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Shakespeare is fun for me too (not homework). I look forward to participating. Of the plays you and your co-hosts have chosen, there’s only one I have not yet seen performed-Cymbeline-although I did participate in a readalong of the play a few years ago. I’m excited that I will see Cymbeline performed in Stratford Ontario in September. The week that I am at the festival, I will also see Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. The Twelfth Night production will have a gender-swapped Malvolio, which was also a choice made by the director in a Twelfth Night show that I attended in Vancouver earlier this month. I saw a horror clown rendition of Titus Andronicus a few years ago. Polythene sheets were laid over the laps of people in the front row to protect them from the gore. And a memorable performance of The Tempest at the Citadel Theatre in Edmonton was created with one third of the cast being Deaf and using sign language. I wanted to see it a second time but all of the shows were sold out. Thanks for co-hosting this event!

I love this bookshop! When I lived near Edinburgh I used to visit regularly, the staff are so friendly :)

Yay Shaketamber! And very excited to hear that you’re heading to the Sam Wanamaker playhouse soon-it’s the most magical venue!

This is really helpful. Thanks!

Thank you. 🎉 Can you also talk about "To All The Virtuous Ladies in General"😊

What a brilliant review… so touching. I feel a lot of sympathy for Hedda, she is horrid, but also she feels so lost. I know she has it in her to be better but she just feels caught up in a world that gives her no way to find her soul. I think the play is incredible and one I think about often.

I must read and then watch immediately!

Hi Nicole. A very relevant and deep analysis of Hedda Gabler. A job well done, Applause, Applause! We read this play at Ben’s Hardcore Literature Book Club last year. What can I say Nicole. You are getting better and better at your analysis. Indeed, you are gifted. Best wishes🌹🌹🌹

Thanks for this, very enjoyable, I love Elizabethan poetry - all those perfectly wrought urns so rich in literary/classical allusion & discursive/imagist language. Really appreciated your spotlight on one of my favourites.

Really looking forward to this spotlight on wonderment. Thanks for hosting.

A very thoughtful analysis, as usual! I hadn't considered that Aunt Julia serves as a contrast to Hedda in embodying the theme of beauty in the context of death ... but you're right, she is a more direct foil than Thea in that sense. As to Tesman, in the production I saw, the actor made an interesting choice to play Tesman as more clued-in than he seems in the text. At certain moments he clearly saw her true nature and how things stood between her and Judge Brack, yet willfully turned a blind eye (as you said), either because he was too intimidated by her or just wanted to cling to his fantasy of her. I actually *do* find Hedda likable. She's neither kind nor totally stable, but I sympathize with her feeling of being trapped. She is so afraid of scandal and desperate for respectability, and somehow those forces are just strong enough inside (and outside) of her to suppress her desire for beauty and power and meaning -- until the moment when she sees no way to achieve either of those ends. Plus, she's just ... fun. What did you think of the part when she burns Lovborg's and Thea's "idea baby"? That part gave me chills. In a lecture I attended, one professor pointed out that, to a writer, burning a manuscript is not a trivial plot device. We should view it as carrying enormous significance for her characterization, which I thought was a great point.

Hedda is Iago's Scandinavian cousin!

I really enjoyed your July wrap up, I did have a little chuckle when you mentioned who wrote A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig!! I would definitely like to read Cider with Rosie, I've been wanting too for a while!! Thank you for a lovely video and a lovely wrap up!! Have a great weekend!!xx

Thank you once again Nivole, the only thing I have read from Ibsen is the Doll’s house, which I found extremely good, movingly disturbing, with the theme of woman’s freedom and happiness in this world so brillantly dealt with. I am going to read Hedda Gabler❤

This looks great. A bit spoiled for choice. Leah is in my opinion the greatest play. Have seen in 4 times (including at Stratford). Tempted by Cymbeline -a play I don’t know Saw the tempest in July Twelfth night is a favoirite I’m tempted by

Ibsen is fantastic!

