Bardisms (52 page)
Authors: Barry Edelstein
blessings for daughters in,
14–18
,
20–22
children in,
40–41
faith in, 255
jealousy in,
117
running in, 60
as tragicomedic work,
215
wisdom, justice from,
152–53
wit,
166–70
.
See also
comedians
in
Coriolanus
, 166
in
Henry IV, Part II
, 166–67
in
The Merchant of Venice
, 166
wives, death of, 239
work,
147–51
in
Antony and Cleopatra
, 149–50
in
Henry IV, Part II
, 151
in
Julius Caesar
,
147
in
King Lear
,
147
in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
,
147
, 150
respect for necessity of,
148–50
rest during, 150–51
in
Richard III
,
147
in
Sonnet 111
,
148
in
The Taming of the Shrew
,
147
in
Twelfth Night
,
148
Worth, Irene,
177–78
Wriothesley, Henry,
89
yoga,
62
KEEP IN TOUCH
Have you a favorite Bardism of your own?
Have you heard someone quote the Bard for some occasion on which his lines seemed especially clever, apt, or moving?
Have you heard a public figure quote Shakespeare in a surprising context?
If so, then please point your Web browser to
www.bardismsbook.com
. There you’ll find a link to e-mail your favorite Bardisms, as well as additional original material not in this book. The Bardisms Web site aims to keep Shakespeare’s immortal lines an integral and enjoyable feature of everyday speech. “There’s magic in the (World Wide) web of it.”
Please visit often, and please send any questions, comments, or thoughts for Barry Edelstein to [email protected].
“Thanks, thanks, and ever thanks.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barry Edelstein is a theater director noted for his work on the plays of William Shakespeare. He has staged over half of the Bard’s plays, as well as other classical and contemporary works, at theaters around New York City and the United States. Some highlights: at Classic Stage Company,
The Winter’s Tale
, starring David Strathairn, which the
New York Times
called a “stirring production,” and
Richard III
with John Turturro and Julianna Margulies;
As You Like It
, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, at the Williamstown Theatre Festival;
Julius Caesar
starring Jeffrey Wright for New York’s “Shakespeare in the Park”; at the Public Theater,
The Merchant of Venice
, starring Ron Leibman in an OBIE Award–winning performance as Shylock; and, at various venues, Kevin Kline in three separate one-night-only Shakespeare “concerts.” Edelstein directs the Shakespeare Initiative at New York’s Public Theater and heads that institution’s “Shakespeare Lab” conservatory program. He has taught Shakespearean acting at USC, the Juilliard School, and the Graduate Acting Program at NYU, and in lectures and master classes around the United States and abroad. Edelstein was artistic director of New York’s award-winning Classic Stage Company from 1998 to 2003, where he directed a half dozen plays and produced a dozen more. He directed the film
My Lunch with Larry
. He has written about theater-related subjects in the
Washington Post
,
New York Times
,
New Republic
, and
American Theatre
. His book
Thinking Shakespeare
(Spark Publishing, 2007) has been called “a must-read for actors” (
New York
magazine) and “one of the most useful acting guides available” (
American Theatre
). A graduate of Tufts University, Edelstein holds an M.Phil. in English Renaissance drama from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Hilit, and their daughter, Tillirose.
Barry Edelstein
is a theater director noted for his productions of the plays of William Shakespeare. He has directed over half of the Bard’s works at theaters around New York City and the United States, including
Julius Caesar
, starring Jeffrey Wright, for New York’s “Shakespeare in the Park” and
As You Like It
, starring Gwyneth Paltrow. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, where he quotes a lot of Shakespeare.
WWW.BARDISMSBOOK.COM
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Thinking Shakespeare
Jacket design by the Designworks Group
Jacket Illustration by Victor Juhasz
BARDISMS
. Copyright © 2009 by Barry Edelstein. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* That’s what happens when your dad is a Shakespeare director. My wife likes to joke that when she grows up, our angel’s favorite Shakespeare quote will be from Celia in
As You Like It
, and she’ll go around school asking all of her friends, “Wilt thou change fathers? I will give thee mine” (1.5.85;
change
means “exchange,” “swap”).
* Citations: Hamlet,
Hamlet
, 3.1.58; Sonnet 144.1; Cassius,
Julius Caesar
, 1.2.140–41; Gloucester,
Richard III
, 1.1.1–2; Lady Macbeth,
Macbeth
, 2.2.1; Mark Antony,
Julius Caesar
, 3.2.80–82; King Henry,
Henry V
, 3.1.3–6.
* You may have heard this idea called by a technical term:
enjambment
, from the French for “on legs.” Enjambed lines and run-on lines are the same thing.
* Exactly what
the valley
refers to is unclear. Probably the feature described in my paraphrase (officially called the
philtrum
), it may alternatively mean the cleft in the chin (although that’s mentioned in the next line), or perhaps the hollow area beneath the lower lip, or even the ridges in the forehead caused by
the trick of ’s frown
.
* A tiny Shakespearean boo-boo here: in mythology it’s actually Venus, goddess of love, and not Juno, who is associated with swans. If you prefer your Shakespeare perfect, then blame the error on Celia, who, in an emotional moment, perhaps confuses the goddesses. If you can countenance a Shakespeare who’s human, then just imagine he was writing in a hurry or that he forgot to Google
Juno’s swans
before penning this line.
*
In other words:
Don’t display your wealth too ostentatiously. Don’t talk too much. Don’t lend more than you can afford. Don’t walk when riding is an option. Don’t believe everything you hear. Don’t bet all your chips on one roll of the dice.