I've been in semi BT retirement for a while but I'd be down for a Shakespeare discussion. Its that snowy time of year and so I'm more likely to be patient while I struggle to understand and I think a discussion would help in that respect. Coincidentally, I'm reading Timothy Findley's book at the moment, Spadework, and its set in Stratford Ontario ... it opens at the famous Shakespeare Festival theatre in Stratford Ont. .. well, its famous to Canadians anyway. Its an area of the country I grew up in and I attended a few plays at the Stratford theatre, including MacBeth, King Lear and Taming of the Shrew... and we even have our very own Avon River. Shameless copycats.

Geo wrote:We'll keep bumping this thread to the top in hopes of getting a few more people on board. I'm not sure if we should have a formal voting procedure or not. I'm hoping Suzanne will stop in and give us some advice. Better yet, I'm hoping she'll join us. Suzanne, you out there??

I just sent Suzanne a message and hope she'll drop by for this soon. You don't need to bump this thread to make it appear at the top. I made it a "global announcement" so it now appears automatically at the top of every forum.

There are a few ways this can go.

Choice 1: Create a forum with the name of the specific Shakespeare play we're going to read and discuss.
Choice 2: Create a forum for reading and discussing any and all works of Shakespeare.

Choice 1 above is our usual way of handling book discussions. Each book, or in this case play, gets its own forum. If we do it this way we don't have to use the name of the play in each and every thread because the forum is named after the play.

Choice 2 above would be what we can do if you guys really feel Shakespeare discussions will be a long-term and ongoing new thing for us here on BookTalk.org. If we create a generic Shakespeare forum you have to realize that over time that forum will contain a large quantity of threads about a wide variety of Shakespeare plays. Are they all "plays?" I know nothing about Shakespeare so please forgive the ignorance.

The point is over time there could be threads about Macbeth being bumped to the top while threads about Hamlet are also being bumped due to concurrent discussions. This is NOT a problem. All we would have to do is have a rule that 100% of threads created in the Shakespeare forum start with the play name first, so that members and visitors can easily see what the thread is about. We wouldn't want a bunch of people to be discussing "As You Like It" using thread titles like "What do you think of this play?" because over time nobody will know what play the author of the thread is referencing.

My opinion is that I would LOVE to see Shakespeare become big on BookTalk.org. I love the idea of a brand new forum for discussing anything and everything to do with Shakespeare. I just need to know if you guys feel that would really take off and gain in popularity.

So speak to me.

As you all know Shakespeare can be difficult to read because of the writing style and use of words we just don't use anymore. Or perhaps the words have changed meaning over time and we no longer use them the same today.

There are so many resources online for free that people like me can quickly look up words we don't understand.

For example within 2.7 seconds after starting Macbeth I hit a word I didn't know. The Third Witch says, "That will be ere the set of sun."

So I Googled "Shakespeare dictionary" and landed on http://www.shakespeareswords.com/Glossary.

I quickly learned that ere means before so this sentence is simply saying, "That will be before the sun sets."

Some of you may not need help with Shakespeare but it is nice to see there are resources available for those of us that do. I've tried to read some Shakespeare years ago and I just struggled too much with the language so I gave up. Maybe with the use of online resources it can all finally make sense.

I love this idea Geo! Thank you, I can think of very few people I would like to discuss Shakespeare with more, than the members here on BT and you.

Something so old can be so refreshing.

I want to read all the posts in this thread before commenting more, but I am in and very excited!

Hi Suzanne,

Welcome aboard!

Do you think we should create subfolders for all 37 of Shakespeare plays at once (each divided into five acts) so that anyone can comment on any play any time they want? I know that's a lot of new folders coming into existence all at once, but it would help generate a free-form, open discussion of the Bard.

Or we could just let BT members start their own folders any time they want. Either way would work fine.

Most folks haven't voted on a specific play, which I take to mean that most of you are open for anything. But a few people have specified The Tempest. My vote is more or less aligned with Taylor's, but I hesitate starting with Henry IV because it's a history and at least one person has said he would prefer not to read a history.

I'll repeat the list of nominations, which now includes A Midsummer Night's Dream (at Taylor's suggestion):

Henry IV part I

The Tempest

Macbeth

The Winters Tale

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I will say that A Midsummer Night's Dream is the play I'm most familiar with in Shakespeare's canon. It's quite excellent and also relatively short, which might lend it nicely to the first play. The Tempest is the one I'm leaning towards at this point, but again, I'm perfectly happy with anything.

Chris OConnor wrote:As you all know Shakespeare can be difficult to read because of the writing style and use of words we just don't use anymore. Or perhaps the words have changed meaning over time and we no longer use them the same today.

Chris, this is a really good point. I'm sure some people are pretty good at picking up Shakespeare and understanding, but like you, I tend to stumble over unfamiliar words or phrases. Indeed, Shakespeare throws in a lot of colloquialisms that were used in his day that might be difficult for the modern reader. Fortunately, most of your good Shakespeare texts are annotated. I don't think there's any way to avoid them, even if it does interrupt your reading experience.

I happen to have three separate texts in front of me with varying degrees of annotations. They are: The Yale Shakespeare, The Necessary Shakespeare, and The Arden Shakespeare.

The Necessary Shakespeare is probably my favorite. Here's the first couple of pages from Henry IV (image below). There's a nice balance between number of annotations and the text of the play. Plus each play is excellently introduced by the editor, David Bevington. Whichever play we choose, I'll see if I can scan in the introduction from Bevington.



Also, most of your Shakespeare texts will include a Dramatis Personae which you will refer to about a million times while reading the play.

CoolSummer mentioned getting The Complete Works of Shakespeare for the Kindle for $1.99. This sounds like a great bargain, but the Kindle doesn’t handle annotations very well. (And, indeed, I think this version doesn’t have annotations anyway.) Unless you're well-versed (ha ha) in Shakespeare, this might not be the best way to go. Just my $.02. On the other hand, there are a tremendous number of online sources that will help you to engage with Shakespeare.

Geo, when you say "folder" I'm assuming you mean thread. We're in a thread right now about Shakespeare which is in the Belief, Religion and Philosophy forum.

Chris OConnor wrote:Geo, when you say "folder" I'm assuming you mean thread. We're in a thread right now about Shakespeare which is in the Belief, Religion and Philosophy forum.

Yes, thread.

The way we normally organize book discussions is fine for each play we discuss. Sorry to be confusing.

OK, got it.