To be or not to be...

"To be or not to be: that is the question". That is always the question. 

I must admit I absolutely adore listening to Hamlet. I feel like I am watching it in the theatre when in reality I am comfortably sitting in my pj's listening to it and following along. My favorite character by far is Hamlet. I feel like most of the other characters play stock characters. Hamlet's mother sounds so regal and old with her slightly wavering voice-typical. I thought that is exactly how she would sound too. Her part doesn't impress me, but I am still engrossed in the story. So let me talk about Hamlet, since I find him more fascinating.

In class we talked about how his pacing is rather slow with heavy dramatic pauses. While listening I find that most of them make his long dialogues easier to digest and only a few times have I wondered if his speech would ever end. Hamlet is one of the biggest characters for an actor to play because he has more lines than an average actor receives and most of them are in long speeches. So it is very difficult to make each one lively and engaging. I know I've said that lot already, but I love the job that Hamlet does in this reading. He just sounds exactly like I hoped he would, without sounding like a stock character. One of my favorite speeches in Hamlet is his "to be or not to be..." I've read it many times and just devour the emotion and I was not let down by Hamlet's reading. He gives the text enough pause, but rapidly reads throught lesser lines which gives it a good pace. I am so impressed that I know feel like I would love to do more research on the play itself and I really want to read the comicbook Hamlet sitting next to me...so I think I will finish up here and do just that.

The Far Away Land of Andalasia...

The Merchant of Venice...or Stratford. The latter was what the BYU theatre company called their production during the show. I found that the production was extremely far from anything that I was expecting and I was expecting at least a little bit of watered down show. For starters I was a little weary in the beginning when the characters asked the audience to name the money, place, and business for the show. The purple turtle yogurt land place of business seemed to distract more than it provided for kid entertainment.

The production as a whole, I'd give a 5 out of 10. I thought that the use of kids to play characters such as Narrissa was cute and gave more audience interaction. As well as letting the audience play a variety of other roles that had a place, but didn't really need a stellar performing actor. That made the audience more interactive and brought it closer for the kids. I also really liked how they made the language more understandable for the young audience. They picked more understandable lines and then in plain english briefly explained what was going on. It was still a little high for the children, but they could definitely follow the actors for the understanding.

I didn't feel, like I mentioned earlier, that changing the name of the place or money, just made it a little too silly and not helpful. It didn't seem to make any sense and it didn't seem to help. The very start of the show where they played a silly child's game to help orient the kids into the story, I felt actually had a place.

The acting for the production was relatively good. I liked Andy as Shylock and Sarah as Portia and Bassiano. I felt they were decently loud and expressive. They were good with the kids and helped move the story along. I was unimpressed with Antonia. She seemed too quiet and she didn't have the same energy.

For a children's show, it was ok. I still felt like they could have taken out the changing of the names and it would have made a much better production.

Free Shakespeare?

So I've been having an internal struggle with what to post on next. I've got a lot of ideas, most still in the works, but some are a little more fleshed out. ANYWAY, I realized I should at least just post a couple of my most recent Shakespearean encounters.

First I am reading "The Prairie: A Tale" by James Cooper in my American Lit class and he starts off every chapter with a very applicable quote from a variety of Shakespeare's plays. I even recognized a lot of them, a fact that I am a little proud of. I was not impressed when I began reading this book, but after awhile I started to see the influence that Shakespeare had in his writing. He has a sort of verbose and descriptive way of writing and I picked up a little of a Shakespearean vibe. In fact, there was one paragraph where I was dead certain that I had read something very similar in one of Shakespeare's plays. (Unfortunately I lost the spot where that was...I think I marked it in black ink and didn't bookmark the page as I should have...) I will definitely try to pin point some more, but just being able to recognize Shakespeare within his work made reading it much more enjoyable.

Second I was just doing some thinking about my favorite play write when out of the blue I remembered Utah's Shakespeare in the Park. Free performances of Shakespeare, and occasionally other play writes, that go on during the warm months of Utah. I know a lot of the people who have performed with this company and they all impress me, so the performances are something you don't want to miss if you love Shakespeare and Free together. They are a little different than a lot of Shakespeare because they don't wear elaborate costumes or have amazing sets, they are performed around BYU campus and like the name says in parks around Provo/Orem. The next one coming up this summer is Hamlet, I think.

