Reflection

Learning Outcomes
1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
Phineas and Ferb... and Shakespeare?
The Merchant of Venice: Play Production
Comparisons of Hamlet 
Love's Labour's Lost Performance
2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically
We are Such Stuff as Dreams are Made of
Princess Potential
The Merchant of Venice
Friendship
Music in Myself
Character Analysis: Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice: Play Production
Comparisons of Hamlet
Confession? 
Intertextuality 
Character Analysis: Hamlet
Not More Man-like than Cleopatra
Love?
Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet
Antony and Cleopatra: Character Analysis
Character Analysis: King Lear
Colors and Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost Performance
Breaking Iambic Pentameter
3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively
Character Analysis: Merchant of Venice 
Character Analysis: Hamlet
Antony and Cleopatra: Character Analysis
Possible Rendition for Final Project
Character Analysis: King Lear
Validation
Shakespeare Pranks
Possible Scene for Final Project
Puck's Love
Prank Rendition
4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully
The Merchant of Venice
Music in Myself 
Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet
Puck's Love
5. Gain Digital Literacy
Band of Brothers
Phineas and Ferb... and Shakespeare?
The Merchant of Venice
Music in Myself
Religious Intolerance
Confession
Possible Rendition for Final Project
Shakespeare Pranks
Possible Scene for Final Project
Prank Rendition

Looking back through this semester, I have noticed how much I have grown, particularly with respect to digital literacy. I have never been very tech-savvy. And now I have a blog, I've used recording equipment for my final project, and I have learned how to more effectively research information. I say that was a success this semester for me. I still have difficulty sharing my opinions with others, but I am more open about it now. I have linked my blog to Facebook a couple times and I've shared with some of my friends about Shakespeare. I know I progressively got better at analyzing material. I often took what we learned in class one night and tried to include it in my later blog posts. I have a new appreciation for Shakespeare since taking this class, and I get excited when I realize something in the media and life can be connected back to Shakespeare. I honestly never knew how much of a contribution to society Shakespeare really was. We have so many phrases to thank him for. From this class I have also discovered that I really love food. Why else would I compare Shakespeare's characters to so many different food products? Shakespeare is so adaptable. You can really easily relate him and his works to whatever you feel like, and it works. I think that's partially why Shakespeare has become such a powerfully influential man. He knew how to relate to others. 
Throughout the semester I steadily improved my habits in our class assignments. I started with trying to scrape together a blog post that I could talk about to writing little notes beside my reading to go back to and research. Just doing that made blogging so much easier. I also figured out a better way to guarantee I read the assigned Shakespeare works and I tried various formats. The one thing I know I could have done better was communicating with others-commenting on their blogs. I was slowly improving but then our final project preparation started and I focused solely on that on my group members blogs. Overall, I think I've done good :) I can definitely see the improvement and learning that has occurred throughout the semester.

Breaking Iambic Pentameter

Shakespeare would often break iambic pentameter to show feeling in his plays. Whether it be contemplation, anger, or general emphasis, several examples can be found of when he does break from the norm. 
Examples:
1. "To be, or not to be: that is the question" (Hamlet III.i.)
          -this phrase of Hamlet's is eleven syllables, rather than the traditional ten. The break in iambic pentameter gives the appearance of contemplation for the reader. 
2. "Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?" (Antony and Cleopatra III.xiii.)
          -this phrase of Mark Antony's is eleven syllables, and emphasizes the emotion in his voice as he is about to head off to war, and perhaps never see Cleopatra again.
3. "Had I your tongues and eyes, I'd use them so/ That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone forever!" (King Lear V.iii.)
          -this phrase of King Lear's is eleven syllables, and emphasizes the anger and heart-wrenching emotion in his voice as he laments the death of his favorite daughter: Cordelia. Through his experience he not only realizes she's gone, but how wrong he was to act how he did originally. 
As I was researching breaks in iambic pentameter, I did realize something though. Typically when Shakespeare breaks one line, he tends to break another line or two following it. I never noticed that before.

