I’ve been seeing quite a few end-of-the-year posts all over the place, as one usually does around this time. And, even though I intend to do at least a few more posts here on the Willy Wigglestick blog before the end of the year, I am a church musician, so this month will be pretty busy for me. So I thought I’d take just a few minutes to look back at this year’s Shakespeare blogging here on the WW blog, to reflect on how it’s gone.
The first few months of the year were uneventful, as I took a bit of a hiatus from my blogging activities for a little while, after consolidating all of my blogs into one personal blog at Corybanter.com. However, by April, I had begun taking a new look at all the work I had put into the Willy Wigglesticks design here on WordPress, and I decided to revive the blog. And that went pretty well for a little while: I discovered Cunk on Shakespeare, re-watched the excellent Shakespeare based comedy called CompleteWorks, and wrote a reader’s guide to the textual history of Hamlet for my colleagues who attend Shakespeare Allowed! here in Nashville.
Things cooled off for a little while as I got busy wrapping up the choir season at my church job, but I did manage to write a review of the excellent book, The Millionaire and the Bard, a history of Henry Folger, founder of The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. After the summer was over, things came back to life here, as I began to contemplate the upcoming 400th anniversary of the publication of the First Folio.
As I worked on various posts about the Folio and its history, I decided to revamp the design of the blog just a bit. After a few little technical glitches, I managed to craft it into a design that I think looks good, and is easy to navigate. Shortly after that, I expanded the social media presence of the blog, with new dedicated accounts on Instagram, Threads, Post.news, Pixelfed, Tribel, MeWe and Mastodon. And to keep all of those social media feeds straight, I created a Linktree for the blog.
So, dear reader, despite a few little gaps throughout the year, it’s been a productive one for the Willy Wigglestick blog, I think. If you’ve popped in occasionally to read my Shakespeare content, you have my deepest thanks. I hope it’s been enjoyable for you, and that you keep coming back. I’d love to hear from readers about what they’ve liked here, or what they haven’t liked. As we head to 2024, I hope to keep bringing you interesting and entertaining Shakespeare content in the New Year. I hope your holiday season is enjoyable and fulfilling! Thanks for reading.
Last year, I got a great vocabulary-oriented card came called League of the Lexicon. With fairly simple rules, it explores the English language in all of its messy glory. Since I purchased the game, I have been subscribed to an occasional newsletter put out by the game’s makers, called Word Sauce. The most recent issue of Word Sauce was Shakespeare themed, and had all kinds of fun facts about Shakespeare and his use of language. I’ll just share a couple highlights here (I don’t know how long the link to the newsletter will last).
This infographic has some fun little facts about Shakespeare’s plays in an easy to digest format.
Shakespeare infographic from Word Sauce No. 5
Most fans of language, especially as it relates to Shakespeare, have seen this quote, or something like it.
This excerpt from YOLO Juliet is an entertaining little tidbit.
If you love the English language, I strongly encourage you to check out League of the Lexicon. It’s a fun game for the whole family, as they include one pack of cards that’s a little less challenging, for younger players or those who aren’t as confident in their skills, so players of different skill levels can all play together.
Since today is “Black Friday,” and since I’ve been looking at Macbeth a lot lately (in preparation for our next Shakespeare Allowed! reading in Nashville), I thought I would share one of my favorite Shakespeare oriented comedy videos: a hilarious sequence from the Rowan Atkinson/Richard Curtis series, Blackadder. In this clip, Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder has some fun with some pompous actors concerning the superstition over speaking the name of “the Scottish play.”
As funny as the clip is, I personally know many actors who believe in the old superstition 100%. (I do not, but I’m not a particularly superstitious person.) Interestingly enough, I never even learned of the tradition until I was in my mid-20s, even though I had done theater for several years before that. When I was told of it, I honestly thought they were pulling my leg, and it wasn’t until I began to poke fun at the idea that I found that they were deadly serious. So, these days, out of respect for my friends, I don’t criticize the superstition, even though I don’t believe it myself.
Anyway, enjoy the clip below (it’s one I share on this blog a couple years ago), and enjoy the bonus clip I’m posting, of a Blackadder episode that poked a little fun at Samuel Johnson, who in addition to his famous dictionary, was also a noted Shakespeare scholar.
Finally, this “summary” of Macbeth showed up on my Threads feed a few days ago, and it cracked me up.
