teenage girl discovers that Shakespeare is good pt. 2

I can’t stop the Shakespeare grind. It’s consumed my mind. I’ve signed up for a Shakespeare class next semester, I’ve amassed trillions of Folger editions, I’ve started a collection of memes… I’m beyond saving. I think Vonnegut once said that writing with no obstacles was like playing tennis without a net, and the magic of iambic pentameter requires a precision of language (or a lack thereof) that keeps me coming back for more. Thoughts are terrible, abstract things until you force them into 10 syllables with alternating stresses.

Plus, I feel so academia-university-classics when I read them that I’ve started to read more and more romances and thrillers in order to balance the out-of-character smart reading I’ve been doing. I’m trying to stick to the tragedies, though I veered off a little; however, I read these plays faster than I can write these articles, so I’m almost done with the tragedies and will soon move onto the histories. Until then, may the sadness reign and tragedies be written about!

• Macbeth

Other than Poor Tom from King Lear, the three weirding witches are the funniest Shakespeare characters so far. I wish I was a weird old lady that hangs out with my other weird sisters and sees the future on command and causes the collapse of Macbeth’s short-lived empire. 
Thematically, I found this show to be rich in ambition and treachery but at the behest of antagonizing women and creating a one-dimensional female character.

Lady Macbeth was relegated to being a glorified enabler or conspirator simply for the sake of her own ambitions for her husband rather than his own desires. I felt that towards the beginning, Macbeth feels that he’s in too deep to stop their plot rather than pushing it along intentionally and eventually takes control while Shakespeare employs Lady Macbeth as a greasing agent. Part of the tragedy is Macbeth’s fall from grace into insanity, and yet I lack that pity because it implies that Lady Macbeth forced her husband into a ploy that would benefit solely her when that is simply not the case. Lady Macbeth is far from innocent, but Macbeth himself is no deceived Othello.

As far as the plot goes, the reveal of the little C-section bit was slightly lack-luster to me. Maybe it was like when people found out that Vader was Luke’s father, but at this point, it felt too deus ex machina to be an ‘aha’ moment. Despite my criticisms, I did really enjoy reading this play. It’s atmospheric, spooky, and action-packed, ultimately one of my favorites so far.

• A Winter’s Tale

I was told that this was a tragicomedy which is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. That is just a dark comedy. I won’t get into my problems with categorization just yet, don’t worry. 

This show was hard for me to get through, partly because I snuck the book in my luggage when on a mandatory religious retreat for my high school that banned phones and anything that could provide alternate entertainment. The other part was the (in my opinion) choppy plot that relied too much on tumult and oddity to make a real point.

Though I am a victim of seasonal depression and relish in the idea of the dangers of erratic decisions in the hands of paranoid, powerful men, I was just kind of bored. Concept can only take you so far, and his wife coming back to life in the end sealed the deal for me.

• Antony and Cleopatra

This show had everything I love about Shakespeare– love, desire, power, politics, betrayal! I was fed for weeks off of this play. When two heavenly bodies collide, the aftermath is a cosmic mess that leaves two besieged empires headless. Antony and Cleopatra’s characters felt tangible and I audibly gasped in anticipation of seeing their reactions to the current scene, turning into the target audience of Shakespeare’s trademark dramatic irony.

The couple’s love directly influenced both of their political behavior and therefore prevented the inherent patronization of a woman in power such as Cleopatra by insinuating that masculinity and conquest can also maintain symptoms as universal as jealousy and longing. With Caesar and Octavia as middle men in their burning romance and war raging around and between them, Antony can’t decide between love and duty while Cleopatra sees the two as not mutually exclusive leaving their subjects at the mercy of their incendiary relationship.

***

Shakespeare represents an entire era of drama where the ultimate power of a playwright was restraint in structure with utter indulgence in theme, plot, and cast. Much to my continual surprise as a teenage girl right now in this given moment of 2023, I am surprised that Shakespeare is actually good.