Prank Rendition

So it's not very long, but I figured it could go something like this. Keep in mind this is probably occurring while Puck is on his mission to find the "Forget-me Juice" ingredient of Oberon's. So while traveling through the forest, Puck decides to have a little fun :)

Puck:
My dearest Ortegia, be thou like
the dew upon these trees, fresh to behold. 
For our love forever replenishes.
And gives life to all that comes before it.
      [pauses, sees two individuals]
Ah, now what be of these two travelers? 
Man and lady beneath the canopy,
They maketh the leaves their chamber.
To alter their way, prolonging their stay
Such merriness it shall be! To fool,
Mislead, and cause them genuine distress, 
Ensureth me as Robin Goodfellow.
     [picks up some of their possessions, stashing them elsewhere]
With this compass, no longer they be fixed,
To know where their destination shall be.
Hither and thither, forever they'll go.
All caused to their now misplaced property.
     [Travelers stir]
Now quick I retreat, to watch distantly
And let their confounding begin shortly.


Traveler 1: 
Awake, my precious, for we must now go
For the sun soon descends the horizon.

Traveler 2:
The time pass too quickly, nevertheless,
Let us gather what we behold. Now wait,
where hast our compass gone? 
For beside me no more can it be found. 


Traveler 1:
To cause, our lost position, what can'st be done?


Puck: 
     [to self]
What fun! What fun! I enjoyeth this so!
My task for Oberon I now must go.

Love's Labour's Lost Performance

Last Thursday I had the opportunity to see Love's Labour's Lost at the Pardoe Theatre. I absolutely loved that it was set in the 1940's. I think that time period is just so fun. I loved the music, and the dancing (Triple Swing!), and the really cute dresses :)
When I first heard that it was going to be set in the 1940's and during WWII, I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out. I couldn't see how the play could possibly relate to that time period, until I read the "Director's Note" section in the program. Stephanie Breinholt, the director, explained that whenever she read the play, it reminded her of her grandparents, who met similarly as to how the characters met in the play. Between her grandparents there was plenty of witty banter and humor.
So it got me thinking. I further read in the program that in WWII, in order to keep spirits and morale up during such a difficult time, there were United Service Organizations. The organizations consisted of shows and dances and other fun activities. Because of this knowledge, I began to understand the purpose of setting the play in such a time. With Love's Labour's Lost and its play on words and sense of humor, it was obvious that making the play surround a talk show would be a good idea. It's amazing what historical context can do for your understanding :)
In both the play and the performance a common theme was education and the importance behind it. There are multiple forms of education: learning through books and learning through experiences. Ultimately, it could be questioned what the best form of education is, and I guess that can depend from person to person. To me experience can do so much more for someone than just reading a book. It consists of memories and becoming surrounded by the task at hand. In Love's Labour's Lost, the men discover that experience is just as good of a route to take as being scholarly. 
This idea connects to the performance for me in that during WWII, many of the men had to go to war. They had to completely stop what they were doing and pursuing educationally. Through that they earned valuable life experiences that taught them about things in life that perhaps would have been more difficult to learn about from books. 

Puck's Love

I've been trying to think of a name I think could work for Puck's love and I have come up with one name so far. I like it a lot really. 
We discussed together that we wanted to possibly relate it to Artemis, being the daughter of Zeus and Leto. Leto is one of the daughters of the first-generation Titan god, Coeus. (I found all this here.)
Well looking more into Artemis, I discovered that she is the goddess of fertility, childbirth, the moon, and hunting. We already discussed how the moon can represent metamorphosis, so that's the connection there specifically to the play. Anyways, Artemis was born to Leto, and there's a really interesting story behind it. Apparently Hera was not pleased that Leto was conceiving due to Zeus and so she made a rule in which Leto could not give birth on land. Close to giving birth, Leto finally discovered an island that wasn't connected to anything- it was just a piece of something floating around and consequently not a real piece of land connected to the earth, so she gave birth there. The name of the island was Ortegia. And there you go! What about Ortegia as the name of Puck's love? 
I did try to see if Artemis happened to have any children and it turns out she chose to be a virgin goddess, so no go on that...
But I think there can definitely be a connection, not too terribly obvious, and it's kind of pretty. She could be a cousin of Titania if we want, or perhaps a niece.  

