Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: What Dreams Cost

I Study the active vocabulary and focus on Ukrainian equivalents of English words.

intensely – дуже сильно

sweeping – широкомасштабний

personification  – уособлення

vision – видіння

zero in on  – спрямувати увагу на

issue – випуск

overhear  – підслуховувати

pine – скаржитися

playwright  – драматург

strike a  bargain  – укласти угоду

entice – спокушати

earthly – земний

realm  – царство

cost – вартість

meditation  – роздум

nuisance – перешкода, неприємність

intermission  – антракт

contemporary – сучасник

academia  – наукові кола

overshadow – затьмарювати

tempest – буря

fulfil – виконувати

raid – здійснювати наліт

brunt – головний удар

depredation – розкрадання

plot – сюжет

prior source – попереднє джерело

register  – запам’ятовувати

last – зберігатися

average  – пересічний

epitomize – втілювати

supplant  – витісняти

apropos  – відповідно

endure  – витримувати

ash – зола

incomplete  – недосконалий

vessel  – посудина

singular  – винятковий

propel – просувати вперед

appreciation  – оцінювання

pull  on – залучати

vast  – величезний

reference – посилання

relish – насолоджуватись

span  – охоплювати

framework  – рамки

highlight – виділяти

amend – змінювати

obliterate – стирати з пам’яті

II Watch the video and fill in the gaps with the words from the list. There are some words you don’t need to use.

effect on it;  epic; sleep; part; meeting; context; cereal; presence; Morpheus; visions; mother;  clique; present;  Thames;  wanted; piece; path; own;  consume; a waking; question ; hundred; mankind; desires; million;  agreement; commonly; asleep; forbear;  pining; dead; troupe; tavern; dry;   right;  relish;   dread; realm; barren;  enticed; forbearing;  playwright; awake; themes; figure; last ; exchange; loop;  meanings; calmingly; feebly; affected; fission;  explore; unique; series; owe; disappearances;  character; desire; wanted; morbid;  manning; fast; Midsummer; middle; preparing; getting; enlist;  appearances;  mortals; driven; intensely; die; habitats;  sister; wish; forgetting; genius; whine;  vessel;  hotel;  part;   inhabitants; details; bargain; feeling; overhear; beginning; prize;

Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’ was the first 1)________ of art that I was 2)________ interested in. The first thing that 3)________ me so powerfully that I was 4)________ to understand: “Why?” I 5)________ so much to Gaiman’s sweeping 6)________ about the Lord of Dreams. It started me on a 7)________ that’s led to here. Dream or 8)________, as he’s most 9)________ called in the 10)________, has done the same for a lot of people. Indeed, when Gaiman made his lead 11)________ the personification and master of dreams, he played on both 12)________ of the word: the 13)________ we have when 14)________, and the wishes that 15)________ us when 16)________.

There is so much to 17)________ in Sandman and I may do more on this. But today I want to zero in on the 18)________ place that William Shakespeare has in the series, and how his 19)________ helps Gaiman communicate some 20)________ about writing, dreams, and 21)________. Shakespeare makes three 22)________ in ‘Sandman’’s 75 issues. The first time we see him is toward the 23)________ of the series in the 24)________ of another person’s story. Dream and his 25)________ Death make an 26)________ in a 14th century 27)________ when they overhear a man saying that the only reason people 28)________ is because everyone does it. Death agrees not to take this man, Hob Gadling, until he 29)________ it, and Dream agrees to meet him in the same bar once every 30)________ years to discuss how he’s 31)________.

On their second 32)________ in 1589 Dream and Hob 33)________ a man named Will Shekespear 34)________ to his friend and fellow 35)________ Kit Marlowe about his great 36)________ to give men dreams “that would live on after I’m 37)________”. So Dream strikes another 38)________ with him, the 39)________ of which we learn on their second meeting. This time on the South Downs of Sussex, England, where Shakespeare’s travelling with a 40)________ of players is 41)________ his new play ‘A 42)________ Night’s Dream’. This play, we learn, was written for Dream one of two plays about dreams in 43)________ for Shakespeare becoming the 44)________ we know today, the 45)________ for the great stories of 46)________. Shakespeare’s troupe are 47)________ to perform for the real 48)________ Faerie who are visiting the earthly 49)________ at Dream’s invitation, perhaps, for the 50)________ time. In the process of this story, which takes place toward the 51)________ of the series, Dream begins to 52)________ if he was right for giving Shakespeare what he 53)________. “He did not understand the cost”, - he says: “54)________ never do. They only see the 55)________ their hearts 56)________, their dream… But the price of 57)________ what you want is getting what you once 58)________.”

