Exeunt 232

Shakespeare, you have been engaged!

When I woke up yesterday morning, I must admit I was a little stressed out. Amy hadn't made it to class and I hadn't received the recordings of the book to send on to J.J. and Austin. BUT when I got on my computer lo and behold, there was an email with the recordings! So I quickly downloaded them and then proceeded to piece them together using Windows Movie Maker. While that was saving I went online and looked at LibriVox and Audible to see how I could have the world hear our book.

There was no luck. It seemed as if you needed to download their software. So I came up with the next best thing and headed to YouTube! When my movie finished making itself I uploaded my first video ever on YouTube. Success!! We are online (here is the link again and we've had three views!).

After getting the video on YouTube I proceeded to choose a cut for our sample for Engaging Shakespeare and then I sent everything to J.J and Austin, and we were ready to go! Here's the sample that we chose to play, I think people really liked it!

That night when it came time to go to Engaging Shakespeare, I put on a purple dress and went up to the JFSB! I arrived and walked in the door to see the art group putting up their pieces. They looked great! I was super impressed with how many pieces each person in their group did. As the night progressed and we saw what everyone had done I was even more impressed. Everyone was so good and you could tell a lot of work went into all of the projects.

I thought that the audience also got more interactive as we went on. I really enjoyed telling them not only about our book project and the work that we had put into them, but also about my blog post. It was really fun to see people respond to something I had written about and had such a fun time doing!

Learning Outcomes, you have been met!

Gain Shakespeare Literacy

I would say I have definitely gained a breadth and a depth of Shakespeare's work. I have never read four of the plays this semester, let alone heard of two of them! But I actually enjoyed these ones so much. I especially loved a Winter's Tale. It was also reading a Winter's Tale that I feel like I really started getting into blogging and analyzing the text. I think it's evident in these two posts.

What I loved even more was being able to see this play performed on stage. I thought that the performance was phenomenal and it really captured the emotions I had been hoping to see come through after reading the play. Seeing the play also helped me understand the role of the Clown and the Fool in Shakespeare's plays. I understand now why he incorporated them into his plays and how they are much funnier in a performance than in the reading.

While this isn't related to a Winter's Tale, I also enjoyed seeing parts of other Shakespeare's plays, or at least related themes, pop up in books I was reading this past semester. The most obvious one is the connections I drew through my reading of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, but I also found connections in All Creatures Great and Small.

Analyze Shakespeare Critically

I got better as the semester went on analyzing Shakespeare both textually and contextually. I must admit that the contextual analysis took me longer to catch onto and it was harder for me to do for a while, but I think that I finally caught onto it. Here are a some of my textual analyses posts and a few of my favorite contextual analyses posts.

Engage Shakespeare Creatively

I think that this aspect of the learning outcomes was mainly fulfilled in the final project. I consider the recording of an audiobook to be a performance in many ways. We were each first of all assigned to cut down the script (which I think we did rather effectively). Then we were cast into our characters, which we had to, or at least I did, consider motives and emotions behind the lines. Then there was the recording and the rerecording! It got easier as we went on and we all, well at least I did, got more comfortable in the sound booth the more we recorded.

I also think some of my creative engagement with Shakespeare has been in my attempt to connect with nature in the text. This was harder at the beginning but the more I got into the works the more connections I was able to find. This might just be because King Lear has so many nature, especially bird, connections!

Share Shakespeare Meaningfully

I think the blog posts were a big part of helping me share Shakespeare meaningfully because they gave me time to think about and then talk out my ideas. The project also helped with this as did the requirement to try to connect with people on a local and global level. I think I did this through the previous assignment, but the final project also now helped with this because our book and all the other projects are on the web!

Adieu....

Well I guess that's everything. I can't believe the semester is over! It went so fast and I can't believe that we got through six of Shakespeare's works in that time! Hopefully I'll continue to see Shakespeare in the world around me and I'll remember all of his insights. I guess if nothing else I can just pick up another play and start reading on my own. In some ways the conclusion of this class is just another end leading to a more enlightened beginning.

We're Online!

Hey all! So our Hamlet audiobook is now on Youtube! I put all of the recording that Amy edited together, set a background and uploaded it. Now the whole world can enjoy our version of Hamlet!

Thanks for all the hard work everyone put in and I will see you all at the showcase tonight!

That's a Wrap!

We're done recording! We definitely got much more comfortable and in character as we recorded more and so I'm pretty excited about the final product! We just need to piece all of the recording snippets together and Amy has been kind enough to volunteer to do that using Garage Band. So that should be ready by Thursday!