Thirdly, I listened to the first half of the Merchant of Venice online and I really enjoyed it. It was very interesting to hear it and read along. I found myself even more involved as I listened to the actors inflections and vocal choices. It really enhanced what I was understanding and reading.


Fourthly, yes I know how random this is but I must share these little tidbits of joy. These are nothing more than Shakespeare reformed for the entertainment of the masses, but I do enjoy a good little Shakespeare inspired video. It still amazes me how many people like and use Shakespeare all the time. (cation there is a little language)

Shakespeare in Buffy?

So while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I heard a surprising reference to Henry V. Buffy says, "You know that not everyone goes home alive, right?" followed by a somewhat awkward pause and then "Alright, let's go!" (go save the world from evil demons that is...) anyway Spike replies after that with, "well it was no Saint Crispin's Day speech, but it will do." I got so excited and my husband just thought I was weird.

Anyway I wanted to put out my research project ideas and see if anyone had any advice or suggestions for me. I want to research/write on class relations within Shakespeare. I think I want to focus specifically on good class relations because I feel it is one way that he gets both the royal and the peasants vote of approval. For example in Henry V there is the scene where Henry goes and takes a brief survey of the conditions and attitudes of the soldiers. I feel that is a way that Shakespeare tries to work on class relations.

If anyone has any suggestions for other great examples of class relations I would love to hear them.

Shakespeare and the Gospel

So I'd like to start with something I found to be pretty cool. On Sunday, my home-teachers came over and read the talk, "Living the Abundant Life" by President Monson. They mentioned Monson's choice in picking Shakespeare to be the example for the B in his ABC's. I really thought that was a great literary choice. President Monson chose a line from Henry VIII. 

"Be honest with yourself, with others, and with your Heavenly Father. One who was not honest with God until it was too late was Cardinal Wolsey who, according to Shakespeare, spent a long life in service to three sovereigns and enjoyed wealth and power. Finally, he was shorn of his power and possessions by an impatient king. Cardinal Wolsey cried:

"Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, He would not in mine age

Have left me naked to mine enemies."

I wanted to see other references to Shakespeare made by members of the 70 or apostles so I searched for it and came up this quote. It is called Intellectual Rebirth by Sterling W. Sill:

"I guess Shakespeare comes fairly close to the top of most people’s lists of great authors. So I got out Shakespeare’s 37 plays, his sonnets, and his poems and went to work. Reading them was pretty difficult at first. I read very slowly and perhaps not very comprehendingly. Shakespeare wrote a long time ago, and there were many things that I did not understand. I had to reread some things several times, look up their meanings, and ask people about them. But finally the clouds began to part, a little bit of the sunlight began to come through, and I had a tremendous experience with Shakespeare. Shakespeare looked with clearer insight into human life than do most men. He said his purpose in writing was to hold the mirror up to life, to show virtue her own image and scorn her own likeness. He said, “I your looking-glass will be and will modestly discover to yourself qualities which you yourself know not of.” I had a great uplift as I read his speeches and his arguments for success. And as he pictured life in miniature with his great characters acting and reacting upon each other, I was intellectually born again—a great many times. Each time we discover some inspiring thought, we can be changed, and changed for the better."

I thought this explains our class or part of the motivation behind our class. Or at least to me, this is one of the reasons I chose to study Shakespeare. I want to discover inspiring thoughts and truths and change for the better. 

V is for Victory!

I watched Henry V and decided to put my thoughts here.

Themes: I wasn't sure what the themes were in this movie exactly because I didn't recognize any obvious themes. I did notice that there seemed to be comradeship between the classes. Especially when King Henry walks around before the battle of Agincourt and talks with the soldiers about what they think about the war. It was a good moment, because it showed he cared for his people. Yes, he used the information he gathered in his rallying speech, but he still tried to understand the men better. It was a particularly good moment. It made the king seem human too. (I affirmed that it was a good theme on Sparknotes.com)
Another theme that I found was the ruthlessness of the king. We touched on this in class a bit, but he does seem overly cruel especially to the French when he threatens to rape all the women and spike the babies.

