Shakespeare and Epic Poetry Blog

Shakespeare Group Reading Dates for Fall 2010

shakespearegroup — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:05:40 +0000

Hope you had a good summer! I spent a lot of it traveling both across North America and overseas and was glad to get back home about a week or so ago.

I have dates for the Shakespeare Reading Group through the end of the year. I hope you can make it to some of the readings. I will send reminders about a week before the reading and the readings should be a lot of fun!

We will be meeting at the Plymouth Library the following Sunday afternoons this year:

October 24
November 21
December 19

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

The Odyssey, Sunday April 25 at 1:00 pm at Plymouth Library

shakespearegroup — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:39:11 +0000

I am excited to announce that we will be meeting to read Books 1-4 of the Fitzgerald translation of The Odyssey on Sunday, April 25 at 1:00 pm at the Plymouth Library as the next book in the Epic Poetry Group readings.

Our reading of The Aeneid was extremely enjoyable and I anticipate that The Odyssey will match up to that reading. I would strongly encourage you to come and participate in reading aloud what many people consider the greatest cohesive single work of literature extant. Especially if you have tried reading the poem on your own, but have not made it through, reading aloud with the characters speaking in different voices raises the experience to another level. There were several moments during the reading of The Aeneid when the words seemed to disappear and it almost felt like there were characters in the room experiencing things and reacting to them rather than reading from a text. Great literature has the ability to do this and I look forward to these moments during our reading of The Odyssey.

Exposure to the Odyssey also increases your ability to understand and appreciate other great works of literature like The Iliad, Ulysses, Troilus and Cressida, The Aeneid and also other paintings and poems written over the ages.

Attempts at capturing the poem visually through film fail to recreate the incredible magic of sound and sense, adventure and open vistas present in the poem, an achievement that few poets have matched. All the beauty in the poem is utterly accessible, it is not one of those difficult pleasures that literature sometimes seems to present.

Please note that this group is very reader friendly, you can choose to read minor roles or not read at all and we happily accommodate all accents, and reading abilities. Most of us in the group find ourselves becoming better readers as we read more and more selections.

I will be grateful if you mention the reading to as many people as you can including social networking sites as I would like to throw open the magic of this magnificent poem to as wide an audience as possible.

I will post role assignments for the reading by tomorrow, hope to see you on Sunday!

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Winter’s Tale at Plymouth Library on Sunday, February 14 at 12:30 pm

shakespearegroup — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:55:43 +0000

We will be meeting to read The Winter’s Tale at the Plymouth Library on Sunday, February 14 at 12:30 pm. Hope to see you there!

The most famous modern production of this is probably the one directed by Peter Brook with Gielgud as Leontes. I have a Caedmon CD with Gielgud as Leontes and also casts Peggy Ashcroft and Alan Bates for an incredible feast of riches.

Most of the following is based on Goddard and I strongly encourage anyone who has not read the two volumes of “The Meaning of Shakespeare” by Goddard to do so. It is quite simply among the best criticism of Shakespeare since Samuel Johnson and Coleridge.

I have to mention the fourth act of the play which brims with sheer joy of life and is one of Shakespeare’s pinnacles. Perdita (the name can be taken to imply that she is the Paradise Lost of human nature) has an infectious beauty of appearance and character that touches all who come near her. Florizel is the most articulate of Shakespeare’s princely lovers and then of course there is Autolycus who is as far beyond good and evil in his roguery as Perdita is in her innocence.

It looks like this reading will be truly delightful so please come join us and share this experience on Sunday!

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Purgatorio on Sunday January 31 at 1:00 pm at Plymouth Library

shakespearegroup — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:02:46 +0000

I am excited to announce the first reading of The Purgatorio (Cantos 1-12) at the Plymouth Library on Sunday January 31 at 1:00 pm.

We had a wonderful reading of The Inferno last year and we will reread the last Canto of The Inferno before we start the reading. You are encouraged to come to this reading even if you did not read The Inferno with us, the second canticle very much stands on its own. In fact in Canto I of The Purgatorio, if I remember correctly, Dante’s face gets washed of the grime and mists from travelling through “Hell” so that he can make a fresh start.

The Purgatorio is definitely my favorite Canticle among the three. Although very little can outdo The Inferno for sheer vividness of description and The Paradiso for its incredible attempt to describe a dream like vision of transhuman wonder, The Purgatorio is steeped in capturing the quality of being human.

