Shakespeare -- W. H. Auden

Source: I did not note the original source for this document, but I bet it was W. H. Auden.  Over time I added to it, from other sources.

Henry VI: history of the Lancaster House during the War of Roses; essentially the history of Shakespeare’s family

Richard III:  the character of a villain, one who commits a crime consciously for its own sake.  Think Hitler. Considered the most evil man Shakespeare “created” save Iago (Othello).

King John and Richard II:  transition from the tetralogy (Henry VI / Richard III) to the great Henry IV plays and the awful Henry V play, where “Shakespeare is getting bored.”  -- Auden, p. 64

Macbeth:  Shakespeare’s most famous play.  Lady Macbeth (Eve?) leads her husband to murder, so he assumes the throne; eventually remorseful, she commits suicide; and King Macbeth eventually killed by his enlarging community of enemies; set in Scotland

Hamlet:  a play about death; the play ends with the stage covered with dead bodies, yet Hamlet himself is most inactive     in the play; Hamlet is the nephew of the king, the latter killed by his own brother (Hamlet’s uncle): Hamlet  avenges that murder; set in Denmark; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern introduced; Hamlet “mad, north by northwest”; contains a play within a play

Othello:  Iago, a vicious aide to Othello, failed in attempts to marry the woman who married Othello; Othello kills his wife in jealous rage but she cries, while dying, that it was suicide; Othello himself commits suicide when he  realizes what has happened; decrees that Iago will be tried for treason; set in Venice; story perhaps more interesting due to element of miscegenation; Iago dominates the play; Othello a secondary character

King Lear:  King Lear slowly goes insane as he realizes his two elder daughters are treasonous, and the daughter he exiled, was the only one of the three who loved him; Edgar, the son of King Lear’s loyal nobleman, Gloucester, kills his treasonous illegitimate son, Edmund.   Lear’s good daughter Cordelia is killed by the bad daughters; kingdom left in hands of Edgar (the good son), Albany (the good husband), and Kent (the good nobleman). Set in Britain.
 
Coriolanus:  a play loved by the French; perhaps best read in French; the Roman crowd first celebrates Coriolanus as a great war general, but turn on him due to demagoguery of two politicians; he allies with his former enemy to take Rome, but his mother is successful in pleading that he leave; the Roman crowd calls her their savior; Coriolanus returns to his former enemy’s home, only to be killed by his enemies there; set in ancient Rome; tragedy of crowds / mobs; set in ancient Rome

Measure for Measure:  concerns the nature of justice, authority and forgiveness; set in Vienna; the Duke disguises  himself to view his city and leaves a strict, moralistic, unwavering underling in charge (Angelo); Angelo sentences a man (Claudio) for pre-marital sex, but (strangely) offers to spare Claudio’s life if his sister, Isabella (who wants to become a nun), will sleep with him.  The Duke lets things play out; eventually Angelo owns up to his misdeeds; Claudio is pardoned (by the Duke), and the Duke marries Isabella




Chronology Overview

    “Between the ages of 40 and 44, Shakespeare wrote his great tragedies.  There are various peaks in his career.  In the first period, he solves the problem of the historical chronicle play in Henry IV, and of a certain kind of comedy in As You Like It.  Then, after a slight uncertainty, he solves the problem of tragedy and produces the five tragic masterpieces:  Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus.”  -- Auden, p. 195

Chronicle plays:  plays that have a lesson from the past that is germane to the present; evolved from morality plays of the Medieval Ages; chronicle plays most often associated with Elizabethan dramas

Elizabethan dramas:  actually lasted only a very short period of time; lasted about 50 years during reign of Queen Elizabeth (1533 – 1603)