Paper Thesis

I have wracking my brains all last week and this weekend about what to do my paper/presentation on for this class. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of possibilities of what could be interesting within the works of Shakespeare! these was also the pressure of feeling how can I possibly do anything that would do justice to his great work. So I decided to help me come to my theory I would just start rereading the plays until an amazing idea came to me. Well the idea came. I am not sure if it will turn out to be amazing but it does interest me so what more can I ask for from an individual thought? I am going to write about how the four elements are personified by individual characters in Antony and Cleopatra. As I was reading this play late into the night last night, I kept noticing how certain people were compared (not sure if that is exactly the right word I want but it will work for now) to water, fire, and wind. Looking even more closely I could find parts of the last element in the play as well. I want to explore why WS chose to use this theme more explicitly in this work than other. I guess that is a bit of a blanket statement since I mot definitely have not read all of his works but in the ones that I have read I have not seen this theme so blatantly obvious. Well I have to start studying for my Stats exam (YUCK) but hopefully I will be adding to this blog more and more as my thesis progresses into something that hopefully makes sense!

Part 2 of Theories for Project/Paper

In class on Tuesday, Professor Sexson directed me to the elements that are apparent in The Tempest. After much pondering, I found that all elements are essential in all Shakespearean plays but there is no way to adequately discusses all of them in a 1000 pages book let alone a project for an undergraduate. I have decided to focus on The Tempest and the elements specifically Earth & Water. Within Greek mythology, these elements are represented by Demeter/Cere & Poseidon. I have been reading more and more about these two individuals and finding that Caliban, who Prof. Sexson said represents them, has many of their traits. These traits are both good and bad from each of the gods. Exploring how Shakespeare managed to combine the personalities of such figures into an individual character is quite astonishing.
On Tues, it was also mentioned that Shakespeare tried to recapture the history of the world within the Tempest and how better to do that then to combine the two most basic elements? What can possibly be older than the earth and water, the most predominant aspects of our world? If you follow along these lines, it is Caliban, not Prospero, that encompasses everything. Prospero is all human aspects of life but it is Caliban that truly represents that mythology that is present in the Tempest. Both Poseidon & Demeter are very elemental (excuse the pun) in their actions throughout mythology. Demeter is one of the few gods that feels sorrow because of separation (Caliban's sadness about his mother's death) and Poseidon is often recorded for rape (Caliban trying to rape Miranda) Can anyone else start to see the similarities?