we've come to the end, and now i'll evaluate.

This semester with Shakespeare has gone by far too quickly, and now it's time for me to evaluate my blog. I will be using the same criteria for my blog as I used in the peer evaluation.

peer evaluation: joanna barker.

I've evaluated Joanna Barker's blog, All The World's a Stage, which focuses on women and Shakespeare.
Listed below are the criteria for our class's blog evaluations, and my comments for each item.

making changes: victorians channeling shakespeare.

The nineteenth century was a time of expansion and development. It was also a time when poets and artists revived medieval and Renaissance ideals. They turned to Arthurian legends, tales of chivalry, and Renaissance masters for inspiration. There were even circles of Victorians who sought through spiritualism to revive ancient rituals and mysticism. In addition to all of these explorations of past cultural ideals and societies, the Victorians also turned to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's works never required a revival because they had never died out since the Elizabethan era, but the Victorians thought that they could raise the Bard to the level of success they thought he had desired during his own time. Because of the many artistic liberties the Victorians took with Shakespeare's work, and because of the ever-changing ideals and inventions of the nineteenth century, they created several interesting interpretations of Shakespeare's plays. The Victorians saw Shakespeare as a conduit for transmitting the new ideals of the upcoming twentieth century. They also saw him as a way to voice drastic changes in society and in the world. 

Through the actress Sarah Bernhardt, Victorian ideals on womanhood were explored and challenged. Because of Shakespeare's unorthodox gender roles in his works, Berhardt was able to channel male characters, her most famous role being that of Hamlet. This unconventional representation of actresses taking on the roles of male characters helped the society of the time see that women's roles inside and outside the home were changing, and that women were capable of all that men were capable of. Shakespeare's works helped promote the New Woman of the Victorian era, and aided in feminism at the turn of the twentieth century. 

Ellen Terry's passion for Shakespeare created a fan following through her many discourses and lectures of her beloved Bard. Terry had a romance with Shakespeare and his works, and encouraged others to have a similar relationship with him. Terry became so involved as a Shakespearean actress that she lived her parts, and got so deep into the characters and the stories that she knew she was serving her lover's cause by playing the parts of such strong female characters.

Charles Kean was a different sort of a Shakespearean actor. He not only played the most prime Shakespearean roles, but he produced the most spectacular of the Bard's plays by creating the scenery, and re-creating the history of the tales. Kean, as the actor-manager of the Princess's Theatre, supplemented Shakespeare's plays with all the missing historical facts that he felt Shakespeare left out due to time restraints. Kean felt that he was fulfilling Shakespeare's mission through this re-creation of history, and through his elaborate, and thoroughly produced, productions of the Elizabethan playwright. 


For the Victorians, Shakespeare proved to be the perfect way to express all the new ideals and the new directions that society was headed at the turn of the twentieth century.

pre-hub.

Over the past few weeks, I have had the chance to research how Shakespeare's works were received and adapted on the Victorian stage. This particular era holds a lot of interest for me as far as literature and art go, so I thought it would be worthwhile to research Shakespeare during the evolving time of the Victorian period.
There were several items of interest I found out while reading up on the actresses Ellen Terry and Sarah Bernhardt, and the actor/manager Charles Kean. I think that I will continue to research Shakespeare appropriations in the Victorian era as I hope to conclude that Shakespeare's works acted as a perfect conduit for the changing social structure as well as the Victorian values. Although I had initially hoped to focus on Victorian revival of ritualism through Shakespeare, I soon realized that I was falling flat with that particular route. So I will pick up where I left off last week with my research this upcoming weekend. I intend to focus on Shakespeare themes in Victorian art, as I think this will give me a good background on Victorian values.

neglecting shakespeare.

Last night I failed to post a blog on Shakespeare. Rather than fulfilling my student obligations, I chose to see/hear Michael Ondaatje read at the Salt Lake City Library. Although this was completely unrelated to Shakespeare, I do feel like it aided in my life-long learning, and I dragged my husband with me, and although he has never read Ondaatje's work, last night prompted him to do so. I plan on buying him Anna's Shadow, from which Ondaatje read from, and I know my hubs will absolutely love it.
Anyway, once again, although I don't feel like Ondaatje and Shakespeare have much in common other than being beautiful poets and writers, I think that what I've learned from this class, as far as social learning and life-long learning go, I was able to implement those techniques into an event that turned out to mean more to just me, as I initially thought my husband would think it was a bore, but because I shared a social learning event with my husband, he is expanding his interests in literature beyond the Beats, and was able to really enjoy the experience. And being able to share an author that I admire and respect with my husband was a wonderful experience in itself.
And maybe, if I keep thinking about it, I will find some common occurrences between these two authors.

the tempest!

So yesterday I noticed that Julie Taymor's The Tempest was playing at the Broadway in Salt Lake, so my husband took me to see it, and it was incredible. Again, incredible.
The movie followed the play to script, except for when Prospera (Helen Mirren) told Miranda how they came to be on the island, they had to add a story so that there was a justifiable reason behind Prospero being Prospera, a woman. But the screenwriters were able to make that bit of dialog sound Shakespearean, so it wasn't as distracting, but still...you knew it wasn't part of the original.
And the best part of the whole movie had to be the spectacle scenes with Ariel. There were many interesting things they did with that character, and I was blown away with the visual effects. At some points in the play, Ariel was shown with a woman's breasts, which was interesting considering how ambiguous a character Ariel has been throughout history.
My husband, who isn't normally a Shakespeare film fan, loved this film. So, if he loved it, maybe you could too.

staging antiquities.

I have been reading "Shakespeare's Victorian Stage" this week, and today I was focusing on a chapter titled "The prince of theatrical antiquaries," which is an allusion to the Shakespearean actor-manager Charles Kean. This man was quite famous in his time, and even now you can find many images of Kean in his Shakespearean costumes. Kean was also largely invested in making Shakespeare on stage as historically authentic as he could. Now, before I read too much of the chapter, I thought I would find that Kean tried to recreate the Elizabethan stage as close to how it was when Shakespeare plays were produced on it, but I of course was wrong in that assumption. Instead I found that Kean wanted to make Shakespeare's plays as accurate to the historical time that they were set in as he could. This involved a lot of money, and a lot of artistic freedom with Shakespeare's works. I find that Kean's goal particularly fascinating because while he was trying to be as authentic to history as he could, he was not showing Shakespeare, also a historical figure, in a very historically accurate light.

Before I get into Kean's productions of Shakespeare, I wanted to just add a little background information on Kean as a person. He was the son of a famous actor, Edmund Kean, and Kean junior just couldn't match up to his father's acting presence or ability. His father even denounced his son since he was such a poor actor. But, that didn't stop Charles Kean. In fact, as the book mentions, mid-Victorians "admired nothing so much as a man who had the courage and resolve to overcome the obstacles which beset him," and being an actor was very much an obstacle for young Charles Kean, so that's what made him famous and what made him stand out, that he kept trying even though he wasn't very good.

After growing up a bit and marrying an actress by the name of Ellen Tree, the both of them went into the business of being theater owners and stage managers. The purchase of the Princess's Theatre is what aided Kean in fulfilling his desires to create plays in an entirely historically accurate way, and after the Theaters Regulation Act of 1843, the Keans could perform Shakespeare without having to gain access and permission before hand. And Charles Kean's pursuit of historical accuracy began right away with the purchase of medieval furniture of high quantities, so much so that the Princess's Theatre was named "Mr Charles Kean's furniture warehouse on Oxford street (27)."

