Group Read?

Would anybody be interested in a group read? If so, what work would you be interested in? (You can read online for free here: https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/).

I'll lurk!

I would be very interested. I recently bought 1599:A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. Is this the sort of work you have in mind? Or are you more interested in reading the plays themselves?

>1 Tess_W: Not if we are going to read something that is only available online.

If we are talking the plays or a book around them and/or Shakespeare, I am interested.

>4 AnnieMod:
I think by reading online she just means that WS texts are available online at ISE for those dont have or dont want to buy a text.

>5 Crypto-Willobie: exactly

I'm more interested in the plays than about Shakespeare. Why don't we take nominations and see which one is most popular?

I'll suggest King John and Coriolanus.

I've been meaning to read Richard III!

I would be content to read any of them.

>6 Tess_W:

Fwiw, King John was championed by Harold Bloom, and Coriolanus by T. S. Eliot.

4 nominations thus far:
1. King John
2. Coriolanus
3. Richard III
4. 1599:A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

2 I don't cares/will read anything

Anymore nominations?

A year long project with The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 in Q4 and the 3 plays it deals with (King Lear, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra) in Q1-Q3 :)

The 1599 book is on my radar but if it is anything like the 1606 one (I decided not to read it this year so I can reread the plays, then got in the middle of Lear retellings and now it is in my next year's plans), you are better off reading the 4 1599 plays before you read it (or alongside it).

Oh - and I'd read almost anything - just throwing ideas :)

>11 AnnieMod: Annie, I spent about 30 minutes researching the four 1599 plays--and not one single source agree on which four, some have six, etc. It appears as if you are more knowledgeable than myself about 1599, so could you list the 4 aforementioned works?

>12 Tess_W: The ones Shapiro puts in 1599 - Hamlet (first draft), Henry V(just completed in that year), As You Like It and Julius Caesar. We are talking about reading his book after all - not just reading plays by year. I am not sure how important that is - I had not looked at the 1599 book but I looked at the 1606 one and that one has enough about the plays to make it better to know them before you read the book (or have passing familiarity anyway). Both books are Less about the plays and more about the world of that year and his life from what I can see but still.

Otherwise I agree - dating plays can be complicated. Hope this makes sense.

>13 AnnieMod: makes sense to me!

More thoughts on a group read.
Timing: I'm thinking that a group read in January would be best. It's already November and would be December by the time others secured the books if they are getting from library. December is not a good time for all to be able to read with the holidays, IMHO. Is January OK with everybody?

I have set up a poll for you to vote on the reads suggested thus far. Please vote for your top 2 favorites. Please note that Annie has said the 1599 book would be better read after reading one or all of his 1599 plays. (Hamlet, Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like it)

Please vote here no later than Saturday November 20 at 5pm EST.

https://www.easypolls.net/poll.html?p=6185ebfae4b0393e13991a37

Oh, dear! Shakespeare. I struggle with Shakespeare. To be honest, I struggle with anything older than the 19th century. But I am kind of curious, though I'm not sure if I have enough commitment to put in a vote. Oh, well, if it's a good winner I might consider jumping in, come January.

>15 Majel-Susan:

Some plays are more straightforward than others, e.g. Much Ado or Julius Caesar. One way to approach them is to watch a decent movie-tv-video version of the play, and don't sweat the language -- just watch it and let it wash over you. Then when you read it you'll have (visual) reference points for what you are reading.

>16 Crypto-Willobie: That is true. That would be new.

I haven't read that much Shakespeare, only four plays, but Macbeth is the only one I've actually ever really enjoyed. Of course, it helped plenty, though, that my mum had an excellently annotated edition of Macbeth. Pity, but it got destroyed...

And the winner is: Richard III. Secure your copies and we will begin reading the first week in January!

>18 Tess_W: This will be... interesting - considering how the whole world's opinion about Richard is based on the play... and the play is fiction :)

>19 AnnieMod: perhaps there will be some of us who have some Richard III knowledge that is not fiction that can contribute and we can compare and contrast.