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Over the past few days, I have been watching the comedy series Staged, starring David Tennant and Michael Sheen as somewhat fictionalized versions of themselves. (I had watched the first two seasons back around the time they first aired, but hadn’t realized they had filmed a third season.) The series began during Covid, and much of the series is filmed in the style of Zoom conversations between the two actors, as well as their partners and other actors and directors with whom they work. It’s not about Shakespeare per se, but both actors cut their teeth doing classical acting, including quite a bit of Shakespeare. And there are plenty of references to Shakespeare throughout the series (especially in the first season).
Sheen and Tennant did a little spoof of the series as Shakespeare and Marlowe for the British charity fundraiser, Comic Relief, back in 2021. It’s pretty hilarious, and gives you an idea of what Staged is like.
Meanwhile, you can watch the entire series (all three seasons) on this YouTube playlist.
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The first Shakespeare play I was ever completely captivated by was Hamlet. When I was in fourth or fifth grade (I don’t remember precisely), my parents let me stay up late to watch a production of Hamlet on PBS (I suspect it might have been the Derek Jacobi version from 1980). I don’t recall when I got it, but I remember trying to follow along in my Folger Library paperback of the play. It was this edition…
I don’t remember if I really knew what was going on, but I don’t recall having any difficulty following the action of the play.
One of the next Shakespeare milestones for me came several years later, when I was a senior in high school. The summer before that, my mother had taken me to see a production of King Lear at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. The whole concept was a “Mad Max” kind of post-apocalyptic setting, and I loved it. I was completely engaged through the entire play. So a few months later, when I gave speech team a try (I had done plays and musicals my first few years in high school), I chose a scene from Lear to do in the category of “dramatic interpretation.” I played Edmund and Gloucester, and even though I didn’t win any competitions, I always got good scores on my performance.
Fast-forward to 1990: by this time, I’m in college and Franco Zeffirelli’s film of Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson is in theaters. I went to see it with my girlfriend at the time, and I absolutely adored it. Compared to the BBC telecast I’d seen as a fifth-grader, this one was far more engaging and action-packed. When the VHS tape of Zeffirelli’s version came out, I got it, and I must have watched it a dozen times or more over the next few years. I began to see how Shakespeare was often cut and/or rearranged to serve the film medium. And I kept coming back to Hamlet again and again.
At some point in college, I also watched Laurence Olivier’s 1983 television film of King Lear with a friend of mine. (She was taking a Shakespeare class, I think, while I was just there for fun, because I loved Shakespeare.) I remember being particularly moved by the frailty of Olivier’s Lear.
Now here I am, some thirty years later, and I’m in my 50s. I’ve seen probably a dozen different productions of Hamlet, give or take, and probably half a dozen productions of King Lear. I’ve read both plays numerous times, studied them on my own, and I find myself from time to time wondering about the question I posed in the title of this blog post: which one is Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy? I don’t pretend to have a definitive answer to the question, but I do have a few thoughts:
Both plays are flawed. As much as I love them both, they aren’t perfectly written. Oh sure, they both contain some of the most beautiful language ever written in the English language. But they both pose questions. How old is Hamlet? Does he actually contemplate suicide or not? Does he delay or not? What happens to Lear’s Fool after the middle of the play? How are his daughters able to eliminate his whole coterie of knights so quickly? These are just a few of the questions that leap to mind, but there are others.
Both plays are brilliant. Hamlet’s soliloquies are some of the best-known speeches in all of English literature. King Lear is a masterpiece of dramatic writing. And, as I’ve watched all of these productions over the decades, and studied the texts behind them, I’ve seen that the number of ways actors and directors have found to bring these words to life is virtually limitless. There’s no single definitive Hamlet; there’s no single definitive Lear. Each actor brings to the role his (or her) own unique take on the character.
Hamlet will always occupy a special place in my heart and mind. As I read the play again and again, as I watch some of my favorite productions, and experience new ones on YouTube or live or in the theater, I find myself endlessly fascinated by this story and these character, and most importantly, by the language Shakespeare puts in their mouths. Often, as I’m watching a production, I find myself reciting many of these familiar words along with the actors (not in public, of course…that would be obnoxious). Even if I don’t like a particular version (I loathe Michael Almereyda’s 2000 film), I still find myself interested in the choices that actors and directors have made. I never grow tired of it.