III Watch the video again and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.

Here we begin to see the propose/expose/purpose behind Shakespeare’s exclusion/inclusion/solution in this series. Through Shakespeare an prologue/analogue/epilogue for Dream and Gaiman himself, we get a medication/relaxation/meditation not only on genius/genii/genial, but on the cost of genius. And for Gaiman that cost is perspiration/precipitation/isolation, isolation of all shape/lines/forms. In this issue we meet Hamnett, Shakespeare’s one/don/son. Shakespeare seems to regard Hamnett as a musing/nuisance/annoyance, and Hamnett comment/forgets/laments to another actor: “He’s very distant/extant/stance. He doesn’t seem like he’s really there paramour/anymore/more. Not really. It’s like he’s somehow/anywhere/somewhere else. Anything that happens/happening/happening, he just makes stores/stored/stories out of it. I’m less real than any of the characteristics/characters/plots in his plays.” In his eagerness to write great stories Shakespeare becomes agitated/isolated/disconnect from his family and his life. Such is the lost/lust/cost of extreme/extremely/stream focus. But jerks/worked/works of genius also become isolated from their text/subtext/context. At the intention/intermission/transmission of the play Dream wakes/breaks/makes the news to Shakespeare that his friend Christopher Marlowe has been fulfilled/foiled/killed. The timing/tense/times is no incident/precedent/accident here. The rise of Shakespeare beginning with plays like ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ signal/signalled/seagull the disappearance of his contemporary/contemporaries/temporary, like Christopher Marlowe, from the historical recording/recorded/record. In modern factual/spiritual/cultural memory or in academia/academic/academically their presence has been foreshadow/overbear/overshadowed by isolated genius.

IV Watch the videos and fill in the gaps in the text.

Gaiman 1)______ up this theme again in the final 2)______ of Shakespeare in ‘Sandman’, which is also not 3)______ the final issue of the series. Here Shakespeare is writing his 4)______ play ‘The 5)______. The second play at the end of his 6)______ that fulfils his 7)______ with Dream. His friend and sometimes 8)______ Ben Johnson comes to visit him and asks about the new play. “Have you been 9)______ poor Holinshed again? Or does Plutarch 10)______ the brunt of your 11)______?” This, of course, 12)______ the fact that Shakespeare 13)______ took many of his plots from 14)______ sources and 15)______ like those of Raphael Holinshed and Plutarch. Yet these sources, like small 16)______, like Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson, do not 17)______ against the massive 18)______ that is Shakespeare. An example: back in the first 19)______ in 1789 at their fourth meeting Hob Gadling tells Dream he has seen a 20)______ of King Lear mentioning: “The 21)______ have given it a happy 22)______”. “That will not 23)______”, - Dream says: “the Great Stories will always return to their 24)______ forms”. Here Gaiman is playing with us, he knows what the 25)______ man epitomized by Hob Gadling does not. That it was Shakespeare who 26)______ the ending. The 27)______ versions on which Lear was 28)______ did have a happy ending, but those versions are forgotten. And yet, by having Dream say “the great stories will always return to their original forms”, Gaiman 29)______, perhaps, the key theme of the 30)______ series. The power of dreams to 31)______ reality. In the second issue Oberon, king of Faerie, watches Shakespeare’s play about himself and says to Dream: “But things never 32)______ thus”. Thus Dream 33)______ apropos of this theme: “Things need not have happened to be 34)______. Tales and dreams are the 35)______ truths that will endure when mere facts are 36)______ and ashes and forgot”. The very next panel 37)______ the line from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ that 38)______ the power of stories. ‘The best in this kind are but 39)______. And Gaiman, like Shakespeare, 40)______. These shadows, these 41)______ of reality, 42)______ as they are, may come in time to replace the 43)______ thing. Indeed, Shakespeare was the 44)______ for extremely powerful stories. His 45)______ of culture, of love and madness in many ways created the age we still live. We are all in a very real sense living in the dreams of Shakespeare. Sandman is a 46)______ work of art, coming and 47)______ comics into a higher literary 48)______ and pulling, like Shakespeare’s work, on a vast 49)______ of 50)______, religious, and literary 51)______. It’s fitting that Gaiman is more interested in Shakespeare the 52)______, than his work. Shakespeare, Dream, and Gaiman, like I said, are all 53)______ for one another. And each, in their turn, have to examine the 54)______ of telling great 55)______. The largest part of that cost, it seems, is 56)______. “I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else”, - Shakespeare tells Dream: “My son died and I was 57)______. But I watched my hurt and even 58)______ it a little. For now I could write a real death, a true 59)______.” In three issues that span the series Neil Gaiman treats these 60)______ of genius and isolation within a larger framework of a story that is 61)______ about stories. The inclusion of Shakespeare 62)______ the uneasy 63)______ between stories, collective dreams, and those who 64)______ them. History and 65)______ amend Shakespeare to fit their 66)______, just as Gaiman does by bringing him to life in the 67)______ of Sandman. Gaiman imagines him isolated from his own life as history has isolated him above his time and 68)______. Even as we make our 69)______, our work makes us. And it can 70)______ us too. In other words, dreams really do come true.

