sweetsilentsessions: Glenn Feole on Shakespeare

sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com glennlouisfeole@gmail.com Other blogs: readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com (essays on reading the dictionary) artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com The Merry Wives of Windsor     I have to agree with the consensus of critics that this is not a very laudable play…among the weakest to be politic.   Falstaff, according to Harold Bloom, is not even truly Falstaff here.   The witty, irresistible Falstaff is reduced to a lusty buffoon… and Bloom was not amused.        In any case, it was a hard read for me until, thankfully, I got to the very last page.   And there it was: a beautiful passage on love.   It was as if, finally, the true Shakespeare emerged with all his poignancy and poetic insight.   It is one of only three quotes that I will list from this play, if that says something… “In love the Heavens themselves do guide the state. Money buys lands, and wives are sold b...

sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com glennlouisfeole@gmail.com Other blogs: readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com Love’s Labor Lost      Harold Bloom, the eminent and pre-eminent Shakespearean scholar, considers   Love’s Labor’s Lost to be his most pleasurable play.   This is due to what he has referred to elsewhere as Shakespeare’s ‘panoply of puns.’   It is his most playful and exhilarating play, perhaps being the lodestone that freed him to be more creative with subsequent plays.   I know that it is not a tragedy or a pure romance, but I was disappointed that I didn’t feel as emotionally connected to the characters as in other plays.   Perhaps this was due to the underlying subterfuge involved as King Navarre and his three scholars try to romantically mislead the three women…and vice versa.   But there is consolation in the word play, which, according to Bloom, even tops that ...

sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com glennlouisfeole@gmail.com Other blogs: readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com (essays on reading the dictionary) artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com The Life and Death of King John      I just finished this play today.  Looking back at past plays and quotes, I can see how I will savor them with re-reading and meditating on their content and poetry.   So many details, themes and beauty to emerge...        King John is an intricate commentary on the lust for power, a House of Cards for their times.  Who is the rightful heir to the crown?   W ill France successfully invade England?   Will France usurp England’s royal crown?   King John is even willing to murder his nephew, Arthur, to make sure that this rightful heir will not become king.   Ironically, Arthur survives due to the compassion felt by Hubert for this innocent child; quite a contrast to the politic...

sweetsilentsessions.blogspot.com glennlouisfeole@gmail.com Other blogs: readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com (essays on reading the dictionary) artbyglennfeole.blogspot.com Page 1 The Suggested Reading List from The Brooklyn College MFA Program in Creative Writing    Kelly just left a comment about not being able to find the Suggested Reading List that inspired me to continue reading the classics.  They must have just removed the list, although I imagine that I had printed it a dozen times, keeping a copy with me whenever I would run into the used book store.    So...I took pictures of my worn copy (6 pages) and have posted them below for all of you.  It looks like an ancient manuscript: torn, creased, dog eared and spotted with coffee...perfect for all of us...bibliophiles and literature afficionado's.  :) Page 2 Page 5 Page 3 Page 6 Page 4

sweetsilentsession.blogspot.com readingthedictionaryztoa.blogspot.com glennlouisfeole@gmail.com The Comedy of Errors       Although a comedy of mistaken identity of two identical twins, my attention is focused on more important themes, such as Shakespeare’s humorous comments on baldness (“a bald conclusion”), and Dromio’s anguish at being pursued by a woman that he wants to literally run away from   (“she is spherical, like a globe”).   Thrown in, of course, are insightful comments about marriage (the neglected wife ‘starve for a merry look’), spirituality (“teach sin the carriage of a holy saint”), jealousy, sadness, angry epithets, and doctors (“you are a conjurer”).            But the ultimate, and penultimate, touching themes that I always gravitate to are the passage of time as we age (that time of “sap-consuming winter’s drizzled snow” …”Yet hath my night of life some memory”), and professions of deep f...