Read Online Bardisms by Barry Edelstein - Free Book Online

you your father should be as a god.

—T HESEUS , A Midsummer Night’s Dream ,
1.1.47

    The relative shortage of mothers in Shakespeare stands in marked contrast with what can only be called a superabundance of fathers in the plays. Dads and their concerns are one of Shakespeare’s major subjects. The plays feature good dads and bad ones, aloof dads and meddlesome ones, timid dads and self-assured ones, successful dads and failures, controlling dads and ones who are laissez-faire, wealthy patriarchs and impoverished dependents, dads who are anxious, tempestuous, and altogether neurotic, and dads who are as chill as a medicine cabinet full of Prozac. And as varied as are the paternal personalities on display, just as diverse are the emotions they arouse in their progeny.
    For all their variety, however, there’s a remarkable consistency to what Shakespeare’s fathers want, namely, the best for their children, but with this caveat: that their paternal benevolence be both proffered and accepted on their own terms. Fathers of sons want their boys to be respectable and respectful, upright and worthy. If they step out of line and fail to live up to their fathers’ expectations, these boys’ll hear about it, and if they do make something of themselves, they’d better be quick to attribute their achievements to the inspiration provided them by Papa. Fathers of daughters want their girls to be virginal until marriage, and when they do walk down the aisle, it must be only into the arms of the man hand-picked for them as the most suitable. If they want to marry some other fellow, they’ll feel a hot and relentless wrath, and they’ll find no end of obstacles placed in their way. (So central is this marriage veto to the father-daughter relationship in Shakespeare that were it taken away, the plots of nearly half of his plays would collapse.)
    The young men and women on the receiving end of the fatherly upbraidings in the plays respond in kind, and things grow quickly turbulent. Yet those children who manage to please their fathers both hear from them and say to them some of the most tender, stirring, and unexpected love poetry in the plays.
    I LOVE YA, POP

    The mother of all father speeches in Shakespeare comes near the beginning of King Lear , when the monarch asks his three daughters to tell him how much they love him. Goneril, up first, lays it on thick:
Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter;

Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty;

Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare;

No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor;

As much as child e’er loved, or father found; 5

A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable;

Beyond all manner of so much I love you.

—G ONERIL , King Lear , 1.1.53–59
    In other words:
    Dad, I love you more than words can say. I love you more than my eyesight, more than freedom, more than free will. I love you more than any object, however expensive or unusual. I love you no less than I love life itself—life that’s full of grace, good health, beauty, and honor. I love you as much as any child ever loved or any father ever felt. My love can’t be given voice, can’t be put into words. There’s no metaphor I can conjure that can express my love, which is beyond expression of any kind.
     

    How to say it:
This speech relies on one of Shakespeare’s favorite pieces of dramaturgical sleight-of-hand. Goneril says there’s no language that can possibly express her love, and then proceeds to talk quite eloquently about it for several lines. Whenever actors encounter this articulate inarticulacy in Shakespeare, they know that the playwright is giving them a very specific directorial note: you must discover this language as you go along. That is, you must take your time and really find each new line, each new idea, as you get to it. The Paper Trick helps you do that. Just cover all but the first line of the speech, and say only that line. Then move the paper down,