Kean went all out as far as new stage technologies and elaborate settings and scenery, and he was very much questioned for his actions by many critics, but by the time the Princess's Theatre had been open and running for a while, the costs and intricacies of his stage were no longer scrutinized, but were mentioned and praised for being so very accurate. In fact, because of Kean's attention to detail on the stage, many other actor-managers were expected to have their plays at the same level of accuracy as did the Kean's stage.

quite kean.

As per my schedule, I will be focusing on Charles Kean as one of Shakespeare's top Victorian actors. I've been reading through a book titled "Shakespeare's Victorian Stage," and I don't doubt I'll find some fascinating information, and hopefully I'll be able to formulate something substantial from what I read.
I really wanted to get a posting of my findings tonight, but, well...my body is getting tired of the whole school routine, which is bound to happen near the end of the semester. But, I'm still on schedule to make Mr. Kean my focus for this week.

miss terry.

As promised in my last post that was on the"new woman"of the Victorian era , I will be going over some things I found out this week about Ellen Terry, one of the famed Shakespearean actresses of the Victorian stage.

Ellen Terry, circa 1880.

Ellen Terry's first experience acting out Shakespeare on stage was when she was nine years old, playing that part of Mamillius from The Winter's Tale (victorianweb). Perhaps it was at that time, or even earlier, that Terry fell in love with the Bard, and she consistently, throughout her acting career, played many of Shakespeare's leading ladies. She began a life-long engagement with all things Shakespeare, and wrote about his works in letters and even presented many lectures on Shakespeare. In one of her letters to Henry Irving, an actor-manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, Terry states that

Shakespeare was the only man she had ever really loved. 'When I was about siteen or seventeen, and very unhappy, I foreswore the society of men...Yet I was lonley all the same. I wanted a sweetheart! I read everything I could get hold of about my beloved one. I lived with him in his plays.' (Marshall, 155)

But this "romance" with Shakespeare was not particular to Terry. Many women of the Victorian era used "images of domestic or sentimental attraction[...]in relation to Shakespeare (Marshall, 155)." This, in some ways, makes me think of the trouble that Jane Austin (and Stephenie Meyer, I suppose...) caused in setting too high of standards for men, so much that women wouldn't even look at a man if he was not a "Mr. Darcy," and, well, the Victorian men must've felt some sort of anguish that they couldn't be like the Bard in wooing women. But because of Terry's infatuation with Shakespeare, she was able to become a most sincere and engaging Shakespearean actress: it was as if it was her duty and obligation to show audiences how powerful Shakespeare wrote his female characters, and Terry did a bang-up job at that. Many reviewers responded quite favorably to Terry's role as Imogen in the 1896 production of Cymbeline:

Miss Terry plays the part with a radiance and a charm all her own, with a pathos and a grace of which she, among modern actresses, seems to possess the unique secret...It is long since we have seen such girlish abandon, such womanly tenderness [...]. Time seemed suddenly to be effaced, the years to roll back, and before us stood Miss Terry as young, as fragrant, and as bewitching as ever she was in the seventies. (Marshall, 156)

the new woman, and the new shakespearean actress.

This week I've been reading a book called "Shakespeare and Victorian Women" by Gail Marshall, and in particular, I have been focusing on a chapter on Shakespearean actresses in the 1890s. But before I get too far into what I've found out, I want to set a foundation and explain, briefly, the "new woman" of the 1800s.
Beginning in the very last bit of the 19th century, female education was growing rapidly, and many more female students were getting into secondary education. At the same time this was happening, new technologies were emerging, and although men were still more highly favored for hiring, women, because of their education levels and skills, were also getting jobs and leaving their position as the angel of the home (CSI).
These new womanly ideals had a major affect on the stage, and in particular the Victorian Shakespeare stage. Because Shakespeare in general dealt with gender issues in his plays, it acted as a perfect conduit to express the new ideals of the late 19th century woman. One stage director by the name of William Poel tried to re-create the Elizabethan stage with a twist of adding all-women casts. These travesi performances became a well-established tradition in performing Shakespeare on the Victorian stage (Marshall, 154).
The actress Sarah Bernhardt performed in several traversi productions, in which her most famous role was that of Hamlet in 1899. This was actually a very popular role for actresses to play, and one critic mentioned of Berhardt that "she is not the first Dame to assume the role of the Dane (171)." It has been reported that there were fifty or more sited cases of females taking on the role of Hamlet long before Bernhardt did (171). But while these other actresses were wearing the black cloak of Hamlet, Bernhardt was playing seductive roles such as Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra, aiding in her reputation of "serpentine sensuality" (171), which makes it all the more interesting that her new role as a man did not evoke any mention of her gender in reviews of her Hamlet.

Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, circa 1899.

I think that the lack of mention of Bernhardt wearing a man's clothes and acting out a man's role on stage coincided with what people were seeing on the streets at the end of the 19th century: because of the invention of the bicycle, women started wearing knickers so that they could ride this new contraption, so seeing a lovely woman in men's clothes was nothing new to the end of the century.
Indeed, Shakespeare is proving to have played a role in the whole feminist movement of the late 19th century, and in my next post I'll mention the more feminine side of Shakespeare's Victorian stage through the actress Ellen Terry.


Sources.
Marshall, Gail. Shakespeare and Victorian Women. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.
http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/386/newwoman.html

new directions!

After being inspired by several classmates ( Cara, Jessica, Sarah C., Brooke)  and their ability to come up with a very detailed plan for the rest of the semester, I think I've finally formulated a very basic plan of my own for the next five weeks for Victorian Shakespeare. The only downside to my plan is that I lack a clear thesis, or direction, but what I have figured out will give me a wide range of exactly what was going on with Shakespeare in the Victorian era.

March 17-19
Post on Shakespeare's Victorian Actresses

March 20-26
Focus on the Victorian actor Charles Kean and his Shakespearean work

March 27-April 2
Victorians and Ritualism

April 3-9
Victorians and their painted representations of Shakespeare

April 10-17
Bringing it all together

Anyway, that's the direction I'll be going, unless either I have an epiphany, or someone else has one for me.

the altered tempest.

"Ariel and Caliban" William Bell Scott. 1865.
Victorian Web.

Even though I haven't found much on Victorian ritualism and magic in Shakespeare's plays, it's on my brain all the time. But I have been finding some very interesting things on Shakespeare's Victorian stage in general. In this post, I'll focus more on what I've found out about Victorian appropriations of The Tempest, specifically on the character of Caliban.

One thing I found out about Victorian productions of The Tempest was that the character of Caliban was changed to not be seen as so diabolical a figure as audiences saw him out to be, but instead he was made into a more human and tragic figure, who was softer and sadder than what many claim the original Caliban was. There are even some claims of Caliban's change in character being influenced by Darwin's Origin of Species, aiding even further anti-slavery movements. Before the more humanistic Caliban hit the stage, many productions, mostly directed by Frank Benson, portrayed Caliban as a monkey-like creature, hanging from the trees that were on set. Benson even researched and observed primates to make sure that Caliban had the movements and the mannerisms of an animal (Keiser). Also, the character of Caliban was seen as the "star" of the play, and the role was oftentimes filled by the most famous actors of the time. Every actor wanted the opportunity to portray the tragic character and to really let their talents really shine through (Keiser).

"Miranda and Caliban" James Ward.
The Illustrated Shakespeare.

I've also been looking at paintings of Caliban that were produced in the 19th century, and it's interesting that even though the character in the play was altered to become more human and emotional, the pictorial representations of Caliban were still very animalistic. Perhaps the artists knew that the easiest way for viewers to distinguish who Caliban is in the painting would be to hold true to the centuries of portraying Caliban as a monster and an animal.













