We can only hope to understand Shakespeare's work in a new way that is wrong. I have decided that is to be my theme for the rest of the semester in this class. I have often been intimidated by my classmates but truly they have no more of an idea what Shakespeare really means than I do. While pondering this sentence in class today, I focused in on the discussion of captious.
We discussed how this word means to let everything out (sieve) and how it leads one to think about capacious that has unlimited room. However, this word made me think of the word captive. I believe that Helena was not only referring to how the waters of her love go out and stay in her but how she is a prisoner of this love. The love that Helena feels does not appear to be at all enjoyable. It doesn't even feel like a love but more of an obsession. Love is supposed to be giving and wanting the one that you love to have whatever will make them happy. This is not what Helena feels for Bertram. What she feels for him is just a selfish as he is. This is not the only aspect of her personality but it is a dominant feature of her that we get to see as an audience. The interesting thing about this facet of her personality is that she doesn't seem to choose it. In fact she often bemoans her feelings and wants them to go away. She is in all reality a captive of her obsession.
Not only she is a captive of her feelings but after her marriage she is a captive of her husband. Helena is able to break out of this captivity but most women of the time period this was written in would not have been able to do so. But comparatively to today, Helena is most certainly a captive of her husband's will and decrees. She must do as he says because she has no other choice. She must go home when she is sent there. She does not stay but that doesn't diminish that at certain points she has no choice in the actions she must take. Thus making her a captive to not only her feelings but the role she must play because of her gender. Her husband however does not follow the limits put upon him by his gender roles. He refuses to act the part of a husband.
One of the reasons that I believe this play has not been popular is because of the reader response that it invokes. Shakespeare has amazing talent of forcing his audience to see parts of themselves within the play. I think that within this play, people may have been able to relate too much to his characters. I am sure that all of us have felt unrequited love like Helena. Hopefully it has not been as obsessive as hers but even a tenth of what she felt would have been painfully horrible and made someone a captive to themselves and their feelings. I also believe that people could relate to the character of Bertram. They may not have been forced into marriage but everyone is forced into doing something that they do not wish to do at some point in their life. Reader response and empathy for characters is good and gives a piece of literature more value as long as the ending is happy but the ending of this play is far from happy. Thus making people not wanting to relate to the characters who have doomed themselves to a life with someone that is not or does not want to be their soul mate. No one wants that in their life so to see someone that resembles themself even remotely is not a fun prospect. Thus the true double meaning of the word captious in Helena's speech is captive. This is my ideas on the subject but this is probably not what Shakespeare truly meant but as it allows me to see more meaning in the text it is the correct answer as everyone else's answer will be correct for them even though it will probably differ greatly from mine.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Class Notes February 22, 2011
- King's Speech
- like Shakespeare: wanted to appeal to a wide range of people
- Paranomasia
- means word play
- pleasure in play of words
- humorous or rhtorical
- pun
- ON TEST
- James Joyce
- puns are the lowest form of humor
- Why do the highest brow literature use the lowest form of humor?
- Anne's blog
- http://shakespearereflections.blogspot.com/2011/02/so-i-learned-something-very-interesting.html
- bed trick
- law of the jungle
- nothing is ever "original"
- Wendy Doniger
- The Bed Trick
- excerpt
- traces the bed trick throughout literature
- Never use the word original without quotations or else Professor Sexson will fail you!!!
- Double Language
- Turner refers to this as Shakespeare's signature
- Sigil
- symbol with magical power
- archaically called a seal
- Sansho the Biliff
- film
- slashed achilles tendo to keep heroine from running away.
- Goddess of complete being
- captious
- pouring in
- Raymond Carver
- "What do we talk about when we talk about love?"
- based upon Plato's Synposium
- Short Cuts
- movie based on Carver's short stories
- Parolles
- amazingly well-dressed
- Letter Riddle
- page 586
- has to be resolved to finish story
- links to fairytales and mythologies
- Helena
- stalker
- low level
- Jaques
- mythological/higher level
- Parolle
- "It is the thine itself & that is the ting that will make me live"
- sequeway to King Lear
- Julian of Norwich
- All shall be well & all manner of things shall be well
- christian mythology
- About which play does Northrop Frye say people make faces @?
- Alls Well That Ends Well
- Who do people thing that a great reckoning in a little room was writtne about?
- Christopher Marlow
- "These are counselors that..."
