The Queen's Women: work in progress

For a while this semester, Shakespeare Scenes Night (Nov. 20th) seemed far enough away. But as we near the end of October, it is definitely time to "get our act together", no pun intended. Anyway, I feel that the workshop with the theatre majors (Rebecca helped our group) was beneficial and she gave us a lot of good blocking pointers: never stand in complete profile to the audience, over-the-top expression is easier to work with than monotone, things like that. She also gave us good ideas about when to walk over to whom depending on how close the relationship is between the characters. While we feel confident now about blocking (of course we still need to perfect it), now we need to focus on memorizing lines. Once we have a couple intense rehearsals, we should be good to go.

Othello, Acts 4 and 5

In the closing acts of this trajedy, Othello reaches borderline insanity because of the mind games he has endured from Iago. The big question of whether or not Othello's troubles with Iago are related his race alone comes to a head at the conclusion of the story where he kills Desihmona. Was he sooo brainwashed that he really believed that she was unfaithful to him or was it just the thought of her being with someone else and him thinking "if she's not with me, she can't be with anyone?" Did Iago target Othello because he was a moor or because he really wanted Desi for himself? Maybe it was a combination of both, but in my opinon, her death could have been prevented in spite of all the mind games. If Othello could have stepped away from the madness for just a minute to uncover the real story from Desi and Emily, he would have saved her life and his. Jealousy combined with rage is always a deadly cocktail. Sadly, in our contemporary modern society, situations like these do escalate to the extremes seen at the end of the play. If more people read Shakespeare's trajedies (especially Othello), maybe there would be less violence and hatred in the world.

Othello (Act 1)

This is my first time ever studying Othello and I find it to be the best Shakespearian tragedy I have read. This play engages the most conversation and brings up political and social topics that apply to American contemporary culture. I also enjoyed "O", the contemporary adaptation. Orientalism and how it relates to the western culture is something I have always thought about, but never knew how to define. The last class has sparked my interest in the way we depict eastern customs and people. The first act of the play leaves us wondering if Iago's hatred for Othello is really about the promotion or something deeper, OR is Iago just crazy? Shakespeare is writing about misunderstandings between classes and races of people and he shows what occurs when the characters do not choose to understand those differences and let prejudice behavior escalate.

How Schmidt and Shakespeare Reflects My Writing

Schmidt and Shakespeare (a blog created after the more creative name Shakespeare Scribbles was rejected), is a forum to discuss the text of Shakespeare in a insightful and reflective way. When someone posts on a blog or does any text-analysis writing, there are three different stages or mindsets the readers may have. Text-Self is limited, a beginning stage that answers simple questions such as did I like the book? The Text-Other Texts stage is when the reader relates the text to other texts, and the Text-World stage is relating the text to other areas of study such as politices, religion, and philosophical. As a reader myself, I began at the first and now almost at the third stage, just not yet consistently.
The reason for my being in the first stage was mostly because I was unaware of the different kind of stages a writer of analysis could be in and I did not have to move past stage one in other classes except when writing a paper. In romantic and Victorian Literature, we discussed books such as Charles Dicken's Hard Times and looking back, those in-class discusions were like oral blogs because then other students would comment on what was said and discussions would branch off from everyone. The comments I made then were mostly things about that text only at first: "Bounderby's is such a mamma's boy in this chapter"or "louisa and Tom are closer than most brothers and sisters". As we read more of the story, my comments became more sophisticated, but at the beginning I was clearly in the Text- self stage, not so much because I did or didn't like the text, but because I stayed within the context of that book only. I also read often for fun, and people alawys ask me what the book is about or why I like it. I tell them things like "yeah the book isvery interesting" or "the main chacter is so naive", which are general comments. Part of this is due to the fact that I want them to leave me alone so I can finish my book, but it is also because I don't like deeply analyzing the books i choose to read. But discussions in other English classes and writing my blog habe helped me to make more of an effiet to get deeper meaning from text. It is important to analyze some of what we read, especially when the text is from a different literary era such as Shakespeare's Romeo and juliet.
My blog on Romeo and Juliet, the movie adaptation, was still in the first stage because I discussed things that you can only see in the movie. I did however make some good points about how the actors" body language expressed the emotions Shakespeare wanted to convey. I wrote "The body language is quick, forceful, threatening. This sets the scene for the seriousness of the feud". While this shows I watched the movie closely, it does not bring in other movies or texts. I alos mentioned the actors" tone of voice and pointed out a specific scene. Again this is important but not the second stage.
However when I wrote the blog for "Camp", I related in to Titus and other people, so I clearly moved into the second stage, texts- other texts, making progress. I discussed how Titus shows camp calling it over the top and saying that it fails to be serious. One could even argue mentioning camp as a way to peak interest in new topics such as teens is a third-stage comment, but i don't see myself staying in the third stage consistently after that. While my post continue to get better and see a broader scope of trut each week, I do not feel that I am in the text-world (or third stage) completely. I am somewhere between stage two and three. I don't always discuss how each topic or text is reflected in the media, but i almost always go beyond weather or not the text was well writted, although this fact may be a good starting point in some situations. In the contacts of an informative paper, it might serve the reader well to begin with the basics before moving into the third stage to draw the reader in. Also in such a case, the second stage is important too when seting the scene for your topic, and then the third stage can come in twards the end, while there are appropiate moments to write in each stage, The goal is to figure out how to stage three all of the time because it is the most benefcial to the reader of the texts and those who read a blog like this one.
Toget to stage three and stay there, one has to develop strategies to be successful and keep your mindset thinking about what's important: whether or not society has properly interpreted the text, wat worldview the text represents, and how the text benifets us readers now even when the text is as old as Shakespeare's Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. The final issue to overcome (in my opinion) is lazyness versus motivation. Honestly, there are days when thinking about the political monarchy in hamlet and how it creates power struggles for example just feels like too much work. also if someone brings up a brillant insight that was not yet thought of , other ideas can seem not worth mentioning. However, briefly brainstorming your opinions on text and important discussion topics and jotting them down right after you finish reading ensures motivation to contribute a conversation starter in class or comments can also help to see past the objective. Another issue may be not having the contextual knolege of that time in history or literature. In this case, extra research can pay off, along with saving notes from other classes when you think they migyht come in handy later. All of this will bring you into stage three.
These three stages are a great way to assess the sophistication and knoledge of how to analyze literary works. It allows you to have a basis for critiquing a book and applying the work to your life and your society which is what the auther wants us to do in the first place.

Hamlet

I have read this play three or four times now and each time I gain new insights into both Shakespeare's reasons for writing it and the way viewers interpret the play. Since I am now taking a class that focuses on images of woman in literature (that's the name of the class), I can really see how women used their sexuality as a means of gaining power. If they didn't gain power, maybe it was to keep them where they were for fear of regressing in status if they didn't do what men wanted them to do. I see Kate Chopin's character Edna Pontellier in The Awakening struggling with the consequences of going completely agiainst the role she was supposed to have. Unfortunately, many heroins (if you will) end up dying or commiting suicide. Hopefully today we have learned a lot more and I think it helps to look into literature of the past, especially Shakespeare.