Hi.. how was the stephanie mccarter's translation? Were you able to complete it? Because I'm just interested in buying that book very soon...

This will be my first ever Shaketember...I'm thinking MacBeth, as I already own it and Twelfth Night 😊 looking forward to this!!

Ooohhhhhhh how exciting all this is. I am super interested in the Jonathon Bate books you mention and might have to read those too. I really want to read Faust too… so much to read!! I am reading the Faerie Queene right now. I read one canto each evening and listen to the audible read by David Timson. He is excellent reading it and I follow along in my book. Like you I don’t like the cover at it could have been much more inventive. Some of the book is a bit tedious but then some is really very very excellent. I am currently much enjoying book three and have half an hour of laughing every evening.. it can be very funny. I liked the first half of the Aeneid and found it tailed off at the half way point and LOVED the Oresteia and Hedda Gabler..these are all fairly recent reads so I think we are similar reading trajectories… I am also on a Keats journey and loving that. He was much influenced by Edmund Spenser and Shakespeare Ps hamlet is at the RSC in the new year

I am hoping to start The Faerie Queene soon as well and wanted to mention a book I have found: The Faerie Queene: A Reader's Guide by Elizabeth Heale. I have a used copy on order. It looks like it will be very helpful in reading the book.

I'm reading Hedda Gabler now after seeing an adaptation at the Stratford Festival in Canada. Hedda is a fascinating character. I'd love to hear your thoughts! I've also been trying to catch up on Greek drama, so you are motivating me to go back to Sophocles and Aeschylus. You can definitely trace the influence on Shakespeare and early modern drama.

Early Ibsen is fun, try Brand which is a meditation on true faith and what it can lead to. Ibsen became a realist and then became Ibsen. And he started by writing plays about Vikings, popular at the time in Norway. I'd love to see one!

So many interesting works you mention - I need to get started on Shakespeare but following up Arthurian legend sounds exciting for later in the autumn

Why a French author wrote about the Arthurian legends? England has had a notable French cultural influence vis-a-vis the Normans since 1066 (French Vikings) For a long time, the lingua franca at the court was French. Hope this helps🧐

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on Shakespeare’s contemporaries. I’ve been meaning to try Marlowe for ages, but never got around to it.

I'm planning to start The Faerie Queene this autumn too and go into 2025. I'm looking forward to King Lear and Cymbeline in September!

The Oresteia is wonderful, it deals with many interesting themes, such as justice, revenge, law etc. Paradise Lost is one of my favourite poems and I also loved the first part of Faust, but the second part I absolutely didn't understand at all, even after a reread. I'd recommend The Doll House by Henrik Ibsen. Hope you enjoy all the books you chose! 😊

Sorry Nicole, you will forgive my spelling mistake: I meant PORE over😮not POUR.....milk or tea... or any of my erratic spelling!😅

Thank you for this video! And once again, I do love all the books from Jonathan bate, so...I am going to pour over the book you mentioned! 😊

Such a great video!

Two years ago I participated in Shaketember by reading, listening to an audio and watching an online production of Much Ado About Nothing. I remember it being harder than the average read, but worth the effort when I finally ‘got it’! Hope to take part again this year … will have to decide which play to focus on 😎

I studied The Go Between for English Literature. Thoroughly enjoyed it then. Feel called to revisit it now. Thanks for the On Chesil Beach recommendation.

Enjoyed the book haul!! According to my college professor, C.S. Lewis is one of the Big Kahunas of medieval and Renaissance literature studies. The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature and Allegory of Love are his major tomes. My Cymbelne is the RSC edition, edited by Bate. Looks like it will be fun. Read your Chesterton! Over here in America, Penguin reprinted a cool looking edition of The Man Who Was Thursday, my favorite of his novels. Chesterton's study of Dickens is worth your time.

What a great haul! I was going back and forth between the video, Goodreads, and my library's website. I've never read anything by Jonathan Bate. I saw on his Goodreads profile that he's married to Paula Byrne. I've read her biographies of Jane Austen and Barbara Pym and enjoyed them both. That's intriguing that you loved Napoleon of Notting Hill! I have a goal to read more Chesterton.

