One good playwright brings forth another

After reading through Norma Miller's collection of Menander's plays I feel like I need to brush up my Shakespeare.

Both of these authors' plays are still relevant, in spite of time. But both also have elements that seem odd or even uncomfortable to us.

Shakespeare has his tween-age weddings and near cast-wide die offs. Menander has a whole other culture's references (are cooks still stereotyped as thieves?), and quite a bit of casual rape.

That is, rapes are central to quite a few of his plots, and more often than not the raped woman ends up  marrying her rapist. But she does so silently - neither she nor the society within the plays comment. If anything, this scenario is practicallly presented as the norm. It's as if it were an ordinary way for people to wind up married. That makes it especially disconcerting.

That's what makes me curious about Shakespeare's plays. They were written hundreds rather than thousands of years ago, but Elizabethan culture is quite different from our own. Surely, Shakespeare's plays have something of their own that makes us truly uncomfortable.

As per this specific collection of Menander's works, it was definitely made with specialists in mind. Miller constantly references scholarly works, and subjects the odd part or two of a play to a general cultural/histotical analysis. She clearly put this collection together for those who already know Menander, but if you just want to read his plays then using this book is a fine way to do so.

A nod to what's come before

As a writer my version of utopia is simply a place where knowledge and appreciation of the written word stands for something. It would be the sort of place where knowing Chaucer and Shakespeare could actually help you nail an interview or help your job applications stand out from the rest. Thus far, it seems like Hellenistic Greece is the place most like what I envision for this utopia of mine.

Except change Chaucer and Shakespeare for Homer.

And throw in an education system involving rote learning and the repetition of phrases. And don't forget tossing the copying of fables and aphorisms until their meaning becomes a numbed mass, collapsed before any reader into the mix as well.

That's the horror that Marrou sets out in his look at Hellinistic literature instruction. It's a place where creativity is stifled, and yet there's a refreshing lack of fear around being unoriginal. If an Hellenistic poet referred to one of his or her ancient ancestors of the craft, it would be lauded. Unlike today, where there's a constant push to do things new and novel. But at least we've got our creativity.

This chapter wasn't just about building up my own expectations of there ever having been a literary utopia and then tearing them down, though. In it Marrou makes a very poignant observation: As a civilization concretizes its culture's forms and values those forms and values make their way from the halls of the civilization's highest education down into its primary schools. An example of this process in our own society is computer programming.

At one time computer programming was reserved for university and college students (in part because only institutions could afford and house the room-sized processors we had to deal with). But now, computer programming is a common course in high schools, and no doubt has some presence in elementary curricula, too.

Marrou's observation is thus a look at his thesis (that a civilization's most prized values and culture is to be found in its educational system) in living motion. Perhaps it's a bit of a self-aggrandizing move, but if it's there, it's there.

Gately and the ghost

Today's post is sponsored by Grammarly. Use Grammarly to ensure that your writing's error-free because sticks and stones can break bones, but poorly edited words hurt more.

Infinite Jest has had some dense sections. There have been whole parts where pages and pages get flipped without a paragraph break in sight. The most intense so far (probably because it's clearer just what's going on) is the part wherein Gately is visited by a series of people while in the Trauma Center of a hospital. These visitors include the wraith of the late J.O. Incandenza. At least, that seems to be the earthly identity of the wraith that appears to Gately as he dips in and out of consciousness.

The wraith reveals his issues with his dad, mentions a childhood in the Southwest and on the West Coast, and that, of all of his offspring, his youngest son is the most like him. The wraith also talks about his career as a film maker. In fact, specific mention is made of a certain entertainment of his, too. A final project designed to pull his youngest son, whom he thinks is falling into figurant silence, back into the spotlight of life. A film that will make the son speak out again, even if only to ask for more. The whole scene is extremely revelatory about "the Entertainment," the film known as Infinite Jest (V).

At a guess, this whole business with the wraith related to the ghostly interventions found in Hamlet.

Why guess that?

Well, for starters, the novel's title is a nod to that play of the Bard's. Gately also remembers that it's Tiny Ewell's favourite Shakespearean play when Tiny Ewell visits him and vents about being a third grade extortionist (810-814). Then, when Gately has a bunch of words that he's never encountered before flash through his mind "Laertes" and "Yorick" are among them (832).

Indeed, there is more in this scene and in this section than words and characters, David.

Of rehab and an academy

Don Gately's exhaustive discussion of Boston Mass. AA and their different meetings and going to different groups for "commitments" and all that remind me of something. Hal and the Enfield Tennis Academy's players going around for tournaments. Yeah, on the surface, the latter's competitive while the former's more collaborative and social. But the tournaments, as described in the book, are definitely social and involve a lot of bonding between members of ETA's away team.

Wallace has Gately go into such painstaking detail about the different cliques within the AA group, though, it's hard to not see that bunch and Hal's ETA milieu as mirrors of each other. Getting into "The Show," the full-on pro circuit, seems to be pretty high stress and something that drives a lot of the pro tennis players discussed in the book to drugs or booze. At the very least, both the AA group and the ETA crowd are in the "In Here" to the "Out There" that is everything aside from either. In that sense, both are closed worlds.

As the plot slowly gets dredged up (we're talking hand crank-driven dredging here), it's becoming clearer and clearer that Infinite Jest is about its characters far more than the socio-political intrigues that make up its plot. To that end, it's definitely a book about these characters inner lives, about the contents of skulls that a Danish prince might have, in an earlier time, held aloft and soliloquised to. But can we really know these Yoricks?