Side note: I also edited my last post a little, showing that Puck's love is not going to give up. I know it was mentioned that it'd be nice to reiterate that they would be together again one day. So hopefully that works!

Possible Scene for Final Project

So I figure I'd try to write a little part of a scene and see how that goes. Let me know what you think :)

This is particularly based around the end of the play, when Puck's love has a little monologue.

     [to self]

Puck: 

O dear sweetest love, 

betrothed to one, noble, other than me,

Hast though forgotten of we? Memories

fill my soul with longing for thee. Wretched

inability, must we not be for

society?

     [sees potion]

Ah, Oberon giv'st me of this potion

To cure within me of my love for thee.

O, please rid me of this fine cruelty.

     [takes drink, falls asleep]  

Ortegia enters.

Ortegia:
Where has thou been, my heart? Hearest thou good man?

Sep'rated we forever be. But if not 

For royal duty, we toge'er could be. 

But tho we now must be apart, you will

fore'er be in my heart. A way I'll find,  

we'll be toge'er one day.

      [Puck awakens]

Puck:

Why miss, whatever you do mean? For I

ne'er gav'st my heart to thee.

I know not what thou speakest of,

Why dost thou talk about this love?

Ortegia:

Oh no! My love, hast forgotten of me!

What could this potion ever be, to cause

Us such difficulty?
Coulds't thou be this night struck with moonshine?
[aside]
My mem'ry of thee will endure for thee
For I will endure. To fight for love's sake
Tis just enough, if we again will be.

Exit.

So, what do you think?

Shakespeare Pranks

In our play, our main character is Puck, a very spirited fairy who likes to play tricks on others. So we want to include a scene where Puck is pranking! A couple ideas I've come up with include: 

-a basic transformation of an individual into an animal. Puck did this in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

-Puck transforming himself into another individual to impersonate them and confuse someone else. This can lead the person in the wrong direction and could be quite funny. He could meet some travelers that can become separated from one another as he is going on his mission for Oberon. 

-Or he could come across a village and decide to mess with some of the people living there. Perhaps moving objects or making them think that a ghost is there by making up voices. 

I also came across this blog post that had some funny ideas. I particularly liked the Twelfth Night idea. Absolutely hilarious. We could easily do something that has already occurred in another one of Shakespeare's plays, and that could further prove our play is of Shakespeare origin. They also had different degrees of pranks involved. I'm sure Puck wouldn't do something completely cruel like the prank discussed in Othello, but it leads me to wonder how far he would go. To what degree of harm would the prank be or would it be completely harmless?

Validation

So I've been thinking of a couple things that will help to validate our play Star-Crossed as a Shakespearean play.

First off, the title itself just screams Shakespeare and Romeo and Juliet.

• "Two households, both alike in dignity,/ In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,/ From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,/ Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean./ From forth the fatal loins of these two foes/ A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;/ Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows/ Doth with their death bury their parents' strife."
• Also, our play is to be about Puck, a character from Midsummer's Night's Dream, and how he falls in love with someone he is not supposed to be with. With Romeo and Juliet, their parents highly opposed the other household. With our play, the surrounding characters (King Oberon) highly oppose Puck's romance with a relative of his (perhaps niece?)

Secondly, our play is meant to be a tragedy. In Shakespeare's plays, a tragedy typically consisted of a relatively unhappy ending with the main character being affected most by it. In our play, Puck will ultimately lose his lover by taking a love potion that causes him to forget her. Also, Puck will enter into the servitude of King Oberon, not knowing that he is the cause of the memory loss. 

And thirdly, our play is about Puck who is in love with someone out of his league: royalty. Him being a lowly servant, it wouldn't seem likely that he could be with someone out of his economic status. When I thought of this, it reminded me of the Merchant of Venice. Bassanio, although a gentleman, falls in love with Portia, an incredibly wealthy heiress, when being together seems incredibly unlikely. Bassanio, unwise with his money, is able to secure a loan from his friend Antonio, making it possible to pursue Portia. And ultimately, he does get Portia when he uses his smarts rather than thinking of wealth and other shallow things. Although Puck doesn't end up getting the girl, I believe both accounts definitely relate to one another. Initially anyways. To me it just shows it is still possible to rise out of your situation or status in life. Love can overcome anything.

