the fault is not in our stars

[hawkwing_lb]

Cassius:

Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

---

Thesis progress: unutterably slow.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hunh. It has taken me two months, I find, to fail to finish this short story.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Only two? It has taken me oh, all of four by now, to fail to make significant progress on this chapter...

*gazes upon thesis, and despairs*

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I adore Cassius. Much misunderstood -- and he was *right*, too, but would that drip Brutus listen?
(You have just hit one of my more obscure rant buttons :-))

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I find historical Cassius more compelling that Shakespeare's. But I grant you, Shakespeare's has a definite point. :)

(Please, rant away!)

[sovay]

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Can I request a poem about Cassius? (Historical or Shakespeare's or one as commentary on the other as you choose.)

Unutterably slow progress is better than none!

[edit] I find historical Cassius more compelling that Shakespeare's.

Okay, historical Cassius, then!

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I will think on't... although all my powers of thought are eaten, the last few days, by the need to grapple with odour and healing and sanctity in my research.

So eventually, I will try!

[sovay]

So eventually, I will try!

Yay!

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

My command of language is inadequate to express how much and why I love this play. It's not the best Shakespeare (though it is underrated!), but it's the one that gets the gut reaction, it was such a godsend to 15-year-old me.The copy I read had a dark blue cover and that somehow shaped how I think of it. The verse is fluid, like water-- sometimes you're just swimming lazily and sometimes there's a rushing inevitable current but it's always cool and solitary and wonderful.

Err. See under language, dubious command thereof, subsection similes.

(and, hope I'm not bugging you, but if you do wind up fulfilling Sovay's request, that would be wonderful!)

Speaking of early modern drama, have you read any John Webster?

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

*embarrassed cough* I've never actually read the whole play through. I love the words, and I love performed Shakespeare (and does Dublin play any regularly? Apart from the once-a-year-open-air-festival, no) but reading, not so much.

I haven't ever heard of John Webster, either...

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Lack of regular Shakespeare is sad.

I prefer reading, though performed is fun for seeing angles you never thought of...

John Webster is one of the few Jacobean playwrights who isn't in Ink & Steel or Hell & Earth, iirc. He co-wrote a bunch of forgettable comedies and wrote, by himself, two amazing tragedies with female protagonists. Which makes me annoyed that he spent so much time on the comedies! His heroines are older than Shakespeare's, sexually active, and sick of men trying to control them. Of course they come to bad ends, but they're awesome and defiant to the end.

"The White Devil" has the wicked-but-sympathetic version of this, and is more stereotypical and less polished, though it has a great anti-heroine and anti-hero. "The Duchess of Malfi" has the heroic version, and I totally recommend it. The Duchess is a widow who wants to re-marry despite the threats of her extremely creepy and controlling brothers. When she secretly marries her steward, the brother start plotting an "honor killing" and send a melancholic, snarky spy to lure her into their trap. Also, because this is Jacobean drama, there are poisoned Bibles, incestuous overtones, and a major character becomes convinced he's a werewolf.

One of my favorite bits is when the Duchess and her steward Antonio are talking and he won't quite come out and admit he loves her because of the difference in rank:

ANTONIO: Were there nor heaven nor hell,
I should be honest: I have long serv'd virtue,
And ne'er ta'en wages of her.

DUCHESS: Now she pays it.
The misery of us that are born great!
We are forc'd to woo, because none dare woo us.
And as a tyrant doubles with his words
And fearfully equivocates, so we
Are forc'd to express our violent passions
In riddles, and in dreams, and leave the path
Of simple virtue, which was never made
To seem the thing it is not. Go, go brag
You have left me heartless; mine is in your bosom:
I hope 'twill multiply love there. You do tremble:
Make not your heart so dead a piece of flesh,
To fear more than to love me. Sir, be confident:
What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;
'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster
Kneels at my husbands tomb. Awake, awake, man!
I do here put off all vain ceremony,
And only do appear to you a young widow
That claims you for her husband, and like a widow,
I use but half a blush in't.

Anyway, sorry for the super-long comment; basically if you like the excerpt, the play (http://larryavisbrown.homestead.com/files/malfi/malfi_home.htm) is online here.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, thanks.