- feelingly persuade me what I am
- What does Rosalind assume as her male persona?
- Ganymede
- What kind of speech act is committed by the following stages of life?
- baby: mewling
- etc...
- What does miles gloriosus mean?
- braggart soldier
- Which character is miles gloriosus in Alls Well That Ends Well?
- Parolles
- Puck is addressing with his ending monologue?
- multiple audiences instead of a single audience
- What did Jacques want as a profession?
- become a holy man with Duke Frederick
- Why is the clown getting married in Alls Well That Ends Well?
- Free Sex
- What is the term used that means unexpected power/event saving a seemingly hopeless situation?
- Deus Exmachinn
- What are the 2 levels of reading that the class is focusing on?
- mythic & historical
- According to T.S. Elliot, what can only be said about Shakespeare's work?
- The best anyone can hope for is to be wrong about Shakespeare in a new way
- According to Borge, who is Shakespeare?
- everything and nothing
- everyone and no one
- According to Turner, what can the human mind encompass?
- the entire universe
- Who is the god descending at the end of As You Like It?
- Hymen
- Make up your own neologism
- neologism mans to make up a new word with its meaning
- What term to Keats suggests artists who are genuinely reflective?
- Negative capability
- Orlando is to Rosalind as Touchstone is to whom?
- Audrey
- Lead is to Gold as Water is to what?
- Wine
- Rot/Ripen
- What does Heiros gamos mean?
- sacred marriage
- In a Midsummers Night Dream what does wood mean?
- outskirts of town
- What is the main theme of the sonnets after sonnet #15?
- mind babies
- What is Shakespeare's consuming myth, according to Hugh?
- Venus & Adonis
- What term that was coined by Northrop Frye that has significance for ther Forest of Arden?
- Green World
- We are their _______ and ___________.
- Parents & Originals
Writers: The True Alchemists
The thought of alchemy is an interesting. Can you imagine the possibilities if we were able to change lead into gold or make ourselves immortal? We all know that alchemy doesn't exist....or does it? One of the formal definitions of alchemy is "any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value." Doesn't every single person who writes a paper, essay, novel, or any form of writing change things of little value, words, into things of great value, ideas? Leading me to believe that every person is an alchemist. They transform things into valuables and make themselves immortal. Shakespeare addressed this very idea in many of his sonnets. He was determined to make himself immortal through his work and guess what. He Succeed...BIG TIME. There is no other individual author who could be considered as great of an alchemist as Shakespeare. He not only made himself immortal and changed things of little value but he also managed to invent many different words/ideas.
Another aspect of alchemy that relates it to writing is that it is supposed to purify the soul. For me writing does this as well. By allowing oneself to write, one is purifying their soul and allowing others to see it. I am not exactly how this works with alchemy but I do remember Professor Sexson mentioning this in class and it really sticking in my mind.
This connection between alchemy and writing just cements, at least in my mind, how mythology is present in my life. I do not go a single day without reading something so thus I do not go a single day without having mythology influence me. This doesn't even count the content of what I am reading and the mythological stories and ideas that influenced that portion of what I am reading.
Another aspect of alchemy that relates it to writing is that it is supposed to purify the soul. For me writing does this as well. By allowing oneself to write, one is purifying their soul and allowing others to see it. I am not exactly how this works with alchemy but I do remember Professor Sexson mentioning this in class and it really sticking in my mind.
This connection between alchemy and writing just cements, at least in my mind, how mythology is present in my life. I do not go a single day without reading something so thus I do not go a single day without having mythology influence me. This doesn't even count the content of what I am reading and the mythological stories and ideas that influenced that portion of what I am reading.
