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(by RSR)
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When people talk of Shakespeare, they mostly mention his comedies and tragedies especially in Indian school and college environment , than his great plays on British History. . The early generation of Indian University students (( 1857 to 1947) from Calcutta, Bombay and Madras , ( all the three universities were established in 1857--- the very year of the outbreak of First War of Independence! ) knew more of the History of England and its poets, novelists, essayists and playwrights of England than of their own land. as the syllabus in those decades was giving more importance to Humanities and ENGLISH Literature irrespective of the field of specialization.
So, it was easier for that generation to read Shakespeare's plays on England's history, Many of them could reel off great passages from the bard's plays with commendable ease and love!
My maternal grandfather , a lawyer, and disciple of Right Honorable (' Silver-tongued ' Srinivasa Sastry, ) was a great devotee of Shakespeare. He would have done his University course at Madras around (born 1888), 1904-1910.That was Jawaharlal Nehru generation. (born 1888).
But after we ( India) attained independence, ( 1947) the emphasis shifted more towards Indian and World History than British History.
and a few decades later , the brighter students opted for Science and Technology rather than Humanities.
While the shift was really in National Interest, the neglect of Shakespeare's plays ( and England's and World History ) and the great prose writers like Edmund Burke, Gibbon, Goldsmith, Charles Lamb, Hazzlitt, and great novelists like Dickens, Scott, George Eliot , the Brontes denied the students the delight of reading those great writers. Such English works should be compulsory to all the students from elementary school to highest levels of any chosen discipline . As I write these lines , JaganMohan Reddy, the present Chief minister of Andhra has made English mediium of education compulsory in all the schools. I applaud him for this bold and far-sighted move. English should not be thought of as the language of our erstwhile colonial masters but as a lovely tongue and an International language.
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True, Why should an Indian student waste his time in learning about the kings and troubles in succession in England ? Fair enough. But English is a World Language. and Shakespeare is not just an English playwright but an International writer of great repute. ( not without justification!).
And England had the World's first bourgeois revolution ( in Marxist parlance) in 1688, a full century earlier than the French Revolution of 1789. ( The American Revolution of Tom Paine 1765 preceded the French Revolution ! and was won with the help of decadent France! before the French revolution ).
It was nominally under Pope and so its representatives through the church were very powerful. and even Kings had to obey them.
Shakespeare's history plays cover the six centuries after the Norman Invasion upto the reign of King Henry VIII, ( 1491-1547)( father of Queen Elizabeth )
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The Normans were people of Normandy ,which is an area in the North-West of France and nearest to England .
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It was a continuous tussle between many rival centers, The King, the Barons, ( Robber Barons- as derisively called), the priestly class commanded by Pope) ,
the merchant class ( commons) , free peasants and traders and finally the real working class and serfs
Shakespeare was a humanist. He did not believe in heaven and hell but was all for virtue and loyalty, valour and brotherhood and order in social life.
He was definitely anti-Pope.
and supporter of Nationalism be it of France or England.
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Let me not presume that the visitor to this site knows about the works of Shakespeare.
Of course, one can always get tons of links in the web about the author and his plays.
But I am not writing for people who prepare for exams My aim is just to share my personal likes and dislikes of his plays in the hope that readers get genuinely interested in reading the classics thus made easy.
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Shakespeare wrote 36 plays
(16 happy-ending plays , ten tragedies and ten plays dealing with the history of England from the Norman invasion around 1000 AD to his lifetime ( that of Queen Elizabeth- 1600).- a period of 600 years.)
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What are the plays of Shakespeare with happy endings? I am intentionally refraining from terming them as 'comedies' as it carries a different meaning in today's tamil country.
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The plays have been shown in the order of my liking and preference.
1) As you like it
2) Merchant of Venice
3) Twelfth Night
4) Comedy of Errors
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5) Measure for measure
6) Winters tale
7) Two Gentlemen of Verona
8) Pericles
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9) All is well that ends well
10) Cymbeline
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I have managed to create a thamizh adaptation / translation of these ten tales and have placed them at
https://shakespeare4tamils.blogspot.com/
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11) Taming of the shrew
12) Much ado about nothing
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worst comedies
13) Love's Labour lost
14) Midsummer Night's dream
15) Tempest
16) Merry Wives of Windsor
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TEN TRAGEDIES
1) Julius Caesar
2) Romeo and Juliet
3) Timon of Athens
4) Othello
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5) Antony and Cleopatra
6) Macbeth
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WORST TRAGEDIES
7) Troilus and Cressida
8) King Lear
9) Corialanus
10) Titus Andronicus
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Two hundred years after Shakespeare (1600), , Charles and Mary Lamb ( Mary was the elder sister of Charles Lamb by six years) wrote their famous 'STORIES FROM SHAKESPEARE', selecting 20 out of the 16 'comedies' and 10 tragedies.
leaving out some bad plays of the bard. in 1800.! ( and we are reading them after 220 years.in 2020)
Mary Lamb wrote 14 comedies and Charles Lamb wrote 6 tragedies!
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What are the 2 comedies left out by Mary Lamb?
Merry Wives of Windsor
Love's Labour lost.
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What are the 4 tragedies left out by
Charles Lamb?
Troilus and Cressida
Titus Andronicus
Corialanus
Julius Caesar
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In the preface, it is said
" What these Tales shall have been to the YOUNG readers, that and much more it is the writers’ wish that the true Plays of Shakespeare may prove to them in older years—enrichers of the fancy, strengtheners of virtue, a withdrawing from all selfish and mercenary thoughts, a lesson of all sweet and honorable thoughts d actions, to teach courtesy, benignity, generosity, humanity: for of examples, teaching these virtues, his pages are full."
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How true indeed!
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My impression is that the book by Charles and Mary Lamb , is in fact even better than the original ! The bard was constrained to make it for stage plays but there was no such problem for the Lambs
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http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1286/1286-h/1286-h.htm#link2H_PREF
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We cannot understand Shakespeare's History plays without some basic knowledge about essential geography and facts about Saxons and Normans.
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Who were the kings in England before the Norman Conquest?
continued in the following link
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