Soliloquies: the lady doth indeed protest

By Chris Wind

Lady MacBeth kill herself? Please. And Portia-you don't think someone that intelligent would be pissed to be bait and trophy? As for Kate ... that's supposed to be funny? "Soliloquies: the lady doth indeed protest" is a collection of soliloquies by Ophelia, Lady MacBeth, Regan, Portia, Desdemona, Kate, I

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magenta
• Release date: Aug 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781926891088

Chris Wind

Visit my website (http://www.chriswind.net) for more info.This is what happens is her latest work: How is it that the girl who got the top marks in high school ends up, at fifty, scrubbing floors and cleaning toilets for minimum wage, living in a room above Vera’s Hairstyling, in a god-forsaken town called Powassan?"An incisive reflection on how social forces constrain women’s lives. ... Great for fans of Sylvia Plath, Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook." Booklife/Publishers' WeeklySoliloquies: The Lady Doth Indeed Protest is a collection of soliloquies delivered by Shakespeare's women, protesting the role given to them. The soliloquies formed the basis of a recent theatrical production, "Not Such Stuff", by Venus Theatre in Laurel, Maryland, and have also been used as audition pieces by many aspiring actresses. High school English teachers might also be interested in using the soliloquies in their Shakespeare units.Thus Saith Eve is the second in a series of ebooks featuring women from various traditions. In "Thus Saith Eve", women from The Bible deliver critiques of their stories -- as if they had a feminist consciousness.UnMythed is the third in the series. This collection of poems reveals the myths within the myths revealed: what might Pandora, Circe, Penelope, Eurydice, Persephone, the Gorgons, and others have thought and done if they had not been the creations of a chauvinist patriarchy? For poetry fans, especially feminist; of interest to scholars of Greek and Roman mythology; a good resource for English teachers who teach a Mythology unit.Deare Sister is the fourth in the series, a collection of letters that might have been written by by Lady Godiva, Milton's daughter, Rubens' model, Mozart's mother, Freud's wife, Plato's students, and others -- assuming a feminist consciousness. (What would they say?)Snow White Gets Her Say, the last in the series, is a collection of the classic fairy tales retold - what would have happened if Gretel, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and others had been strong and critical girls and women living today?The five ebook collections above appear in a single book (available in print as well as e-formats) titled Satellites Out of Orbit.dreaming of kaleidoscopes is a selected 'best of' collection of wind's poetry spanning about fifteen years from the poet's late teens in the 70s to her early thirties in the 90s.Paintings and Sculptures is a collection of feminist and socially conscious poetry, each piece describing a painting or a sculpture: some, a re-vision of a classic; others, an original work not yet realized. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Dali, Botticelli, Monet, Rodin are among the artists whose work is re-imagined.Particivision and other stories is a collection of short stories presenting a socially conscious critique of various issues in our society by re-visioning significant attitudes and activities: watching tv, going to school, shopping, advertising, hunting, environmentalism, militarism, suicide, the news, competition, sex, religion, government. Social commentary and activism via fiction.Excerpts is a miscellaneous collection of early prose and poetry.***Actors looking for fresh, new audition pieces -- check out Soliloquies: The Lady Doth Indeed Protest (Shakespeareanesque soliloquies with a twist), Thus Saith Eve (monologues), Deare Sister, and Snow White Gets Her Say.Also, "Amelia's Nocturne" (see http://www.chriswind.com/for_ Amelia.htm) can be performed as a theatrical piece: a simple set consisting of a writing table with an inkwell and note paper, the music (live piano and voice in the corner) woven into the monologue.Painters and sculptors -- I've been looking for the longest time for artists to 'actualize' the paintings and sculptures in Paintings and Sculptures for exhibit...if anyone's interested, contact me!English teachers – consider using Soliloquies: The Lady Doth Indeed Protest for your Shakespeare unit and UnMythed for your myths unit.Women's history scholars -- you might be interested in Deare Sister.***chris wind has degrees in Literature, Education, and Philosophy.Her poetry has been published in Alpha, The Antigonish Review, Ariel, Atlantis, Bite, Bogg, Canadian Author and Bookman, Canadian Dimension, Canadian Woman Studies, Contemporary Verse 2, The Free Verse Anthology, Girlistic Magazine, grain, Interior Voice, Kola, Mamashee, The New Quarterly, Next Exit, Onionhead, Poetry Toronto, Prism International, Rampike, Shard, The University of Toronto Review, The Wascana Review, Whetstone, White Wall Review, Women's Education des femmes, and three anthologies (Clever Cats, ed. Ann Dubras; Going for Coffee, ed. Tom Wayman; Visions of Poesy, ed. Dennis Gould). “Luncheon on the Grass" was the motive poem for an exhibit by Brooks Bercovitch and Colton at the Galerie Schorer, Montreal (1998).Her prose has been read on CBC Radio and published in ACT, Alpha, American Atheist, The Antigonish Review, Canadian Woman Studies, event, Existere, (f.)Lip, Herizons, Herstoria, The Humanist, Humanist in Canada, Hysteria, The New Quarterly, Other Voices, Secular Nation, and Waves.Her theatrical works have been performed by Laurel Theater, Alumnae Theatre, Theatre Resource Center, Theatre Asylum, Buddies in Bad Times, and A Company of Sirens.chris wind has received thirteen Ontario Arts Council Writers’ Reserve grants based on publisher and theatre recommendation.chris wind was a panellist at the Canadian National Feminist Poetry Conference (Winnipeg, 1992), and featured in an article in The Montreal Gazette (1994).Lastly, chris wind is listed in “Who’s Who in Hell” (probably because of “Faith,” “The Great Jump-Off,” and Thus Saith Eve).