>20 Tess_W: The historians had split into two camps on that - so it can get interesting. I had not read this play in a while so I am going to join in :)

Thanks for organizing it!

Which edition of Richard III? Or does it matter?

>22 LaureneRS: I'm not an expert on the Bard or on translations. I have an anthology of his histories published by Everyman's Library, edited by Sylvan Barnet. I'm reading from that.

Most texts you will find of Richard III are (more or less) identical. They will be based on the 1623 First Folio text, with occasional readings (rarely longer than a single word) imported from the 1597 Quarto text, or 'corrected' by an editor. Scholars disagree on the exact relation of the two texts but agree that F1 is the superior one. If for some reason you wanted to read Q1 you would have to dig around to find a scholarly edition.

As to annotations, introductions, glossaries, etc, editions vary widely and you'll never get everyone reading the same edition. So ignore page numbers and go by Act and Scene numbers. Line numbers can vary from edition to edition depending on page width, amount of prose, etc, but shouldn't be too hard to translate from copy to copy.

>24 Crypto-Willobie: TY I was sure someone else knew more than I!

I'm going to start Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485 in the next day or two so I will have some working knowledge of Richard III. (although I have read A Rose for the Crown by Anne Easter Smith--a historical fiction which I found fascinating)

>24 Crypto-Willobie: Thank you.

There will be a monthly Shakespeare read in the CATEGORY CHALLENGE Group in 2022. The topics/leaders are as follows:

January NinieB King Lear & Its Themes

February Susanna.Fraser rom com Much Ado About Nothing

March Silver Wolf Book based on a Shakespeare Play

April pamelad Hamlet Revenge

May- Tanya-dogearedcopy -Shakespeare’s Kings / Medieval History

June miss_watson Julius Caesar. Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus Ancient History

July- Tess_W Measure for Measure, The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice theme: justice

August mstrust Lesser known works

September thornton37814- Shakespeare sonnets/poems

October Christina_reads Macbeth Themes: murder, witchcraft, politics

November KristelH books fiction or nonfiction about Shakespeare/Globe Theater.

December ladyoftheLodge A Winter's Tale

The group link is: https://www.librarything.com/ngroups/23540/2022-Category-Challenge

>24 Crypto-Willobie: "they will be based on the 1623 First Folio text, with occasional readings (rarely longer than a single word) imported from the 1597 Quarto text"

Unless you use the current Norton Critical Edition which is "based on the First Quarto (1597) edition of the play with interpolations from the First Folio (1623)." (to quote them).

>29 AnnieMod:
Ha! a rather eccentric choice of copy-text. I don't have that edition (how'd that happen!) so wasn't aware. Who's the editor? John Jowett? (I've looked it up and it's Thomas Cartelli. I've seen him speak at the SAA but have never met him.)

Q differs from F enough that for much of the last century it has been thought to be a so-called 'bad quarto' (that is, a text based on F but reconstructed from memory or shorthand) -- though a rather good bad quarto. It has been rehabilitated recently, as we see. I suppose then one of the things we might learn is how WS revised certain passages...

ETA - I've ordered a Norton now...

>30 Crypto-Willobie: I have the Arden (3rd) and the Norton (plus a few nice editions I plan to pull down and see what version they are using - at least one is the Oxford I think). So we will see.

Norton had a somewhat interesting choice for the King Lear as well (the Folio as a base there with the Quatro interpolated) - so I am not really surprised that they did their own thing again. But then King Lear’s two versions have a lot more complicated relationship than the Richard III ones and had always been considered complete versions and mixed and matched. :)

>30 Crypto-Willobie: BTW: In his note on the text, Cartelli does credit Jowett with the suggestion for the rehabilitation of the Quarto. He does not include an excerpt in the criticism section though. And apparently in few places he even chose texts from Q2 and Q3. Why do I have the feeling that I will fall down that rabbit hole the same way I did with Lear this year. :)

I haven't finished reading this yet (bedtime!), but it seems to sum up the current state of editorial opinion.
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/richard-iii/an-introduction-to...