SHAKESPEARE UPDATE

I'm about two-thirds of the way through my Shakespeare expedition — 26 of 38 plays. I kind of thought I'd be done by now, but reading more than three dozen Shakespeare plays in a row is a little more challenging than I expected. I had to take in some secondary materials along the way: biographies, notes on British history, stuff for context, plus several non-Shakespeare-related books just for variety, most notably a fat and amazing bio of Oscar Wilde (incidentally, a Shakespeare devotee).

I started this in March, maybe late February, so I've averaged more than a play a week, which I think is a decent pace. Shakespeare can be slow-going. You run into hurdle-words like "bullyrook" (jolly comrade) and "hodge-pudding" (sausage) and "cockshut" (evening twilight). I've been reading Folger editions because they are so nicely annotated (notes on left page, play on right); they usually anticipate a modern reader's curiosity with a helpful explanation, but occasionally they're aggravatingly silent, like we should just be able to figure out some obscure 16th century expression from context. I'm proud to say, though, that I am relying less and less on the notes because of familiarity through repetition — like I no longer have to stop and look up "welkin." It means "sky." And any and every "horn" reference, either direct or oblique, has either the primary or double meaning of "cuckold." I'm also becoming familiar with Shakespeare's staple mythological references (Diana, Phoebus and Hercules are quite common) and the cadence of his phrasing.

One thing I've noticed about the Folger editions is that they tend to be prudish. Shakespeare is full of sexual puns and homoeroticism, and Folger is usually content to note only that a "bawdy" meaning is intended; it doesn't normally detail the bawdiness. So you have to find another source or be satisfied with vagueness or just guess and, in all cases, feel a little stupid.

So here's the rundown. The ones in bold I have read in the last few months. The unbolded ones are on deck. The plays appear in the rough order that some scholars think they were written, although no one really knows for sure.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Taming of the Shrew

Titus Andronicus

Henry VI Part 1

Henry VI Part 2

Henry VI Part 3

Richard III

The Comedy of Errors

Love's Labour's Lost

Romeo and Juliet

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Richard II

King John

The Merchant of Venice

Henry IV Part 1

Henry IV Part 2

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Much Ado About Nothing

Henry V

Julius Caesar

As You Like It

Hamlet

Twelfth Night

Troilus and Cressida

Measure for Measure

Othello

All's Well That Ends Well

Timon of Athens

King Lear

Macbeth

Antony and Cleopatra

Pericles

Coriolanus

Cymbeline

The Winter's Tale

The Tempest

Henry VIII (All Is True)

The Two Noble Kinsmen