Class Notes February 17, 2011
- Review on Tuesday
- everyone needs to bring at least 1 multiple choice for the exam
- needs to be relevant questions
- All Well That Ends Well
- most vilified of all Shakespeare plays
- progressively less mythical
- still possesses the Green World & the Golden Age
- Myth-folklore-historical epic-history
- process is present in every culture
- literature becomes progressively more realistic
- As You Like It
- Check out Ashley's blog
- Try and put the most interesting sentence as the 1st sentence in your next blog
- Blogs to check out
- John Orsi's blog
- James' blog
- Roberto's blog
- Nick's blog
- Lisa's blog
- Keat & Gates
- Ted Hughes
- pages 130-180 read carefully if using as secondary source
- feet & sives
- Northrop Frye
- "All literature is displaced myth"
- Anton chekof
- Russian
- short stories
- The Wood Imp
- took out all mythology
- just left realistic aspects
- we are to do the opposite: see what myths are there: insert them into the stories/recognize them
- Helena
- hero
- different because she is a woman hero (heroine)
- one of the reasons this play is so unpopular
- AWTEW
- begins with marriage instead of ends with it
- Shakespeare is playing with the dynamics of how traditional stories take place
- Shakespeare
- experiments with the consuming myth
- Ugly duckling plays
- Titanus & Adonis
- Pericles
- Trilus & Cressida
- Helena
- almost divine
- healing power
- Mother Goddess
- mother/maiden/crone
- triple form
- Lafew
- fire
- mythological/alchemy
- alchemy is purification of the soul
- catastrophe
- unique shaking effect
- Shakespeare's signature
- 2 nouns linked by an "and"
- sometimes 2 adjectives
- directly contrasting noun
- confusing odd metaphors
- turn towards the end
- generally disasterous
- Double language
- been baptized in mythology
- overthought/underthought
- Frye
- producing an image that couldn't be misunderstood
- plants seed in youths' minds
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Class Notes January 10, 2011
- The Argument of Comedy: Northrop Frye
- James has it linked to his blog
- expanded version
- Feb. 26th
- Professor Minton
- taking a group of students to Sam Shepard's True West @ Equinox Theatre: 8 p.m.
- talk to Andrew with questions
- $5
- Feb. 24th
- Why is a Guru like a desk?
- John Orsi is starting a book club
- Blog for Tuesday
- In what way does myth operate in As You Like It
- concord in discord
- concord in stratification of people socially
- Comedy
- wants to include everyone
- our class is an example
- Dante
- Divine Comedy
- comedy: reconciliation: all elements
- Tragedy
- emphasizes the individual
- The argument of Comedy
- cite last sentence for the test on the 24th
- read by the 24th
- What is the subject of Shakespeare's poetry?
- it is about poetry
- itself
- lunatic, love, & the poet
- Heaven to Earth
- myth to reality
- Cain & Able
- earthly death
- Oliver & Orlando
- authoritative literature (Bible)
- Much Ado, Hamlet, King Lear, & The Tempest
- all have the Cain & Able myth
- Venus & Adonis
- much like As You Like except that Rosalind courts Oliver instead the other way around
- Bloom's fascination with Rosalind
- compared to the magician figures
- Adam
- Green World
- orchard: myth: innocence: Garden of Eden
- Robin Hood
- Mary Arden: Mother Earth
- name of Shakespeare's mother
- Pastoral
- genre
- pasture
- usually romanticized
- Declining ages
- myth of grandparents: "back in my day..."
- Ovid Metamorphosis
- Golden: Silver: bronze: iron ages
- past better than today
- country> city
- cowboy
- last best place
- water of baptism
- Green world
- City slickers
- prelapsarian
- characteristic of time before fall of man
- Shakespeare
- thought to play the part of Adam
- notion of time
- city: governed by clocks
- no set time in country
- blog about Green World
- Act 2 As You Like It
- blog about
- Why Rosalind becomes a boy?
- penalty of Adam
- wings of desire
- sweet uses of adversity
- angel falls to earth
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Eiron: The true intelligence of Lysander revealed
Recently in multiple classes of mine we have talked about archetypes and how these theories, for want of a better word, affect all literature. Last semester I was exposed to Northrop Frye for the first time and I have come to believe that he is an absolute genius. I have not read a lot of his work because it is so dense that it takes me a long time read and understand what he is saying. I have had a hard time trying to decide how to blog about Shakespeare's plays because I didn't know how I felt about them. To try and remedy my dilemma I have decided to approach each poem from the perspective of evaluating archetypes and use Frye's work as a reference point.