Keiser, Melissa. "Pre-twentieth Century Productions of The Tempest". Web. http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/eng/lfletcher/tempest/papers/MKeiser.htm

random acts of shakespeare.

As I stated in a post a few weeks ago, I want to summarize my contact with Shakespeare through the week. I'll try to make these random Shakespeare posts over the weekends. And now, I'll begin.

One. My husband and I watched Titus, and although I've never read the play, I can without a doubt say that this has to be the most brutal and tragic of all Shakespeare plays. Although there was the visual elements that aided in making the drama more extreme, I tried to focus mostly on the language and the story so that I can make the claim that Titus Andronicus is darker than any Shakespearean tragedy I've ever read. Other than that, I thought it was a very interesting film with a lot of interesting visual elements. I would be interested in reading this play at some future date too. The film really sparked my interest in what seems to be a very heavy play.

Two. Yesterday I accompanied my husband and my parents to see BYU's experimental theater's Much Ado About Nothing. I thought it was very entertaining, and the audience seemed to really be enjoying all the bantering too. One thing that my husband pointed out was that this production of the play focused more on Hero and Claudio's relationship, which is not what I would call the highlight of the entire play, so that was interesting. Something that I was impressed with was the renditions of the actual songs from the play. That was great hearing "Sigh no more lady" in 40s style music. Fun stuff. Overall we all enjoyed the play, and I thought it was worth it to see a student's version of one of Shakespeare's great comedies.

And these, ladies and gentlemen, are some random acts of Shakespeare.

awaiting a guide to victorian shakespeare.

I finished reading Macbeth yesterday, and while reading I tried to underline all the references to magic and spirits as I could so I could go back to the text later when I find some more solid research to refer back to. And along those lines of research, I'm actually having a much harder time that I had anticipated finding reference to magic, spiritualism, and ritualism in Victorian productions of Macbeth and The Tempest. I may not be looking in the right area, but I haven't given up yet. Also, I used this site that is linked from the HBLL website, but I found it very confusing. I don't know if anyone else has used the Chadwyck collections resource to find anything Shakespeare, but I had a really hard time navigating the site.
Anyway, as I mentioned previously, I wanted to read Macbeth, and I have, and I also wanted to reread The Tempest, which I will start today. After I have a basic understanding of these two texts, I will delve more deeply into the magic of these plays and how it was received among Victorian readers and audiences.
Also, if anyone knows of any resource that could point me in the right direction, I would be very grateful to you!
Oh, and something that is sort of on topic, but not entirely, is that I've been watching the PBS version of Macbeth with Patrick Stewart, and the emphasis on the magic is hardly there. Anyway, I thought that was interesting...

the scottish play.

I've been reading Macbeth since yesterday, and I'm afraid I just haven't finished it yet, but something in the Bevington got me thinking:

Macbeth is a difficult play to present on stage, at least according to stage tradition: ever since the early twentieth century, actors have referred to [Macbeth] superstitiously as "he Scottish play" as a way of avoiding bad luck that otherwise can hover menacingly over the action company (714).

Now, although this quote says that the plague of the play only began since the first bit of the twentieth century, I did some internet research and found that from the very first production of Macbeth there were incidents: the lead actor dying off before the production of the play, an actor killed when stabbed with a real dagger instead of a prop, real witches who were offended about how they were portrayed cursed the play, etc. So, knowing that the Victorians were also very superstitious and were very interested in incantations and seances from earlier periods of history,there has to be something about all the magic and mayhem in Macbeth that they felt akin to. So I plan to dig a little deeper to find out exactly what the Victorians did with the magic within Macbeth, and also if they had their own scary superstitions they adhered to when performing "the Scottish play."

shakespearean magic.

John William Waterhouse, The Magic Circle. 1886.
Not Shakespearean, but definitely magic in theme and Victorian. 

I think I've realized a focus for the next little bit. I'm really interested in the magic and rituals that are described in Shakespeare's plays, so my plan for now is to read Macbeth and review The Tempest then see how it all fits into Victorian revivalism of ritualism.
I know this is an ity bity post, but it's a start for the weekend!

hermione as an ideal victorian woman.

I read up on a few Victorian appropriations of The Winter's Tale and I came across an essay explaining an 1851 production done in New York. There were several changes from Shakespeare's original text, but one of note is that the character of Hermione was changed to fit into the ideal woman of the Victorian era. Instead of the Hermione who was the tragic queen Shakespeare intended her to be, the actress Amelia Warner interpreted Hermione's character to be "chaste, subdued and natural," and not at all like the strong-spoken queen who valiantly defended herself, her honor, and her daughter. The essay further states that this 1851 Hermione demonstrated all the appropriate traits of an upper middle class woman: " she was 'playful, graceful, dignified, and majestic."
As for the trial scene, a review from the New York Albion dated 27 September, 1851 stated that

 [Mrs. Warner's] pathos is of the genuine stamp...the trial scene cannot be surpassed. Its exhibition of physical weakness and moral power, of injured innocence and gentlest submission to the hard decrees of fate was as near perfection as it well could be (Bartholomeusz, 101-2).

Not from the 1851 NY production of TWT ,
but a Hermione nonetheless from an
1887 production.

After reading both the trial scene in TWT and the essay "The Winter's Tale in New York," I searched for what exactly the ideals of womanhood were during the Victorian era. Obviously, Queen Victoria was the ultimate icon of what a woman should be, so for middle-class women, that oftentimes meant pretending to be richer than they actually were, in order to fulfill that standard of the ideal woman. But even beyond that, the Victorian woman was expected to be pious, pure, submissive, and the "master" of domesticity. These ideals were the same both in Britain and in America. I came across a quaint little poem written to further the cause of the perfect woman:

Her eye of light is the diamond bright,
Her innocence the pearl.
And these are ever the bridal gems
Worn by the American girl. 

I couldn't find the source of this poem, but it was very popular in the Victorian era, and continued to be until the feminist movement of the 20s.
So, to sum it all up, Amelia Warner's interpretation of Hermione fit quite nicely into the Victorian ideals of what a woman should be. I'm sure because of Mrs. Warner's role that this 1851 production of TWT had such favorable reviews, which I'm guessing were written by men, and they liked that this Hermione was submissive and  pure in her personality.

And, just for fun, here is a quiz from the BBC to see how familiar you are with the ideal Victorian woman.


Sources Cited. 

Bartholomeusz, Dennis. The Winter's Tale in Performance in England and America, 1611-1976. Cambridge [Cambridgeshire: Cambridge UP, 1982. Print.

https://wikis.nyu.edu/ek6/modernamerica/index.php/Reform/TheRoaring20s

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/trail/victorian_britain/women_home/ideals_womanhood_01.shtml

sketchy hamlet.

Earlier on in the semester, I started doing sketches of what I was visualizing in my mind while reading Shakespeare plays. Dr. Burton told me I should post my sketches and drawings for any of you who would care to view them!

So, here they are. Tell me what you think, and what you would do differently. I'm also thinking that for the end of the semester I'll do one really detailed watercolor of something Shakespearean, so any ideas you have for that are welcome!

"I have heard / The cock, that is the trumpet to the morn, / Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat / Awake the god of day, and at his warning, /  Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air, / Th'extravagant and erring spirit hies / To his confine"
Horatio. Act 1, Scene 1

"O wretched state, O bosom black as death, / O limed soul that, struggling to be free, / Art more engaged!
 Help, angels! Make assay. / Bow, stubborn knees, and hear with strings of steel, /
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe! / All may be well."
King. Scene 3, Act 3.

