Monday, June 26, 2023

 

Today’s Totally Random Lines

  

A noise within crying ‘Room for the Queen!’

Enter Queen Katherine, usher’d by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk: she kneels. The king riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him.

 

Stage Direction King Henry the Eighth                  Act I, Scene ii

 

It was such a long stage direction, and those are so rare, that I decided to give it to you as today’s line. I think I’ve done that before, haven’t I?

This gives us something to consider about Will’s works especially, but also about drama in general: it’s all about the dialogue. I guess that’s obvious, but I think sometimes we overlook it. It does give me pause to wonder, and I think I’ve voiced this thought before too, what kind of writer Will would have been if he was writing in some other form. Well, we have a taste of this with his few long poems and his sonnets. But I can’t help but wonder what he would have been as a novelist, or even an essayist; or maybe a biographer - perhaps even an autobiographer.

In the meantime, I guess we just have to spend our time marveling at what he was able to do with dialogue. It’s an interesting thing to think about.


I've decided to try my hand at sketching, so that on those days where I can't come up with a picture I'll just torture you with one of my own.

 




1 comment:

Squeaks said...

Maybe he chose to write plays and sonnets because he knew narrative wasn't his forte. In fact, maybe there's narratives he wrote that we don't even know about because they just never became popular.

  Today’s Totally Random Lines   I’ll wait upon them: I am ready.   Leonato Much Ado About Nothing      Act III, Scene v, Line 53...