I could not be any happier: it is only the 13th of the month and I finished reading this month's play and read Garber, Nuttall, Bloom and even Bate!
I have actually enjoyed reading this play. I was eager to go back to the early plays and find out what themes and characters were swimming around in Will's head that would come out more fleshed out in later plays.
Bate (page 92) includes a lovely quotation of a source for this play. He thinks Will must have seen it or even acted in it in his youth.
I see where Bloom is coming from when he ranks this play as second to last only to Merry Wives of Windsor. But there is no denial that it is a comedy, and funny. I was impressed with Speed's puns and enjoyed the two Launce highlights: the description of his beloved and the Crab story. (Crab has climbed to the top of my list of dog names).
The chapters are now becoming entangled, but I believe it was Nuttall who declared his preference for the aspect of the play that leaves all other scholars scratching their heads: the part at the end where Valentine forgives Proteus and even offers to give Silvia to him, right after Proteus tried to rape her! Nuttall points out that the two young men's relationship could find a parallel in the love for the youth of the Sonnets! I am glad I have read a small chunk of the sonnets and will pick up the series starting tomorrow for the rest of the month. The sonnets have enhanced my understanding of the poetry in Shakespeare's plays. I now find it easier to read them, well, just a bit. I believe I am now aware of a different type of relationship between people of the same gender, which was common in Shakespeare's time. Valentine and Proteus: the lover and the inconstant.
By far the best characters in this play are Julia and Silvia. They are bright and beautiful and cunning and perseverant. Loved that Julia dresses as a boy. Wills will use that in Taming of the Shrew and Merchant of Venice, among the plays I have already read. Bloom states that Launce was too big a character to be wasted on this play. Well, I think both Julia and Silvia are even bigger. Shakespeare had to practically gag them so they would not take over the show, slap the two youths silly and march on to Rome to take the papacy on behalf of women power. Silvia in particular, smart, confident Silvia, does not open her mouth as events pertaining are decided without her consent or input. Just so not Silvia-like. Proteus, the biggest cad in the history of literature does not deserve Julia at all. I hope she left her beau standing at the altar and skipped town!
So, in a nutshell, I enjoyed spending time with characters and themes and looking into Will's creative mind and development.
Any other things you's like to talk about, my fellow pseudo WS scholar?
