Shakespeare club update

We return in September (sort of August too)

Jul 21, 2024

New approach: reading plays in pairs

So far this year, the Shakespeare club has covered Romeo and Juliet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Henry IV, Much Ado About Nothing, and As You Like It. We are now on a summer break until early September. When we return, we will be reading, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida, Anthony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. I’ll keep writing about Shakespeare for paid subscribers in the mean time. You can find all previous posts here.

If we continue to discuss one play a month, though, we’ll end up doing this into next year, so I propose to pair Twelfth Night and Hamlet as the discussion for September, to pair Troilus and Cressida and Anthony and Cleopatra for October, and to pair The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest for November.

We’ll then finish with a general poetry session in December. I’ll also run a poetry session in August for those who are around and repeat it in September. (NB: I’ll only do this if there is demand, make yourself known in the comments with preferred dates). The poems for those sessions are linked to at the bottom of this page and on the bookclub schedule page.

So the schedule now looks like this.

Sunday 11th August 19.00 UK time Sixteenth Century Poetry (I’ll only do this if there is demand, make yourself known in the comments with preferred dates)
Sunday 8th September 19.00 UK time Twelfth Night and Hamlet
Sunday 22nd September 19.00 UK time Sixteenth Century Poetry (repeat session I’ll only do this if there is demand, make yourself known in the comments)
Sunday 13th October 19.00 UK time Troilus and Cressida and Anthony and Cleopatra
Sunday 10th November 19.00 UK time The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest
Sunday 8th December 19.00 UK time Seventeenth Century Poetry

You can always find the full schedule here.

Catch up sessions for new subscribers

For those who have only recently become a paid subscriber, or those who want to join us for Shakespeare in the autumn, I can run some catch up sessions. Just email me once you have subscribed to let me know that you are interested in a catch up call or two.

commonreader@substack.com or in the comments.

Thinking about Shakespeare’s career

This pairing approach will allows us to compare plays more directly. So far we have traced Shakespeare’s development through the 1590s, looking at the early lyrical phase that gave way to the emergence of darker themes. We have reached the miracle year of 1599-1600, when Shakespeare rose from being the great writer of his age to being the greatest writer of all time. We now move to read six of his plays from this great period.

The first two Twelfth Night and Hamlet are from the miracle year, which means we will have concentrated more on that point in Shakespeare’s career than any other. What I hope this will show you is that the progression from Romeo and Juliet and Love’s Labour’s Lost to these works is truly astonishing. Something happened to Shakespeare between 1599-1601. We don’t know what it was exactly, but we do know it was transformative.

If you want to read a book about this miracle year read 1599 by James Shapiro.

The next two plays, Troilus and Cressida and Anthony and Cleopatra, are both classical, both doomed love stories, but Troilus is not simply classifiable as a tragedy, so we will be able to discuss the idea of a “problem play” and whether Troilus counts. Then we will read two of my utter favourites, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, two late romances from the end of Shakespeare’s career.

This is more reading than we have been doing, but many of you seem to be watching as well as (or instead of) reading so I think we can make it work. And who ever said bloody tragedies don’t make good beach reading…

Poetry reading lists

I have (mostly) focussed on poetry in the Elizabethan and pre-Civil War era. We’ll cover people like Herrick, Cowley, Milton etc another time. Thematically, we are largely reading about religion, love, and death. The distinction between sixteenth and seventeenth century poetry is just a simple way of splitting out the reading into two sessions.

Sixteenth Century Poetry (August/September)

Essential reading

This article about The English Renaissance is a good place to start for some context and background.

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love, Christopher Marlowe and The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd, Walter Raleigh and To Celia, Ben Jonson.

Optional reading

Philip Sidney, selected sonnets: Come Sleep, O sleep; With How Sad Steps; A Strife is Grown; Who Will In Fairest Book of Nature Know; My True Love Hath My Heart.

Thomas Campion: Now Winter Nights Enlarge; Follow Thy Fair Sun; When to Her Lute.

Raleigh: The Passionate Man’s Pilgrimage.

Jonson: On My First Daughter; On My First Son; Inviting a Friend to Supper.

Seventeenth Century Poetry (December)

Essential reading

This article about The English Renaissance is a good place to start for some context and background.

Anne Bradstreet: By Night When Others Soundly Slept and Mary Sidney: O and George Herbert: The Flower and John Donne: Batter My Heart.