#shakespeare's histories

[socialshakespeare]

(Source)

So who's playing this month?

[snack-size-shakespeare]

two dumb questions: 1) how many characters in the tragedies kill their partners (homoerotic nemeses do count in this case) and 2 (the more important one)) are there enough to write a parody of the cell block tango

I don't know how long ago I got this, and I feel like the asker probably needed an answer fast! But I still like the question!

But I don't think there are many!

Othello killing Desdemona in OTHELLO. She's dead for real and I hate it.

2. Richard III killing Anne in RICHARD III. Bastard.

3. Aufidius killing Martius in CORIOLANUS

4.) Claudius accidentally poisoning Gertrude in HAMLET (while trying to poison someone else).

5). Iago killing Emilia in OTHELLO. Emilia's fantastic!!! I hate it!!!!

6). Posthuman sends a literal assassin after innocent Imogen in CYMBELINE. He's lucky the assassin changes his mind and warns her!! He went a step even further than Leontes, but like Leontes, he his romantic partner lived. Speaking of....

THE UN-SPECIAL MURDEROUS MENTIONS :

Leontes comes awfully close in THE WINTER'S TALE to killing Hermione! Fortunately, he's able to hold himself back, putting her on trial instead of an actual assassin. She lives!!! It's OK!!!! I actually like Leontes, in the end!

In many RICHARD II productions, Aumerle kills Richard. The murderer in the play, Exton, comes out of nowhere at the final second, and it's kind of a letdown. Whereas Aumerle disappears after trying to put teh King (with whom he also has a homoerotic connection), and then being forced to swear loyalty to Henry IV. So it's much more compelling if he does it!

Lucrece Killing Tarquin IN the THE RAPE OF LUCRECE (one of the narrative poems). He saw her as a romantic interest. He's her rapist, and she does not see him that way. She kills him!!. It's a well-deserved, satisfying moment. That could do interesting things in a CELL BLOCK TANGO parody!

More than I thought, actually! Enough to do a CELL BLOCK TANGO parody even without the Un-Special Mentions, if you include Posthumus on "attempted". Oh, damn, now I hope someone does it....

[heartofstanding]

Just a reminder that the sign-ups for the Histories Ficathon close this weekend!

If you want to sign up, please get your sign-up in before Sun 09 Jun 2024 11:59PM EDT!

If you would like to sign up but need extra time, please get in contact with either @skeleton-richard or myself!

You can sign-up here.

[skeleton-richard]

Do you have any particular Histories you’d recommend? I’ve already seen Richard II and Henry V, but I’m hoping to watch/read all of them at some point

You definitely need to see/read Henry IV pts. 1 and 2 then! Those fill in what happens between Richard II and Henry V and they're awesome.

There's also the First Tetralogy, Henry VI pts. 1, 2, 3, and Richard III, which covers the Wars of the Roses. I'm not as big a fan of those but they are good and part of the cycle.

King John gets overlooked a lot but it's actually great and @ardenrosegarden and I will die on that hill.

Are you looking for specific versions too?

[prokopetz]

One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play's dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It's one of my favourites for two reasons:

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

Imagine being the 1603 equivalent of the guy with the cell phone camera in the movie theatre, furtively scribbling down notes in a little book and hoping Shakespeare himself doesn't catch you.

[withasideofshakespeare]

HOLY COW! Thank you for all the responses! I've simplified this into a Google Form to alleviate genre confusion and because graphs are wonderful and easier to make via forms! Here's that form:

Now, here are the results (as best as I could measure them) from the tags in this post!

NOTE: There was some confusion about which plays are considered to be in which genres (probably because literally nobody agrees), so I just went with whatever play someone listed first in their tags if two were in the same genre (as listed by Riverside)

Comedies: Much Ado is the winner with Twelfth Night a close second! Notes: -There were 120 total votes for the comedies -Five comedies got no votes! -People gave Measure for Measure love as a problem play, but since Riverside does not consider it to be a separate genre, those votes were not counted (for ease of my counting.)

Tragedies! Hamlet wins with Macbeth in second place! Notes: -There were 121 total votes for the tragedies -Most tragedies had at least one vote (with the exception of Timon of Athens--however, people did attempt to give Timon love as a romance! Since Riverside doesn't consider it to be one, for ease of counting, I didn't count these votes, but I'll have you know, someone out there loves Timon of Athens!)