As far as presenting the audiobook goes I'm not really sure how we are going to do that. I guess we can just show a snippet for a sample and then show people how to get to the book on the internet so that they can listen to it!

Or like was suggested in class we can use parts as some of the trivia questions....

Pro Readers and Recorders

So today was our third day recording and I must say we are doing better! Not only do I think we have better emotional quality, but we are also faster. This is really important because we don't want the pace to be too slow or the listeners of our "book" will get bored.

So basically the rest of our plan includes meeting Saturday and finishing recording the play a second time through (we got about 2/3 of the way through). Then we'll listen to it and decided what to do over, where to edit and so forth.

Wish us luck!

You Lost Me William...

So I've been on two kicks this whole semester with Shakespeare. The first concerned how characters set up and perceive their reality, and the second is with nature. Now I love all of the nature references in Shakespeare, because I love nature, I mean the focus on my major is the natural world. This being said I love all the insights and knowledge that Shakespeare has of the natural world and I can relate to all of them quite easily. That is until Act V of King Lear. Yes, I met my match in Shakespearean nature lingo with this line of Lear's:

"She's dead as earth."

This is of course speaking of his faithful daughter but the simile just doesn't make sense to me. Because, well, earth or (as I'm taking it for this post) soil/dirt is really quite alive in many ways! See even when major disasters come through the earth rebounds. It is in the soil that life springs from. Earth, dirt, soil whatever you want to call it, is the foundation for life.

Confused by my logic? Let my try to be clearer. When a disaster such as a fire goes through an area or ecosystem almost everything is wiped out. Animals flee the area if they aren't killed and vegetation burns to a crisp (just watch the fire in Bambi if you don't believe me). Then there is nothing, just the earth/soil and the charred remains. While this may seem like a bad thing, in many ecosystems it is actually needed. For in the soil life begins to stir.

Soil contains bacteria, microorganisms, nutrients, small animals and seeds (hello, life!). Plants such as the aspen tree actually depend on fire for their survival. When a fire comes through an area containing aspen, sure all the big aspen are decimated but their root system senses the heat and when the flames are gone the roots send up green shoots called suckers. These are brand new trees! The aspen has grown so dependent on fire that it is now almost virtually the only way it can reproduce.

Now that's a little off topic but it's important. If there wasn't soil/earth this life couldn't first of all be preserved because there would be no substrate, but secondly it couldn't come back. Because soil in in some way seemingly invincible the life that plants such as the aspen store in the soil is saved and then continues.

Many other plants store on their seeds in the earth and then depend on it to grow out of and provide the nutrients necessary to grow. When the plants grow you enter the food chain. Plants are eaten by herbivores which are then in turn eaten by carnivores! This also is true in the ocean! The seafloor often contains eggs of animals as well as in shallow areas it grows aquatic plants and provides the foundation for coral.

The whole biosphere is dependent on the existence on soil or earth!!! That is why Lear's statement "dead as earth" is so confusing to me! Shakespeare has me stumped!

Unless I guess, Shakespeare is trying to say that Cordelia may appear dead and of no use but her previous life and now current death has provided spiritual life in many ways. People see the errors of their ways and learn. We as readers also see how we can be and can then improve ourselves and our lives....but I just don't know about that...it seems like a stretch.

Any ideas? (And I'm sorry this sounds like a lecture, but I guess that's just how it came out.)

Gertrude Reading

Just a quick update. I read over the script and so I now I know my lines, well I've read them. I'm really hoping to go over it again and just get more comfortable with them. I just want to get to know Gertrude more if you know what I mean.

Overall I think we did really well with our script cut. I think we managed our goal of keeping the plot true while having key components.

I've also just realized how little time in school/class we actually have left! It's crazy but I think we should be able to get through the recording all right it will definitely just take a lot of dedication.

Yep! Those are just my thoughts for now. Sorry I forgot to post on Tuesday!

Recording, Day 1!

So we have our script and yesterday we read through half of it! I think our cut might be slightly longer than an hour but I still think its good.

I really like recording. It was a little frustrating at first when the technology kept acting up but we figured it out when some help.

Amy's going to put up some of the recordings we did but we're probably going to redo all of them. I think it was really good practice though to go over some reading and get a hang of how recording is going to go.

Over Thanksgiving we're going to go over my lines so I'll try to do some research on Gertrude and how people have portrayed her. I think it is harder though to portray a personality on audio. But I'm going to look at my lines and see what motivations are behind her lines. Why does she say what she says? Why is it important? (Obviously it is because Shakespeare put it in there and we kept it in our cut!)

