Peer Evaluation

Brooke has an awesome blog, and one that I plan on referring to as an example of successful blogging. She has 12 posts, all of which are of high quality. Her last post, Shakespeare Through The Eyes Of An Actor, is a great post. She had previously emailed her brother asking him a varity of questions from his perspective as an actor who played Othello, and in this post she records his responses. Honestly I have no ideas for improving this blog! It is that good! Maybe a good idea would be to use the “read more” option so that more posts appear on the blog, and so that they are easier to digest. Great blog Brooke!!!

Mid-Term Evaluation

I have met the reading goals I have set for myself thus far in the course. I have read and briefly studied a play from each of the genres, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Richard II, King Lear, and Hamlet. This has fulfilled the breadth requirement. I have also read through a few sonnets, including Sonnet 116, 32, 24, 120. I have read an article comparing the language and dialog of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream written by Ian Johnston. As I advance in my learning plan to study in greater depth specific works of Shakespeare, I plan to read more secondary works and other resources.

I have enjoyed reading through the different genres of Shakespeare’s works. I think what has impacted me most is from one of my first blog posts where I question why Shakespeare has endured so long, and why is he and his works so popular and still studied today. In later posts I refer to this question and have come to believe that it is because of the great emotion that he puts into his characters. This emotion is easily relatable as a reader, and thus these personal, emotional themes that Shakespeare invokes is what has allowed him to be studied throughout the ages.

I don’t think I’ve done anything really great so far. Most of my posts have been pretty minimal. One thing that I really want to improve on is looking for outside sources to include in my posts. I think that by referencing articles and secondary sources I will enhance the quality of my posts and it will be more beneficial to my peers and me.

Max has been a great help, in that he has shared with me in class some things that he is doing on his blog, and on his comments that he makes on other’s blogs. This has helped me have a more focused idea of what to blog about. Jennifer Prusse also has made some good comments on my blog, which helped me to go deeper than my original post did.

BBC Shakespeare Animated Tales - The Tempest - Part 1

This is the first part of the BBC animated series of Shakespeare's The Tempest.

This play seems quite different than other Shakespeare plays I've read. From just doing some quick research (google) I found that this play was written in a neoclassical style and is hence more organized. A play within a play is common in many of Shakespeare's works, however The Tempest has more imagery and is more self-aware. I am looking forward to doing some more research with this play to fulfill my depth requirement.

This week

My reading/learning plan for this week is as follows:

Watch King Lear (see below)
Read The Tempest
Begin looking a little into correlation, biographically, between William Faulkner and William Shakespeare.
I believe that one of Faulkner's books, The Sound and The Fury, was directly influenced by The Tempest, and I'd like to look into that as well. Now that our breadth requirement of reading a play from each genre is complete I will be able to do some depth studies. If I can find enough evidence about William's influence on William, I'll read some of William's works that were influenced by William.

Happy Valentine's Day

Celebrating Valentine's Day while studying Shakespeare can be awesome!! There is plenty of material to fit the mood of anybody on Valentine's Day. There is extremely ushy gushy romantic, depressing, suicidal, and lonely material to draw from. Probably the most used of Shakespeare's works on February 14 would be Sonnet 116. However I prefer Sonnet 130.

Sonnet 130 is somewhat humorous, but when taken seriously, I believe it to be the most romantic and sweet.

The way Shakespeare sets up this poem, structurally, is very appealing to the reader and is easy to follow and understand. Shakespeare begins with the eyes, then goes to the lips, body, even breath of his mistress comparing his mistress with what some would consider ideal physical attributes. He compares the physcial attributes to natural beauty found in nature, such as snow, coral, roses. He makes similes, metaphors and images such as eyes like the sun, coral red lips, rosy cheeks. After pointing out that his mistress doesn't have any of these ideal physical attributes, he confesses that he has a rare love for her in the final couplet.

Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grown on her head.
I have seen roses demasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Movie

This weekend I am going to watch King Lear, a 2008 Royal Shakespeare Company production of Shakespeare's enduring tragedy. In this production, Ian McKellen plays King Lear. Luckily I can steam this video on my computer via Netflix.

King Lear

I chose to read King Lear as my tragedy mainly because I was already familiar with Romeo and Juliet, and because my professor, Dr. Burton, named one of his children after King Lear. My goal is have the play finished by Monday, and then look into some modern interpretation of the play in film. Does anyone know any good rendition of the play?

The Issue of Language

I can't remember what I was looking for when I came across this article, but it has proven a good find and worthy to share on my blog.

The article is The Issue of Language: Introduction to Richard II and Hamlet by Ian Johnston, he teaches at Malaspina-University College.

The main argument of the article is that by pairing Richard II and Hamlet, despite the differences between the two plays, will also us to focus on the “intimate link between important issues of characterization and the styles of speech displayed by particular characters”. Johnston wrote this article with the hope that a greater appreciation of Shakespeare’s varied use of language to denote character and evoke central themes.

Johnston designates two dimensions of dialog, reflection and action. Ideally both will coexist equally, however he explores different characters whose dialog is mainly reflection or mainly action. The comparison is made between Richard and Hamlet both being compulsive talkers, and how they foil against Bolingbroke and Claudius, who are better listeners and use their language as action.

One example that Johnston makes that I found very noteworthy is in Act 2 of Richard II. Bolingbroke listens, speaking very little, and his power increases with each scene, however, in contrast Richard speaks constantly and his power correspondingly weakens.