"See what a grace was seated on his brow: / Hyperion's curls, the front of Jove himself, / An eye like Mars to threaten and command, / A station like the herald Mercury / New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill-- / A combination and a form indeed /  Where every god did seem to set his seal / To give the world assurance of a man."
Hamlet. Act 3, Scene 4.

shakespeare through the week.

Even though I've decided on a focus for research for the remaining of the semester, I thought I would still do a bit of Shakespeare randomness on the weekends; sort of a culmination of Shakespearean oddities of any sort I find during the week. This week I only came across two items.

One. While searching the Shakespeare section of the HBLL, I came across a dissertation (at least I'd like to think it to be) on "Shakespear:" How embarrassing, right?

Two. I read Psycho yesterday for my Gothic literature and film class, and I found a happy note from Mr. Bates:

Norman finished shaving and washed his hands again. He'd noticed this compulsion in himself, particularly during the past week. Guilt feelings. A regular Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare had known a lot about psychology. Norman wondered if he had known other things too. There was the ghost of Hamlet's father, for example (Bloch, 94-95).

Well Norman, you were right about one thing at least...Shakespeare did know about ALL sorts of things!

victorians taking on shakespeare.

I still have to get back to the questions I raised in my previous post on The Winter's Tale, but that will have to wait for later tonight.

Actress Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth.
John Singer Sargent. 1888.

As for now, I just wanted to get in to typing what I have decided to focus on for the remaining of the semester, that being VICTORIAN SHAKESPEARE. Dr. Burton jogged my memory last class that I had previously mentioned taking a deeper look in how Shakespeare was received and studied in the Victorian era. Thanks Dr Burton.
So Wednesday, I went to the library, and just started wandering from the very first row of Shakespeare books, and spent a good hour reading titles, until finally I reached the 19th century critiques on Shakespeare. I think I pulled all the books available on Victorian Shakespeare, plus a few Shakespeare in the arts books that centered around the Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite period.
I came home with two very full bags of books from the HBLL, and I can't wait to crack those babies open to start making connections and discoveries between two of my most favorite eras, as far as art and literature go.
Oh, I will also be referencing the Victorian Web, and I just came across a blog on the Pre-Raphaelite sisterhood that might have some fun things to explore.
Hazzah!

peer blog evaluation.

Ashely Ysasaga, Ashley Talks Shakespeare.

1. Number of posts. five
2. Quality of posts. Ashley's posts are not as frequent as the standard of two posts per week. She's done some pretty great posts, so I think if she just ups the number of blogs she puts out per week, she'd be doing great.
3. A Strength. Ashley makes some very good connections to non-Shakespeare texts, as in her post Quick Thought on Hamlet. She refers to a talk given by President Uchtdorf, and I'd say that's a pretty great way to connect Shakespeare to our times!
4. Suggested Improvement. I think if Ashley would just post more frequently, and do more of the type of posts she did for her last three, she would be doing great! I agree that it's hard to get into the rhythm of posting all the time, but it's true what Dr. Burton said in that the more you post, the higher your chances are at making a great discovery in one of your posts!

progress report on personal learning.

1. Learning Outcomes. At the beginning of the semester, I initially thought I'd go with how Shakespeare is perceived in Japan, and to study the level of influence and popularity Shakespeare has in Japanese culture. But as I got into reading the plays, I noticed that there were only a few plays that have gained popularity in Japanese culture, so I knew that plan wouldn't work for all the plays I would be reading. So, I had to sort of ditch that plan, although it is still in the back of my mind when I am reading new plays, and now I'm sort of going for a let's-get-the-most-out-of-this-play approach. I feel that with every play I've read so far, I've used different methods in understanding what's really going on in the play. I know I need to be more concise in what I'm researching, but for now, it's been very rewarding and fulfilling to research topics as they come up. As far as specific learning outcomes, I think that I'm on the road to fulfilling the breadth requirement. For the depth, I think that The Winter's Tale has been the one work that I've researched the most, mostly because it is the one work I knew absolutely nothing about when I first began reading it. I've briefly touched on the legacy of Shakespeare, but I certainly could go more into depth on that one. I think the one thing I could work more on as far as analyzing Shakespeare critically would be to do more formal textual analysis. I have yet to read in to one of the plays with a specific critique upon beginning reading, but I plan to incorporate this more thoroughly the second half of the semester.
2. Reading and Research. So far this semester I have read Hamlet, As You Like It, The First Part of Henry IV, King Lear, and The Winter's Tale. I wanted to read a lot more, but one play a week is pretty condensed as is. Some of the secondary sources I've used have been the actual sources Shakespeare used, as well as Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare, which gives more of a historical background to what was happening within the plays. Also, at the beginning of the semester, I grabbed several books from the library, which all had different approaches to Shakespeare's works and cultural themes. I was able to find a few very helpful articles online just by typing what I wanted to find out in Google. I've also talked through several of the plays with my mom, which helped to get another perspective. As I'm sure is expected, I have a lot of questions during and after reading one of Shakespeare's plays, but often times I get intimidated trying to find the answer to, sometimes, really obscure questions. That is one thing I really need to work on for the remainder of the semester.
3. Links and Connections. I need to be better at making connections with classmates' blogs. However, I do think I make connections to non-Shakespearean texts, although not very frequently. Obviously this is one thing I REALLY need to work on. 
4. Personal Impact. I've always liked Shakespeare, and I thought I had a pretty good understanding of a lot of his works, but this semester, I realized that I'm becoming a Shakespeare nerd! Although I was very insecure about the whole self-directed-learning thing, I see now that it's helped me learn more about Shakespeare than I would have if I had been told exactly what I needed to do. The self directed learning has made me search out answers I have to the text, and has made me really dig deep into what themes are that I'm reading, and to ponder on what really is happening. Because of this, I think that The Winter's Tale is one of my favorites that I've read this semester, mostly because I knew nothing going in to it, so I had to work harder at understanding it, which has made my experience with this play more enriching. I'm talking a lot more about Shakespeare with everyone now. I'm able to connect Shakespeare to conversations my family is having, and I get excited when I can share with them something meaningful I have learned from one of the plays I've been reading. It's been a great learning process, and I feel very engaged and motivated to learn more about Shakespeare.
5. Personal Evaluation. So I think I've been doing pretty okay. One of the things I think I'm doing well with is just blogging pretty consistently. I was nervous at first, but then I just sort of forced myself to do two blogs a week, so that now I feel like I WANT to blog about Shakespeare nearly every day! I don't, but I do think about Shakespeare all the time now, and try to find connections in my every-day life that I can write about. I've mentioned in the other points what I need to work on, but one of the most important things I think that I need to do now would be to really do deep research and deep readings of the plays so I can gain more knowledge about the plays in historical, cultural, religious, etc., contexts. That way, I bet I could get a lot of my won questions that creep up answered more frequently. 
6. Peer Influence. Whitney Call always does very interesting and thorough posts. I love the approach of comedy that she has chosen to take on the plays she is reading. Also, Claire Hopkin makes some very interesting points, and her blogs will often pose questions that will make me think and try to figure out the answer to. Of course, there are many others whose blogs I enjoy to read and follow, but then my list of 2-3 would turn in to a list of...many more than that! 

pandosto, a victim of time.

Before I got into my previous post's questions, I wanted to read the source from which Shakespeare drew on for The Winter's Tale, that being Robert Greene's Pandosto. The Triumph of Time. I found it to be wonderful prose, as would make sense since Greene was very popular during his time of the late 1500s. But my post here will be on what I noticed from the original to the "remake," and make connections from that.