Yep that's the plan!

Veterinarians and Lear

Now this post is actually ties into Amanda's but I just so happens she and I had similar epiphanies!

So I'm reading a book called All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot right now and I absolutely love it. It's about a vet of the British countryside in the 1930s (it's his personal experiences). Because of my major and my passion for animals and interest in medicine I find this book fascinating and hilarious. I love the stories of his late night calls, the strange occurrences and his interactions with quirky people. And that is where this book surprisingly ties into King Lear!

James Herriot is working one day when he is called to the house of a wealthy gentleman.

He was a big, floridly handsome man who had made millions in the Tyneside shipyards....I had taken an instant liking to him; I had expected a tough tycoon and had found a warm, friendly, curiously vulnerable man, obviously worried sick about his dog.

Okay so this part isn't especially King Learish becuase obviously it doesn't describe Lear, BUT this next part is almost spot on.

Julia, a scaled-down model of her mother, drifted about the room with the aimless, bored look of a spoiled child.

When her father accidently spills come whisky, and later when they leave for town,

Julia struck her forehead with her hand and raised her eyes to heaven....Julia stared coldly at her father; her lip curled slightly.

Doesn't this description just remind you of the cruelty of Goneril of Reagan? But wait! It getseven more like King Lear's, only with a different family. See when Herriot goes to his next call he is confronted with the total opposite of the Tavener family. The next family was poor.

They lived in a house

Crouching in the lee of a group of stunted, wind-bent tress, its massive stones crumbling under severe weathering.

However the man who lives there is happy with his wife, and his children. Herriot noticed this as he treats a sick pig and then as he leaves the residence he noted something remarkable about their 18 year old daughter.

I was taking my leave when I saw Jeannie... pumping vigorously at the tyre of her bicycle...."Going somewhere?" I asked...."I'm going to to t'village...I'm going to get a bottle of Guinness for dad....Dad's been up all night waiting for a heifer to calve - he's tired out....It'll be a surprise for him."

What makes this so remarkable is that the village was two miles away at the bottom of a steep hill! But this young girl didn't seem to care. She loved her dad so much that she was willing to do that task, though simple and hard, for him to cheer him up after a long hard day. James Herriot was struck by this and this next comment is what really made me think of King Lear.

I couldn't stop my mind from roaming between the two houses I had visited; between the gracious mansion by the river and the crumbling farmhouse I had just left; from Henry Tanever with his beautiful clothes...to Tim Alton with his worn chest-high trousers...[and] his daily grind to stay alive.

But I kept coming back to the daughters; to the contempt in Julia Tavener's eyes when see looked at her father and the shining tenderness in Jennie Alton's.

Wow! I read that and I was like, that's Lear's life but in two different families. There are daughters that despise their father and then one that truly loves him and is willing to sacrifice all for him. It's really sad and beautiful in my opinion to see a real life example of family relationships that Shakespeare is portraying. It'll be interesting to see how the play ends and what people realize what they really want out of life. In my opinion Herriot has the right idea and sums it all up nicely.

It wasn't so easy to work out as it seemed; in fact it became increasingly difficult to decided who was getting the most out of their different lives. But as I guided the car over the last few years of the track and pulled on to the smooth tarmac of the road it came to me with unexpected clarity. Taking it all in all, if I had the choice to make, I'd settle for the Guinness.

Hamlet: Script Cut!

Just as a quick final project update, I cut my portion of the script and it was actually more difficult than I thought it would be. It is hard to decide what lines carry the most weight and how you can skip lines and yet still have the scene flow. Anyways I think it worked and here is a link to our script!

Birds, Birds, Birds!

I have noticed so many bird references in King Lear. Seriously it's nuts! There's at least 2 references in every Act! Anyways I posted once on a bird reference already, but I just want to put up a few more. I mean its interesting to see them scattered in the play, but I also really like the meaning behind each of them!

Act One

• "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,/That it had it head bit off by it young." - This one I actually already went into great depth talking about already (see above link), so...yeah.

• "Detested kite!" - The kite being spoken of here is not the children's toy. No a kite is actually a bird that is found in many parts of the world. What you many not know is that kite's typically eat carrion, so in many ways they can be compared to vultures. This line is also addressed to Goneril, after Lear has discovered part of her sinister nature. Just another way Shakespeare portrays the relationship on a deeper level!

