I’m a break in a sentence, as rendered in print;
I’m to ruin your hopes; a one-hundred yard sprint;
I keep car data close, so you don’t need to squint;
I’m to dine, but not pay; or some salt (just a hint).
Who am I?
UPDATE: Riddle solved by Asher. See comments for answer.
“Why can’t you remember your Shakespeare and forget the third-raters,” James Tyrone asks his son Edmund in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night. “You’ll find what you’re trying to say in him — as you’ll find everything else worth saying.” Author Michael LoMonico puts this claim to the test in his new novel, That Shakespeare Kid, about a boy named Peter who gets hit on the head with a Riverside Shakespeare and awakes to find he can only speak Shakespeare’s words.
Now, I should mention that I know Mike, and I’ve worked with him before on projects such as the Folger’s Teaching Shakespeare Institute, their Elementary Education Conference, and PBS’s Shakespeare Uncovered educational advisory panel. I’m thanked in the book, and read it from a copy signed by the author. So, this will hardly be an unbiased review. But it’s about a kid who can’t stop speaking Shakespeare, so would you expect any less than an enthusiastic response from me regardless? And actually, knowing Mike enhances one’s appreciation of the book, as his time-tested philosophies of teaching and learning Shakespeare are fundamental to the story.
The book is addressed to “the great variety of readers” and, indeed, there are very specific demographics that I think will appreciate it for different reasons. On the surface, it’s a young adult novel, and I think it works on those terms. LoMonico sets the scene in the world of the child, and the story is told through the eyes of Peter’s friend Emma. So while the teacher in the book may be excited about covering Shakespeare, the kids start off creeping unwillingly to school. The characters of Peter and Emma are well developed and likable; they are kids you know and kids you’d like to know. And if the young reader is entirely unfamiliar with Shakespeare, you couldn’t ask for a better introduction.
But as excited as I am to recommend this to my nephew, I think my graduate students would appreciate it even more. In the book, LoMonico depicts numerous Shakespeare class lessons. He illustrates what works and what doesn’t work, and since we hear it all in Emma’s voice, we understand why. Mike is recognized as a national expert on teaching Shakespeare, with experience working with thousands of teachers and students. This novel is practically a textbook on how to teach Shakespeare on the middle-school level (and next semester, perhaps literally a textbook). If you’re interested in learning how to make Shakespeare fun for kids, let Mike walk you through it. The key, of course, is in providing numerous opportunities for students to speak the text out loud. Peter has no choice, but the rest of the students learn to enjoy it as well.
So kids will love this novel, as will teachers who wish to learn the fundamentals of teaching Shakespeare. What about experienced Shakespeare teachers who already have a passion for the stuff? I have to admit that part of the fun for me was in trying to identify the passages that Peter found himself reciting. LoMonico anticipates this; the answers are in the back. Every play by Shakespeare is represented, as well as Sonnet 18. The quotes range from the famous to the obscure, so the unstated game remains fun for all fans of Shakespeare, whether casual or die-hard. And teachers of Shakespeare will appreciate the familiar classroom moments, such as when students encounter the word “ho” or when the script requires your middle-school actors to kiss.
At the heart of That Shakespeare Kid is a love of Shakespeare’s language and how that love is expressed through speaking the text. Peter’s thoughts and writing are unaffected by his affliction; it only affects his speech. But for LoMonico, that’s where Shakespeare lives, in the spoken word, so that’s where teachers and students need to look for him. Peter’s curse becomes a joyful blessing in those sections where he has fun playing with these amazing words he suddenly has unlimited access to, such as when he uses lines from across the canon to describe his experiences at a Mets game, or when he accepts a challenge from his classmates to find quotes that use a given word.
LoMonico has some fun of his own; all of the chapter titles and most of the character names are Shakespeare references. In fact, the entire story can be seen as an allegory for learning Shakespeare’s language. When the students first learn of Peter’s condition, they find it scary and alienating. As they get used to it, they realize that it becomes easier to understand, and they eventually learn to celebrate it.
This is a book about teaching Shakespeare, and about learning it. About liking it, and about loving it. It is for teachers and for students and for Shakespeare fans of all ages. It’s a book for each of us who, at one point in our lives, got hit over the head by a Riverside Shakespeare and found ourselves unable to resist speaking these incredible words. We may have gotten some strange looks from our friends and loved ones at first, but they eventually came to accept it as a part of who we are. Peter’s journey may be fantastical, but it’s not entirely unfamiliar.