• First off, Bohemia, in Greene's text, is still a coastal country. The history of Bohemia suggests that it only was ever a coastal country for four years, during the reign of Ottokar II from 1269 to 1273 (Asimov, 157). Very interesting. I wonder if either Greene or Shakespeare thought about this, or if they were just going for the fantastical side of things by making Bohemia a coastal country in what appears to be a pre-Christian era, which is suggested by the oracle at Delphi, which was utilized before the time of Christ. Odd mesh of time periods, wouldn't you say?
• The characters of Greene's prose are: Pandosto, King of Bohemia; Bellaria, wife to Pandosto; Egistus, King of Sicilia; Franion, servant to Pandosto; Garinter, son of Bellaria and Pandosto; Fawnia, lost daughter of Pandosto and Bellaria; Porrus, adoptive father to Fawnia; Mopsa, wife to Porrus; Dorastus / Meleangrus, son of Egistus; Capnio, servant to Egistus. So, if you've read the Shakespearean version, you'll be able to notice that he swapped places of the unfortunate king from Greene's original.
• Bellaria and Egistus are indeed very friendly, but Bellaria is only showing him affection for the sake of her husband, Pandosto, who wishes for his wife and his best friend to get along. The two would often talk late in to the night, because the queen thought she was doing what her husband wanted her to do, but there was never any inappropriate conduct between the two. 
• Pandosto is more methodical than maniacal; he thinks over the consequences if he were to poison his bff, Egistus, as well as his wife, Bellaria.
• Franion is very conflicted about what Pandosto has asked of him. Either he can be a loyal servant and poison Egistus and Bellaria, or he can remain moral and tell Egistus about the plot against his life.  Franion, while contemplating, says, "Where eagles build, falcons may prey; where lions hunt, foxes may steal." So pretty much, no matter what he does, there will be conflict and problems.
• Franion is justifying that if he does go through with poisoning Egistus, that he shouldn't feel bad because he is doing it for the king, and the king will protect his actions. But he decides to flee with Egistus in the end.
• Because Egistus is no longer in court, Pandosto has no one else to take his anger out on other than his wife, Bellaria.
• The jailor is the one that informs the king that his queen is pregnant. 
• Pandosto's nobles ALL try to persuade him not to kill his wife and his newly-born daughter.
• Bellaria is the one that puts the chain that would later identify her daughter around her neck.
• The baby was sent out to the merciless sea to be laid in the hand of fortune, just as the king has ordered to be done. The seafarers felt pity for the baby, so they built a shelter on the boat so the babe would have some chance against the sea.
• It was the queen who had requested that the oracle be inquired of Bellaria's innocence. The oracle's reply was "Suspicion is no proof: Jealousy is an unequal judge: Bellaria is chaste: Egistus blameless: Franion a true subject: Pandosto treacherous: His babe and innocent, and the king shall live without an heir: if that which is lost be not found." This is nearly word for word what Shakespeare's oracle prophesied, except for the names of course.
• After this indictment was read, the king asked his noblemen to ask his wife fir forgiveness, and he confessed all his folly, then the report came that his son dies, and upon that report his wife fell and died.
• The king then thought of taking his own life, but his courtiers stayed with him to make sure he wouldn't go through with it, and to persuade him that it wouldn't be worth it.
• The epitaph that Pandosto had on his wife's grave read:  "Here lyes entombde Bellaria faire, falsly accused to be unchaste: Cleared by Apollos sacred doome, yet slaine by jealousie at last. What eve thou be that passest by, cursse him, that causde this queene to die."
• A shepherd from Sicilia found the baby. He considered taking the baby to the king so it could be raised in the upbringing it would have deserved, but he wanted to keep the gold and money, so to justify keeping the gold and riches, he decided to just take the baby home to his wife so they could raise it. When Porrus, the shepherd, brought the baby home, his wife was furious, thinking it was a bastard child her husband had made with another woman. Then Mopsa, his wife, decided it was a blessing because they were both poor and did not have the ability to have a child. 
• Sixteen years later, Dorastus, Egistus' son, is betrothed to Euphrania, the princess of Denmark. Dorastus talks about how he will never marry, and he and his father get in quite a tiff. 
• Dorastus meets Fawnia, much the same way they met in Shakespeare's version by flying his falcon nearby Fawnia's farm, then over the next several months, or weeks, or so, they get in to many arguments of why and why not they cannot love each other, let alone marry. Then after all this debate, they decide to hit the sails and flee to Italy. In this scenario, Capnio takes the place of Shakespeare's Autolycus in tricking Porrus to not request audience with the king. Capnio then tricks Porrus on to the same ship that Dorastus and Fawnia are setting sail on, then they all have a grumpy trip, and a tempest rages and sets them off course and they land at Sicilia. Dorastus knew that the king of Sicilia, Pandosto, was not in favor with his own father, and had heard Pandosto was an awful man. So Capnio convinces Dorastus to change his name, as well as Fawnia's birthplace. Dorastus is now Meleagrus and Fawnia is from Padua.
• After a short audience with Pandosto, he realizes who Meleagrus is, and sends him, along with the seafarers, to prison. He then tries to seduce Fawnia in becoming one of his concubines and tells her he would set Dorastus free if she agreed to be his concubine. She of course cannot be persuaded.
• Word was sent to Egistus that Pandosto was keeping his son in prison, so he leaves immediately to Sicilia to retrieve his son and to send Fawnia and Porrus to death for tainting his princely son.
• All is then revealed by Porrus, because he wanted to confess before being put to death so he could have a clear conscience, then everything is lovely and happy, and The Bohemians, with their new princess Fawnia, go back. Then word is sent that because of Pandosto's tormenting guilt, he kills himself. 

So, obviously, Greene's original text has much darker elements than Shakespeare's take on the famous tragic prose. It has been interesting to ponder on the differences and wonder why Shakespeare made the changes he did. It is well worth to read the sources that inspired Shakespeare, and to see the same level of craft Shakespeare must've seen in these texts...otherwise, why would he use them to create his own works?

the slaves of chance and flies of every wind that blows.

I have been reading The Winter's Tale this week, and I absolutely love it. I went in to this play not knowing anything about it, which, i think, aided my imagination and I was really able to get in to the minds and actions of the characters, as well as really visualize the setting of the different acts and scenes.

There are a few things I noticed right off that I wanted to pursue further, so I'll just list them off here, and get to them later, either in this post or another.

• First off, TWT was mentioned by Bevington as being the best example of Shakespeare's genre tragicomedy. After reading the whole play, I was able to see why it was named so: the first half was definitely tragic, while the second half was full of love and forgiveness. What's interesting is that the play was set up in a very stark contrast between the two emotions, rather than mixing the two, as is done very frequently in even Shakespeare's tragedies and comedies, they will mix all sorts of emotions without a very clear-cut scene for each emotion. Example, Hamlet; you get wit and comedy swirled in here and there even though the whole over-arching theme is very traumatic and disturbing.
• TWT boasts to have the most unique stage direction of any Shakespeare play, that being "Exit, pursued by a bear." This made me wonder how many productions of this play really did stage a live bear, as the Bevington intro indicates. That certainly would cause a scene.
• TWT has a significant amount of prose, more so than any other Shakespeare play I've read, other than The Tempest, which I wonder, and know, there has to be some reason Shakespeare turned toward the more natural speech of man during his last years. 
• TWT is obviously set in a pre-Christian world. The play is very consistent in referring to the Roman gods that were so highly favoured, as well as the oracle at Delphi. However, I did notice one reference of a chapel in act 3, scene 2. In my mind, chapel refers to Christianity, so I'm very curious...was this word ever used in describing temples of the Roman gods? Or did Shakespeare use chapel because he knew his audience would be more familiar with that term? I could just be fixating on a small detail, but it did made me wonder enough to note it here.
• There is a fair deal of mentioning the improbability of such stories as TWT within the play. It's almost like Shakespeare is making a commentary of the silliness of fantastical tales that he himself is so expert at weaving. 
• In act 4, scene 4 there is a reference to BOWLING! I was curious about how the game has changed since Shakespeare's time.
• And finally, Queen Hermione...why did Shakespeare fool the audience in to thinking she had died? Or did she really die and Paulina was a sorceress who brought the statue of Hermione to life at the end of the play so she could offer a blessing to her daughter and forgive her husband Leontes? Either way, Bevington, once again, was right in saying that Shakespeare used "a kind of trickery found in no other Shakespearean play." 