Act Two

• "Renegade, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks/With every gale and vary of their masters." - Now I actually got more insight on this one from my Dover Thrift Edition of the play. In the footnotes it told me that a halcyon is another name for a kingfisher. See it was a common belief that if a kingfisher had a cord tied around it's neck and was then suspended, that it's beak would face the direction that the wind is coming from. I honestly have no idea how this could have come about because there is no scientific proof to support this but it does make an interesting point. By using this comparison Kent is talking about how those people around him are very flaky and easily persuaded by anyone who comes their way! They simply want to follow and support those who will bring them the most profit in the end, even if it means betraying their current employers.

• "Winter's not gone yet if wild geese fly that way."

• • • • 
        
    "Oh Regan, she hath tied/Sharp-tooth'd unkindness, like a vulture here." - In the script it has Lear point to his heart right after this line. In some ways I wonder if Lear is trying to say that after discovering his daughter's true natures that his heart has died and they are mercilessly feeding on it. They are showing no mercy to his aching soul, and instead they keep battering it. (Just a thought)

• 
  

• "To be a comrade with with wolf and owl."

Act Three

• "Judicious punishment! 't was this flesh begot/Those pelican daughters." - Not going to lie, when I read this one I was really confused. I couldn't figure out what this meant. But once again my footnotes helped me out. According to Medieval legends and myths, the pelican would stab itself when food was scare and thus allow its young to drink its blood. Some other sources say that the pelican young would stab the mother with there own beaks. However this is only a myth. Pelicans do not in fact drink the blood of their parents, but once again this common misconception adds much to Lear's new view of his daughters. I think is is one point where he finally sees just how little his daughters care for him and just how much have been using him. He sees the reality of their nature and how they are like the cuckoo and the pelican. They only want him for what he has to materially give them, and if he dies in the process they could care less.

• "The foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale." - I don't understand this one at all simply because the song of nightingale is actually quite beautiful! Any ideas?

Well there you go! All the bird references I have found so far in King Lear! I'll admit I love them. I think in general they really add to the vibrancy of the story. But it might just be the nature lover in me. It also makes me really excited for my Ornithology class this upcoming semester!

Hamlet Listening and Speaking

So in preparation for Thursday I looked up some audio-book and performance recordings of Hamlet. I looked here and simply listened to the first 7 recordings just to get an idea of variety. These are a few things that I found that we might want to consider:

• Narration - a few of the productions had a narrator who explained what was happening up to this point and then even said when characters entered and such. If we decide we want a narrator I don't think we should take it that far, but instead do sound effects of people moving. ---- An interesting note, one of the productions started off as though we were actually in the Globe Theater watching the production...not sure how I feel about that still.
• Voice - there were different voices for different characters and as we discussed this is highly effective.
• Sound Effects
• Explanations - one version actually had explanations of what words and phrases meant, personally I didn't really like it and it was distracting from the plot.

On another note I tried a cold reading of just a few different lines of Gertrude's. Here's a taste!

Word Overkill!

One thing that I have noticed over and over and over and over and over, in this text is that Shakespeare likes to beat ideas to death when he tries to convey anger of his characters. This is something that pops out from the very beginning, I mean we see it in Act I scene 2 when Edmund comes out.

Now we talked about this is class a little bit, but I just want to quickly hit it. Edmund is upset about his illegitimate birth and he rants and rants about it.

"Why brand they us/With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?"

(notice the alliteration as well) and then.....

"As to the legitimate: a fine word, 'legitimate'!/Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed/And my invention thrive, Edmund the base/Shall top the legitimate."

Look at that! In just a few lines he repeats base and its synonym bastardy six times! Along with this legitimate is repeated four times! Edmund is driving the point home and basically killing it with words!

But this is not the only case! If we skip ahead to Act II scene 2 we are again confronted right off with word overkill when Kent becomes enraged with Oswald. All Kent does is call Oswald many names over and over again. He can't just use one word, he has to go overkill!

"A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave, a lily-livered action-taking knave; a whoreson, glass-gazing, superserviceable, finical rogue; one-trunkinheriting slave; one that woldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch."

Talk about loaded words! He seems to throw in every possible insult he can think of in one breath! On top of this he is using those words to describe Oswald as a knave. In some ways I guess this could be viewed as a conceit, that is the running an idea over and over and basically killing it with words.

I think that Lear actually does one of the best jobs of running with a conceit. He seems to be drawn to using disease as an analogy to how his family is treating him. Here is one that I think is one of the best examples (Act II scene 4) of how Lear uses this conceit, I've noticed this throughout the play.

"But thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter;/Or rather a disease that's in my flesh,/Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,/A plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle,/In my corrupted blood."

