Reflections on Writing a Play amidst many Research Projects

This post is a continuation of the status of the play that I began to work on earlier in the semester.  As it turns out, writing a good play is a lot of very hard work.  I had stated earlier on that I was collaborating with a fellow classmate Martin M.  As we each continued our individual research blogs for the class, we consistently strove to pick up on things that we wanted to use in the play.  Since my emphasis was the teaching methods of the Renaissance, I decided that I would examine the strategies used by Shakespeare in writing his plays so that I could mimic those strategies, not simply their end results (his plays). 

Aesthetic Cohesion, Transliteration, and Morality in Historia Danica, "Hamlet," and "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern"

This post is a continuation of my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  It is also a follow up post to previous research that I mentioned performing in regards to a relationship between Hisotria Danica, “Hamlet,” and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.”  I will be discussing how transliteration affected the depiction of morality in the portrayal of several more explicit scenes.  Let me begin by explaining a bit about transliteration.

Reviewing Brandon's blog "Get thee to a Nunnery"

This post is part of how my Shakespeare class is developing a scalable process for online interaction and evaluation among classmates through blogs.  I have previously done an evaluation of Max O’s blog, and learned a lot about the benefits of clear organization.  It was a good learning experience, especially since it required a critical analysis of a kindred blog.  At this time I will be examining Brandon P’s blog "Get thee to a Nunnery."  He is focused on Shakespeare in pop culture, and argues that Shakespearean references are identifiable enough within these works that they are not simply aesthetically pleasing, but rather point individuals towards Shakespeare.  Let me show what he has done to illustrate this:

Performing The Tempest through Skype

I had the opportunity last week to help Cara with her dramatic reading of Act 5 Scene 1 from the Tempest.  She wanted to integrate a digital mediation in the performance so we read the play via Skype and the class listened in.  I think that it was an interesting experience.  There were several technological difficulties, but in the end I think that it was cool.  The students would have had a unique time because they only heard the play, they couldn’t see us reading it, and there were no physical actors.  It would be like “watching” a youtube video with your monitor turned off.  So the experience was completely linguistic.  This meant that the feeling designed by the syntax and the flow of dialogue completely controlled the performance, and when someone forgot a line or took too long a different cast member had to step in because the flow was essential to keeping the tone and “realism” of the play alive. 

I think that it was entertaining, and was a good way of getting into the text maybe even more, because stage fright was extremely minimized.  If I had the time I think it would be great to do more analysis of this maybe looking back at radio performances done prior to the “video killed the radio stars” era.  Thanks for the opportunity Cara.  

Renaissance Learning: My Personal Findings

This course has been challenging and rewarding at the same time.  The learning curve was substantially high at the beginning of the course, yet rather than being daunting, I feel that the experience has inspired me.  This post is a summation of my observations about the academic blog, and my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  I have built a personal learning plan that reached the following working thesis.  I call it working because while it does make a specific claim, that claim is mostly based on my learning process thus far, and given additional time, would likely further adjust becoming even more specific.  Here is that thesis:

Returning to the Renaissance Teaching Methods employed to teach English, particularly the practice of the Imitation of subject and form, will help students develop a system of analysis that they can apply to texts in visual, audio, tactile, and written formats.

Let me explain how I got here:

Kindred Blog's Outside Our Class

After today’s class I thought that it would be a good idea to check out the www.icerocket.com website and see if anyone else was addressing the same issues that I am on my blog.  I thought I would find something, but didn’t really believe that it would be directly related to my blog.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a post by Rebecca, a student at Kansas City Art Institute, which did a close reading of the Brutus-Marc Anthony speech from Julius Caesar.  It was a good post where she examined the appearance of the classical models (logos, ethos, pathos) in the speech.  It was interesting to read, and to see that the same subject is being discussed elsewhere via the blog interface.  I left a comment on her post that I will reiterate below.  It was cool to make this connection.

Rhetorical Exercise-Imitation

In this post I will be engaging in a few Rhetorical Exercises to demonstrate what I have learned thus far in my study of the Renaissance Teaching Method.  I will be following the four categories of change defined in Dr. Burtons summary.  While engaging in these practice segments has been a part of my plan for some time now, I was reading in Brooke K’s recent blog regarding the art of Imitation and felt a greater desire to engage the subject directly.  I will be demonstrating the art of Imitation in the two forms described in my post Critical Definitions 2.  I will be basing my derivatives From Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

Notes on the Technology Forum

While organizing my notes from the Technology Forum from last Friday, I wanted to include a video clip from the event.  When I went to the BYU homepage to find a clip, I saw that their article closely mirrors the things that I found intriguing.  So, rather than list all my notes here, i suggest reading their article for a summary.  In this post i will go over some of the things that seemed most applicable to this blog that i did not see in that article.  