V Watch all the parts of the video and answer the questions.

What genre is Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandman’?

What are the main characters and plot lines in ‘Sandman’?

What do characters in ‘Sandman’ personify?

What role does Shakespeare play in the series? How often do readers meet this character and under what circumstances does this character appear?

What literary and cultural references does ‘Sandman’ include?

What bargains does Dream strike?

What does Dream symbolize?

Why does Dream believe that people never know the cost of having their dreams come true?

What plays by Shakespeare are mentioned in the series? What is the role of those plays for the plot of ‘Sandman’?

What is the price of genius in ‘Sandman’? Are people ready to pay it?

What price does Shakespeare pay to become the famous playwright?

How does Gaiman show that Shakespeare became the significant figure in literature?

Why does the author address the problem of original sources and truth of stories? Which are more true and lasting the series?

What are the main themes in ‘Sandman’ and how does Gaiman treat those?

  

VI Watch the video and read the text above. Say if the statements below are true or false. Correct the false statements.

 1 Neil Gaiman’s ‘Sandamn’ is a poem about Death.

2 Dream is one of the main characters, his other names are Sandman and Morpheus.

3 The series play on the meaning of the word ‘dream’: dream is seen as a goal that people want as well as the images and visions that people see at night.

4 In the series the problem of death is also addressed.

5 In the series some characters strike a deal with Death.

6 In the series Death is a male character.

7 ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is a play written by Shakespeare about death.

8 Gaiman incorporates great playwrights like Marlowe, Shakespeare, Shaw, and Ibsen into his story.

9 In the series mythical creatures come to see the play written by people about them.

10 Shakespeare is an analogue for ordinary men in the series.

11 Shakespeare’s family are very supportive and understanding, they share the author’s success in the series.

12 Marlowe’s death   in the series symbolizes the changes of literary traditions and the rise of Shakespeare as one of the greatest playwrights.

13 Shakespeare and Marlowe are rivals in the series.

14 In the series death and loss are among the sources of inspiration for the writers, Shakespeare becomes less human and more detached as a literary genius.

15 ‘Sandman’ implies that plots of some plays by Shakespeare were not original.

16 The series suggests that ordinary people may be mistaken by the final scenes in  ‘King Lear’ as the original story the play is based on had a tragic ending.   

17 Towards the end of the series Shakespeare and Dream strike a new deal and the playwright becomes immortal.

18 Towards the end of the series Shakespeare comes to realise the real price a genius has to pay.

19 Hob Gadling is another aspiring writer who wanted to become as famous as Shakespeare.