Jonathan Bate’s mad about Shakespeare is just fantastic ! Read it! It a deeply personal and so deeply moving, sometimes funny journey into Shakespeare ’s world. My book cover is different from yours though. Thank you for😊 your videos, they are always so inspiring.

Hello, Nicole ✌️ 😀 I just discovered your channel through Kelly and Jason. Shaketember is gonna be a fun time! I myself am gonna read The Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth 🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️👑🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

All that info is so interesting to me. Thank you for sharing those books and your thoughts with us. I’ll be on the lookout for the CS Lewis one especially. I’m finding it hard to wait until September to start Shaketember but trying to be patient. 😊

Great! I have 1606 but have not read it yet. I know 4 of the plays but not Cymbeline or Titus ! So must join you on these.

Am looking forward to hear your non fiction recs! I have been digging all the nonfiction books about Shakespeare like Jonathan Bate's books and 1599!

I might try some Shakespeare audiobook versions this year. Would be great to revisit Titus Andronicus as we did it as a school play. Cymbeline is one that I haven't properly encountered yet.

Yes! ❤❤❤ Persephone. Just makes me happy to hold them and read them. Have not been disappointed with a title yet.

Did you see that Kenneth Branaugh is doing a production of King Lear on Broadway starting in October? I sure wish I didn’t live in Texas! I loved his other Shakespeare productions, especially Hamlet. I’ve wanted to read this for a long time, so I’m most looking forward to it. Thanks for leading this one. Picked up my Folger’s edition today.

This will be my first time participating in Shaketember, and I can't wait! I've been reading Shakespeare regularly this year and it's been wonderful. Great choices for plays from all the hosts! I've only read Twelfth Night of all the plays and that was several years ago.

Cymbeline is such an underrated play! Looking forward to your videos! 👍

Not familiar with "Wild" but the other books I have read and while as a vegetarian I skipped through a lot of Lamb's book I love his "Elia" essays and regularly reread. "Cider with Rosie" is a gem. "Babel" was a major disappointment. From the outset I sensed an agenda of issues that for me became a Hyde Park soapbox that constantly interrupted and could not be ignored. I too rarely read modern novels and I could not ignore all the press as she has become massively popular with modern readers who must be fed an anti-colonial stance at every turn. She is a good writer but her promulgation of her various causes get in the way. I was hoping for another "Dr. Norrell"....alas!! Nice work!!

I saw this video after viewing a live performance of a Shakespeare play! I love the idea of Shaketember! I think I’d like to join with a reread of King Lear and some of the sonnets! I’d like to save Macbeth for October!

I might be inclined to revisit King Lear this year. I could also do with a rewatch of Ran. Love what you all are doing for ShakeTember this year. 😋

Hey Nicole, I was very happy when I heard you say King Lear! It's on my reading list for this year and I was about to start it soon. This is a great motivation now. I had originally intended to read it in parallel with Moby Dick (on the recommendation of Benjamin .:), I finished MD without the Shakespeare insights however. So looking forward to it. Btw how does it work exactly when you are hosting? Do we just all read it and you discuss it in your video in September?

Last year was my first Shaketember and I finished all three plays. I absolutely loved the experience of reading those with all of you. I'm definitely not going to manage 6 plays, so I decided to choose those I haven't read so far, which are Cymbeline and Titus Andronicus. I also plan to read 1599. Of the plays Shakespeare wrote in that year, I only read Julius Caesar. I might pick up As You Like It as my third play in September. Not sure if I'll be able to finish all these, since I'll be very busy in September, but I'll be happy if I manage two. Looking forward to Shaketember and hope to participate in it every year.🎉😊😊

The selections are good! I wanted to just read Titus Androlicus and Cymbelne because I have not read them. Then I decided "Just read them all!" And I will. There's never enough Shakespeare.