Talk about powerful! This is why Shakespeare is such a powerful writer. He knows how to capture an idea, especially that of hate and anger by running over an idea until it is almost killed. But the audience gets the idea and they can feel the passion that the character feels. The passion of

Shakespeare's characters is what gives them life, and what helps us connect to the plays and understand human nature.

Parasitic Families

Hopefully your parents don't consider you to be a parasite. But this what the Fool seems to be insinuating about Goneril, and frankly he's right. (This is one of the first glimpses at what we will see in King Lear about parent-child relationships.)

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,

That it had it head bit off by it young. (Act 1 scene 4)

Now, I don't know how much you know about a cuckoo, that is the bird, and so I would like to enlighten you because I think this analogy really illuminates what Fool is trying to illustrate to Lear. It also really demonstrates the first glance at family relationships in this play.

The common cuckoo lays its eggs in the nests of other birds. The birds don't recognize the egg as one that is not their own. The cuckoo eggs develops a lot faster than other birds and so generally it hatches before the other bird. The newly hatched cuckoo chick then proceeds to push the other eggs out of the nest and eliminates the other competition. As it grows the other adult birds feed the cuckoo chick for 16 hours everyday. See one cuckoo chick is usually about the equivalent of feeding

10 of the regular bird's chick. This is an enormous task!! This is so much work for the birds that end up being smaller than their chick that they are unable to produce another nest full of their own chicks! The cuckoo literally takes all and gives back nothing. (And just for your enjoyment here is a video so you can see that this is real life! Sorry its a link but it decided not to embed....)

Once you know and see this, you can see why choosing to compare Goneril to a cuckoo is such a vivid description, and why it should have snapped Lear back to the reality of his relationship right away.

See, Goneril is only using Lear and is unwilling to give back anything in return. Her whole life she has been fed, protected, and cared for by Lear and the wealth that he has to supply. And much like the cuckoo chick, which has no love or concern for its providers, she has no concern for her father. She just demands, takes, demands more and then schemes to take more! She doesn't even truly love him and wants him totally out of her castle! She is treacherous, and I am sure would have taken out her other siblings, like the cuckoo does the other eggs, if a chance had been given to her before!

Like the other birds, I cannot believe Lear has not seen this before. He is so blinded by pride that he doesn't want to see what is really missing from his life and the many flaws that he has. He doesn't want to truly understand that his daughter is manipulative, cunning, smooth tongued and is planning his downfall. He is being worked over by his daughter and yet he keeps allowing it to happen, until he finally comes to see the truth. But even then he is still blinded as he decides to go see his daughter Regan, who is also like the cuckoo but he has yet to believe that. The only child who is true to him is Cordelia, and he pushed her out of his nest by himself.

Midterm Self-Assessment!

Learning Outcomes:

1. This course has really helped me in understanding Shakespeare. Before I really struggled with Shakespeare and understanding what was going on in the plot. But I have found that as I have continued through the course, I understand more what it happening. Don't get me wrong, I still have big help! Not only this but when I read the Dover Thrift Editions I understand the symbolism a lot more because of the footnotes. In class I have also gained a greater understanding of the conceits, analogies and themes that are repeated throughout all of Shakespeare's works. I guess what I'm trying to say is because of this class I definitely have a greater appreciation for Shakespeare's rhetoric.problems sometimes comprehending what just happened, but at those hard times I have found that Sparknotes is a

2. We have been challenged to critically analyze Shakespeare in our readings. I have done this in some post by simply breaking down lines and

talking about what I think they mean or what Shakespeare is trying to convey. Again I have done this by trying to find a common theme in all of the Shakespeare plays, specifically I have tried to find ties to reality (and dreams), that is how people construct or conceive their own. I also have tried to look at why Shakespeare makes certain stage and plots choices (see this post). I find that when I do this, I get more excited about Shakespeare and the messages he is trying to convey.

3. Engaging in Shakespeare creatively has been one of the harder things for me to do. I am a science person and we aren't very often encourage to be creative in our school work, we are more formal. So it has been difficult for me to try getting out of my solely academic mind frame. But I have tried. One of my more recent attempts has been to show how names play a role in Shakespeare's plays, specifically The Tempest. Another way I have attempted this is to compare Hamlet to one of my favorite novels The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

4. Sharing Shakespeare meaningfully is another things I have tried hard to do this semester. I find that a lot of times the way I

posts I actually incorporated pictures of children I had worked with in orphanages this past summer. I also have tried to talk about nature in some of my posts because I am a Wildlife and Wildlands Conservation major. In addition to blog posts I have also talked to my roommates a few times about what we have

learned. For example after watching A Winter's Tale, I was really excited about the productionhave done this is through some of my blog posts. In one of my and bothered by Paulina's character, so I talked to my roommates about it. I told them the cool aspects of the play and tried to vent some frustrations. But I guess the most recently I have shared Shakespeare meaningfully was actually through this past assignment about sharing globally and locally.

