I hope you’ve had a Merry Christmas, and/or any other holiday you happen to be celebrating this season.

Did anyone get anything Shakespearean? Please share the Bard-y gifts you got and gave!

I bought myself a present this year… it’s Shakespeare: The Bard Game. I have yet to play but it sounds like it’ll be fun. I’ll have to get some fellow Bardolaters together and play, I’ll let you know how it is. Till then, enjoy the rest of your holiday season!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Bard Blog is a year old today!

It’s hard to believe. It seems like I started this up not too long ago, but it also seems as if I’ve been doing this for a long time (and enjoyed it). I’ve been a bit distant from the web lately, and I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like but that should be changing soon.

I am aweary of this blogger, would he would change!

Lots will be changing soon actually. After a year of blogging I think I’ve finally got the hang of it — and now it’s time to push forward. With the new year just around the corner I’ll be making some changes to the site as a sort of new years resolution. Don’t worry, fans, nothing’s gonna get topsy-turvy. Just more organized.

At this birthday party, you don’t have to buy me a gift (but I won’t complain if you do) but the best present you could give is to take a look through the archives, (re)familiarize yourself with the site’s content. Then comment or send me an email with what sorts of posts you enjoy, ones you’d like to see more of, and you’re welcome to suggest features or subjects that I haven’t covered yet. I’ve got some ideas floating around in my head but I’d love to hear what you, faithful reader, have to say.

No, my dog didn’t eat my Hamlet homework and cough it up again.

Back in Blog Carnival #6, there was a link to a post by the title of Shakespeare Hated Hamlet. Some interesting stuff.

The author recently emailed me with a follow up post and I’d like to share it with you.

Enjoy Hamlet Regurgitated.

SparkNotes is a source for information used by students of all ages, teachers too! Generally teachers don’t encourage students to use SparkNotes, Cliff’s Notes, etc. since these resources are most often used in place of reading the text rather than a guide to be used in addition to the text. This is a big company devoted to helping people understand literature better, so think of my surprise when a friend pointed out that their facts are a little screwy.

A friend brought to my attention that their facts page has the climax of the story in an unexpected place. The plot structure listings are odd to me. What do you think?

RISING ACTION · Macbeth and Banquo’s encounter with the witches initiates both conflicts; Lady Macbeth’s speeches goad Macbeth into murdering Duncan and seizing the crown.

CLIMAX · Macbeth’s murder of Duncan in Act II represents the point of no return, after which Macbeth is forced to continue butchering his subjects to avoid the consequences of his crime.

FALLING ACTION · Macbeth’s increasingly brutal murders (of Duncan’s servants, Banquo, Lady Macduff and her son); Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches; Macbeth’s final confrontation with Macduff and the opposing armies

So the climax of the play is in Act II… and then there are three acts of falling action? Shakespeare knew better than that!

A simplistic way to look at the plot structure in a tragedy is that the protagonist gets closer and closer to their objective as the story progresses until the climax (in a comedy the protagonist gets pushed further away from their goal until the climax). By that model, the climax of Macbeth is the fight between Macduff and the Scottish King.

And I don’t think that “Macbeth is forced to continue butchering his subjects to avoid the consequences of his crime” at all. He continues murdering so that he can ensure his royal position, not primarily to avoid the consequences of his first murder.

I sent an message about this by clicking on the “Report an Error” link at the bottom of the Macbeth facts page. You should too! We don’t want faulty information on such a widely used resource.

So, Sparknotes, please fix this! Mr. Shakespeare was not silly enough to have a play with over half of it as falling action.

Remember to keep your eye out for things like this. You can’t always trust what’s published online or even in print.

Student’s essays on this play will be a little different from now on, won’t they?