Histories! The Richards take the lead (and Richard II wins!) Notes: -There were 100 total votes for the histories -The correlation between "plays David Tennant was in" and "plays that are Tumblr's favorites" is 100% so far

Romances! The Tempest wins! Notes: -There were only 86 total votes for the romances -There was a lot of confusion about this genre (probably because it is VERY poorly named... my Shakespeare prof has resorted to calling these late comedies/romances "the tragicomedies," which I would argue is a more fitting name!

Alright, Shakespeare fans!

I am a robber and I have broken into your house and stolen your most precious belonging. I will not give it back unless you pick just one play from each genre (comedies, tragedies, histories, romances) to call your favorite. What do you say?

(If you haven’t read any plays in a certain genre, you can forgo answering for that one.)

(History lovers: the plays count individually. Ex: you cannot say your favorite is the entirety of the Henriad)

[its-not-a-pen]

--Written Chinese vs English--

[ID: A comic titled "Evolution of Written Chinese vs English". On the left, emperor Qin Shi Huang holds up a scroll and angrily points an ink brush at the viewer and shouts, "There should not be seven different ways to write 'horse'. Starting today everyone will use the same characters-- or else!" On the right, William Shakespeare laughs gleefully while holding a skull and quill and exclaims, "The first rule of English is to have fun and to thine own self be true!" Every word uses a non-standard spelling. Below the cut are full versions of the the panels and a blank version of the Chinese one. End ID]

I'm fascinated by the evolution of chinese and english "spelling." I grew up on hard-to-read Ye Olde English, and assumed all languages were like that. Imagine my shock when I discovered the chinese language had been standardised since 221BC, and I can read words written in the Han Dynasty.

full versions:

notes under the cut

For much of it's history, the English language played it fast and loose with spelling. (No one can spell things wrong if no one can spell things right!) Standardisation only began in the late 15th century as the use of the printing press spread across Europe.

I thought the best person to show this carefree attitude was the Bard himself; Willy Shakes. We have six surviving examples of Shakespeare's signature, and none of them are spelled the same way twice.

In comparison, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, standardised the writing system as early as 221 BC. He had conquered the six warring states and decided to do away with their writing systems. This made the administration of a centralised government easier, and it served as a demonstration of his absolute authority. The writing on the book* is "horse", and "torn apart by carriage".

**That scroll he's holding is actually called a book in Chinese, it is made up of bamboo slips, like a big sushi mat!

All designs are available on redbubble: I thought it would be fun to include a blank version of qin shi huang, so you can write stuff on him.

[demigoddessqueens]

Happy 2,068th to when we should totally just stab Caesar!! Grab a knife with your bestie!

[dogzcats]

OPHELIA (details)

But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death.

[yourgirlfoe]

Ya'll ever go, "fuckin' hell, I know this smell!" and it's the smell of a February evening from 2017 ?

[diioonysus]

women in art: titania

[ctnsto]

Beauty is terror.

[the-overanalyst]

i've come to realize there are only two kinds of tragedies: preventable and inevitable. preventable tragedies are the kind where everything could have maybe worked out if only. if only romeo had gotten the second letter. if only juliet had woken up earlier. if only creon had changed his mind about antigone sooner. if only orpheus hadn't turned around.

inevitable tragedies are the kind where everything was always going to end terribly. of course macbeth gets deposed, he murdered his way to the throne. of course oedipus goes mad, he married his own mother. of course achilles dies in the war, he had to fulfill the prophecy in order to avenge his lover.

both kinds have their merits. the first is more emotionally impactful, letting the audience cling to hope until the very end, when it's snatched away all at once leaving nothing but a void. the second is more thematically resonant, tracking an inherent fatal flaw in its hero to a natural and understandable conclusion, making it abundantly clear why everything has to happen the way it does.

[hello-is-anyone-there]

Me and the boys on Dunsinane Hill

[wh0-is-lily]

Queen Magazine, July 17th, 1968 Photographed by John Hedgecoe

[oscarwildin]

the academic trinity of “damn it, richard”