Shakespeare

Uncategorized Sunday, April 10th, 2005

 

If there’s a book equivalent of DVDs, it’s these awesome Shakespeare books. And I don’t mean those lame, large-format blue ones we had at school. I’m talking the ‘Arden Shakespeare’ series. My copy of King Lear has 22 illustrations, a 151 page introduction, at least half a page of explanatory footnotes per page, marks showing where a piece of script was only present in the Folio or Quarto editions, two appendices, and an index.

Absolutely PACKED with extras, basically. The play’s not bad so far, either, although it’s pretty damn long. I reckon I could read the whole of Macbeth in the time it took me to read the first act. I was always put off by the stupid-seeming beginning, where Lear splits his kingdom into three to give to his sisters. But things have only improved since then.

In this age of remakes, I’m surprised that Romeo + Juliet was the only modernised version of a Shakespeare play done recently. By which I mean, keeping the language intact. Not that I scoff on 10 Things I Hate About You, but I quite like listening to the old-fashioned dialogue in a modern context. Damn, Romeo + Juliet was cool.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Sunday, April 10th, 2005. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Shakespeare”


  1. Shannon
    April 11th, 2005 at 2:15 am

    Richard III? Much Ado? Midsummer nights dream? The Merchant of Venice (which came out this year)…?You have a strange definition of the word ‘only’…


  2. Tom
    April 11th, 2005 at 9:45 am

    OK, that’s weird. How come you posted once as me? I might have to fix that.

    And, er, none of those films are modernised. Unless I have a strange definition of modernised. Mine is: set in modern times, with naturalistic dialogue delivery.


  3. Shannon
    April 11th, 2005 at 6:47 pm

    Richard III fits that description exactly. Much ado is hard to set anywhere (or in any time period) but its own fairyland. Granted Much Ado and Merchant were done in period costume.

    And don’t worry about the posting-as-you thing. Its nothing you need to fix. I just need to pay more attention to autocomplete next time.


  4. Tom
    April 11th, 2005 at 10:55 pm

    Richard III is set in the 1930’s as far as I can tell from IMDB. I’ve never seen it myself, though I really want to. Much ado looked to me very early 20th Century.

    So I think my point stands. Richard III, in 1995, is also pushing ‘recently’ to my mind. But I agree it’s the closest to what I’m after of all the not-Romeo + Juliet Shakespeare movies.


  5. Shannon
    April 18th, 2005 at 7:22 pm

    You said set in modern times you didn’t say set last week. To me, the 30’s is modern. I’m sorry Tom but it is. When talking about Shakespeare, anything not set pretty much in Elizabethan england is modern. You have to at least grant that anything set in this (or rather, last) century is “modern”. That point stands again for Much Ado. As for your 1995 argument, come on! Romeo+Juliet was only, what 99? You’re just getting finicky now!


  6. Shannon
    April 18th, 2005 at 7:25 pm

    And I think one can safely say when the title character yells “A horse, A horse, My kingdom for a horse” because his jeep has broken down… er how shall I put this.. MODERN.

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