W.S Merwin captures this very eloquently in the foreword of his translation of The Purgatorio:

“In the years of my reading Dante, after the first overwhelming, reverberating spell of the Inferno, which I think never leaves one afterward, it was the Purgatorio that I had found myself returning to with a different, deepening attachment, until I reached a point when it was never far from me . . . Of the three sections of The Divine Comedy, only Purgatory happens on the earth, as our lives do, with our feet on the ground, crossing a beach, climbing a mountain. All three parts of the poem are images of our lives, but there is an intimacy peculiar to the Purgatorio. Here the times of day recur with all the sensations and associations that the hours bring with them, the hours of the world we are living in as we read the poem.”

I hope you can join us in our journey through The Purgatorio.

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Coriolanus recap and winner of the vote for next play

shakespearegroup — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:03:45 +0000

Thanks to everyone who showed up to read Coriolanus yesterday! I think everyone enjoyed the reading very much. A lot of the characters and events in the play seemed to suggest analogies to happenings today (tea parties, vile tribunes, war as glory) etc.

I wonder what the people in the book checkout line outside the Friends Room where we were meeting thought at hearing a bunch of sedate looking readers (playing the conspirators) chanting “Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill” in a crescendo just before Coriolanus went down .

We also voted for the play to be read in February and “The Winter’s Tale” came out on top. I was glad of this choice as those of us who have read the play before get to fall in love again with Perdita and Autolycus (for different reasons!).

The group encourages the participation of students in these readings. Please let any students that you think might be interested know about the readings. We have often had students from the Plymouth Canton Educational Park attending the Shakespeare readings and we hope this continues in the future too.

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Roles for January end reading of The Purgatorio: Cantos 1 -12

shakespearegroup — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:07:19 +0000

The roles that I came up with for the end of month reading of Cantos 1-12 of The Purgatorio are given at the end of this e-mail. I would strongly encourage you to come to the reading even if you did not read The Inferno with us, each division can stand up for itself. Each of the major divisions of this great poem has a unique feel to it.

The readings of the Inferno and the Aeneid last year were among the most enjoyable literary or book group activities that the readers had ever participated in and we would love for you to enjoy this experience too if you can find the time.

Unlike the Shakespeare group, the Epic Poetry group tends to have a fair amount of discussion between sections and that greatly enhances one’s understanding of the poem.

Over the next three readings, we leave the darkness of The Inferno to spend some time in the Purgatorio, a mixture of darkness and light before moving on to The Paradiso which is all light. We will read the last canto of The Inferno aloud before we start to ease our way into the new Canticle.

I’ll see some of you for Coriolanus tomorrow and later on I will send a reminder about The Purgatorio reading!

Finally, the roles with some notes:

i) We are using the John Ciardi translation
ii) Roles are for between 4-8 readers
iii) Primary readers in a Canto (the Dante’s) will skip any speech of 3 lines or more, someone else will say that speech
iv) Explanation of notation
a) Dante 4 (76-end) means read Canto 4 from line 76 to the end of the Canto skipping speeches of 3 lines or more
b) Angel 9 (85-87, 91-92, 121-132) means read the Angel’s lines given in Canto 9

Cantos 1-4
==========
1 Dante 1 (1-84), Dante 2 (67-end) *
2 Dante 2 (1-66), Dante 3 (73-end) **
3 Dante 3 (1-72), Dante 4 (76-end) ***
4 Dante 1 (85-end), Dante 4 (1-75) ****
* Manfred 3 (112-146), Virgil 4 (37-39, 61-75, 88-96, 137-140)
** Virgil 1 (52-84), Belacqua 4 (127-135)
*** Cato 1 (41-48, 85-105), Casella 2 (88-90, 94-105), Cato 2 (117-120)
**** Virgil 2 (28-36, 61-66), Virgil 3 (23-44, 52-54, 73-78, 94-99)

Cantos 5-8
==========
1 Dante 5 (1-69), Dante 6 (79-end) *
2 Dante 6 (1-78), Dante 7 (70-end) **
3 Dante 7 (1-69), Dante 8 (64-140) ***
4 Dante 5 (70-end), Dante 8 (1-63) ****
* Pia 5 (137-143), Virgil 7 (4-8, 22-39, 49-51, 62-63), Sordello 8 (37-39, 43-45)
** A Late Repentant 5 (4-6), Late Repentant Souls 5 (46-60), Bonconte 5 (91-96, 100-135), Judge Nino De Visconti 8 (65-81)
*** Jacopo del Cassero 5 (70-90), Virgil 6 (34-51, 55-63)
**** Virgil 5 (31-36, 42-45), Sordello 7 (16-21, 40-48, 52-60, 67-69, 85-end), Virgil 8 (91-93), Conrad Malaspina 8 (112-120, 133-140),

Cantos 9-12
===========
1 Dante 9 (1-72), Dante 10 (70-end) *
2 Dante 10 (1-69), Dante 11 (73-end) **
3 Dante 11 (1-72), Dante 12 (73-end) ***
4 Dante 9 (73-end), Dante 12 (1-72) ****
* Omberto 11 (49-72), Virgil 12 (4-6, 77-84, 121-126)
** Angel 9 (85-87, 91-92, 121-132), Virgil 11 (36-45), Angel 12 (92-96)
*** Virgil 9 (46-63, 88-90), Virgil 10 (10-12, 97-99, 112-117)
**** Od’risi 11 (82-117, 121-126, 133-end)

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Coriolanus on Sunday, January 17 at Plymouth Library, 12:30 pm

shakespearegroup — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:24:16 +0000

Happy New Year!