Self-directed Learning:

I think I can definitely improve on my self-directed learning. I think a big part of this is getting the plays in text again. For the for few plays I obtained the Dover Thrift Editions to read and these actually really helped with my comprehension and with what I was getting out of the text. The last couple of plays I haven't been able to get a hold of and had to read online instead and I noticed that I just didn't get as much out of it. However, I always have kept up on the reading and I have tried to critically analyze the text. I don't feel as if my documentation of my learning through my blogging is always a good portrayal of what I have learned though. Sometimes I can't adequately describe what I am thinking or how I feel through my posts. This is especially true with the strange fascination I have with reality. It is really hard to document what I have been thinking or discovering about this. I guess finding some research or psychology papers about how people construct their own reality.

(By the way my blogging and my reading of the assigned plays has always been on schedule and I have been able to keep on top of everything. I have also been able to make it to both of the live productions, and I really loved Winter's Tale.)

Collaborative and Social Learning:

I like working in assigned working groups because they really help me discover new things about Shakespeare and even fuel some of my own ideas. However I do think that it would be nice sometimes to get together with another group so that we can get fresh ideas moving. I do really like when my group has a text to work with, and I know I can do better on bringing a written text to refer to, so hopefully I will be able to obtain a copy of the next play. I have found that Chris is especially involved in my blog and helps me think of new ideas. Kara has also inspired me a few times or caused me to think about new thinks in Shakespeare that I hadn't even considered before! As far as it goes for involving others in my learning experience I have talked to my roommates, my mom and even coworkers about Shakespeare. A lot of times it is as am thinking about what I am going to blog about. But sometimes I get too excited about it and I just want to tell somebody what I am thinking.

Looking Ahead:

I think I can definitely try bringing in more outside sources in my learning experience. That is researching more instead of just looking at the text so much. I mean I have done both but I can for sure use more research. I also need to work on making my blog posts more personal and so I am going to try to break out of my academic bubble and let myself shine through in my blogs. Part of bringing in part of my personal interest and hobbies I hope to bring through the final project. I hope to be working with Avril on the one act. I was talking to her on the way up to The Tempest and we came up with a few ideas and actually a whole new direction. She is thinking we may actually hope to write a play showing some of the common character and theme choices that Shakespeare has. I think this would be really fun and since I would be more personally involved in this I think I could be more open in my blog posts.

Sharing from Relief Society to Oprah

Well, I did it, I shared Shakespeare to the world! Like the assignment was I did this both locally and globally but both were actually different subjects! Here's what I did...

Locally

Not gonna lie, this one had me stumped for a few days. I couldn't decide who I wanted to share with and what about because I didn't want it to be too easy. In fact it was almost an impromptu sharing but it was interesting, and I admit I went on a few tangents.

It all started when a fellow member of the Relief Society

First I told her how it was a Shakespearean play based off of actual historical events. She was amazed. I told her the real life history of Antony and Cleopatra and then discussed with her how accurately Shakespeare drew upon these. We talked about the absence of her previous affair with Julius Cesear and their love child. It was decided this was probably done to make the play more romantic and less political than it seemed to be.Presidency came to deliver some notes, and well she saw me doing homework on my bed and asked what I was working on. (I was looking for global sharing experiences but was struggling...) I told her how I read Antony and Cleopatra and BAM she was hooked. See, she didn't know what Antony and Cleopatra was, or even who they were, and so naturally I had to explain.

Then I naturally diverged into a conversation about reality in Antony and Cleopatra and I guess in Shakespeare in general. We talked how his characters also try to shape their reality so they can justify their actions, either past or present. Which led me to a tangent about Hamlet and a clip I saw on YouTube my freshman year. (Its pretty funny, and shows how Ophelia's fate could have been different.) There's actually a few on other Shakespeare plays as well but sadly not one on Antony and Cleopatra. I was actually going to request they do one on it for part of my global outreach, but I admit I forgot....

Globally

I struggled for a long time to find something to connect with people about Antony and Cleopatra.

I looked at productions (none were current), Flickr photos (same problem, most were over two years old), and for blogs and tweets...nothing.

