Midstream

Here we are, halfway done with the semester, which means it's time to look back on a half-semester with Shakespeare.

A. Learning Outcomes

1. How have I gained Shakespeare literacy?

Each scene I read of Shakespeare is a little easier to understand. More and more I can just read the original text, and for the times that I am lost I have found that Shmoop's summaries work well as a modern translation. And often if I read how Shmoop says it and then read how Shakespeare said it, everything clicks and becomes clear to me.

2. How have I analyzed Shakespeare critically?

I think most of my analysis has come from either class discussion or the live performances. I don't know if most of what I do on this blog counts as analysis. I talk about themes and morals that Shakespeare presents, but I probably don't really analyze his writing. But I do participate in class, and I come up with lots of ideas for analyzing the live plays and their connections to the text.

After The Winter's Tale
After The Tempest

3. How have I engaged Shakespeare creatively?

I think through this blog I have found ways to to connect Shakespeare with more commonplace yet still meaningful ideas. (I think this has helped a little with the Shakespeare literacy as well.) I find ways to have fun with Shakespeare rather than just read or watch it. I have an objective in mind, and it helps me have some fun with the play and also pay more attention to what I'm reading.

Here are some examples:

Live blogging Julius Caesar
Looking for word play in Love's Labour's Lost

4. How have I shared Shakespeare meaningfully?

I think this blog has been my main vehicle for sharing my learning process. I don't just blog for blogging's sake, but I imagine an actual audience I'm communicating with whenever I am writing. For the most part, it seems that audience has only been Professor Burton and my classmates. But my wife reads it, or at least claims to (Hi, Babe! :) ) And occasionally when I am either especially proud of a blog post or I think my friends outside of ENGL 232 would be interested, I share a link on Facebook or Twitter.

Here are some that I've tweeted or posted on Facebook:

El Guillermo Shakespeare
'They seemed unto him but a few days'
George Washington the Zombie Killer

B. Self-directed learning

1. What have I done that demonstrates I have taken charge of my own learning about Shakespeare?

Everything about this blog is me taking charge of Shakespeare. This blog is very much a stream-of-consciousness outlet, where I get to write about what Shakespeare makes me think of and what interests me. I think browsing this blog might be a way to show how my brain works, or at least how my brain handles literature.

A few such personalized posts:

I'm All Ears
Clownin' Around

2. How am I doing at planning my learning, documenting my learning, scheduling and carrying out learning activities, and measuring my learning?

The blogging schedule has really helped me. Although I've been late a couple of times, knowing that I need to have a new blog post every Monday and Wednesday has helped me maintain my semester with Shakespeare. It also helps me to document the whole learning process, instead of just blogging after I finish a play.

I admit that for a lot of my blogging for Julius Caesar, my individual play, I did things last minute. I know I would have gotten more out of it, especially the global sharing assignment, if I had started earlier.

C. Collaborative and Social Learning

1. Which students have aided me the most in my own learning (through help inside or outside of class, through their comments on my blog, or through their blogging, etc.)?

My blogging group has been great. Kelsie, Christa, Lauren, Matt and Anthony have all added so much to my knowledge and appreciation for Shakespeare. We've all gotten the hang of this blogging thing and I think all of us have come up with some awesome stuff. Kelsie provides more of the deep insights, Christa more of the entertaining yet meaningful rants, Lauren the fun, "whaddaya know" posts, Anthony with a sincere desire to understand this area that he admits he is unfamiliar with and Matt has been really good at learning from and responding to all of us. We're a great team. We should be made into a sitcom.

I also enjoyed reading Julius Caesar with Averill. She and I had very different approaches to reading the play, but we were interested enough in each other's interpretations to have some good back-and-forth between our blogs, and in real life too. It was fun having her in the carpool on our way to see The Tempest on Saturday.

Speaking of which, my other carpoolmates for both field trips have been great for bouncing around ideas and thinking of any and every observation we made of the plays. Averill, Chris and Meg contributed especially to the car ride discussion.

