Laying siege to Shakespeare

Another reason to include Shakespeare (as if I need one) is that it's good to enlarge the sense of the possible: it's a curious thing that returning to the most staple of the staples of English Literature seems to do that more than anything else.

One argument I was repeatedly puzzled by was the attempts of scholars to date the plays by putting the most similar ones next to each other. I'd have thought the opposite principle (in moderation, of course) was more likely. As a working dramatist and entertainer, continually providing something different seems more desirable than repeating the same elements before moving on. That he managed to engage in such radical experimentalism and variety at the same time as being generally entertaining is one of the most remarkable things about him. And whilst there are obvious progressions of style, some of the plays seems like determined efforts to do things differently. Even within the two sets of four history plays (that include Henrys IV to VI and Richards II and III) there are several different types of play: a tragedy of court intrigue, a poetical and symbolic study of weakness, a counterpoint between low-life comedy and affairs of state, a triumphal statement of nationalistic pride. If the sets of plays vary within themselves so much, it's no wonder that the one-off plays switch from the daring ruinousness of Hamlet to the classical lines of Othello in quick succession.

Shakespeare seems rarely to get enough credit for his inventiveness: much emphasis is placed on his 'all encompassing humanity' and such stuff, but his inventiveness seems to be treated more as a by-product of his achievement: the emphasis is placed on him showing all human life, rather than varied human life (though the former admits of the latter as a necessity). Whilst there are, of course, many themes and patterns between his plays, the sheer variety within over three dozen works should be obvious. One side-effect of this is the necessity of working out the aesthetics that each play demands to understand it for itself, rather than being able to bring critical apparatus from play to play like a siege engine from castle to castle...