That Shakespeare Kid is available at Amazon.com in paperback
UPDATE: Mike has set it up on Amazon.com that if you buy the print edition, you can get the Kindle edition for free.
In honor of Twitter’s IPO this week…
From Hamlet:
Brevity is the soul of wit
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Oh, Twitter’s live? If so, buy!
The term “nature vs. nurture” is a poetic turn of phrase that refers to an ongoing reexamination of the roles that heredity and environment play in determining who we are as individuals. The expression was popularized in the 19th century by Francis Galton, though the debate and the phrase had been around much longer than his day. In fact, Shakespeare himself juxtaposed the two words in The Tempest, as Prospero describes Caliban thusly:
A devil, a born devil, on whose nature
Nurture can never stick;
Shakespeare was not the first to contrast these two words, but Galton is known to have been a Shakespeare fan, and it seems reasonable to imagine this was his source.
Shakespeare’s plays are filled with models of the intricate workings of human nature, depictions of how individuals are influenced by external factors, and the complicated interplay between the two. As we will soon see, Shakespeare was also an early voice in this conversation, and an often-quoted source by later thinkers as well. Therefore, our Shakespeare Follow-Up will focus on the development of the nature vs. nurture debate from Shakespeare’s time to ours today.
But please note that this is a very large topic, and I’m going to sweep through it rather quickly, so feel free to do your own follow up on any topic here that interests you.
Political philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau are often grouped together as “social contract theorists,” because they presented ideas about how and why humans form societies. But when considering their impact on the nature/nurture question, it’s more illustrative to focus on their differences.
In Leviathan (1651), Thomas Hobbes argued that human beings, existing in a state of nature, are savage and brutal. Therefore, we willingly surrender our autonomy to a sovereign unconditionally in order to gain security from our murderous brethren. John Locke, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), lays out the idea that we refer to today as tabula rasa, or “the blank slate.” Rather than seeing human beings as being innately evil, as Hobbes does, he sees us as being neither good nor evil naturally, but rather open to influence from our environments. Jean-Jacques Rousseau presents a different view of the natural state of the human in his book Émile (1762). For Rousseau, humans are born innately good, and it is society that corrupts.
Naturally, the choice of which of these three views to adopt will have a profound effect on how a culture views education and child rearing. We can’t control the nature, but we can structure the nurture to make the best use of our understanding of it. If we believe that human beings are born evil, we’ll want to make discipline the backbone of our educational system. If we believe that children are blank slates, we’ll seek to fill those slates with our best models for citizenship and morality. If we believe that our students are innately good, then maybe the best thing we could do would be to just get out of the way and let them explore the world they find themselves in. You can hear echoes of these debates in today’s conversations about education.
In the post-Darwinian era, psychologists began to codify the progression of human development into various stages. The progression was determined by nature, but profoundly impacted by environment. Sigmund Freud described five psycho-sexual stages of development in childhood. The eight psycho-social stages outlined by Erik Erikson were strongly influenced by Freud, but extended to adulthood.
But wait! A lifetime of human progression divided into stages? Why does that sound familiar? Oh right…
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel,
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
It seems that Jacques in As You Like It was on the right track, centuries ahead of his time. Freud famously wrote about Hamlet, and Erikson even cites Shakespeare’s “ages of man” in his 1962 article “Youth: Fidelity and Diversity,” which also provides an in-depth discussion of Hamlet.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) developed a set of four stages of cognitive development that have been profoundly influential in our understanding of human nature. Piaget believed that these stages developed naturally, and that new levels of learning become possible at each stage. Score one point for nature! Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) built on these ideas, but demonstrated that learning could actually encourage cognitive development. There is a zone between what students are capable of doing on their own and what they can do in an environment that includes guidance and collaboration. Stretching into this zone can assist children in progressing developmentally. There’s one point for nurture, and it’s a tie game.
