Shakespeare revisited

All of us have read plays by Shakespeare in our youth. But  how much did you really know about him and his entire work? Heres a quick guide

If you wanted to read every play of Shakespeare on your commute, it would take you only six months. There are 38 plays in total, unless you count the lost play Cardenio, which now exists only as an adaptation called Double Falsehood (me neither). Presuming you read for an hour a day, Monday to Friday, you can manage more than a play a week. I know this because that is just what I have done. Morning and night, I have been making my way through the canon, which stretches alphabetically from All’s Well That Ends Well to The Winter’s Tale, or chronologically from The Taming of the Shrew (about 1590) to The Two Noble Kinsmen (about 1613).

And why did I, or why should you? It would be easy to say because the plays are madcap, majestic, lustrous, zany, tranquil, generous, bloodstained and monumental. Of course, it is easy only because all of those words were probably coined by Shakespeare himself.

Shakespeare is the best possible use of your time on the train, Tube or bus. You could work, I suppose, but that is what being at work is for. Or you could annoy people by playing loud music through tiny headphones. Or you could watch Game of Thrones or The Wire (neither of which would have been written if Shakespeare had never lived).

Indeed, when you devote time to reading the plays, it becomes not only an addiction (another Shakespearean coinage), but an opportunity to examine in detail a body of work that has pervaded the modern world, but for which we give scant acknowledgement.

We probably all know some Shakespeare facts, though. He was born and died on St George’s Day, thus making him the perfect patron saint of Englishness. He gave his “second best bed” to his wife in his will. He had a young son called Hamnet, who died just before he wrote the play Hamlet. He may or may not have written the plays of William Shakespeare.

Incidentally, that latter issue is soon dismissed when you spend much time actually reading his plays. The singular voice, the product of an individual set of experiences, rings out clearly across the career. And the arc of that career is visible when you read: from the early, rough-hewn comedies and histories through his turn-of-the-century golden period to the late romances and masques. Like Radiohead, he eventually grew tired of the traditional formats available to him, and allowed himself the indulgence of experimentation.

Along the way, there are plenty of things to discover for the first time.

Playing with history. There are three parts to the play Henry VI, but the first was written last, as a money-making, Hollywood-style prequel, by several contributors, and features a character assassination of Joan of Arc (called Joan La Pucelle, a pun on “puzzel” or whore).

Shakespeare wrote plays featuring Henry VI, Richard III and Henry VII at the beginning of his career, and then came back to write the Richard II to Henry V cycle later. So when Henry V ends with lines looking ahead to the birth of his son “whose state so many had the managing, that they lost France and made his England bleed”, it is already looking back (“as oft our stage has shown”) to the beginnings of his own theatrical output.

Lost scenes. Reading Shakespeare gives you access to bits that would never make the director’s cut. Like the first scene of The Taming of the Shrew, all about a drunk called Sly who passes out and is then made to become an audience member to watch the play itself. He pops up after the first act to offer some commentary, and is never seen again.

Gender studies. Shakespeare is preoccupied with how men and women get on, and get off, with one another. He has provided us with the archetypal tragic lovers (Romeo and Juliet), as well as witty, warring friends-with-benefits (Beatrice and Benedick). Many of his jokes are based on the differences, or confusing similarities, between men and women. At the end of Twelfth Night, we have a boy actor playing a woman pretending to be a man, as well as a male actor pretending to be a woman. The title of Much Ado About Nothing is a reference to a vagina (“no thing”; not a penis).

But Shakespeare was also fascinated by friendship, which provides the theme of his last ever play (The Two Noble Kinsmen). Coriolanus, that brilliant, bloody investigation into masculinity and soldiership, is also a play about the almost-amorous rivalry between two men. One can always (as I was taught at university) spot the “anus in Coriolanus”, especially in moments as when his great rival Aufidius notes:

“We have been down together in my sleep,

Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,

And waked half dead with nothing.”

What more invigorating start to the day can you wish for?

Wildlife. Shakespeare, the Staffordshire country boy, filled his plays with animal metaphors and occasionally actual animals. Tom Stoppard, in Shakespeare in Love, has the company manager say “what people want” is “love, and a bit with a dog”. He is probably talking about The Two Gentleman of Verona, which has a prominent role for dog Crab, who distracted audiences and actors alike with his scene-stealing capering.

In The Winter’s Tale, Antigonus is mauled to death by a wild beast, thus providing the most famous stage direction of all time: “exit, pursued by bear”. It is entirely possible that a tame bear (possibly a polar bear) made an actual, dangerous appearance in the theatre.

And, of course, Shakespeare should be experienced live, with actors giving voice to his lines, or ursine forms shambling about the place. But let’s be honest: you are never going to see every play, or possibly even any play.

After all, what matters most about Shakespeare is his unmatched ability to express an idea in concise, perfect language: the words on the page, not the action on the stage. Think of Shakespeare as a proto-tweeter in that sense. Indeed, I have tweeted quotes at the end of journeys, and it is impossible to better their compression of ideas: “tis one thing to be tempted, another to fall”; “the loyalty well held to fools does make our faith mere folly”; “there’s many a man hath more hair than wit”.

Or how about: “this our life finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything”. Shakespeare can find you joy and excitement even on the Circle line when it’s hot, sweaty and you’re late for a meeting. He coined the word “excitement”, by the way, too.

The play’s the thing: five to try

The best thing to do is leap in. You could buy Arden editions (explanatory footnotes, great introductions), but all of the plays are available free online (shakespeare.mit.edu) or as e-books.

1. Julius Caesar: most quotable lines; hero daringly killed off in third act.

2. Measure for Measure: all about morality, power and prostitution; excellent villain.

3. Hamlet: the most important cultural artefact in all of literature. (Benedict Cumberbatch takes the lead in the autumn)

4. As You Like It: a celebration of wittiness; nice wrestling scene early on.

5. Henry V: wonderful celebration, and investigation, of British heroism.