Hopefully, during this three-day weekend, I can address most of these questions I have brought up to myself.

musings on lear.

My mom has always mentioned to me how much she loves King Lear, so after reading the play, thinking about it, and watching a film adaptation on it, I wanted to get her interpretations of Lear. So here is a brief interview!

King Lear is a pretty heavy text. Do you have any suggestions for first time readers?

Yeah, I think the best suggestion is to have children and enter your senior years. It’s amazing how much more that life experience in those particular areas affects your reading of the play, and you have much greater sympathy with him as a character and with the situations that he’s finding himself in and with this progressive decent into an apparent madness. But you start to wonder if really the world around him is mad.

So when was the first time you read King Lear?

I think the very first time I tried to read it was after I did a production of Macbeth under the direction of my fifth grade teacher and I pulled out a large volume of the complete works of William Shakespeare that we had somewhere in the house and tried to go straight through it and remembered feeling totally lost, that somehow this was like the Bible; it was one of those things that you had to read, so I tried to plow through it but it didn’t mean much. And then I read it as an undergraduate, then as a graduate. I had a class in San Diego and had a teacher who was very big on formalist criticism and we read it very thoroughly, and by that time I had children and life experience, so it was a very different kind of thing that when I had read it as an undergraduate, young student.

So what were the different impressions you had reading it as an undergrad as opposed to when you were a little bit older, reading it as a grad student? What did you take differently from the text?

I think as an undergrad it was rather confusing to me to keep things straight, or to understand this idea of appearances, and the metaphor of the clothing and the nakedness, and it just all seemed like a contrived thing that this man was getting worked up over nothing, I guess there wasn’t the pathos in it that I felt when I read it as an older adult, and when I read it and really went through some of the major themes, I was much more sympathetic to Lear as a character, and that his motivations for doing things, even when they are not completely understood, but at least the outward symptoms of what would seem to be his motivations, started having much more relevance and meaning for me.

What do you think are the basic themes of Lear?

Well, you know it’s easy with Shakespeare to just say the same trite things of parental relationships, or growing old, or loss of control and power, or feeling like your losing those, but those are really so many of the things of our lives. And so they take on layered nuances, you know to see children quarreling about things, which every parent hates to see their children contending for things or resenting each other, that’s just very hurtful as a parent. And then also for someone with that kind of power, it doesn’t matter whatever your little domain is, whether it is around your home, or at work, or relationships with other people, that it’s very threatening to a person’s identity to start sensing power shifts and that somehow you’re being dismissed; that your role, your identity are being challenged. So that was something that really touched me, but also this idea of someone who had been a well-respected, and again a powerful individual, but the appearance or manifesting the appearance of things going out of control, and so manifesting, or exhibiting some of these characteristics are being interpreted by others simply as madness, but to know that there is so much else going on. And the relationship with the fool, that sometimes that inner voice that’s trying to get you to behave, or act, or perceive something a certain way, really is soul-stirring, is troubling, is just so very poignant with Lear that it kind of brings together this idea of family, of growing old, of personal hurt, and not quite knowing how to deal with change.

Do you think that Lear is one of the more relatable plays of Shakespeare? That people can take it into their own lives and relate it to their own experiences?

I think if they choose to. If you have any desire to sympathize with Lear and you don’t just put it off as something too grand, too big, but you find that common element that you might relate to. I think it is difficult because there are so many layers, the metaphors are this range from very complex to kind of simple, overt, but I think that it is definitely one that’s worth exploring, and when people get afraid of taking it on, I think it’s because they’ve had some preconceived notion of it being difficult. I actually loved the fact that I had this teacher who was very much formalist take us through it because seeing those pieces and then stepping back away from that into my own life experience made it one of the most richly rewarding, and if I can say, without being trite, easily understood because it does reflect so many of those things that have become part of my life.

I, like you, was very sympathetic to Lear, although I don’t have children yet, but do you think that there are those who read in to the play being unsympathetic to Lear, and just see him as a mad man? And if so, why would they take that sort of view?

Sure, because he’s not exactly likeable. I mean, you get a sense that his history has been one that has been full of a power struggle, this ascent, that the people around him are responding to. So through their response you kind of get a sense of a man who was probably not easily likeable, and I think that’s entirely believable. That he’s not this person that you want to identify with, because in many ways he doesn’t drive you to be want to be nobler or greater, but I think that’s the very thing that being able to get over that and get some insight. It’s interesting that reading this book, “What the Dog Saw” by Malcom Gladwell, to consider  that things are not just puzzles to be solved; there’s not just one bit of information that you need when you’re studying a Shakespearean play, they are mysteries, there are so many levels and layers, and if you look at them just as puzzles, well, yes, Lear does things that I don’t like, that I really can’t be sympathetic with, but it goes back to those broader, maybe even universal themes, that if you’re willing to take that chance, or give the play a chance, you may not find many things about Lear that you like, but there certainly may be things that you identify with.

Have you read any other version of King Lear?

I have read Faerie Queen, but it’s been a long time. I actually read it the same semester that I was reading Lear, and it’s been long enough that I don’t actually recall anything like that. But the Lear story shows up in all kinds of ways. In fact I do remember reading Death of a Salesman, and talking about the sons and this salesman as being someone that you kind of want to be sympathetic with, but again you see that are you just being sympathetic because you start identifying with him. And yeah, the sons had been done wrong, but I’m trying to think of anything else specifically. The Lear idea does come to mind a lot, when you see how other artists have incorporated that idea of filial contention, or growing old, or even when films show patients, even now Alzheimer’s patients, or those descending into madness, I think they’re all drawing on a Learesque theme or character.

I even thought about Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth.

Yeah, and you know a lot of fairy tales and things, this idea of the child wanting the throne, or the sons being sent out on their own, and how they respond to that. So I think that any time you see that you kind of wonder how much of that is within this collective imagination.

Good. Anything else you would like to add?

Yeah, Lear, the whole play to me, seems very gray. If you were to ask for a metaphor, and I’ve been, in my work, trying to come up with an identifiable metaphor in working with an exhibition on a work of art or something, I’m trying to think if I were to do something with Lear, it’s just everything about it is gray, from the color of the skin, from the interaction, from the gray hair, from the stripping of the clothes,  and a kind of a sallow body, to a gray, lifeless court relationship and family relationship, and it’s interesting to think about that. And yet I have always loved gray, windy days, and so, for me, there’s a bit of romanticism, I guess, in that. But there’s also something that’s very powerful, that’s not just black or white, its somewhere in the middle. 

very leary.

