Adjusting the Connotations

For class we are reviewing a segment of the play Julius Caesar.  We need to review the section according to a specific Literary Theory.  We are reviewing Act 3 Scene 2.  In this scene Brutus has killed Caesar and is explaining to the Plebeian's his reasons, at the finishing of his remarks Antony arrives with the body of Caesar and gives an address.  Since i have been focusing on Rhetorical strategies of the plays in my blog I wanted utilize a literary theory that would add to this focus.  I decided to do a Structuralist reading of this scene, specifically focusing on the True Symbol defined by Saussure...

Searching for a Source

I enjoyed a bit of serendipity when searching for a scholarly source for today.  I visited the library and hunted down the Shakespeare section.  I wanted to unearth a book focused particularly on rhetorical strategies in Shakespeare.  So, I went personally to the section of Shakespeare research and I found a book titled “Why Shakespeare” by Gerald M. Picniss.  Provided my focus on the idea of compartmentalizing the tools of Shakespeare’s success, I was intrigued by the title of this work.  It did not disappoint.  I was able to review some brief segments of the book, and look forward to utilizing it more fully.  The book attempts to explain the specific strategies incorporated in Shakespeare’s plays that make them successful.  He analyses the structure of the plays in the first half of the book, while the latter half hone in on the various Rhetorical strategies of the plays.  For instance chapter six deals exclusively with the mixing of Verse and Prose in the plays and how this mixture engages the viewer mentally through its development of wit.  This chapter specifically will help me in my rhetorical analysis of the plays, which I am very excited about since I am attempting to imitate much of this in the play that I am crafting.

Plotting to Avoid Disaster

Here is a plot summary for the play.  I suggest enlarging the image.  These really are the bare bones of it.  There are so many things that go on in it, and a flurry of concepts that we want to approach.  The summary is separated into three main segments.  “The Events” gives a brief blow by blow for each act of the play.  So far it looks like a five act play.   The other two segments deal with the progression of two of the main concepts that underpin the idea of the play.  As you can tell one deals directly with Hamlet, while the other concept deals with academia.  I wanted to keep the construction of the play fairly simple so that I could focus on concepts.  This is in line with the tips from Tom Stoppard that I posted about previously.  Since I said I would catalog the progress of the play, I wanted to get this posted.  Right now Martin is doing some research while working on a few character sketches, and I am working on the opening scene.  Hopefully I will have that done by the weekend.  Feel free to comment or ask questions.

Progress on Personal Learning

By Rockcohen

I am going to give a review of my blog "Decrypting Shakespeare" hereafter for the benefit of Dr. Burton in examining my progress in the course, to clarify my efforts thus far and where I am going to my readers, and to provide a self-evaluation of my tactics so that I may engage Shakespeare even more acutely.  It is a good opportunity to ensure a tight focus as I continue to decode the mysteries of the "Shakespearian"...

Peer Blog Evaluation

I’m briefly evaluating the blog "On Shakespeare" by Max O.  This will be enjoyable for me since I have been regularly reading from his blog throughout the class thus far.  He has a great blog worth looking into.  let me explain why...

The Flash Mob

Hey everybody, if you haven't yet had a chance to poll in on what you think of the latest BYU Shakespeare Flash Mob idea be sure to do it soon.  Whitney is doing a great job of trying to get this organized and underway.  Help her out.  Go check it out!  I think this will be an awesome opportunity to experience Shakespeare in an alternate format, not just reading or watching a film, and I am pretty excited about it!

Prose and Carnegie

I was reviewing Sara C’s Blog and when I came across her post about the impact of Shakespeare in Andrew Carnegie’s Autobiography, I was surprised.  I had forgotten that we have that same class, and I thought it was funny, because I had just finished reading that section and thought that it would be cool to post about.  I think that she does a great job of putting it out there in context. My take on it was a little different.  As I continued reading in his autobiography I wondered in the back of my mind what impact his fascination with Shakespeare as a child would have in adulthood.  One thing that stood out to me was Carnegie’s desire to accumulate a precise vocabulary. 

Pretending to be John

Cara’s interview was awesome!  I am so glad that I went!  We got to ask Fred Adams several Questions and he unloaded great information on us!  I hadn’t provided any questions beforehand, but since John wasn’t able to attend I pretended to be him and asked his question.  I'm glad he made some.  Thanks John!  It was fun.  I will post some of my favorite parts of the interview on here later, but check out Cara’s blog! She will have it transcribed there soon.  It is definitely worth reviewing if you are looking for a good research angle.

Showing Initiative

I think that Cara is giving us a great opportunity to fine tune our skills in communicating with professionals in the field of Shakespeare studies by letting us sit in on her interview with Fred Adams today.  She has gone through substantial effort to make the interview available to anyone in the class who wants to participate.  Even though I don’t have much in the way of questions to add to her effort, I am going to be there and support her on this.  If you have the time I think you should come too.  This beats sitting in the library.  We'll be in room 4116 in the JFSB.  See you there!