Book preview

CONTENTS

Ophelia

Lady MacBeth

Regan

Portia

Desdemona

Kate

Isabella

Juliet

Marina

Miranda

•

Notes on the Plays

Bibliography

Ophelia

O what a noble mind is here at last uncover’d!

The glass of fashion, the mold of form

Is quite dash’d against the stone;

The shattered pieces lie at my feet.

My thoughts, my feelings,

Once fixed, encased in crystal,

Breathe and blow in the quick’ning wind

Like petals.  Once pale, now pulsing,

Rich, and rainbowed, come!

I beseech thee, attend and heed

As I the shards examine.

Laertes, brother, you insult to suggest

Hamlet’s love impermanent

For his choice must be queen

As well as wife: Am I not worthy?

Further, you warn caution,

Lest I my ‘chaste treasure open’:

I am mistress of my self!

And since more than a man, I pay the cost,

Then more, not less, do I take such care.

Lastly, you say ‘safety lies in fear’:

I have grown weary of being afraid,

Of being made to feel afraid; I yearn

To meet the day and greet the night

Unafraid—as men are wont to do.

And I crave to love with opening arms—

So tell me not to hide my heart

Lest my desire lead him to abandon

Restraint, and madly ravish—would it be so?

(Or do you extend to all of your kind

Knowledge of your self alone?)

Father, your words are as out of tune.

You say I do not understand myself

And see me still an infant babe,

For by foil you would then appear the more mature:

Is contrast your only proof of wisdom and worth?

(Alas, all cowards and chameleons create their colour

From what is without, not what is within.)

And you instruct me to ‘set my entreatments at a higher rate’

As if I am some prize!  Do you think me a whore,

That my presence must be paid for?

Then you claim he may walk with a larger tether

(As if we were but animals!):  Why do you grant him

More freedom than I?

Why does Laertes go to Paris (and not I)

When you know his simple mind so well

You sent another to be guardian?

I pray thee, Father, reconsider—

Is it because your own judgement is faulty

That you do not trust mine?

Hamlet is a fine man, soldier, scholar, courtier,

A prince!  And I judge him to be sincere.

Is that not enough?

No, indeed, that is nothing, for lastly

You tell me to forsake him—forever!

For no other reason than your own mistrust

Of him, of me, that I’ll become with child

(And thereby make you the greater fool—

You think not what it would make of me.)

To you both, I never sought your advice

Why do you ‘press it upon me so?

Perhaps you feel your sex gives the right—

No.                     I’ll give the reason: Projection is all.

Brother, your passions run without rule

So you tell your sister to reign hers.