As discussed in class A Midsummer's Night Dream is obviously a comedy but according to Frye a comedian must have a hero. I am having a hard time trying to decide which character is the actual hero. The hero could be a multitude of characters, especially when one considers the play within the play. So in all actuality there is two heroes. At first I was considering who would be the hero out of Lysander and Oberon but after further investigation into Frye's work I found that Lysander is most definitely the hero of a Midsummer's Night Dream. He leaves society, has to overcome an obstacle to win his lady love, and eventually re-enters society. However in my research I found the word Eiron which I had no clue what it meant. But it is from Old Comedy and incorporates philosophy of Aristotle. A character who embodies eiron makes myself appear less than he is in order to make others appear better than they are. I vaguely remember someone mentioning how Lysander did not seem good enough for Hermia but I believe that Shakespeare meant for Lysander to appear less intelligent that Hermia in order to make her look better. One speech we talked about in class was when Lysander was telling Hermia about the choice of love and how it is a "momentary as a sound". We were all surprised that Lysander would be able to be as poetic as this shows but if taken in the perspective of eiron, it is not surprising at all. The idea of eiron is what truly makes A Midsummer's Night Dream a true comedy because it has most of the main points of being a comedy. There is one more connection that I would like to make between this play and comedies. Frye refers to comedies as the Summer part of the year and so the title of the play should tip us off immediately of what to expect from the hero and the rest of the characters.
Eiron: A self-deprecating or unobtrusively treated character in fiction, usually an agent of the happy ending in a comedy and of the catastrophe in tragedy
As discussed in class A Midsummer's Night Dream is obviously a comedy but according to Frye a comedian must have a hero. I am having a hard time trying to decide which character is the actual hero. The hero could be a multitude of characters, especially when one considers the play within the play. So in all actuality there is two heroes. At first I was considering who would be the hero out of Lysander and Oberon but after further investigation into Frye's work I found that Lysander is most definitely the hero of a Midsummer's Night Dream. He leaves society, has to overcome an obstacle to win his lady love, and eventually re-enters society. However in my research I found the word Eiron which I had no clue what it meant. But it is from Old Comedy and incorporates philosophy of Aristotle. A character who embodies eiron makes myself appear less than he is in order to make others appear better than they are. I vaguely remember someone mentioning how Lysander did not seem good enough for Hermia but I believe that Shakespeare meant for Lysander to appear less intelligent that Hermia in order to make her look better. One speech we talked about in class was when Lysander was telling Hermia about the choice of love and how it is a "momentary as a sound". We were all surprised that Lysander would be able to be as poetic as this shows but if taken in the perspective of eiron, it is not surprising at all. The idea of eiron is what truly makes A Midsummer's Night Dream a true comedy because it has most of the main points of being a comedy. There is one more connection that I would like to make between this play and comedies. Frye refers to comedies as the Summer part of the year and so the title of the play should tip us off immediately of what to expect from the hero and the rest of the characters.
Eiron: A self-deprecating or unobtrusively treated character in fiction, usually an agent of the happy ending in a comedy and of the catastrophe in tragedy
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
We have talked a few times in class about why Shakespeare's work has always been so popular. I think there are many reasons such as his ability to use words in such a rhythmic pattern and his ability to incorporate mythology so seamlessly into works that were modern when written. However one way that I don't think has been discussed within the confines of our classroom is that he makes his characters so real that they become actual people in our minds. I have been reading Northrop Frye on on Shakespeare in the last couple of days and this is a topic that he addresses. He says that "the hero or central character is the theatre itself." I believe that this is true and one of the things that draws us to Shakespearean dramas. To appreciate Shakespeare, we don't need the settings because we are not given very much of the settings really. One character may tell us about his/her surroundings but that doesn't necessarily add to the actual setting but to the character's personality as it tells us that they have the eloquence to describe such things and the attention to notice them. Most books and dramas that are written today give us the setting in some way that often comes not from an individual character. By making it so the characters describe the actual setting, Shakespeare makes them more real to us because we have to notice our own surroundings ourselves and are not fed them through a sort of narrator.
Another reason that Shakespeare's characters endear us to his work is because there is a character that people can relate to, at least I can relate to. I have not read a lot of Shakespeare's plays but of the ones that I have read I have found an individual character that endears me to them and makes me want to be able to script them in my mind and image how I think the play should look. This character more often that not represents something that I have at one time or another felt or said in my life. This character allows me to be able to relate to the play thus making it more real to me. While I thinking about this I am mostly considering the characters in A Midsummer's Dream. I specifically liked the four lovers as I believe that I have felt an inkling of the dominant personality of all four of them at the same time.
