. This, of course, does not stop the worshipers. Just one example about a production of Titus Andronicus from Wikipedia [Underlining is mine -FM]:

[2] I really don’t know why I mention Fletcher, because many of Shakespeare’s plays were collaborations (probably many more than we know). In general, Shakespeare gets all the credit, so I see no reason why he should not get all the blame.

[3] Might as well cut to the chase and end with Godwin’s Law.

I’ve been thinking about Falstaff for a couple of weeks now, as is evidenced by my trolling around over at Shakespeare Geek. So I’ve been hitting The Book (my old and rather bad Complete Works of That Bard), trying to make some sense of Orson Welles’ Chimes at Midnight. In particular, there is a scene after Henry turns away from Falstaff, in which Henry says, “Enlarge the man committed yesterday.” At this, one of the king’s advisers asks, “Falstaff?” That was a bit of surprise, but I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t just because I hadn’t been paying attention.

King Henry’s line is from a speech in Henry V, where he uses it to trap (sort of) Richard Earl of Cambridge, Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and Sir Thomas Grey:

Going back to Kenneth Branagh’s filmed version of Henry V, I watched and listened carefully: was he talking about Falstaff? No. But that hardly means anything. I knew from experience that Branagh had cut the hell out of the play and added some of Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2—quite awkwardly, I think, which is too bad because Robbie Coltrane is really wonderful as Falstaff (better than Welles).

So I went to the text itself, and the truth is that it could be. Henry gives the speech in Act 2, Scene 2 and we don’t find out that Falstaff is dead until Act 2, Scene 3. So it could be Falstaff he is talking about. But it doesn’t matter. And it probably isn’t. In fact, it is probably the case that there was no one “that railed against our person.” The scene uses it only as a ruse.

Thus we come to Welles’ brilliance as a storyteller. There is a real problem with Henry V: after two Henry IV plays, he is clearly a dick. Welles manages to fix this problem by taking this little speech entirely out of context, to show that Henry really does still care about Falstaff. It is interesting that in My Own Private Idaho, Gus Van Sant uses the two funeral scenes to do the same thing. As much as I like Van Sant, I doubt he would have come up with this on his own. Welles was a great director (film and theater) almost from birth and this is a perfect example of his greatness.

Tune in Tomorrow

Tomorrow, I will write about something else that has been bugging me about Falstaff. And even more so: That Bard.

Update

Make that “today” because it is already tomorrow.