10 Books that influenced me most in my life? Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

Judy Dench as Paulina in Kenneth Branagh’s recent production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale

I, that please some, try all, both joy and terror
Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds error,
Now take upon me, in the name of Time,
To use my wings — Winter’s Tale, Act 4, Time

I’ve reached Day 7/10 of books that influenced me, had a discernible impact. Since I last wrote on this blog, I’ve listed Days 5: Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind (together with Bronte’s Jane Eyre, DuMaurier’s King’s General, and Austen’s Mansfield Park); and Day 6: Alcott’s Little Women (together with Traver’s Mary Poppins in the Park, and the Nancy Drew series)

When I was around 13 and in ninth grade, the teacher took the class to Stratford, Connecticut to see the Shakespeare plays performed there. The play was The Winter’s tale. Below a picture of my old paperback and above recently Judy Dench as Paulina:

However conventional or inadequate, this kind of production might have seemed to me later in life, not when I was 13. I was absorbed, riveted by the first three acts (Paulina for strong tough lines: “Look down and see what death is doing”), entranced at Act four, loved the exquisitely beautiful poetry:

What you do
Still betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,
I’d have you do it ever; when you sing,
I’d have you buy and sell so; so give alms;
Pray so; and, for the ordering your affairs,
To sing them too: when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o’ the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that; move still, still so, and own
No other function …

I was startled moved at the fifth act beating death, ending in tears.

O, she’s warm!
If this be magic, let it be an art
Lawful as eating.

I just reveled in the whole thing. The queen speaking up for herself so eloquently (said to be Anne Boleyn in the play, but understood as Katherine of Aragon), Paulina, Autolycus, the god of thievery. I went home and read it and loved Time’s speech, and parts of it come to mind now and again. I bought a long playing record of this play with John Gielgud as Leontes, Wendy Hiller as Hermione. I’ve loved Shakespeare’s plays and poetry ever after.

Keely Hawes as Widow Grey in Henry VI (The Hollow Crown)

At age 18 finally in college, I took two summer courses where we read Shakespeare: tragedies, comedies, histories and I read some 18 of the plays; I found myself as a older teenager going to college when I went to Shakespeare in Central Park. In graduate school at first I wanted to major in Shakespeare, and write my dissertation on Cymbeline. Jim and I used to go to Shakespeare plays whenever possible, I do so today. His second present to me was a facsimile edition of the first folio. Eventually I read all 37 of them, quite a number numerous times, I went every summer to the park for all the plays they did. I loved old fashioned close-reading studies of Shakespeare, and all sorts of criticism from all angles.

Recently Lindsay Duncan as Duchess of York in Richard II (The Hollow Crown)

Since then I’ve taught The Winter’s Tale many times; I used to say it was my favorite Shakespeare play; it and Austen’s Sense & Sensibility on a desert Island and I’d need no more. Favorites for me beyond The Winter’s Tale to teach: Richard II, Henry IV Part One, As You Like It, Hamlet. Last year there was a Future Learn on Shakespeare, 9 sessions of lectures by Jonathan Bate! I re-watched and re-listened. Another Future Learn was on different productions of Love’s Labor’s Lost and Much Ado About Nothing (aka according to this production Love’s Labour’s Won) as twin plays at the RSC — it had clips from rehearsals and from earlier productions. Recently I watched The Hollow Crown series, loved the latest King Lear with Anthony Hopkins. Just never tire of the plays and sonnets. I go to every season at the Folger, all the HD screenings. Yesterday Izzy and I at Wolf Trap saw Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, just another of the countless sequels and variations. The man comes through all the different approaches, he’s there.

Jim’s present to me on our second anniversary was a facsimile copy of the first folio (his first was a copy of the 1924 edition of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility)

I read his poetry too. One of my favorite lyrics poems (repeated to myself in summer especially) is from Cymbeline:

Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Fear no more the frown o’ the great;
Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke;
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The scepter, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.

Fear no more the lightning flash,
Nor the all-dreaded thunder stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan:
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.

No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renownèd be thy grave!

Many of the sonnets speak to us through the Renaissance idioms and metaphors. This is one of my many favorites whose plain speaking has the raw edge of a truth I recognize

Pennie Downie as Gertrude in a recent great filmed Hamlet (David Tennant playing Hamlet)

Then hate me when thou wilt, if ever, now,
Now while the world is bent my deeds to cross;
Join with the spite of fortune, make me bow,
And do not drop in for an after-loss:
Ah, do not, when my heart hath ’scaped this sorrow,
Come in the rearward of a conquered woe.
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow,
To linger out a purposed overthrow.
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last,
When other petty griefs have done their spite
But in the onset come; so shall I taste
At first the very worst of fortune’s might;
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe,
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so —

Oh do not drop in for an after-loss.

Following this meme, I find I am writing my autobiography through crucial and early books. I’ve included some favorite actresses I’ve seen in Shakespeare plays lately.

Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth (John Singer Sargeant)

Ellen