Screenplay: The flashbacks to Falstaff and King Henry's friends create background knowledge that was needed to understand the story better. It provided a better relationship between Harry and the men he killed for their crimes. It showed that he can make hard and mature decisions now that he is king. Transitions are seemly. I like how the chorus is more prevalent, he helps root the audience more firmly in the scene despite his modern dress. He appears and explains even though it is not necessary because with film they can show what he is saying, like the battle scene.

Script: It follows pretty closely with the text, only skipping what seemed inconsequential to the story line. It took out a lot of Shakespeare's dirtier lines which I don't think is a bad thing. Shakespeare did have a dirty mind. And it was understandable. I could follow the script and the plot. It flowed well and even if I wasn't knowledgeable in the play I could follow the movie.


Costumes: They are period except for Chorus, but he is the modern guide into the world of Shakespeare, so it fulfilled his role.

Acting: It's all very serious. The humor seems to lie only within the lines and their projection. The connections between the characters is very real. The actors did a fine job of understanding the difficult Shakespeare and performing it. King Henry seems very like a strong royal, very regal and yet caring. Scene I Act III where King Henry gives his imploring prayer is an incredibly moving scene. I almost melted with his tears and he begged for his men and his cause in the forest. The Saint Crispin's day speech is incredibly well rendered in reuniting the army. The King Henry Speeches are well done. His face is animated and he captures the audiences attentions. In the first major speech the smile on his mouth gives him a somewhat sinister and foreboding look, but none-the-less compelling.

Language: The language is rich and beautiful to the ears. Shakespeare is a genius especially the speeches. They are performed eloquently.

Finding My Blogging Voice

While looking at the Learning Outcomes I decided to fill out a more detailed plan for fulfilling all of the outcomes.

Learning Outcomes

• History, Context, Genres and Themes, and Ethics
  Explain the historical and literary contexts, genres and themes, and ethical dimensions of Shakespeare’s representative works. I want to delve a little more into the historical side of things. I really do like history and could definitely find some good scholarly articles that explain more of the historical context. Since I have already read a few of Shakespeare's plays and know a little bit about their themes, genres, and ethical dimensions, I think that I study and focus on the themes a little closer. I want to do at least one blog post per play on this learning outcome.
• Secondary Scholarship
  Develop familiarity with key secondary scholarship about and critical perspectives of Shakespeare's works. This is what I will do to find out my historical and contextual insights. I will use  blogging Shakespeare and the library resources to accomplish this.
• Scholarly Research
  Perform scholarly research on Shakespeare’s works by identifying and evaluating appropriate research sources, incorporating these sources into a well-documented formal academic paper, and formulating arguments based on those sources. I feel like next week this one will be tackled. 
• 1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
  
  
  Demonstrate mastery over fundamental information about Shakespeare’s works, life, and legacy
  a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare’s works) Reading to understand all of the plays that are assigned/chosen in this class
  b. Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work) I will choose my favorite of the plays and make drawbacks to it throughout the semester. Making sure that I can have enough knowledge to make critically engaging debates on it. 
  c. Performance (stage and screen) This one won't be hard, I performed Romeo and Juliet last fall and I love seeing different performances. I want to watch 2-3 productions of different plays and analyze them critically: theme, language, cultural. How well do they stay with the written script, what is taken out either for time or poor judgment.
  d. Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture) I want to watch at least one loose interpretation of Shakespeare and analyze it. I want to see if it held true to any of Shakespeare's themes or devices despite the contemporary aspect. I also want to 'pin' everything I find on Shakespeare.
• 2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically
  
  
  Interpret Shakespeare’s works critically in their written form, in performance (stage or screen) and in digitally mediated transformations. This includes 
  a. Textual analysis (theme, language, formal devices)
  b. Contextual analysis (historical, contemporary, cultural)
  c. Application of literary theories 
  d. Analysis of digital mediations
  I already mentioned this in the last section, but I want to do this with 2-3 productions of Shakespeare's plays and one loose interpretation. Starting with Henry V (ever since class last Friday, I've been saying vee in my head instead of 5...weird).
• 3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively
  
  
  a. Performance (memorization, recitation, scene on stage or video) I definitely will do this, but I'm not sure that anybody really wants to see me perform Shakespeare.
  b. Individual creative work (literary imitation, art, music) I could definitely do this one, I am a master with crayons.
  c. Collaborative creative project I think we have one of these at the end of the semester...
• 4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully
  