I was feeling rather frustrated and discouraged and then I learned we could expand outside of our play and share other Shakespeare things. So I naturally turned to my good friend Edgar...okay the book...about Edgar...that's fictional....you know the The Story of Edgar

Sawtelle by David Wroblewski , which I've had such a fervor for recently.

I started going crazy! I looked for blogs, photos, videos, reviews and even found David Wroblewski's site dedicated totally to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (they're making a movie!! I really want to see it whenever it come out). I wanted to try to contact him personally but wasn't able to get an in. I just found contact information

for his people, and decided instead to see what people were saying.

I went once again to Flickr, but there aren't really any good photos about this book, because well, its a book! But I pressed forward to YouTube. Nothing of interest there, just a few lame videos that didn't seem worth my time to watch.

So onto a different approach! I remembered that The Story of Edgar Sawtelle had been an Oprah's Book Club book. So I thought I check out what was happening there. On his biography page there were a few comments but I thought I would try to stimulate some more comments about the book and Shakespeare. So I related to a lady who was from Wisconsin and I also left my own review of the book relating it to Shakespeare. (click here to see them)

But I didn't feel like this was enough. More people needed to know about my passion, so I joined Goodreads. (I'm actually really glad I signed up for the membership because now I'll get great recommendations.) The first thing I did was write a review of the novel, and I of course tied it into Shakespeare, I mean it is a retelling of Hamlet! I was actually shocked to see so many comments from people who did not like the book at all! A lot of it was because it had such a tragic ending, but come'on people, it's a Shakespearean tragedy! So I left a few comments here on there on people's discussions but nothing has turned up.....

Actually one thing did but this was actually one of my shorter comments and this lady was quick and short in her reply...but maybe I'll try to stimulate more in depth thought about Shakespeare....

Once again I still wanted to do more! The world needed to be educated and get an appreciation for this version of Hamlet! So I searched blogs and lo and behold, a man wrote a whole blog post just about this novel! The thing about his post is that he praised the book, but he said he didn't know the plot of Hamlet so he couldn't compare it in that way. So I educated him in a comment describing the plot and how knowing Shakespeare's tale enriches the novel. I even suggested that he read Hamlet with The Story of Edgar Sawtelle next time. (By the way that's a picture of the blogger)

So I have sown my seeds and I hope that even though the assignment is technically due today, that I will get replies and good feedback. I mean look at all the people in my post alone that have been influenced by Shakespeare. And hopefully I've influenced a few people to reconsider their views on the Shakespearean plot and maybe they'll even read Hamlet now! I hope they do because as I said in many of my comments, knowing the story of Hamlet really enriches The Story of Edgar Sawtelle.

What is in a Name?

I've been thinking about something we talked about in class, that is I've been thinking about names. Now I know that it was briefly that we spoke of this but Professor Burton mentioned that Caliban's name comes from the word cannibal. This alone tells some of what Caliban's character is going to be like, that is unrefined and prone to wicked, wild ways. Then I was reading Sparknotes to make sure I understood everything, and for Act III scene one it gave the explanation that Miranda's name means admirable. And Ferdinand plays off of this:

Admired Miranda!
Indeed the top of admiration! worth
What's dearest to the world!

So I started to wonder if any of the other characters had names that were prevalent to their personaltiy. Not surprisingly, a few more were! Here they are! ( I consulted here and here for the meaning of names.)

~ Alonso: eager for battle -- Alonso aided Antonia is overthrowing Prospero. However he does seem to later regret his actions.

~Ariel: lion of God -- I find this really interesting because Ariel is Prospero's spirit servant. However he is quite powerful in his actions and abilities but he obeys the protagonist in our plot. So I guess the name describes him. He is fierce but belongs to the so called ruler of the island.

~Ferdinand: courageous, daring, brave -- Ferdinand is the prince who falls in love with Miranda. He is ready to defend and to work for Miranda but he is also compassionate. I think this is a fitting name for our hero.

~Gonzalo:wolf -- When I think of wolves I think of quiet, yet fierce and ever alert creatures. Gonzalo is loyal and willing to defend his king. He is also wise and a peacemaker. As a quick note he aided Prospero and Miranda in their get away.

~Prospero: wealthy, prosperous -- Despite being upsurped and exiled, Prospero has done quite well for himself! He has magically abilites, an island to himself, and seemingly endless spirits at his command.


**And just for fun I decided to look up what the names of our group members mean!**

~Christopher: Christ bearer, he who holds Christ in his heart (English)

~Eric: honorable ruler (Scandinavian)

~Kara: sweet melody (Irish)

~Katie: pure (Irish and English)

~Meg: pearl (Irish)

***Oh and for more fun, Professor Burton!***

~Gideon: great warrior

Taking a Look Around...