So here are a few ways I believe our play can be validated as Shakespearean.

Colors and Love's Labour's Lost

Reading the first act of Love's Labour's Lost, I noticed that different colors are mentioned several times throughout:

"Green indeed is the colour of lovers;", "It was so, sir; for she had a green wit.", "My love is most immaculate white and red." "Most maculate thoughts, master, are masked under such colours." "For blushing cheeks by faults are bred/ And fears by pale white shown:", "I did commend the black-oppressing humour", "besieged with sable-coloured/ melancholy,"...

The fact that Shakespeare referenced the color green, which I typically associate with jealously, with lovers was super confusing for me. And so it got me curious to see if there was any real symbolism behind it, and the other references to color. I came across this website that helped to explain some of the significance behind colors:

Side note: sable is basically a brownish-black color :)

Green symbolizes nature, environment, health, good luck, renewal, youth, spring, generosity, fertility, jealousy, inexperience, envy misfortune, vigor.

Red symbolizes excitement, energy, passion, love, desire, speed, strength, power, heat, aggression, danger, fire, blood, war, violence, and all things intense and passionate.
White symbolizes reverence, purity, birth, simplicity, cleanliness, peace, humility, precision, innocence, youth, winter, snow, good, sterility, and marriage.
Black symbolizes power, sexuality, sophistication, formality, elegance, wealth, mystery, fear, evil, unhappiness, depth, style, evil, sadness, remorse, anger, anonymity, underground, good technical color, mourning, and death.  
Brown symbolizes earth, stability, hearth, home, outdoors, reliability, comfort, endurance, simplicity, and comfort.  

The website refers to several other colors than these. Helps puts some of the lines into better perspective now, doesn't it? 






 

Character Analysis: King Lear

Sorry it's taken so long to post about King Lear, but last week was super crazy for me. But I think I did well for the most part on my midterms :) So anyways....

King Lear is an individual that chooses to give away his power as king. He no longer wants the responsibility of governing over a people, but he ultimately still wants to feel in control and powerful. His sense of authority has been completely taken away from him, as demonstrated by his oldest daughters: Regan and Goneril. In this way, I relate him almost to a cake brownie, giving off the appearance or desire to be noble (or delicious) and then being something entirely different. Something worse off than before. A cop-out of sorts. He may feel like he has certain power, but in all reality he is viewed as nothing more than an old, senile man. With that though, there are also some redeeming characteristics to him as a character, and to cake brownies as a dessert. By the end of the play King Lear has gotten grasp of what's important in life: true love rather than the supposed importance of a title. With that, cake brownies can be quite yummy if one's in the mood for something light compared to actual brownies. 

 

Now Cordelia is incredibly loving and dependable. She knows what true love is and is not afraid to stand up for her beliefs. She doesn't hold grudges. Cordelia can be viewed as pure and someone worth trying to emulate. The food I chose to describe her as is a pear. I chose to look up the symbolism for a pear and discovered that pear trees are known for their strength and longevity. They are able to withstand everything they face and still produce delicious fruit. This is a lot like Cordelia in that by standing up to her father she showed a lot of strength and courage and was able to withstand all that occurred to her throughout the play. And although she dealt with her father banishing her and taking away her dowry, and her unfair death, she was still able to be loving and beautiful. 

Finally, Edmund is an incredibly independent individual who is constantly looking for others to see him as more than just a mistake of his father's. His desire to be loved and viewed as an equal consumes him and causes him to seek revenge cruelly, turning his father against his own son, Edgar. I feel like this can relate to something that most people automatically assume to taste nasty, such as spinach. For some reason spinach has always gotten a bad reputation and because of it most people stay away from it. I know that's how I used to be because my mom never liked it. Until I came out to college I had never tried it before. And I thought it was delicious. Edgar in a sense is like spinach in that there are so many misconceptions about him because of the illegitimacy of his birth. And no one has ever tried to get to know him, keeping that bad reputation going. Sure, that doesn't excuse his actions throughout the play, but it at least helps the reader understand why he does what he does.