In fact, it will always be a tie game. Everyone agrees that both nature and nurture are significant, and we can argue about various degrees. Noam Chomsky (1928 – ) revolutionized the field of linguistics by describing, in Syntactic Structures (1957), the innate ability of the human brain to acquire language. This was a challenge to the behaviorist philosophy that was dominant at the time. In Frames of Mind (1983), Howard Gardner describes a system of multiple intelligences that different people seem to possess in different measures. The rise of theories such as Chomsky’s and Gardner’s would seem to move the needle towards nature, but the fact that they continue to influence our educational practices demonstrate the importance of nurture in the equation all the more powerfully.
Shakespeare, of course, didn’t know any of this. Nevertheless, his understanding of the complex interplay between nature and nurture was nuanced enough for him to create models that still have us debating the actions and motivations of fictional characters as though they were real people. Why, for example, does Macbeth kill Duncan? Is it because he’s ambitious? Or does he succumb to pressure from his wife? If it’s the former, would he have done so without prompting from the witches? And if it’s the latter, what elements of his nature make him susceptible to his wife’s influence?
I give up. What do you think, Lady Macbeth?
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o’ the milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way; thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it; what thou wouldst highly,
That thou wouldst holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win; thou’dst have, great Glamis,
That which cries, ‘Thus thou must do, if thou have it;’
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear,
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown’d withal.
A lot of these Follow-Ups are about how much Shakespeare didn’t know. This one is about how much he still has to teach us.
I’m the gun at your side, whether open or hid;
I’m a cell in your eye that’s found under the lid;
I’m the tool used to catch all the fish that you did;
And it’s writ if you spare me, you’ll spoil your kid.
Who am I?
UPDATE: Riddle solved by Michael Hendry. See comments for answer.
I’m a current consistent in how I will flow;
I’m the no-nonsense manner to say what you know;
To guide actors on stage in performing your show;
And a detour-free route – it’s the best way to go.
Who am I?
UPDATE: Riddle seemingly solved by Asher. See comments for answer.
I am tossing a line with a hook and a fly;
I am plaster for bones; an already-thrown die;
Use a magical spell; redirecting your eye;
And deciding who’s playing each Doll and each Guy.
Who am I?
UPDATE: Riddle solved by Asher. See comments for answer.
This is the last of four reviews of The Hollow Crown, a series of BBC productions of Shakespeare’s second tetralogy of history plays: Richard II, Henry IV, Part 1, Henry IV, Part 2, and the subject of this final review, Henry V.
Henry V is a great play in its own right. But watching it just after you’ve seen the same actors in the Henry IV plays adds a whole new dimension to the experience. From the Dauphin’s insult to the execution of Bardolph to the wooing of Katherine, we can view the actions of the young king through the lens of his wayward youth and seemingly miraculous reformation.
Early on, I was very impressed with the actor who played Exeter. He’s exactly the kind of actor I like; he makes crisp clear decisions, and you always know what he’s thinking. But when I looked up his name, I found it was Anton Lesser, one of my favorite audio performers. I guess I just didn’t recognize him with a face.
The cast as a whole was outstanding, with some very fine moments delivered by the smallest of roles. But there is one star in this play, and Tom Hiddleston gives an outstanding performance as Henry V. He very clearly conquers Harfleur with a single speech. His exchanges with Montjoy are earnest and passionate. And when he gets to the big moment, the St. Cripin’s Day speech, he really brings it home. When Olivier and Branagh did it, they started by talking to Westmoreland and the inner circle and gradually transitioned into a speech to the troops. Hiddleston’s Henry keeps the speech in the circle. Even though it is a monologue, Henry’s audience members contribute as much to the speech as he does, the inspiration beaming in their faces as Henry speaks of honor and glory.
Director Thea Sharrock keeps the action moving and the story clear. This may be the first time I’ve ever really understood the Fluellen/Pistol relationship. In the lead up to the battle, the look and feel of the grimy English soldiers contrasted with the clean French nobles made it clear who was going to be the home team. The Agincourt battle itself was extremely well done, brilliantly capturing the managed chaos of medieval warfare.
The Chorus was done as a voice-over, and it worked here. John Hurt’s enticing performance does a fine job of drawing us into the story, while the images on screen support the narration rather than distracting from it. I don’t want to give too much away here, but it will suffice to say that I absolutely loved the framing device used in the very beginning and the very end. I thought it was incredibly moving and really quite brilliant.
