I am excited to announce a new (though temporary) weekly feature to the blog, inspired by the book Eunoia by Christian Bök. The book has five chapters, each using only one of the five vowels (A, E, I, O, U), and excluding the other four. I thought it might make a fun constrained writing activity for the blog.

The Challenge: I will write plot summaries for five of Shakespeare’s plays, each using a different target vowel, and excluding the other four. I will choose one play from each of the five genres. I will post one summary each Sunday for five weeks.

Five weeks. Five vowels. Five genres. Five plays.

I haven’t read Eunoia, so I don’t know how Bök deals with the letters W and Y, but I have laid down my own ground rules. Y is okay if it’s used as a consonant (as in “Yet”) or in conjunction with the target vowel (as in “boy”), but not when used by itself (as in “my”) or when it forms its own syllable (as in “every”). There will be no restrictions on the use of the letter W.

Obviously, I will need to change most of the character names to make this work. But rather than arbitrarily choosing new names, I think it would be more faithful to the constraint to choose descriptive nicknames.

For my first attempt, I have chosen to summarize a History play, King Henry IV, Part One, using “A” as the only vowel.

Enjoy!

Hal and Falstaff at War, Part A

 

Brash Lad’s clansman March has a fall at war. Stalwart Braggart attacks and nabs March, and wants cash. Brash Lad wants March back. Grand Man (Hal’s dad) can’t pay Stalwart Braggart that cash. Brash Lad rants mad. Grand Man can’t pay a call at Abraham’s Land, as was always a plan. Grand Man stays wan. An adamant Brash Lad walks, and clasps Stalwart Braggart’s hands.

Hal, Jack Falstaff, and a madcap charlatan band hang at a bar. Falstaff has a scam plan. Hal’s plan sandbags Falstaff. Falstaff, back at that bar, brags and brags. Hal calls Falstaff’s brag and can flash all Falstaff’s cash. Falstaff warns Hal that smart scams can’t trap Stalwart Braggart and Mad Marksman, and that Hal’s dad, Grand Man, wants a harsh chat. Falstaff playacts Grand Man and lambasts Hal. Hal playacts Grand Man and Falstaff playacts Hal. Falstaff (as Hal) says that Hal can’t cast fat Jack Falstaff away. Hal (as Grand Man) says that Hal can, and that’s a fact, Jack!

Brash Lad, Stalwart Braggart, and March all play ball, and plan an attack at Grand Man. March’s lass sang. Grand Man lambasts Hal, as Falstaff had. Hal asks vaward, and Grand Man grants that. Falstaff drafts scalawags that Hal can’t stand and flagrant dastards that pay Falstaff hard cash and walk. Mad Marksman clasps Brash Lad’s hands. Hal packs arms. Falstaff packs sack.

War starts! Mad Marksman attacks Grand Man. Hal casts Mad Marksman away. Hal and Brash Lad clash, and Hal slays Brash Lad. Mad Marksman attacks Jack Falstaff. Falstaff falls flat and playacts a carcass. Hal calls Brash Lad a gallant, and calls Falstaff fat. As Hal walks away, Falstaff plays at sarcasm and says that a gallant’s as apt as a warrant and a hangman. Falstaff nabs Brash Lad’s carcass and says that Brash Lad had drawn a last fall at Falstaff’s hand.

Hal’s man nabs Mad Marksman. Hal plays lax gallant and casts Mad Marksman away. Hal and Grand Man plan an attack at Stalwart Braggart and March. Call that play “Part B”…

Next Lipogram: As You Like It

From Richard III:

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out
In sharing that which you have pill’d from me!
Which of you trembles not that looks on me?
If not, that, I being queen, you bow like subjects,
Yet that, by you depos’d, you quake like rebels?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Following an ugly primary, we see kooky freewheeling hubbub, mostly myth, about whether Obama may have just offered State to Hillary Clinton in Chicago on Thursday. To keep up the question, she is quoted:

“I’ll think about it.”

Via the Shakespeare Geek, we find a website that uses a Markov chain to generate an alternate version of Hamlet. Check it out!

From what I can tell, the site works from a table of which words follow other words in the play, and how often. It then constructs a chain by looking at the last word (or few words) that were entered, and choosing a random word of those that actually follow that word (or few words) in the play.

For example, one place in the play has “Alas! poor Yorick. I knew him, Horatio.” Another part of the play has “I knew your father.” The Markov chain might generate “Alas! poor Yorick. I knew…” and then, only looking at the last two words “I knew” might follow up with “your father.” The final result would be “Alas! poor Yorick. I knew your father.”

This is a favorite example provided by the author, but there are a lot of funny possibilities. You can keep refreshing the page to get a new randomly-generated Hamlet.