Not gonna lie, I'm having a really hard time finding things online about what people are saying about Antony and Cleopatra. I guess it's just not one of Shakespeare's most popular plays to analyze. This might be because it is so historical in nature.

Don't worry I found a few things, but they're all a few years old so I don't know how well the connecting will go. But I guess I'll keep plugging away! If you guys have any suggestions I would love to hear them!

The few things I did find were papers on the Roman and Egyptian relationship, the historical facts about Antony and Cleopatra, and even one about how Egyptians showed affection in that time period. Oh! I guess I found this blog as well, which I hope to read in depth, but I don't know how the connecting will go because the last post was in December...

Sadly there is nothing on how the characters may choose to alter reality and why, but hopefully I'll find something or someone to begin connecting with!

They Said and Thought What?!

So in my last post about my plan for my analysis I mentioned going over some themes in Antony and Cleopatra. However if I go over all of those this post would be huge, so I'm just going to touch on two topics that I have hit in previous posts. The first will be nature references and the second with be, of course, reality perception.

Earthiness

Like I've said before, I've noticed that Shakespeare loves the nature references, and I personally find them very effective. Now the movie Cleopatra wasn't in Shakespeare's words. This is because they actually base the movie off of the fantastical perception of Cleopatra's mortal life. However, the second half is about her relationship with Antony, which Shakespeare wrote the play about! So it works. But since they don't use the actual play lines I had to just look at how they might decide to incorporate the natural world into the film.

Sadly there is only one point that stands out to me in how they used the natural world to make a point. See there is a part of the movie where a dead body is thrown over the wall as a warning to Cleopatra. So as the body is removed and Cleopatra fears for her and her son's life, the sky turns dark, the wind picks up, and it begins to rain. As with in many movies, they used nature to set the gloomy and ominous mood.

BUT don't worry! As mentioned before the play is loaded with nature references! Here are a few of my favorites that I think just really pack the punch.

"When my good stars, that were my former guides,/Have empty left their orbs, and shot their fires/Into the abysm of hell."


"His legs bestrid the ocean: he rear;d arm/Crested the world: his voice was propertied/As all the tuned spheres, and that to friends;/But when he meant to quail and shake the orb, He was as rattling thunder."


"Sometimes we see a cloud that's dragonish;/A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,/A tower'd citadel, a pendent rock,/A forked mountain, or blue promontory/With trees upon't that nod unto the world,/And mock our eyes with air."





Is this real life?

Antony and Cleopatra is full of people believing what they want to and choosing to ignore the blatant and obvious truth. Mainly it is between the two main characters themselves, and this was actually very apparent in the movie.

So there's a soothslayer in the movie who predicts that Julius Cesear will become Emperor and reign with Cleopatra at his side. Of course, this doesn't happen and Cesear is killed by the Senate and Cleopatra sent running back to Egypt. However they both obviously wanted to believe it, so they did despite obvious signs indicating otherwise.

Also, an interesting note about the movie, both Cleopatra and Cesear believe they are gods, and thus they cannot be killed by mortal hands. Cesear is so convinced that he is untouchable that even when Cleopatra expresses some of her fears about a potential assassination, he blows her off telling her she is silly. But at the same time Cleopatra constantly brags of her divinity! Neither want to admit to their weaknesses and just claim they are right because they are divine. It's crazy!

(Just as a side note, Cleopatra believes she is Isis and destined to rule the world.)

Now I'm sorry this is getting long so here are just few lines from the play how people have chosen to reconstruct their reality so they can justify their actions or get what they want. (Cleopatra is a pro at this.)

"If you find him sad,/Say I am dancing; if in mirth, report/That I am sudden sick"

"You praise yourself/By laying defects of judgement to me"

"All is lost;/This foul Eqyptian hath betrayed me." - This is actually Antony! He feels guilty about desterting his men in battle and running after Cleopatra like a dog, so he decides to find some way to be angry at her instead of himself!


You're at the end!

There are so many other great manipulations of reality, but I'm sure by this time this post is so long you don't want to read anymore! So I'll leave you with this. I just think it is so interesting that so many of Shakespeare's characters seem to have problems answering for their actions, so they feel the need to alter reality so they can feel better about themselves.

It makes me wonder how much I do this in my own life...Think about it. Do you do this is your life? I'm sure we all do in someway, because after all Shakespeare is the master and showing our human flaws in his characters.