This post will feature as a 'guest blog' post for Cambridge University Press to coincide with the upcoming release of their new editions of the Cambridge School Shakespeare resources...
Winter must have been good writing time for
Shakespeare. So many of his plays are punctuated by storms, gales and
hurricanes that it seems very likely he gained inspiration from rattling
windows or shutters as he laboured over his latest masterpiece. Looking out of
mine now, it seems possible Feste was in fact prophesising the end of 2013 when
he sang that the rain raineth ‘every day’!
Twelfth
Night seems to have been stalking me this year.
This January the new Cambridge School Shakespeare edition of the play I edited
with Anthony Partington will be released; the final version was delivered to us
just before Christmas and we are delighted with how it looks. A few weeks ago I
started teaching the play to an eager group of ‘A’ level students and we had a
great discussion about studying Shakespeare in which we reflected that grasping
the details of the plot can be a bit like worrying about getting lost on a walk;
once you have faith that you understand the general direction you’re travelling
in, you can start to spot the little details around you and really enjoy taking
in the views. They are beginning to feel more confident with the language and
so they are picking up on more of the jokes and delicious word play that Twelfth Night is so full of. They’ve
been greatly helped this term by the fact that my school put on a fabulous production
of the play for the Shakespeare Schools Festival in November and that many of
them were lucky enough to see a live broadcast of the sensational Shakespeare’s
Globe production starring Stephen Fry as Malvolio and Mark Rylance as Olivia.
This book we’ve edited is really a blueprint (a shiny, lovely brilliant one!);
a map if you like, with the activities and glossary acting like a key or
reference points. The play is the thing
that really counts – the enjoyment and thrill of seeing and doing Shakespeare.
So how else has this play been looming over
my shoulder all year? Well, I’ve certainly felt a little Sir Toby Belch-ish at
times this Christmas, having enjoyed plenty of ‘cakes and ales’! But my inner
Malvolio has at times been too prominent; having become Vice Principal at my
school this year, I am often the one having to assert authority while trying to
avoid tipping over into self-importance. It seems so much of being a grown up
is about finding a good balance between fun and excess, enjoyment and
responsibility. Shakespeare knew – he always seems to know.
But I’ve also been reflecting a lot on
gender and identity in 2013; with two very young daughters (Shakespeare also
had two daughters – just saying!), I’ve often thought of Viola and Olivia and
how they struggle to be taken seriously in a man’s world. As my daughter’s
personalities are developing and shaping I hope for them a more just and equal
world than Illyria or Shakespeare’s London was. I hope that they can feel love
and be loved one day as deeply as Orsino does, but I also hope that they will
be as witty and sharp as a Feste or Olivia. I hope that they will never have to
feel that their gender is a constraint and that they will turn out to be as
bright, funny and brilliant as so many of the students I teach are. My wife is
a twin, separated from her other half by an ocean, and the joy they have in
spending time together over Skype or during their occasional visits to each
other often reminds me of that beautiful moment in Act Five when Sebastian and
Viola are reunited as ‘an apple cleft in two’. That they both, like Olivia, understand
the pain of losing a brother and a father adds another layer of poignancy when
I watch the play and reflect on my own love for my wife.
Change and identity, two central ideas in
Twelfth Night, are in so many of our
minds as we make New Year resolutions and take stock of the year past – who
we’ve been and who we’d like to be. Just like this time of year, the play can
be immense fun but it can also be melancholy and wistful. It has so much to
offer, so much joy and intelligence, but Shakespeare teaches us that good
things emerge through hard work and often from struggle. So that’s what I hope
and wish for from 2014 – hard work, struggle at times, but lots of joy, fun and
love.
And, of course, lots of students using our
book to discover Twelfth Night!
Happy New Year.
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