Thanks, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Ere I could accuse me of the courtier, cousin, and with a look so piteous in purport
As I perceived it, if I gall him slightly,
Whips out his rapier, cries, ‘A rat, a touch,
The queen desires you to remain
Here is your only jig-maker. What it should be old as I will be laid to us, till I know not–lost all my best obey you, and, at a shot
So art thou to me all the battlements their ordnance fire: proclaim no shame
When Roscius was an actor in Rome,–
As of a dear father murder’d,
With mirth in funeral and with a crafty madness, like the herald Mercury
New-lighted on a roar? Not one now o’er
The triumph of his own scandal.

Enjoy!

The First Folio (1623) delineates Shakespeare’s plays into three genres: Comedy, Tragedy, and History. More recent scholars added the category of Romance to describe some of his later plays, and there is also a fifth, more nebulous, category that goes by several different names, which describes plays like Troilus and Cressida that seem to defy genre.

How meaningful are these genres? Certainly, a play like King Lear has a very different tenor than, say, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s not just a question of mood, but even the rules are different. These are plays in different genres. But does this distinction hold up across the canon? Or does each play speak for itself? This is the Question of the Week.

How much stock should we put in Shakespearean genres?

And if you say that these genres are correct, I have a few follow-up questions. Perhaps you’d like to tackle one of these as well:

• Why is Macbeth a Tragedy while Richard III is a History?
• Why is As You Like It a Comedy, while The Winter’s Tale is a Romance?
• Why is Much Ado About Nothing a Comedy, while Romeo and Juliet is a Tragedy? (Is it just the ending? Is that enough to consider it a different genre?)

From Richard III:

Enrich the time to come with smooth-fac’d peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Oh, a mosaic of midnight paeans to this worthy president-elect cried mirthful pomp.

“Yes, we can!”

I just got back from seeing Oliver Stone’s W and, since I’m writing again, I wanted to share my thoughts about it with you. But since it’s Saturday, I thought I’d do it as an anagram.

I chose a speech where Shakespeare apologizes for the inadequacies of the stage to depict the lives of kings. Perhaps it will mitigate the anagrammed review to follow.

From Henry V:

O! for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention;
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene.
Then should the war-like Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dar’d
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confin’d two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts:
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;
For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

After seeing Oliver Stone’s W, I don’t know what I’m supposed to make of it.

A humdrum bio-pic? How do you paint an intimate portrait of a person who isn’t reflective?

A thorough historical piece? No. They skip the key moments of his presidency and hop through the punchlines and nicknames (Guru, Genius, etc.). And his happy-hour past? Chugs, not drugs.

A dark comedy? Man, it’s too soon for humor. The joke’s on us.

A peek at the decision to take out Iraq? Hardly. Those scenes were as fluffy as my popcorn. I was hungry for more.

A high political drama? Primary Colors offers insight into Clinton. This limited film provides only a caricature of W.

Furthermore, I thought Newton and even Brolin got lost in the karaoke impressions they used. On the other hand, Scott Glenn as grumpy thug Rumsfeld and Jeffrey Wright as thoughtful gent Powell were not credible in their characters.

Mr. Dreyfuss as warmonger Cheney and Ms. Banks as earthier Laura threaded that tough needle handily; they brought forth people in accordance with their characters.

The standout of the group was patriarchal James Cromwell as Bush Sr., his dad. The tricky father/son relationship (fights, in lieu of hugs) is the human heart of the film. But nothing is ever resolved.

The film W tried to eke out too many things without doing any of them particularly well. It had many inaccurate facts, had no clear direction, and lasted too long. In short, it was W.

From Henry VIII:

[H]ow may I deserve it
That am a poor and humble subject to you?

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

What did Obama say to Joe the Plumber?

“You have income. Trust.”

From Macbeth:

If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favours nor your hate.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Who will win the hard race for the high honor of President of our United States: Obama or McCain?

Anyway, I know I’ll forgo any wonky eleventh-hour guess.

Tie?

From Henry IV, Part Two:

Come hither, Harry: sit thou by my bed;
And hear, I think, the very latest counsel
That ever I shall breathe. God knows, my son,
By what by-paths and indirect crook’d ways
I met this crown; and I myself know well
How troublesome it sat upon my head:
To thee it shall descend with better quiet,
Better opinion, better confirmation;
For all the soil of the achievement goes
With me into the earth.

Shift around the letters, and it becomes:

Two weeks back, Ms. Christiane Amanpour hobnobbed live with five former secretaries of state.

They told her why their instinct is for the new president to talk to both allies and enemies.

They told her in synch why we must both close Guantanamo and end torture.

They told her why it is time to move on climate change.

They told her why they think Iraq’s a hot potato.

Dumb liberal bile!

You can read a transcript of the interview here.