And the Curtain Closes

The Two Gentlemen of Verona may as well have never have ended. It's not that it was a particularly grand play in terms of its plot. It may be jam-packed with great comedy, but its character interactions aren't particularly novel or touching (except, perhaps Speed's with his dog Crab).

Why it shouldn't have ended is simply because it doesn't end as almost all other Shakespeare plays end: with the character who wields the most power saying something conclusive in a couplet. The Two Gentlemen of Verona ends instead, with the de facto hero, Valentine uttering some words. That's it. Having been taught and having experienced Shakespeare's trademark ending device so many times, it really feels like The Two Gentlemen of Verona has an extra, lost scene.

In spite of its marks of being an early work, it still shines as something Shakespeare wrote. The plot is solid, though safe, the characters are fun to listen to, and the comedy is laugh of (or chuckle) out loud quality. If you're looking to brush up your Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona is a fine pick - especially if you want to see what the Bard was like when he started out.

A Dog and His Boy

The predictable play has taken a turn. One nicely suited to such a romance story, as we see Valentine fall in with a rough crowd.

But that's not the highlight of act four. Oh no. The high point of act four comes in with Speed and his dog Crab. Act four scene four opens with Speed talking to Crab about masters and servants in a cleverly doubling way. What's so winning about this brief section, though, is the way that, even 450+ years later, the deeply caring way in which Speed talks to Crab resonates and endears them both all the more.

The introduction to The Two Gentleman of Verona warned that the dog was a scene stealer, and since there would likely have been a live dog on stage (making for a merry display of a trick of its that Speed mentions, perhaps) during performances, this scene would have been all the more touching and comical.

There's some early Merchant of Venice in this act as well. At least, insofar as its one of Shakespeare's early uses of the trope of the cross-dressed lover spying on and speaking to the other lover.

Though, it's very clear that this is an early play based on the scenes between cross-dressed Julia and Proteus, since she isn't as power driven or mischievous as Portia and Nerissa in the Merchant of Venice. Instead, Julia uses her disguise to get close to Proteus and learn his state, and then to assess Silvia, though in such a way that she becomes suspicious of Proteus' new messenger.

The Two Servants of Verona

The third act of The Two Gentlemen of Verona came and went extra quickly. All the same, it delivered the play's pivotal moment. Proteus has now stepped into the game and is vying for Sylvia's affection. In fact, at the end of act three, Proteus is off to Sylvia's chambers to convince her that Valentine was just a rake so that she can happily agree to her father's choice of Thurio. Of course, Valentine is as smitten with Sylvia as Romeo is with Juliet.

The other Shakespeare staple to be found in the third act is broad comedy. The servants Lance and Speed are the two firing off jokes, but it's also clear that they're no feminists (saying at one point that it's a virtue and no vice for a woman to be "slow in words" (III.i.324)).

The Triangle and the "Servants"

Act two of The Two Gentlemen of Verona makes it quite clear that this is an early work of Shakespeare's. The wordplay flashes, and the comedy is quite rich. But the plot of it has none of the complications of his later works.

Proteus has come to Milan, and meets with Valentine and Sylvia. He becomes smitten with Sylvia and resolves himself to be Valentine's rival for her affections. There is a third man, the one Sylvia's father favours, named Thurio, but so far he's just been something of a pin cushion for Valentine's jokes (as well as some of Sylvia's).

The edition that I'm reading doesn't have any on-page glosses, so I'm not sure if there's a varied meaning to Sylvia's use of "servant" here, but I do wonder what's going on class-wise within this love triangle. She especially refers to Valentine and Proteus as servants, and that is indeed what they came to court to be. Yet, at least Proteus is from a distinguished family, so "servant" could just be a term for someone newly come to court.

Taking a Break for the Bard

Since it's on my book list as a periodical read and the Bard's birthday is believed to be today, I'm going to interrupt my reading list with a play. The first in the second edition of the Wells and Taylor Complete Works of Shakespeare: The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The play's summary makes it sound like most other plays of the 16th and 17th centuries. It's framed as a story of love and youth and friendship, themes that resound from John Lyly's Gallathea to Shakespeare's own The Tempest. The first act certainly makes it seem so, too, as we follow Valentine and Proteus during their parting and seemingly inevitable reunion.

Although the summary also warns that this play shows some heavy experimentation and the caution of an early attempt at playwriting, I'm still hopeful that Sylvia, the love interest, will be an incredible character. She looks like a major player in act two, so we'll soon see about her.

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote"

Any scholar who goes in depth about Chaucer has to be a good one. Why is that, you might well wonder? Because Chaucer is the poet to turn to when Shakespeare gets too easy. Also, because he's one of the Bard's inspirations. The biggest problem with Chaucer, though, is that his English is 200 years older than Shakespeare's. Because of this difference, Chaucer's spelling, vocabulary, and diction are all much more foreign than even Shakespeare's can be. 

But the rewards of reading Chaucer are sweet indeed. Especially if you're drawn to simply the sound of language. Middle English, unlike the Norman French that heavily influenced it, doesn't have silent letters, so reading it isn't tough to pick up. Though, you still need to learn some different vowel sounds to be able to fully appreciate his works.

Along for the ride in chapter three is how dreams relate to poetry and vice versa. Reading it makes me wonder what Hollander has to say about Blake's "The Angel," though.