  
  This includes engaging in the following:
  a. Formal Writing. Develop and communicate your ideas about Shakespeare clearly in formal and researched writing and through a format and medium that puts your ideas into public circulation. I believe this is due in Feb. and I will definitely blog about it.
  b. Informal Writing. This mainly means through regular online writing check, already doing this, but to set a goal I will at least do this 3 times a week.
  c. Connecting. Share one’s learning and creative work with others both in and outside of class. My husband will not like this one, but I will share with him anyway. I need to practice my creative performance on someone first anyway...
• 5. Gain Digital Literacy
  Students use their study of Shakespeare as a way of understanding and developing fluency in 21st century learning skills and computer-mediated modes of communication. Those skills are grouped under the following categories.
  a. Consume - Effective and independent selecting, searching, researching, 
  b. Create - Producing content that demonstrates learning and which can be shared for others to profit from.
  c. Connect - Engage with other learners within and outside of the class to develop thinking and share more formal work.
  With the goals I have set for the other categories this one will be used as a means to accomplish them.

Pinteresting News

I did indeed start a pinterest board for all things Shakespeare, so here is the link: Drama! I will post my finds onto this board as the class goes along.

There were a lot of Henrys...

Since my last post was less than scholarly, I wanted to rectify myself and add a scholarly search that I did for Henry V. I wandered around for awhile searching the Lee Library's Shakespearean index and found a couple of great articles, one that I marked to read at a later date and the one I will post on today.

I found myself more fascinated than I thought I'd be with the war aspect in Henry V. I was curious to get more background information on it, because frankly cliffnotes left me less than satisfied. The synopsis seemed a little too vague since I didn't know enough of the history at the time of Henry V. So I did my own digging and found this little tidbit of knowledge that I found rather intriguing.

"However, though the King insists that the victory of Agincourt is not his but God's, Shakespeare's depiction of Henry and of the way events unfold suggests otherwise. Henry follows his father Bolingbroke's footsteps in thinking and behaving as if the outcome of events is decided by his own courage and cleverness. The elder Henry plans a holy war against the Turks as a means to quell civil war at home and to ease his conscience for usurping the throne, and his dying words include the advice to his son to 'busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels' to solidify his shaky regime (II Henry IV 4.5.213-14). And immediately following the Chorus's opening invocation of Henry's divine mission, we eavesdrop on a backroom conversation revealing that he has secured the Archbishop's sanction for the invasion of France in return for his agreement to block the bill in Commons that would force the church to pay taxes to support the sick and indigent. Incidents like these suggest that Shakespeare exposes holy war as a device manipulated by Kings for political ends, confirming what Stephen Greenblatt calls '...the most radically subversive hypothesis in his culture about the origin and function of religion'. That hypothesis was formulated by Machiavelli in his account of the ancient Roman practice of securing popular support for the state with the pretence of piety. The wisest leaders, Machiavelli claimed, are those who 'foster and encourage [religion] even though they be convinced that it is quite fallacious. And the more should they do this the greater their prudence and the more they know of natural laws.'" Holy War in Henry the Fifth 


So despite what Henry V claimed that he fought only for God, Shakespeare clearly disagreed and took his poetic license to say that the war was political in nature. Which honestly really makes sense...so my question is, Is it merely poetic license on Shakespeare's part or do you really think that Henry IV started the war for political reasons, despite his statement?