I've had a slow go at King Lear this week, and I'm still pretty lost. I finally finished reading the text today, and although Dr. Burton's mini-lecture on Lear helped me to find some additional meaning to the play, I still don't know that I got out of it all that I could. I had planned to read The Faerie Queen by Edmund Spenser because the Bevington intro to Lear claimed that it was a version of the story of King Lear. So I grabbed my Broadview Anthology of British Literature and did some of the preliminary reading on The Faerie Queen. There was no mention of King Lear at all in the introduction, but I still have on good authority that Lear is somewhere there. So I know I will have to do some further digging of critiques to find the answers I'm looking for, and also so see King Lear as a happy tale rather than the Shakespearean take which ends all in blood and several dead bodies being dragged from off the stage. But in the meantime, I'm going to watch Ian McKellan's role as Lear, and I know that seeing the film will fill in the holes that I missed when I read the text.
Until then, happy tragedying.

in all the world.

After finishing the text of As You Like It on Friday, I took a break yesterday from all things Shakespeare. Now today I'm back on the wagon and I watched the HBO FILMS version of the play, and I must say it was quite incredible. This 2006 production really touched on the many conventions of Shakespeare's comedies that we went over in class. I took more notes while watching this film than I did with the 1936 version AND with the text, I confess. So I'll just do a list of what I noticed and what I learned from watching a very well done production of As You Like It.

• The film opens with a few quotes, the last of which is "All the world's a stage." This was really effective, especially since the setting of the film was in Japan. Just goes to show that Shakespeare wrote about human experiences that can happen to any one around the world. This also made me think of an article I read a year or two ago titled "Shakespeare in the Bush." An anthropologist goes to West Africa and tells the tale of Hamlet to a small tribe, and she recalls her experience and the feedback she received from telling this universally themed story. Really, check the article out.
• The film shows the actual, physical banishment of Duke Senior. It held much more emotion and made me realize that it wasn't likely to be a peaceful event, but rather highly charged and emotional. You just don't get that by reading the text. 
• I liked seeing that Orlando and Oliver were still separated in status by their styles of clothing. Orlando the poor peasant worker in ragged, unkempt clothes and his "evil" older brother dressed to the nine. 
• Also, still talking about Orlando and his brother, I didn't understand why Oliver hated his youngest brother so much, but when I watched the film it hit me. Oliver was envious of his brother's kind heart, and the fact that people still admired him even though he was restrained by his brother to have any gentlemanly qualities, he was still loved. This mirrors the brotherly relationship between Duke Senior and Duke Frederick; Duke Fredrick was incensed near the end of the play to find that even though his elder brother was banished to the forest, young men still flocked to Duke Senior because he was so admirable a leader. This made Duke Fredrick realize his efforts were futile, hence he went on his way to the forest to experience the life of a hermit. I'll get to this later, I'm sure. 
• As for Rosalind, she was still very sweet and lovely, but not in a silly, giddy, over-the-top way. 
• The scene where Duke Fredrick banishes Rosalind was done in a very interesting manner. He comes in, yells at Rosalind and tells her she is banished, then takes Celia aside and speaks to her so lovingly to try to convince her he was doing this for her good, all the while she pretending to be swayed by his words only to tell him he might as well banish her. Then, enraged, Duke Fredrick rushed back to Rosalind, and yells more. Very interesting, if you ask me. It was very effective in developing Duke Fredrick's character, as well as Celia's. 
• Adam, the servant of the De Boys household, had a short soliloquy when he and Orlando were leaving the estate. This was a particularly interesting take on the scene, especially after learning in class that soliloquies are more of a convention of Shakespearean tragedies, and that comedies are more back and forth between characters. And this soliloquy form shows up rather a lot in this movie. I think this helps give more depth to the characters, showing that they are more thoughtful and reflective of situations and experiences that they have. 
• When Jaques pleads with Amiens to continue singing, it has Jaques sitting in the middle of a circle in a zen garden. This has some interesting implications, such as showing that Jaques, although melancholy, is very philosophical. 
• Along the same lines, Touchstone is doing Tai Chi in the scene when he meets Jaques. This definitely could be showing the translation of the human experience between cultures. Maybe?
• Also, there seemed to be something about Jaques being vegetarian in the movie. I didn't catch ANYTHING like that while reading the text, but it certainly goes with his character. I'd be interesting in knowing more about that. 
• Jaques "All the world's a stage" speech is more of a philosophical inquiry than him preaching to the forest court. More like he was thinking to himself, pondering about the state of life than telling everyone how it really is. I liked this presentation of the speech a lot. 
• Something else I must have missed entirely in the text was about Corin's previous life as a priest. I have no idea how I missed that, but it certainly was clear in the film. 
• Another thing that I wondered about was when Orlando and Ganymede first met in the forest, Orlando says there is no clock in the forest. Then later on in their meetings they mention specific times, like two o'clock.
• Then there is a scene where it shows Duke Fredrick by himself, looking rather remorseful for the things that he did to his brother and his court, and shows that he gained nothing from it because he ended up being alone. Hence his being repentant and going into the "wild" of the forest to commit to a life of hermitage. Then Jaques followed the same path, staying in the green world to find peace.  So at the end of the movie it shows Duke Fredrick sitting under a tree in a meditative state while the wedding party runs and dances by, then Aliena sees her father, kisses his head, and carries on her way. Then after she runs by, he smiles. I thought this was very sweet and a nice touch to show repentance and forgiveness, and ultimate kindness.

This really was an absolutely wonderful film. As I was reading As You Like It I didn't think I would like it very much, mostly because I was comparing it to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Whereas I thought AMND was much more interesting because of its many layers, I felt AYLI lacked a lot of conflict. But as it turns out, AYLI deals with the more philosophical musings of life, and that's where the conflict lies. I really enjoyed this play and the issues it made me wonder about and think about. Especially my original ponderings on gender confusion, which was cleared up a lot by Dr. Burton's explanation of homosociality in Shakespeare's time. This answered the question I had about in what circumstance it would have been socially okay for Orlando to kiss Ganymede, as is mentioned by Rosalind when she talks about Orlando's lips, indicating that the two kissed while Rosalind was disguised as Ganymede. Makes sense now under the definition of homosociality.

coz rosalind.

Yesterday I tried a different approach to getting acquainted with As You Like It: instead of reading the play first then watching a film adaptation of it, I watched the film first, and now I'm working on reading the text. This helped introduce the story line, especially since I am totally unfamiliar with the play, other than the "All the world's a stage" speech.

I watched the 1936 version with Lawrence Olivier, and it was pretty decent. But first off, the actress playing Rosalind seemed too sweet. Like I said before, I have had no previous experience with As You Like It but I knew well enough that Rosalind was much too sweet and soft-spoken. Then once she got into the character of Ganymede, that's when she really came out of her shell and became that strong, confident woman that I had read about in the Bevington introduction. This made me wonder if this transformation from sweet to strong is a convention of the character of Rosalind, or if that's just how it happened to turn out in the film.
As I read the text, I'm going to pay careful attention to if there is any indicator of this transformation in Rosalind's speech. Also I will be watching the 2006 version of As You Like It directed by Kenneth Branagh and then compare Rosalind from all three angles.

i like it.

I just read the Bevington introduction to As You Like It and I confess that I found it far more interesting and informative than the intros to the other two plays I have read so far. One of the themes it brings up right off is that of sexual identity being confused. I really find this point to be intriguing and interesting, especially since it led me to wonder if sexual identity was as profound of a problem in Shakespeare's time as it is today. The intro also heavily focused on starting with a homosexual relationship in order to transition on to a heterosexual union. Once again, very interesting that these matters should have such a primary focus in Shakespeare's play.
It's been a good start already, and I'm excited to further address the concerns and matters that are laid out in the introduction.

henry iv finale.