As I have been writing this I have been expanding and exploring how I truly view Shakespeare's plays. With what I am about to say I may contradict what I have previously said. However, this is one of the points of blogging I believe so if I confuse anyone I am sorry but you will just have to deal with it. Above I quoted Frye saying that the theater is the main character that Shakespeare focused on and now I completely agree with him. In saying theater I mean the plot/character/emotions of the drama as a whole. I don't see each character as an individual character but as a faucet of the drama's personality. For example, A Midsummer's Night Dream. Each character has their dominating aspect. Oberon is forceful knowing his power is absolute. There is some sphere in a person's life that they are absolute, Oberon represents this. Puck represents the side of person when they are mischievous and acting like a little kid. The list goes on. Each individual person who watches the play or reads it, has the power to assign the part of the personality that they see in each character making the personality of the play more in tune with their own personality thus making it a little bit of their own. Like I said above I am not sure if I have contradicted myself or even made any sense. I hope it has because just realizing this will make Shakespeare a little easier to read because it will allow me to be able to understand why I and most people are so affected and fascinated with Shakespeare's work.
Another reason that Shakespeare's characters endear us to his work is because there is a character that people can relate to, at least I can relate to. I have not read a lot of Shakespeare's plays but of the ones that I have read I have found an individual character that endears me to them and makes me want to be able to script them in my mind and image how I think the play should look. This character more often that not represents something that I have at one time or another felt or said in my life. This character allows me to be able to relate to the play thus making it more real to me. While I thinking about this I am mostly considering the characters in A Midsummer's Dream. I specifically liked the four lovers as I believe that I have felt an inkling of the dominant personality of all four of them at the same time.
As I have been writing this I have been expanding and exploring how I truly view Shakespeare's plays. With what I am about to say I may contradict what I have previously said. However, this is one of the points of blogging I believe so if I confuse anyone I am sorry but you will just have to deal with it. Above I quoted Frye saying that the theater is the main character that Shakespeare focused on and now I completely agree with him. In saying theater I mean the plot/character/emotions of the drama as a whole. I don't see each character as an individual character but as a faucet of the drama's personality. For example, A Midsummer's Night Dream. Each character has their dominating aspect. Oberon is forceful knowing his power is absolute. There is some sphere in a person's life that they are absolute, Oberon represents this. Puck represents the side of person when they are mischievous and acting like a little kid. The list goes on. Each individual person who watches the play or reads it, has the power to assign the part of the personality that they see in each character making the personality of the play more in tune with their own personality thus making it a little bit of their own. Like I said above I am not sure if I have contradicted myself or even made any sense. I hope it has because just realizing this will make Shakespeare a little easier to read because it will allow me to be able to understand why I and most people are so affected and fascinated with Shakespeare's work.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Class Notes February 1, 2011
- The Argument of Comedy
- Northrop Frye
- Answers "What is comedy?"
- http://books.google.com/books?id=_W4htMy5zlcC&pg=PA93&dq=the+argument+of+comedy&hl=en&ei=wedITay0IJSisQO7gc2UCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=the%20argument%20of%20comedy&f=false
- Old Comedy
- Aristophanes
- Shakespeare
- deals with death
- New Comedy
- deals with female/male relations
- The Green World
- uses symbol of woods
- revives energies
- Shakespeare often uses in his works
- The Winter's Tale
- Passage of the day
- Antigonus exits
- stage directions "exit pursued by bear"
- Ted Hughes often discusses the bear, boar, horse, and lion
- all are agents of metamorphosis
- Midsummer's Night Dream
- Consuming myth
- Brother Battle
- Cain & Able Archetype
- rational brother vs. irrational brother
- seen in As You Like It, the end of the Tempest, & King Leer
- Occasion for merriment
- Theseus bring to light that he is going to ignore the factors that brought about his marriage
- his wife is a war prize
- Displace myth
- The Wood Imp
- Russian literature
- Syntax
- gives in at the end of a new comedy
- Egeus
- Spirit of comedy is spirit of youth
- Comus
- means comedy
- "coming together"
- symbolic
- euphemism for
- marriage
- sex
- feast
- Ashley's blog
- discusses how the lowest people in can same brilliant things
- "every now & then the least of us is capable of great things"
- Levels/Realms of mythology
- Gods
- Heroes
- People
- Chaos
- language declines much in the same way
- Thesus
- rapist
- vot'ress
- Nate's blog
- discusses Northrop Frye
- Bottom
- IV.I.199
- mimicking St. Paul letter to the Corinthians
- Shakespeare used a Geneva translation
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