2. How is working within the assigned learning groups working? How could this be improved?

I think it works really well, especially compared to the usual working with groups in a classroom. I think in most of my BYU experience, students like to do things on their own and despise group projects. Maybe because we all at least care enough about Shakespeare to take a class, or because literature is just fun and easy to talk about, or because of the added blogging element - I don't know, but for some reason we actually look forward to talking to each other in class.

The one thing that would add more to the discussion would be to have some sort of documentation. We have some really great discussions, but it seems like it all vanishes when class is over, unless one of us happens to remember it for a blog post. I don't think I would want to appoint a secretary to take minutes, but maybe there would be some way to preserve our great ideas.

3. How am I involving others (outside of my group or even our class) in my learning? Or, how am I applying my learning about Shakespeare in social settings beyond class?

This is one area that I am definitely subpar in. Other than the occasional Facebook post or conversation with my wife about my day at school, I haven't shared my Shakespeare experience very much outside of class. And I fulfilled the global sharing requirement, but without spending much time on it and without doing anything special, really. I still haven't seen much response from those efforts, but those efforts weren't very impressive to begin with.

D. Looking Ahead

1. State what your plans are for meeting learning outcomes or personal learning plans that are incomplete. This can include discussion of the final project.

For the future, I want to do better to start assignments earlier so that I can spend more time with them, instead of waiting until just before the deadline and then checking it off my list. Other than that, this class is going well and I am getting more out of it than probably any other class I've ever had.

As for the final project, back when I imagined each of us doing a project according to our personal interests, I was thinking of something that would combine Shakespeare with politics (hence the name of this blog). I thought of looking for instances in which U.S. presidents have quoted Shakespeare in a political speech, or thinking of politicians who would make up cast for some Shakespeare play ...

... Like this infographic from Newsweek that pitted Star Wars/the Bush administration against Star Trek/the Obama administration.

But now that the final projects seem to be more collective, I'm not so sure. All the ideas brought up in class sounded good to me. It would be fun to join Averill's project, and it would also be fun to do more stuff online. I'm pretty much open to anything.

Julius Caesar and 2012 Politics

So far, it seems like Julius Caesar is a lot easier to understand than other Shakespeare plays. It's nice, because instead of using all my brainpower to translate the words into plain English, I can appreciate the artful way that Shakespeare's characters say things. This is a lot of fun.

Here are some applications from Julius Caesar to politics today:

1) When Marullus says this in the first scene...

"... You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey? Many a time and oft

Have you climb'd up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows, yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That Tiber trembled underneath her banks,

To hear the replication of your sounds

Made in her concave shores?

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey's blood..."

It immediately made me think of this:

In the current race for the Republican nomination, it seems like it's either Mitt Romney or the current flavor of the month. No one can get excited about anybody for very long, and they're hoping they don't have to vote for Mitt Romney because he's the best they have. It's very fickle, that conservative base. (I remember an episode of The Daily Show when Jon Stewart shows footage of Fox News, the very next day after Rick Perry announces he's running for president, wondering if Paul Ryan or Chris Christie should run.)

2) Does anyone else see this paradox?

Cassius: "... Ye gods, it doth amaze me

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of the majestic world

And bear the palm alone."

Cassius is afraid of Caesar becoming a king and a tyrant, and yet at the same time he says he would be a bad king because he's so weak. If he was worried about impending tyranny, then wouldn't he want Caesar rather than someone who would actually be too strong and powerful if given the chance?

It's like when people criticize President Obama for being too smart and intellectual. Um, wouldn't you want your president to be smart? In Julius Caesar's case, Cassius is criticizing Caesar for being too weak, but shouldn't he want him to be too weak?

3) When Cassius says this...

"... But if you would consider the true cause

Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,

Why birds and beasts from quality and kind,

Why old men fool and children calculate,

Why all these things change from their ordinance

Their natures and preformed faculties

To monstrous quality,—why, you shall find

That heaven hath infused them with these spirits,

To make them instruments of fear and warning

Unto some monstrous state. ..."