BYU Technology Forum: Zuckerberg and Senator Hatch

Today I am writing this blog from a Forum on technology at Brigham Young University.  The forum speakers are Mark Zuckerberg and Senator Orin Hatch.  My Previous post about the changing Literary Canon addressed a few questions about the new reader audience that is developing as a product of the advancement of technology.  Zuckerberg has been able to successfully capitalize on this new readership through his invention of Facebook.  Because the nature of this blog deals directly with utilizing technology to communication information of an academic nature, while attending the forum I’m looking for the methods employed in the creation of Facebook that helped to maintain participant interest.  This is a great opportunity, and I am grateful to Dr. Burton for suggesting our attendance as a class.


The Forum was excellent and I will post my notes once I have them better organized.  There were a few key moments when subjects were addressed that have a clear application to my focus on teaching.  

The Literary Canon: Comics, and Blogs Included?

Are we stepping up the information ladder to reach the plateau of information exchange?  I have an observation that I would like to take the time to share.  This is a break from my regular focus on teaching methods and models.  In this post I will map out a transition that I have noticed and how that transition should be affecting the idea of the modern literary canon.

Critical Definitions 2

This post is the second part of my Critical Definitions and is a continuation of my overall emphasis on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  In this post I will offer definitions for the terms that I have learned associated with the skill of literary genesis in that era.

Critical Definitions

This post is a continuation of my focus on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  Through my studies I have discovered that in order to engage with literature on the level that I described in my post on Renaissance Teaching Motivations, I have to “graduate” my comprehension of the terms used in the study of language.  Knowing that this difficulty presents itself, this post offers the first half of a few definitions before diving into my discoveries:

Shakespeare Viral Games

This post is a continuation of my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching methods.  In this particular entry I will focus on a loose modern adaptation of the principle of analysis and genesis as applied to a Shakespeare viral game.  I will show where a particular relationship between a few aspects of the Renaissance teaching method and this digital mediation. 

Renaissance Teaching Motivations

This is a continuation of my focus on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  In this post I will specifically detail the type of understanding that I hope to gain from learning these methods.  I will then spend some time reviewing what I have learned about the motivations that fueled Renaissance learning.

Focusing on Renaissance Teaching Methods

In my blog I am continuing to refine my focus, and will be spending considerable time over the next few weeks learning about the methods of Renaissance learning.  I want to know what Shakespeare was doing when he learned to write so that I can incorporate these methods, which have proved highly successful, into my own writing.  In order to reach this goal I will:

• Identify the motivations for Renaissance education
• Examine Renaissance Teaching Skills
• Review and analyze some examples from the period
• revision: Analyze contemporary works for his time and find the similar process?
• revision: look to the source work and see the process from a section of it to the Shakespearian transformation of it (should show the method)
• Track the progression of these methods into their modern counterparts (if they exist)
• Apply these methods to an analysis of various Shakespeare works (specifically his plays)
• Teach in some setting according to these methods
• Apply these methods to a revision of the play that I am writing with Martin

This post will function as a hub for my learning and I will refer to and expand it as I continue to explore these specifics.   Here we go!

Letter to Martin

Here is a reply to an email that Martin sent me about our play:

I think this is dead on.  I’m finishing up the introductory scene to justify the incorporation of fictional characters with “real” people.  I am doing some interesting things with the fruit and Schrödinger’s Cat.  I think together the two paradoxes will help to justify what otherwise could be seen as simply meta-Theater: a term I am not sure I want directly applied to this.  We will have to see, I suppose that will be up to the critics to judge.  I love how loaded you made the scene, it was fantastic.  I wanted to be sure that it wasn’t just me thinking it was funny, so I had the dimmest one of my roommates read a section of it and he was laughing quite a bit, so I think we are dead on in that field.  I don’t think I want to do the Butterfly scene in the beginning.  I think it would play out better latter on.  Your characterization of hamlet works great.  I have some ideas about him being there and not there at the same time that we’ll need to discuss but that idea doesn’t come into the fore till much later, so for now we should be good.

As far as “scene two,” I think that keeping it funny is a good idea.  Perhaps a parallel to the plight of Hamlet occurring among the actual characters would be a good way of illustrating the need for better resolution without needing to have him directly discuss it.  Again the double entendre should work great here.  I’ll get my scene over to you and then this next one that we are working on can kind of tie the two together, so that we can then move on to act 2. 

These are my thoughts,

Bryan

Winter's Tale Analysis of Context

During the interview with Fred Adams he mentioned that to create realistic characters Shakespeare principally visited the pubs and played to his audience.  Since I am analyzing the strategies that Shakespeare employed in crafting his works these contextual details appealed to my interest.  In reading act 3 scene 2 from the “Winter’s Tale” for today, I couldn’t help but recall this conversation and clearly see the connection.  While thinking about this connection I read Max's blog and he had some great insights that helped lead me to this conclusion.

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.