This is a reminder that we will be meeting next Sunday on January 17 at the Plymouth Library to read Coriolanus. Hope you can make it and it will be wonderful to see you there! We will start at 12:30 pm as the play is one of the longer ones with 3417 lines.

Your chances of catching this in performance are rare so this should be an especially helpful reading to anyone who has wanted to see the play. A list of some of the actors who have played Coriolanus include Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Ian McKellen, Toby Stephens, Christopher Walken, Ralph Fiennes and Alan Howard.

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

Henry V at 12:45 pm on Sunday, December 6 at Plymouth District Library

shakespearegroup — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:58:15 +0000

This is a reminder that we will be meeting to read Henry V on December 6, 12:45 pm at Plymouth District Library.Since the play is one of the longer ones with 3227 lines, we will start the reading at 12:45 pm sharp.

Andrea and Lois have volunteered to do the French speaking parts of the French Princess and Alice, thanks! At this meeting, we will also vote on what tragedy we will be reading in January: Coriolanus, Timon of Athens or Titus Andronicus.

I will send a separate reminder for the Epic Poetry group reading where we finish the Aeneid next week. The Epic Poetry Group will be reading The Purgatorio from Dante’s Divine Comedy starting in January. When we read the Inferno earlier in the year, we started to get glimpses into the structure of the awesome and enormous “cathedral of words” that Dante conceived of and I am excited that we will be exploring that a lot more with our reading of the Purgatorio.

I am currently rereading the Purgatorio right now and one of my strategies for gaining more insight into this structure is to write down all the cross-references to other cantos of the poem next to the text so that I can visit those cantos during my rereading and start understanding the structure a little more. I know most of us at the Inferno reading would agree that there is quite nothing like studying Dante, an inexhaustible activity that can reward deeper and deeper readings. Please let me know if you have similar strategies that help you understand the structure of the poem better and I will compile them and post them on the blog.

Roles for Books X-XII of the Fitzgerald Aeneid

shakespearegroup — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:29:56 +0000

Here are role assignments for The Aeneid, Books 10-12. In making these assignments, I tried to improve the dynamics of the reading by having different speakers say things when the context is a conversation or a confrontation. I also tried my best to maintain uniformity of roles for the entire reading. Thus if you are Aeneas at the beginning of a book, I have tried to assign you the role of Aeneas throughout as far as possible, in addition of course to the Virgil-X part you might have to read.

I am learning how to do this better as I go along and might revisit my earlier role assignments to improve them. Please let me know of any corrections and suggestions.

Thanks as always for your support of the group and Happy Thanksgiving! Maybe these role assignments will give you something additional to chew on during the break

Book 10: The Death of Princes
==================================
1 Virgil-A (1-295) *
2 Virgil-B (296-605) **
3 Virgil-C (606-965) ***
4 Virgil-D (966-1276) ****
5* Turnus (386-393, 685-691, 937-952), Pallas (508-522, 579-583, 640-645)
6** Jupiter (9-21, 650-657, 851-855, 872-880), Aeneas (745-750, 783-788, 1154-1161)
7*** Venus (24-82), Aeneas (348-355, 407-412), Mezentius (1085-1089, 1184-1198, 1206-1214, 1229-1235, 1262-1272)
8**** Juno (84-157, 857-869, 882-889), Cymodocea (315-338), Magus (735-742)

Book 11: Debaters and a Warrior Girl
====================================
1 Virgil-A (1-286) *
2 Virgil-B (287-721) **
3 Virgil-C (722-1032) ***
4 Virgil-D (1033-1240) ****
5* Latinus (410-453), Prayer (657-661), Diana (726-812), Aunus’ son (957-961), Opis (1145-1156)
6** Evander (209-250), Camilla (932-936, 1119-1124), Arruns (1071-1082)
7*** Drances (170-180, 463-510), Venulus (329-400), Camilla (683-689)
8**** Aeneas (17-38, 56-79, 148-164) Turnus (514-601, 627-635, 692-706), Tarchon (994-1006)