... it makes me think of Rahm Emanuel's quote: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." Cassius sees this crazy night as an opportunity, and he welcomes it. I don't know if Rahm Emanuel would have Cassius' extreme point of view, and he certainly wouldn't think of an assassination as an opportunity.




4) Also, when Cassius says this...

"... what trash is Rome,

What rubbish and what offal, when it serves

For the base matter to illuminate

So vile a thing as Caesar!"

... I think of this quote from Tommy Boy: "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public."

I'm All Ears

For those of you who were in class the other day, you've already heard me make this comment. So I'm recycling it for a blog post, not because I'm lazy but because I'm interested in it. (Okay, it is 11:30 p.m., so maybe I'm a little lazy...)

As I was reading Hamlet, I kept noticing the words "ear" or "ears" pop up. I think knowing the plot summary before reading Hamlet, and knowing that Hamlet Sr. died from poison being poured in his ear, must have put me on "ear" alert. Maybe it was just such a strange way to die, I don't think I've heard of it. It kind of reminds me of Yeerks ... Animorphs, anyone?

Anyway, when I brought up in class the reoccurring ear theme, Professor Burton pointed out the perfect website for researching this kind of thing: Shakespeare Searched. You can search for any word or phrase in any Shakespeare play or spoken by any Shakespeare character. It's a handy way to find any instances of a motif you want to learn more about.

So, here are a few of the quotes from Hamlet (Acts I, II and III) with the words "ear" or "ears":

Act I, Scene I

Bernardo:

Sit down awhile;

And let us once again assail your ears,

That are so fortified against our story

What we have two nights seen.

Act I, Scene II

Horatio:

Season your admiration for awhile

With an attent ear, till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

Act III, Scene IV

Gertrude:

O, speak to me no more;

These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Act I, Scene II

Hamlet:

I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

Act II, Scene II

Hamlet:

... He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,

Make mad the guilty and appal the free,

Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed

The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I...

Act I, Scene III

Laertes:

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain,

If with too credent ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure open

To his unmaster'd importunity.

Act I, Scene V

Ghost:

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

Act I, Scene V

Ghost:

Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,

And in the porches of my ears did pour

The leperous distilment; whose effect

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour doth posset

And curd, like eager droppings into milk,

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;

And a most instant tetter bark'd about,

Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Do you notice any connections?

What I'm noticing is the ear being described as a portal into the body, one of "the natural gates and alleys of the body," as Shakespeare put it. But only in the case of the Ghost was it actual poison invading the body through the ear. In the other examples, what was infecting the body was lies.

"The whole ear of Denmark" was told that Hamlet Sr. was killed by a serpent, which wasn't true. If Ophelia's ears were too quick to believe the flattering lies Hamlet was telling her, she'd get in trouble (and have to get herself to a nunnery). The actors would amaze the ears of the audience through their lies (albeit benevolent lies, for the sake of entertainment). Hamlet takes Horatio's claim of truancy to be a lie. And Bernardo tells Horatio and Horatio tells Hamlet that they had better get their ears ready for the story of the ghost, which might seem like a lie but really isn't. (Or is it?)

Maybe what Shakespeare is trying to do is equate the "cursed hebenon" poison with lies. They both do damage -- in fact, lies possibly do more damage than poison would. After all, Hamlet Sr. just has to wait it out in purgatory, while the family and subjects he leaves behind are misled, confused, suspicious and crazy in an intricate web of lies.

In the case of Gertrude's quote, it's not lies that "like daggers enter in [her] ears." No, what is actually stabbing her ears is the truth. Hamlet is accusing her of living "in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty!" And calls her "a murtherer and a villain!" Because she has succumbed to such evil and has let it dictate her life, she is so far gone that the truth stings worse than lies do. The wicked taketh the truth to be hard...

(If you want to hear President Obama's ears joke, skip to 4:00. If you love the troops, you'll watch the whole thing.)

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