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Anyone up for Shakespeare?

#135: Dec. - Jan. 2015 (Fiction)
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heledd
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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The Tempest was excellent, but never read Macbeth. I have the collected plays on video, and can download most of the plays so happy to go with whatever is chosen. Looking forward
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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I would of course be interested.
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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Okay, in the interest of getting things moving, I nominate these four plays. Let's get a vote on!

The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is considered a romantic comedy, but tragic elements are interwoven throughout the play. First produced at the Globe around 1610, it is one of Shakespeare's final plays.

Macbeth
A whirlwind tale of murder, betrayal, and lusty ambition. Shakespeare shows an unsurpassed ability to tell a riveting story with transcendent poetic imagery. This is a dark work.

The Tempest
Hailed as a stunning climax to the career of England’s favorite dramatist, The Tempest is a play praising the glories of reconciliation and forgiveness. Some believe that Prospero’s final speeches signify Shakespeare’s personal adieu from the stage.

Henry IV, Part I
Many believe 1 Henry IV to be Shakespeare's greatest history play. The unforgettable characters Hotspur, Prince Hal, King Henry, and the jovial John Falstaff affirm John Dryden's assertion that Shakespeare was "the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul."

Plot summaries are available here.

http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/play-summary/
-Geo
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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I've changed this thread to a "Global Announcement" so that it appears at the very top of every forum. Maybe it will get some more attention now.
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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Hamlet or The Tempest would be good in my opinion. A Midsummer Night's Dream is too much of a mind bender, and Romeo and Juliet has been overdone to an extreme.
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part I?

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Chris OConnor wrote:I like the idea of starting some Shakespeare as an official BookTalk.org fiction discussion on Dec. 1st. The discussion can run a few months or however long you guys see fit. All I mean by making it "official" is that the discussion would get its own forum in the "Fiction Book Discussion Forums" section, it would be announced on the Home page in the "Current Book Discussions" block, and would be displayed on our BOOKS page.

As far as what Shakespeare we read and discuss I think we should leave that decision up to Geo since he is the one spearheading this idea.

If Shakespeare if decided upon as an official discussion I'll need some assistance with how the chosen play is presented on BookTalk.org. By this I mean there appears to be a zillion books on Shakespeare. We really should pick a version that is available for as cheap as possible and is available in eBook format too. But this isn't essential if Geo thinks a particular version is the best choice. I'd just like to maximize the chance of having more people participating than just a handful.
Thanks for this. What a great idea.

Shakespeare is eternal.

The plays are everywhere. They're ubiquitous. Everyone can find them, everywhere. Also in every library. Also found cheap at book sales & second hand shops everywhere.

That's got to hugely facilitate maximum participation from the widest spectrum of people. (Why make it harder?)

I think it's a great idea to just let it be a free-form, open discussion of the Bard and only the Bard. It can go forever. That's the beauty of it.

Books about Shakespeare are less universal; or always easy to find exactly the same one. Maybe a sub-thread for some particular one(s)(?)
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part I?

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whathappened wrote:
Chris OConnor wrote:I like the idea of starting some Shakespeare as an official BookTalk.org fiction discussion on Dec. 1st. The discussion can run a few months or however long you guys see fit. All I mean by making it "official" is that the discussion would get its own forum in the "Fiction Book Discussion Forums" section, it would be announced on the Home page in the "Current Book Discussions" block, and would be displayed on our BOOKS page.

As far as what Shakespeare we read and discuss I think we should leave that decision up to Geo since he is the one spearheading this idea.

If Shakespeare if decided upon as an official discussion I'll need some assistance with how the chosen play is presented on BookTalk.org. By this I mean there appears to be a zillion books on Shakespeare. We really should pick a version that is available for as cheap as possible and is available in eBook format too. But this isn't essential if Geo thinks a particular version is the best choice. I'd just like to maximize the chance of having more people participating than just a handful.
Thanks for this. What a great idea.

Shakespeare is eternal.

The plays are everywhere. They're ubiquitous. Everyone can find them, everywhere. Also in every library. Also found cheap at book sales & second hand shops everywhere.

That's got to hugely facilitate maximum participation from the widest spectrum of people. (Why make it harder?)

I think it's a great idea to just let it be a free-form, open discussion of the Bard and only the Bard. It can go forever. That's the beauty of it.

Books about Shakespeare are less universal; or always easy to find exactly the same one. Maybe a sub-thread for some particular one(s)(?)
While I agree we should have a thread or two set aside simply for all that is Shakespear, I think it would be great to discuss individual plays themselves for simpliciity's sake. If I want to discuss MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING I can go to a discussion group for that play alone.
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare's King Henry IV, Part I?

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Chris OConnor wrote:I like the idea of starting some Shakespeare as an official BookTalk.org fiction discussion on Dec. 1st. The discussion can run a few months or however long you guys see fit. All I mean by making it "official" is that the discussion would get its own forum in the "Fiction Book Discussion Forums" section, it would be announced on the Home page in the "Current Book Discussions" block, and would be displayed on our BOOKS page.

As far as what Shakespeare we read and discuss I think we should leave that decision up to Geo since he is the one spearheading this idea.

If Shakespeare if decided upon as an official discussion I'll need some assistance with how the chosen play is presented on BookTalk.org. By this I mean there appears to be a zillion books on Shakespeare. We really should pick a version that is available for as cheap as possible and is available in eBook format too. But this isn't essential if Geo thinks a particular version is the best choice. I'd just like to maximize the chance of having more people participating than just a handful.
I like the idea of having a separate Shakespeare forum within the "Fiction" section. But let's just play it by ear for now and see how this goes. For some reason, the fiction discussions here on BT have not gone well lately. It's always difficult to find a group of people who want to read and discuss the same book. Maybe if we can get a core group of people interested, we can form a kind of Shakespeare club and read and discuss a different play every month or something like that. Again, we'll see how this next one goes.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am very much a Shakespeare neophyte. When I went back for my M.A. in English a few years back, I took a Shakesperean Tragedies course from Dr. Sara Deats at University of South Florida. And I have also taught A Midsummer Night's Dream in my ENG113 class a few times (so I'm pretty familiar with that play.) But I haven't read most of these plays and I'm just shooting from the hip more or less. Shakespeare is very challenging to me and any one of us should feel comfortable picking up the ball and running with it. We will learn from each other. Any and all suggestions are welcome.
Movie Nerd wrote:While I agree we should have a thread or two set aside simply for all that is Shakespear, I think it would be great to discuss individual plays themselves for simpliciity's sake. If I want to discuss MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING I can go to a discussion group for that play alone.
Yeah, we will definitely keep each play in a separate subforum under the main Shakespeare thread. I hope that makes sense. I also think it makes a lot of sense to organize each Shakespeare by act. So it will be organized like this:

The Shakespeare Forum
--> A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Act I
- Act II
- Act III
- Act IV
- Act V
--> As You Like It
- Act I
- Act II
- Act III
- Act IV
- Act V

etc.

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??
-Geo
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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Geo wrote
In the interest of full disclosure, I am very much a Shakespeare neophyte.
This sums up my position as well, but I'll have a go at which ever play is chosen.

My order of preference would be

Henry IV part I

The Tempest

Macbeth

The Winters Tale

I'll add Mid Summers night dream ( just based on movie nerds description," mind bending")
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Re: Anyone up for Shakespeare?

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Yes, I'll give it a shot too. I haven't read any Shakespeare since Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet in high school.

Just picked up this $1.99 Complete works of Shakespeare for my kindle, copying the link for you folks too.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Sh ... ree+kindle
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