Making a Play

So, after much consideration and analysis Martin and I have decided to write a play based on our observations of several of Shakespeare’s works, as well as a few other key plays that relate to the themes that we are discovering.  I think this will be a good opportunity to synthesize my learning, and to put into action a few of the specifics that I have observed as linguistic trends.  We have a lot of ideas and plan to record our journey from concept to concrete on our individual blogs.  To keep them from being mirror blogs of each other, I will be putting in a lot of the back reasoning behind the choices I make in crafting the play so as to show the relationship between the things I study, and the play.  If all goes according to plan we should have the plot outline completed, and a handful of scenes for the play done by the end of next week.  As I post the ideas and progress of the play, please feel free to provide as much input as you would like.  This is a bit ambitious, but it is the overall end project that I hope to do for the course since it will reflect the things learned throughout this course in an engaging way, or at least I sure hope that you find this more entertaining than a term paper.

Culture as a Weapon?

Honestly, I had no idea what a “Moor” was and had to look it up while I was reading the play.  In the article “’That which Heaven Hath Forbid the Ottomites’: The Turks in Shakespeare’s Othello” by Joseph Locket he explains “Othello is a Moor, one of the North Africans remaining in Spain after the overthrow of the Islamic governments there.”  Luckily, in our class discussion last Friday my group really dug into Othello, particularly in the aspect of the importance of race.  We all agreed that perhaps the issue of race was one of the strong points of Othello that makes the play so distinct from many of the other main tragedies.  For instance, the rage expressed my Desdemona’s Father would seem like the same old paternal anger seen in a Shakespeare tragedy where it not for his prejudice towards Othello because he is the Moor.  Furthermore, I thought it was interesting that Othello was THE Moor, not just a moor of Venice.  Shakespeare goes through a good deal of trouble within the play to make this distinction a strong apparatus for comprehending the play with much more that simply defining Othello by his title. 

This focus on language was a key thing I notices when reading the play.  Compared to his other plays the diction of Othello seemed to contain a great deal of sophistication.  For instance, the enraged Duke berates Othello saying “the bloody book of law / you shall yourself read in the bitter letter / after your own sense – yea, though our proper son / stood in your action.”  I know Shakespeare is known for inverting sentence structure by repositioning verbs, and sometimes he sounds a bit like Yoda, (or I guess I should say Yoda sounds like Shakespeare) but the point is this play in particular seems replete with Sonnet-like lines.  This is significant in my opinion because it suggests to me that he is hiding something in the language of the play itself.  I have to admit that at first I really didn’t catch as many of these references as I have in review, but after reading Locket’s paper I think I was really on to something.  His paper is great if you want a good starting point for reading this play in light of the racial issues it brings to the surface.  I think reading it in this light both interesting, and timely given the conflict between the “western world” and the “eastern world” in contemporary society.  Clearly from the lines of Othello we see that this contention is ages old.

Dying for a Soliloquy

I think I have been spoiled.  I really enjoyed the Soul bearing soliloquies in Hamlet and Richard the III and found myself earnestly craving a peak into the mind of Iago.  He certainly steals the stage through the first 2 acts, but when I drew close to the end of the first act my hopes were diminishing.  To my great exultation, just as the 1st act reached its end all other characters walked off the stage and Iago began to bear his soul!  I wanted to jump up and down with fiendish laughter! (I guess that was my way of preparing to enter the mind of the madman)

When I thought about why I wanted to read a Soliloquy so much I remembered my earlier post about self-reflective characters and how they are more easily accessible.  This in turn lead me to review Iago’s dialogue up to that point to see what was making his character so complicated that I yearned for easier access.  I discovered that he employs several striking maxims that at once draw my attention, and obscure my understanding.  For instance:

-          “We cannot all be masters, nor all masters

Cannot be truly followed.”

-          “I am not what I am.”

-          “If the beam of our lives had not

One scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the

Blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us

To most preposterous conclusions.”

These awesome lines were some of my favorites up to this point.  I think that I enjoy them so much because they contain many characteristics similar to those found in Shakespeare’s Sonnets.  For instance compare the two phrases:

-          “We cannot all be masters, nor all masters cannot be truly followed” – Iago

-          “My glass shall not persuade me I am old

So long as youth and thou are of one date” – Sonnet 22

Both sections attempt to define abstract ideas through concrete examples.  Both contain an argument, and a rebuttal.  I am certain that there are many more similarities that can be drawn, but the singularity of this mode of expression really drew me in.  As I continue to review the plays I’ll make certain to investigate this bleeding over of Sonnet form within the play. 

A bit of a rough spot

Dear Reader,

  I want to thank you for taking the time to read my blog.  I know sometimes it can be a drugging task, and that occasionally I may not make sense; Nevertheless, I want to assure you that your efforts are appreciated.  Last week was rough for me.  I had to leave town and attend the funeral of a close friend.  It was a difficult experience, but all is well that time consoles.  I am letting you know this so that you will understand why last week I did not post.  There were simply too many other things needing my attention and while I did read and nearly finish the comedy Measure for Measure, I had very minimal comments to leave at the time.  I really think my reading of it did little justice to the play, and plan to re-read it in a few weeks. I will post then about my experience.  Thanks for your understanding.

Thanks again for sticking with me,

Bryan

P.S. this week I’ll be reading Othello and am very excited to document this experience.  That I can recall, I have not yet read this play, so here goes!