This is what I'm here for! In my middle age I've been drawn to study the classics, I'm on my second pass through "a Shakespeare a month". I hope you have a Cymbeline, I remember that being my favorite and I'm reviewing it for February(2024).
I have a three-part casual discussion of Cymbeline, which is also one of my favorites. I need to redo the Cymbeline notes in a better format soon. It’s on my to-do list. Thanks for watching!
@@naly202 ooh, reminds me. Current monthly Shakespeare is Taming of the Shrew. I need to check out his videos for more information about the Induction!
I once won a bet with one of this country's leading macroeconomists who'd asserted that the economic theory of 'tax incidence' (how the burden of taxes are redistributed throughout the economy by market forces) couldn't be dramatized. I found a near textbook example of it in Act I, scene 2 of this play. That is one of several examples of the economic sophistication of Shakespeare to be found in the canon. More importantly, it makes no sense whatsoever to place this play as having been written during the reign of King James, whose own mother had been executed by Elizabeth I. I.e., the woman whose birth is celebrated at the end of the play with the prophecy that she will be a great monarch. There's something rotten in the state of dating Shakespeare's plays.
I love your using this play in a bet with a macroeconomist! Excellent! The Elizabeth prophecy does culminate in about 14 lines about James “who from the sacred ashes of her honor/ Shall starlike rise as great in fame as she was / and so stand fixed,” so I don’t think it could be any earlier, though Shakespeare certainly does butter up both monarchs extensively here. I don’t have an answer to King James’s sentiments about Elizabeth, but the execution of friends and family does seems to be a common theme in those days, and I guess they all had to deal with it one way or another. I’ll have to do some more research! Thanks for the great comment!
@@Nancenotes Those 14 lines at the end of Cranmer's lengthy paean to Elizabeth could (and probably were) tacked on later to make it palatable to James. Given the hyperbole that precedes, it's pretty obviously a kissing up to Elizabeth. In fact, the whole play is glorifying the Tudors. Look at how Henry VIII is shown to reverse Wolsey's taxes, because he's such a wonderful monarch of the people.
@@Nancenotes A clue is Cranmer's reference to her dying as a virgin. She was born in 1533, but was still being courted by European princes for her hand in marriage into the 1580s.
@@patricksullivan4329 I lumped that line in as a posthumous reference to her, but I suppose it wouldn’t have to be if her reputation as the virgin queen were already established. It’s interesting that it come after the “but die she must” bit, and yet the James reference comes before, which doesn’t make a lot of sense since it seems like his talk of her death comes as a turn. You’ve talked me around to your line of thinking.
Thank you! This one just slipped through the cracks when I was a lit major. Have you any recommendations for a book including the play. I have found this one in Germany: King Henry VIII: Or All Is True (Oxford World’s Classics)
Thanks for taking this one seriously.
This is what I'm here for! In my middle age I've been drawn to study the classics, I'm on my second pass through "a Shakespeare a month". I hope you have a Cymbeline, I remember that being my favorite and I'm reviewing it for February(2024).
I have a three-part casual discussion of Cymbeline, which is also one of my favorites. I need to redo the Cymbeline notes in a better format soon. It’s on my to-do list. Thanks for watching!
He discusses Cymbeline in some of his earlier videos made a few years ago
@@naly202 ooh, reminds me. Current monthly Shakespeare is Taming of the Shrew. I need to check out his videos for more information about the Induction!
I once won a bet with one of this country's leading macroeconomists who'd asserted that the economic theory of 'tax incidence' (how the burden of taxes are redistributed throughout the economy by market forces) couldn't be dramatized. I found a near textbook example of it in Act I, scene 2 of this play. That is one of several examples of the economic sophistication of Shakespeare to be found in the canon.
More importantly, it makes no sense whatsoever to place this play as having been written during the reign of King James, whose own mother had been executed by Elizabeth I. I.e., the woman whose birth is celebrated at the end of the play with the prophecy that she will be a great monarch. There's something rotten in the state of dating Shakespeare's plays.
I love your using this play in a bet with a macroeconomist! Excellent! The Elizabeth prophecy does culminate in about 14 lines about James “who from the sacred ashes of her honor/ Shall starlike rise as great in fame as she was / and so stand fixed,” so I don’t think it could be any earlier, though Shakespeare certainly does butter up both monarchs extensively here. I don’t have an answer to King James’s sentiments about Elizabeth, but the execution of friends and family does seems to be a common theme in those days, and I guess they all had to deal with it one way or another. I’ll have to do some more research! Thanks for the great comment!
@@Nancenotes Those 14 lines at the end of Cranmer's lengthy paean to Elizabeth could (and probably were) tacked on later to make it palatable to James. Given the hyperbole that precedes, it's pretty obviously a kissing up to Elizabeth. In fact, the whole play is glorifying the Tudors. Look at how Henry VIII is shown to reverse Wolsey's taxes, because he's such a wonderful monarch of the people.
@@patricksullivan4329 That makes sense! What is your best guess at a date?
@@Nancenotes A clue is Cranmer's reference to her dying as a virgin. She was born in 1533, but was still being courted by European princes for her hand in marriage into the 1580s.
@@patricksullivan4329 I lumped that line in as a posthumous reference to her, but I suppose it wouldn’t have to be if her reputation as the virgin queen were already established. It’s interesting that it come after the “but die she must” bit, and yet the James reference comes before, which doesn’t make a lot of sense since it seems like his talk of her death comes as a turn. You’ve talked me around to your line of thinking.
Thank you! This one just slipped through the cracks when I was a lit major. Have you any recommendations for a book including the play. I have found this one in Germany: King Henry VIII: Or All Is True (Oxford World’s Classics)
Oxford World Classics are great. I also like the Arden Shakespeare Editions.