Pinning Shakespeare

My Shakespearean Pinterest:

I know that all the girls reading this (and some of the boys too) have been on Pinterest. Well, it's been my little guilty pleasure as of late and I have discovered some of Shakespeare's influence within. First I'd like to start off by saying that I had a teacher last semester who would post videos and cool things related to his class on a pinterest board. It is really easy to access and trace everything that has been pinned and it made finding everything online for that class nice and easy. The coolest part is that if you click on a pin it takes you to the person's site who posted it and if they have other cool things that you like you can follow them. That way you have access to more cool stuff they find. Also you can click again on the picture and it will take you to the website that they found the picture on. So you can discover all sorts of new websites. That's what made me decide to look up what Shakespearean goodies I could find through that site. (I've read far too many blogs today...I'm starting to sound like I blog more frequently than I really do)




I found pictures of Shakespeare and random quotes stuck on walls, in picture frames, and on someone's skin. I also found all different Shakespeare plays made into movies that I didn't even know existed. Cool mugs that you can buy...

...and even artwork that has been created for his plays.

I just find that having on a "board" full of really interesting and related materials is a good way to keep information easily accessible...maybe I'll start a Shakespearean Pin Board...

Is it a man or a fish?

"What have we here? a man or a fish? dead or alive? A fish: he smells like; very ancient and fishlike smell . . ."

I love the imagery here. This is Act II Scene II where Trinculo first sees Caliban and he doesn't know if he is human or a fish? This seemed to forshadow to me the character of Caliban. He is obviously unkempt and stinky, but it shows his character too, slimy and untrustworthy. Too bad Trinculo didn't pay attention to that...

This happens a lot in literature, Wuthering Heights for example. You start out by seeing Heathcliff described as a little heathen... and what does he prove himself to be a heathen and a devil like character. Childhood's End, the devil like aliens that look so menacing, but seems so nice in the prove to be menacing. This type of character scripting helps the reader understand the character better and makes it easier to keep a lot of characters under the belt.

"We Split, We Split"

I find that when I want to deal with more difficult texts like Shakespeare, it helps to read the summary of the Act on a  site like Sparknotes, or Cliffnotes before I begin. That way I am aware of what I should be understanding from the text and I can more easily figure out the dialogue. It also helps to have a dictionary near by to help decipher the words or phrases I don't understand. Since I have already read the Tempest, I didn't look up any summaries, I just dove right into the text relying on my previous knowledge of what happens. I haven't read it in a long time though so we will see how much I actually remember.

Love Does Not Bend with the Remover to Remove

I chose my two favorite sonnets from Shakespeare. Sonnet 18 and 116. They are both fantastic in my opinion for their insight into (what I like to call) true love. 


To start with they both deal with time. An important feature of love, because I feel like in society nowadays love is viewed as ethereal or passing. Shakespeare clearly doesn't agree.

"Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom" (116)

"But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor loose possession of that fair thou owest, nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade when in eternal lines to time though growest" (18)

Love does not pass or fall away but endures for a lifetime and more. It is very clear that Shakespeare hasn't been keeping up with the Kardashians lately because one of them got divorced after only a couple of months. The love he describes is so much richer and beautiful. I don't want it to simply be a thing of the past, but bring it forward and show people that it is possible today to still have that eternal love. (This feels a little more like a rant than I wanted it to, but I really do like these poems)

Shakespearean Comfort

In 7th grade, I read Macbeth. The full plot, the developed characters, the mastery of the English language just melted on my tongue and made my brain sing. I fell in love with Shakespeare then. I still have two quotes that I memorized for that class and a sonnet. "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out out brief candle life's but a walking shadow a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. . . " I could go on, but I won't. 

Along with Two semesters ago Shakespeare actually gave me the opportunity to make a lot of friends and create wonderfully lasting memories. I had the opportunity to be a part of BYU's production of Romeo and Juliet. It was incredible. I learned so much about how Shakespeare is to be performed and different ways to interpret and read his plays. That is where I got the name for my blog. I was Rosaline in Romeo and Juliet, a character rarely if never actually seen on stage. She isn't written into the stage directions, just talked about. So when creating the character I had little to go on, as I had no lines either. I did a lot of research into Shakespeare and was able to make a full character appear from what appeared to be nothing. I want to take that challenge with me as I delve into new characters. I want to see in Shakespeare interpretations that are not visible to the naked eye and use the extensive knowledge previously gathered on Shakespeare to see past the obvious into the unknown.