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.

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!