Make ‘em laugh! Make ‘em cry? Make ‘em feel…weird???

We are talking genre! Specifically the genres of Shakespeare’s

I also cover what constituted a comedy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and how it’s not as straightforward as you would think. Afterwards, I dive into the tragicomedies, which have been confusing people even more for hundreds of years.

This episode is a part one! Next time I’ll be covering tragedies and histories. So come back for part two!

Further Reading:

Why We Should Celebrate the 400th Anniversary of

The First Folio (see more about the First Folio and the

The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare, particularly the chapters:

“Shakespeare’s comedies” by Stanley Wells

“Shakespeare’s tragicomedies” by Janette Dillon

The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare by Russ McDonald, particularly the chapter:

“Theater à la Mode: Shakespeare and the Kinds of Drama” and

Shakespeare After All by Marjorie Garber, especially the introductory information and the chapter on The Merchant of Venice

Some Shakespearean comedies:

The Comedy of Errors

Twelfth Night

The Merchant of Venice

And some Shakespearean tragicomedies/romances:

The Tempest

The Winter’s Tale

Cymbeline

For more on The Tempest, listen to my episode on The Tempest as theater metaphor

Credit where credit is due

Art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Today we are taking a little detour into the world of internet reviews of the classics. What are people saying about The Tempest, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet exactly? Sometimes, nothing good.

The internet these days is so driven by the algorithm but in a weird way that forces us to give the things we like five stars and to vigilantly defend against anything one star. The world of book reviews can be the wild west at time and just seeing a star value doesn’t often give you the full picture. Classics are often flooded with one stars because people are often forced to read them against their wills. But also, can it be valid to give classics a one star? Sometimes!

I have a curated list of some fun or insightful reviews to bring your way. A highly recommended pastime. Also, send me your favorite one-star reviews or submit your own one-star review of a Shakespeare play (or classic) that you hated reading for school!

Further Listening

Episode 1: The Tempest and Theater as Metaphor

Episode 2: The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

Episode 3: Shakespeare in Love (1998) with guest Ben Roman

Credit where credit is due

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg

But hark! What light from yonder window breaks? It is Shakespeare

This is a bit goofier than some of my other episodes as my brother and I bounce off each other, but I did try to bring some of the context to the discussion. But this might be the only situation in which I would discuss Shakespeare and Michael Bay’s Armageddon in the same breath.

Given the plot of the movie, there's a fair amount of discussion about sex, so I'm marking this one as explicit and you might want to listen to this one without kids present.

Want to read some of the reviews from when the movie first

Roger Ebert’s review

Variety review

Washington Post review (This review has

Here’s the 2023 article in The Atlantic that praises the movie 20 years on.

I highly recommend Be Kind Rewind’s YouTube video Harvey Weinstein and the Oscars: How Gwyneth and Shakespeare in Love Won

Credit where credit is due

Art by ⁠Halie Branson⁠

Music recording by ⁠josdvg⁠

Who would have thought that picking up Bill Bryson's little Shakespeare biography would unlock so many thoughts in my brain?

I picked up this bio to read because it was available at the library and pretty easy to get through. Then, I had a lot of thoughts and feelings I pursued some other biographical things that turned into this episode.

Today we'll be talking about Bill Bryson's take on the Bard, but through the lens of historical context. What information do we have from the past, what are the limitations of the historical record in general, and when it comes to the questions about Shakespeare's life, will we ever all be able to just...let it go?

Join me as we dive into all this and more (including a lengthy tangent about Anne Boleyn). Strap in, friends!

Further Reading

Bill Bryson, Shakespeare: The World as Stage

If you want to know a little more about Anne Boleyn (beyond Wikipedia but without reading anything too academic), try Susan Bordo, The Creation of Anne Boleyn: A New Look at England's Most Notorious Queen

Greene's Groats-Worth of Wit (this is a scan of the original printing with pretty good notes underneath)

Henry Chettle's apology to Shakespeare, or someone he refers to as the "best of living writers" (this is a scan of the original with no notes, so good luck reading the old school printing)

Copy of the drawing Johanne de Witt made of the interior of The Swan theater (the only known Elizabethan representation of the interior of a playhouse)

Credit where credit is due

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg

What's this mine eyes spy? A bonus episode? Yea, verily!

My next full episode is going to start getting more fully into Shakespeare biography, as in, biographies that have been written about him and what those works do or don't do with the details we have of his life.

But to better appreciate that discussion, we need to first know what the details of his life are, as we understand them. In this bonus episode, I give a quick rundown of the facts of Shakespeare's life so you have more complete context for future discussion of his biography and the world that he lived in.

Credit where credit is due

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg

Knock knock, who’s there? It’s me, with an episode on The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), the latest film adaptation of the Scottish play.

Directed by a Cohen brother and produced by A24, the movie does give some low-key horror vibes, especially in the creeptastic portrayal of the Weird Sisters. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand are unsurprisingly great.

But what is this adaptations deal, exactly? It’s using the original language, but a heavily edited version of the text and a simplified approach to the performance of that language. How much does this affect its role as an adaptation of a play?

I wrestle with these issues and a few more in this episode. Also, did some lazy searching and couldn’t find a credible source to confirm that Macbeth is the originator of knock knock jokes.

Further Learning

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Pop Culture Happy Hour's episode on the movie (as always, they have a good discussion)

The New Yorker's critical review of the movie

Crash Course on YouTube has some good overview videos on the play: Watch Part 1, Watch Part 2

Credit where credit is due

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg

Our revels now are not ended. They’re just getting started!

After my annual trip to the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival this year to see The Tempest, I ended up talking to my family about how Prospero acts as stand in for a playwright or director and the ties back to the theater. So I thought I’d write an episode about it!

We dip our toes into the post-colonial view of the play but it’s definitely a topic that deserves future treatment and consideration. I also try to address the question of whether Shakespeare wrote Prospero as a version of himself and how autobiographical The Tempest really is.

You can also hear me give two wildly different pronunciations

Further Reading

The Tempest by William Shakespeare (I used the Arden edition for

Shakespeare After All by Marjorie Garber (The whole book is great,

"Of Cannibals" by Michel de Montaigne (This is the essay I

Links

Visit my website

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg

Welcome to Something Shakespeare This Way Comes, a podcast made by a nerd who wants to share my love of the Bard. Take a listen to a learn a little more about why I'm making this podcast and why Shakespeare is still relevant in the modern world.

Come back for future discussions of plays, sonnets, characters, movie adaptations, and historical context about Elizabethan theater. Also one day we'll cover what the deal is with Sonnet 113.

Visit my website

Art by Halie Branson

Music recording by josdvg