I am reading A Word Child by Iris Murdoch just now. This is the twelfth novel I have read of hers, a couple I found more difficult than others, A Severed Head and the very popular, it seems, The Bell. A couple of my favourites are, The Sea,The Sea and The Nice And The Good. The mane character in A Word Child, Hilary Burde at the start, is the most unlikeable than in any of the past eleven novels that I have read. There have been a few unpleasant people populating her books, he is manipulative and selfish, but I am only half way through A Word Child, so maybe he will redeem himself at the end. Her characters are a mixture of and may not all be pleasant, some of them are, but they are all well written and human. Iris Murdoch was a great philosopher and she brings a lot of philosophy to her writing. One day I shall pluck up the courage and read her non-fiction, Sartre: Romantic Rationalists, might be the place to start.

I wonder if there are any other Iris Murdoch readers on here or on Substack.

I am only a layman, a slow learner of Shakespearean writing. I often struggle to understand the text and sometimes forget, during that struggle, how important and sublime that text is. I like stories and I love his plays as stories, so the dialogue is secondary to me. That’s crazy.

I’ve called this post, The Bard. The reason for that is this. I once got a row for calling Shakespeare The Bard from a proper Shakespearian scholar. That’s when I realised I had to be careful in how I wrote and spoke about Shakespeare. Just like you can’t utter the name of the Scottish play inside a theatre. Bad luck or something. There has been so many words and opinions written, dedicated to The Bard.

I saw a production of Macbeth a few weeks ago and it has helped to rekindle my love for Shakespeare, I’ve started writing another blog post about that night, that play. I’ll try and finish it soon. This little post is me trying to light a fire and reignite my interest in the wonderful writing of William Shakespeare (The Bard)

The ancient thrill of raiding nature’s pantry and first-aid kit. READ NOW.

EMMA FREUD LEGAL HIGHS: Emma on foraging.

enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, alone.
Richard
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this son of York,

So, starts The Arden Shakespeare edition of: Richard III. This is all that is written of the play on page one. A whole page dedicated to the first words of Shakespeare’s history play, not even a full sentence as you can see by the apostrophe at the end. The rest of the page is filled up with notes on this single half sentence. The speech goes on over the next three pages before Clarence makes an appearance. The extensive notes are brilliant, they inform you that Richard is the only character in a Shakespeare play to open with a soliloquy. The first three paragraphs of notes deal with the location and of the different ways the play has been staged, The Court, London, or a street near the Tower of London. Then the notes go on to talk about the metaphors in the mention of winter, summer. There is a famous Spanish tragedy by Thomas Kyd written between 1582 and 1592, which Shakespeare has Richard reversing the opening lines. I am trying to interpret these notes without writing them verbatim from the page but, for me to understand deeper the writing of Shakespeare I must study these notes, some of them are complex and harder to understand than the words of the actual play. According to the notes, “metaphors of seasonal transformation were ubiquitous in Tudor poetry.” Well, yes, they certainly are! I have read The Faerie Queene, a long poem by Edmund Spenser, I have had a go at the poems of John Donne, so I do know a bit about metaphors but, it doesn’t come natural or easy to me. Then there is the history of the monarchy at that time, I get confused with the relationships of the brothers and uncles, fathers and sons.

Son. There is a lot of different opinions on what this one word means. It could refer to Edward IV, Richards brother, son of the Duke of York. Or it could be a pun, referring to the emblem on Edwards shield, after three suns appeared during his victorious battle with the Lancastrians. It has also been suggested that it refers to the infant, later to be Edward V. I may have it all wrong but, I wonder if the latter is the best guess on what he means by Son of York. The war of the Rosses is a source of confusion to me, at one time I thought it was simple, Yorkshire against Lancashire, I know now it wasn’t. But that is history, although I love history, I am more interested in his drama. For instance, the first two acts of Richard III span 12 years, I think that is astounding in the context of the play. Watching it being performed, I would have had no idea. Weather that is a good thing or bad, I will have to think about it the next time I go to see it on the stage.
A page at a time, that’s what I have called this post because, this is the way I will have to go, even then, I’ll struggle to understand the subtleties of Shakespeare’s words. But, as I have said in past blog posts, it’s the journey that is the most fun, trying to decipher the meaning of his poetry is a secondary past-time.

I am grateful to The Arden Shakespeare, third series, edited by James R. Siemon, for their amazing work. These books are a massive help to a Shakespearian Truck driver like me.

George Allan.

Bathgate, Monday 3rd of December 2018