The more I read and experience King Lear, the more impressed I am. There are times, when I’m reading a particular scene, or watching a particular actor’s interpretation, that I am simply amazed at how powerful the writing in King Lear is. The Shakespeare Allowed! program here in Nashville, which meets monthly to read through the canon, just read King Lear at the beginning of this month. When we got done, the artistic director of The Nashville Shakespeare Festival said, “I really think this is his masterpiece.” And I have to agree. If I simply look at Hamlet and King Lear on their own merits, I may lean just a bit towards the latter, as far as the quality of its writing is concerned. Just a bit…
And that’s the wonderful thing about these tragedies, and much of Shakespeare’s writing, isn’t it? It keeps us coming back to it, to discover more, to learn more…year after year, decade after decade, century after century. Millions of words have been written about these plays, and yet, it seems there’s always more to write. (Lord knows, I’ve just spent over an hour and a few hundred words trying to articulate a few of my thoughts.)
So which one of the plays, Hamlet or King Lear, is the greatest tragedy? I don’t know. And even if I had an answer today, it may change after I see the next production, or as I evolve as a human being. One thing is certain: they both have so much to teach us, and so much to say to us, as humans. They’ve been speaking to us for 400 years, and I have no doubt that they’ll speak to us for another 400 years…or more. It’s up to us to listen.
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Since this month marks the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, I’ve been discovering all kinds of sites online that are centered on the Folio. One of the coolest sites I recently discovered is the aptly titled FirstFolio.com. The site connects the user to various digital copies of the Folio from libraries around the world, and enables one to compare different copies of the Folio side-by-side. For example, here’s a look at Macbeth in two Folios: one from King’s College in Cambridge, the other from Boston Public Library.
I’ve reflected from time to time here on the blog about how amazing it is that we can browse through such a historic work of literature, just sitting at a computer screen. I’m sure it can’t compare with browsing through one of these wonderful books in person, but it seems to be the next best thing! And to be able to look at various copies side-by-side is almost magical.
I will be playing around on this site for quite some time, I think. I hope you give it a try as well.
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As I posted earlier, I’ve been having some fun lately with creating Shakespeare-themed AI art. Because…why not? I mean, if you can create an image of Shakespeare riding a velociraptor, why wouldn’t you?
Following the lead of Shakespeare Geek, I decided to give the AI art engine called DreamStudio a try. There are some interesting features on that site that make it a good alternative to Microsoft Bing, which I used to create the image above. For example, you can choose parameters like “fantasy art” or “photorealistic,” to add different kinds of textures to your creations. But you have to be careful how you word the prompts.
I thought it would be fun to try to create an image of Hamlet talking to Yorick’s skull, but have a teddy bear replace the skull. But I ended up with this (which is a cool picture, but not exactly what I asked for).
So I tried simplifying the prompt to “Hamlet talking to a teddy bear in a graveyard.” I got some pretty decent results, including this unusual take…
Again, a pretty neat picture, but not at all what I had envisioned!
Then things took a distinctly weird turn. Perhaps out of a perverse sense of humor, I asked for “William Shakespeare as Donald Trump.” I had tried this prompt with Bing, but it refused to create it, as it could be offensive to some people. That may have been for the best, considering a couple of the results below.
So maybe, dear reader, the lesson is: just because we have the technology to do something doesn’t mean we should.
I know I’m a little late to the AI Art party (I think Shakespeare Geek did this on his Twitter feed a little while back), but my Microsoft Edge browser just updated, and there are some new AI Chat features in the new version. So I decided to create a few Shakespeare images, just for fun. Here are some of the results…
“Futuristic Shakespeare”
“Shakespeare as a mime” (I’m intrigued by the spelling of Shakespeare’s name on the marquee behind the mime.)
“Shakespeare as a comic book superhero”
“Shakespeare in the style of Salvador Dali” (This one is a bit disturbing. I don’t know where the shrimp came from.)
“Shakespeare in the style of M.C. Escher” (This one is kind of cool…in a weird way.)
“Shakespeare in the style of Gustav Klimt” (Not exactly what I was expecting, but kind of nice?)
By all means, let me know if you’ve created any Shakespearean AI art of your own, or if you think there’s another prompt I should try!
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Another site I just stumbled on during this 400th Anniversary year of Shakespeare’s First Folio is Folio400.com. It’s a fascinating, well designed look at the First Folio, focusing primarily on the process of printing the landmark work, but also providing a wealth of information about the plays in the Folio. Replete with graphics, animations, and recordings, it’s one of my new favorite Shakespeare sites! Do yourself a favor and check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
It’s been many years since I saw the 2004 film of The Merchant of Venice, so I didn’t remember much about its score. However, I was just listening to this playlist from Radio 3 in Great Britain, which was compiled to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. This setting of “How sweet the moonlight” from Jocelyn Pook’s film score of Merchant is amazingly, heartrendingly beautiful. Enjoy!
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Willy Wigglestick 