This production was a very fitting conclusion to a sterling collection. Owning the DVD set, I feel as though I am myself a king, and at my command are Ben Wishaw, Jeremy Irons, Simon Russell Beale, and Tom Hiddleston who will, on my merest whim, perform this masterpiece tetralogy for my entertainment.
If you want to get in on the action, you can watch the whole play on the PBS website.
In honor of the shutdown ending…
From King Lear:
Nothing will come of nothing
Shift around the letters, and it becomes:
Hill conmen fighting now, too.
Towards the end of Hamlet, Hamlet meets Laertes for a sword-fight. It’s supposed to be just an exhibition, but Laertes secretly intends to kill Hamlet for real. Hamlet has killed Laertes’s father, an act which has also led to the death of Laertes’s sister. Wanting to clear the air before the friendly sporting match begins, Hamlet offers the following words of contrition:
Give me your pardon, sir; I’ve done you wrong;
But pardon ’t, as you are a gentleman.
This presence knows,
And you must needs have heard, how I am punish’d
With sore distraction. What I have done,
That might your nature, honour and exception
Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.
Was ’t Hamlet wrong’d Laertes? Never Hamlet:
If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,
Then Hamlet does it not; Hamlet denies it.
Who does it then? His madness. If ’t be so,
Hamlet is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.
Sir, in this audience,
Let my disclaiming from a purpos’d evil
Free me so far in your most generous thoughts,
That I have shot mine arrow o’er the house,
And hurt my brother.
Worst. Apology. Ever.
And the egregiousness of the non-apology is compounded by the fact that we, the audience, know that Hamlet was only faking his madness in the first place.
Still, the idea that a person might be absolved of responsibility for a crime due to insanity seems like an awfully enlightened concept to be showing up in an early 17th century play. Was Shakespeare playing around with some concepts that were ahead of his time, or was the insanity defense already part of contemporary jurisprudence? This looks like a job for the Shakespeare Follow-Up!
The idea of intent as a legal concept goes as far back as law itself, as it is described in some detail in The Code of Hammurabi. The Latin term for “not of sound mind” is non compos mentis, and the ancient Romans did indeed recognize it as a valid defense. The idea was also not foreign to Shakespeare’s England. According to Barbara Kirwan:
The concept that certain mental disorders might relieve a person of responsibility for criminal conduct was first recognized as a defense in 1275 by English common law. Starting in the reign of Edward II (1307-1327), a criminal could be found insane if his defenders could demonstrate that his mental abilities were no greater than those of a “wild beast.”
So Shakespeare certainly did not invent the concept. However, most of the evolution of the insanity defense has happened since the time of Shakespeare’s death.
In 1843, Daniel M’Naughton was acquitted of a murder charge by an English jury on the ground of insanity. During the process, the House of Lords had asked a panel of judges a series of questions, later known as the M’Naughton Rules, that would become a benchmark for making these kinds of judgements in the future.
Here in the United States, the standards for determining the validity of an insanity plea vary by state, and a few states don’t recognize it at all. Charles Guiteau pleaded insanity in his trial for assassinating President Garfield, but was found guilty and hanged. John Hinkley, however, was acquitted for shooting President Reagan by reason of insanity. This led to a public outcry, and the Insanity Defense Reform Act of 1984, which made it more difficult to mount such a defense.
Whether you agree with the insanity defense or not, it isn’t hard to understand the public’s reaction. Just imagine Hinckley using Hamlet’s words in his own defense:
Was ’t Hinkley wrong’d Reagan? Never Hinkley:
If Hinkley from himself be ta’en away,
And when he’s not himself does wrong Reagan,
Then Hinkley does it not; Hinkley denies it.
Who does it then? His madness. If ’t be so,
Hinkley is of the faction that is wrong’d;
His madness is poor Hinkley’s enemy.
Infuriating, right? And in our current era of school shootings and random bombings, we find ourselves facing a wide array of criminals who establish themselves as undeniably insane simply by doing the thing they are on trial for. But how can that possibly be a reasonable standard for acquittal?
So obviously, this is something we’re still struggling with. But going as far back as antiquity, the law has always recognized that there were legitimate times when a person should be absolved of a crime on the grounds of insanity. Shakespeare articulates the reasoning behind it with great clarity, but subsequent cases and conversations have muddied that clarity considerably.