Book 12: The Fortunes of War
=============================
1 Virgil-A (1-296) *
2 Virgil-B (297-653) **
3 Virgil-C (654-962) ***
4 Virgil-D (963-1299) ****
5* Tolumnius (356-364), Aeneas (430-436,595-602, 767-781, 1206-1212), Iapyx (582-587), Saces (884-900)
6** Amata (81-91), Aeneas (237-264), Metiscus (847-854), Jupiter (1072-1093, 1126-1140), Turnus (1266-1276)
7*** Latinus (27-63), Latinus (268-290), Juno (191-206, 210-214, 1096-1123), Juturna (314-327, 1180-1199)
8**** Turnus (14-25, 68-76, 102-115, 135-141, 493-497, 856-879, 915-923, 940-944)

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)

The Aeneid (Books 7-9), Saturday November 7 at 12:45 pm at Plymouth Library

shakespearegroup — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:27:18 +0000

This is a reminder that we will be reading Books 7 through 9 of The Fitzgerald translation of the Aeneid at the Plymouth District Library on Saturday, November 7, starting at 12:45 pm. We will have a couple of extra copies of the translation in case you do not have a copy. We will be in the Storytime room (lower level) this time as there were a lot of meetings scheduled in all the other rooms, November seems to be the busiest month for meetings at the library.

The Aeneid has read really beautifully so far and it surprised a few of us who were more familiar with the Homeric epics and their examination of human nature and behavior. Even though Virgil is ostensibly writing his great nationalist epic with one eye always kept towards legitimizing the rule of Julius Caesar and his son Augustus, the poet in him cannot help
sketching out wonderful and passionate men and women.

I was thrilled when after the reading of The Aeneid last month, several veterans of other book clubs at the reading commented on how there was nothing quite like this read aloud group they had ever participated in. Here is how one reader put why he loves reading epic poetry out aloud and participating in the group:

===============
The classic epics were meant to be declaimed and heard.
Scops, bards, troubadours memorized huge swaths of
The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Aeneid, Beowulf, Canterbury Tales,
Gawain and the Green Knight, The Seafarer, Pearl, Paradise Lost
and even Pound’s Cantos so they could recite them to an eager
audience. The customs and manners of a classic age, the use
of imagery, the connection to present day humanity, the cultural
impact of these long poems, and the grand mission of the writers
are events that should not decay. We are keeping alive their mission
by reading their works aloud and discussing them. I love being part
of the public readings of our classical heritage in an age that smacks of easy commercialism.
Bravo Virgil! Bravo Milton! Bravo Homer!

Mike Nader
==============

Finally, here is a role assignment sheet for Books 7-9. If you are reading roles Virgil-A to D skip any speech of 5 lines or more as it will be assigned to someone.

Book 7: Juno Served by a Fury
==================================
1 Virgil-A (1-254) ****
2 Virgil-B (255-560) *
3 Virgil-C (561-826) **
4 Virgil-D (827-1122) ***
5* Father Faunus (125-132), Aeneas (158-178)
6** Latinus (259-280, 350-370), Juno (398-441, 452-466, 757-768)
7*** Amata (496-514, 552-557), Allecto (581-601, 623-628, 747-755)
8**** Turnus (604-613), Ilioneus (283-332), Latinus (816-823)

Book 8: Arcadian Allies
=================================
1 Virgil-A (1-247) ***
2 Virgil-B (366-490) ****
3 Virgil-C (491-792) *
4 Virgil-D (793-992) **
5* Tibernius (48-87), Aeneas (96-107, 159-164, 173-203)
6** Evander (208-234, 248-365, 415-445, 464-473, 480-485, 631-704, 761-789)
7*** Hymn to Hercules (388-400), Aeneas (723-734)
8**** Vulcan (528-541, 589-595), Venus (497-515, 828-832)

Book 9: A Night Sortie, A Day Assault
=====================================
1 Virgil-A (1-270) ****
2 Virgil-B (283-570) *
3 Virgil-C (581-833) ***
4 Virgil-D (864-1132) **
5* Iris (8-19), Turnus (25-31, 177-218, 1030-1040), Caicus (49-54), Jupiter’s mother (116-129, 162-166)
6** Nisus (252-268, 284-302, 325-340, 452-458, 571-580, 605-610)
7*** Jupiter (132-146), Euryalus (271-282, 395-411), Aletes (343-347, 351-359)
8**** Ascanius (361-393, 869-875), Euryalus’s mother (680-704), Numanus (834-863), Apollo (892-898, 911-917), Pandarus (1024-1028), Mnestheus (1082-1091)

Prashant Andrade (fea_123@yahoo.com)