Well, I finished reading Henry IV Part 1 on Saturday, and then I finished Chimes at Midnight on Sunday. Well, I didn't finish the entire film, but I watched as much of it as was relevant to only the first part of the play. Apparently Chimes at Midnight is a culmination of Henry IV, Part 1, Part 2 and the first bit of Henry V. As much as I would've like to watch how the story ended, I just got bored. And I'm not saying it was entirely the movie's fault, but had I read all three plays, I would have been more invested in finishing the movie.
So first, just some thoughts about the movie, then I'll move on to final thoughts on the play.

Chimes at Midnight.
As I watched the last half of the half of the movie that focuses on Part 1 of the play, I came to the realization that I pitied Hotspur more, mostly because he was so likeable and jovial. I didn't get this as much in the play, and so I mentioned this to my mom. She mentioned that the real-life Harry Percy was sort of like the "sweetheart" of England; he was the King's go-to man, and everyone adored him. So I looked up some history (wiki style) about the real-life Harry and found that he really did seem to be loved by many. Even King Henry IV was said to have cried at finding Hotspur to be dead. Which then leads to how he died, which, unlike the play, was not by the hand of Prince Hal, although it was during the same battle, as far as I can tell. Also, in the play Hotspur and Hal are supposed to be more of peers, when historically Hal was only sixteen when Hotspur rebelled against Henry IV, and when he died. Now all this real historical background led me to the sources at the back of our book. I know I should've checked it out earlier, but I didn't, so...
Anyway, wiki led me to a source that is not mentioned in our book, but it seems like sound evidence? But that source is said to have come from Hotspur's squire, a John Harding, who wrote about the Percy family and about the rebellion against King Henry IV. The authentication of this source led me to a genealogy site where Hotspur's descendants keep it updated. Here is the link, if you so desire. It's pretty cool. I would never have thought of checking on the ancestry of some of the historical figures of Shakespeare's plays!

Well, I sort of got of track with that, so let me continue on to my final words on the play version of Henry IV.

Okay, so I came across an article titled "Shakespeare's best history plays," and I actually found it to be pretty interesting. In brief, what I found to be most interesting was that the article says that Henry IV, Part 1 could have been the most widely produced play during Shakespeare's time. I wondered why it might have had such a wide following back then when now there are very few productions of it. Perhaps it is because the play is the epitome of a prodigal son returning. I can only assume that that was a popular theme at the time, so I have a few ideas on why that theme might not be so popular with our society now.
In literature, media, films, tv, the heroes and heroines are the anti-hero. Our society is bombarded with the idea that it's okay to do drugs, be immoral, and what have you, because even with those flaws you can still be the protagonist. It's as if our society doesn't want to see the protagonist to get out of a slump, because maybe it proves that no matter how imperfect you are, you can still do anything. But I think that it would be more impressive to see the protagonists of our modern literature to follow the path of the hero's journey, where they make mistakes and better themselves to reach the ultimate boon. But now, our society has made it so simple and we don't expect people to progress and become their better selves. So that's my very simple idea of why Henry IV isn't very known in our day. I'm sure there is more psychology on the matter, and I'm just blabbering on about my own ideas, but for now, that's what I have.

global shakespeare.

Yesterday I came across a seemingly handy site, global shakespeares. I plan to explore it more in depth once I get into King Lear and Macbeth. I did a quick search on the site to see if there were any productions of Henry IV being done in Japan, but as far as the site indicated, there aren't.

But, if anyone is interested in seeing how Shakespeare in interpreted around the world via stage productions, check the site out. You can search by region, language, and by the play.

Anyway, now I'm off to finish Henry IV. 

chimes at midnight.

 I began watching the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry IV "Chimes at Midnight." It was my intention to read along with the movie, as I had done with the Branagh version of Hamlet, but it proved to be much more difficult. The movie adaptation jumps from scene to scene, and even from act to act, but because I have read most of the play i was able to track down where the movie was in comparison. Also, speeches are cut very short, and I'm not sure how the screenwriter decided on what to leave out, because oftentimes it would just be a word or two, and it didn't seem to safe much more time by eliminating a brief phrase. But there are a few other observations that I'd like to point out.

The opening of the film has a narrator who gives a brief explanation of how Henry Bolingbroke became king. It places him to be more of a villain than I thought he would be. While reading the play, I pictured Bolingbroke to be a victim of mutiny, but after watching a good portion of the movie, I'm rather confused...

Also, in act 2 scene 3 when Hotspur is speaking with his wife, I had a totally different visualization of what was happening than what was portrayed in the movie. When I was reading the text, I pictured Hotspur as gruff and mean to his wife, but in the movie it was all in good fun.

So with just getting to the middle of the movie, I have realized how beneficial it truly is to sit down and watch a production of a play you are studying as oftentimes you can misinterpret characters' personalities and so forth.

 I can't wait to finish the film and the text this weekend, and to think of some better final analysis on the whole history play genre.

o henry.

Well I began my reading of Henry the Fourth Part One. To get situated historically, I visited Wikipedia to get the brief rundown of the Plantagenet lineage. That helped a bit, and it will help to keep referencing back to short histories of the time of these monarchs. I also read the introduction before the play, and that really just set up what was to follow.

Since yesterday, I've only read the first two acts of the play, but that was enough for me to see a few differences from Hamlet. First off, the characters in Hamlet weren't nearly as confusing as in Henry IV. Because of the confusion and the who's-against-the-king thing in Henry I have made a little card with the characters' names and allegiances on them so I don't have to keep flipping back to the front page of the play. Secondly it seems that there are lengthier speeches for any given character in Henry. Perhaps in Hamlet no one had the patience to listen to long speeches, unless it was an individual offering a soliloquy to themselves. And lastly, this may not be so much a difference as me just noticing more, but I found myself having to refer more often to the footnotes during the dialogue between the two Carriers in act two scene one. Their speech patterns are by far very different from the more "sophisticated" usage of the royalty and upper-class characters of the play. If it weren't for the glosses, I'm afraid I wouldn't have the slightest clue of what they were talking about.
Well, so far so good.

just because.

Since this very well might be my last post on Hamlet, I'll just go ahead and share these finds now.

the firmament.

Last week I visited the library and grabbed several books on Shakespeare and various theories. A lot of the books I chose deal with the interest of science and in astronomy during the time of Shakespeare.

Last night I got into a book titled Shakespeare and Science . Although it is an older book, it gets right to the point without extra fluff and theory. Most of what I found to be interesting was how frequently, and even subtly, the heavens and the planets are mentioned in Hamlet. One of the chapters of the book dealt only with the sunrise and what it represents in Shakespeare's writings. "[the] dawn was the symbol of hope, freshness, youth, renewed strength, action, opportunity. It was the moment when man braced himself to meet his fate, be that good or bad." As I read this quote, I thought immediately of when the "cock crew" after the ghost of Hamlet's father disappeared again. After Hamlet spoke with the Ghost, he accepted to avenge his murdered father, thereby accepting his fate, which turned out to be pretty bad.

Another reference to the sun in Hamlet is when the prince is comparing his deceased father and his murderous uncle to his mother. Hamlet relates his father's image to that of Hyperion, the titan god of the sun.

Perhaps in Hamlet relating his father as the sun god, Shakespeare was able to manipulate King Hamlet as the center of all the events that occurred in the play. Bu then again, did Shakespeare believe in the Ptolemaic theory of the universe (earth as the center), or in Copernicus's model of the universe (sun as the center)? Either way, Hyperion was known and respected in the time of Shakespeare as  a pretty powerful god, deserving of praise and worship.