Othello Fine

I am happy to say that this week is finally the end of the torturous Othello play production. I do not know what can possibly be done to improve this project for future classes. However, I will recommend that if you do continue having your students perform plays that you either allow more class periods for students to prepare their plays, allow students to use scripts during the performance if you do not allow more class periods for the play production, or allow students to perform their final production only in the class and not in front of the whole school so that students do not need to focus on having a perfect production. What I have noticed from working with my own play group is that students have conflicting schedules and personal issues that make it near impossible to meet outside of class and sometimes make it difficult to accomplish anything during class because of continual absences. If the standard of the production is brought down a little, I believe students will not be as worried about such a play production project and the project itself may improve dramatically.

Macbeth Act I

Let me begin by saying how much I love this play. One can never go wrong when there are witches involved. I particularly found the discussion on whether the witches are malicious or not rather interesting. I never gave the concept much thought because of my own personally reaction to them. Namely, I always viewed the witches as tricksters who were trying to entertain themselves by causing conflict because the witches cannot really benefit from Macbeth's downfall. That is why the class discussion was crucial for me in order to let me see the possibility of a different viewpoint because it never crossed my mind whether the witches were just stating facts like prophets. The movie predominantly allowed me to see how this interpretation can be possible. I also found the discussion of gender interesting as well. If one views the witches from solely a female perspective of the time period, one would expect Shakespeare is simply encouraging the stereotypical view that women are evil troublemakers. However, if one notes how the witches have male characters that make them hideous unisex abnormalities one can see how such characteristics can either encourage trust on Macbeth's part due to their masculinity, or mistrust due to such inhuman deformities. As a result, one can either interpret these witches as trustworthy or mischievous depending on one's opinion.

King Lear + Judeo Christian Beliefs

I believe our class discussion comparing the text to the movie was exceedingly helpful for me because I was not a big fan of this play when I first read it a year ago. I particularly was intrigued by the comments on how Shakespeare's play had a Judeo-Christian element to it. Like I stated before, I have a difficult time analyzing Shakespeare from a world viewpoint, so the class discussion really enlightened me to Shakespeare's key focus on the material world. It would have taken me longer to determine such an analysis namely because of my own personal reaction toward the text. However, when we broke up into small groups to discuss this particular issue thoroughly I found that many of the elements of King Lear can be considered Biblical. I for one am not religious, so I do not have the necessary background to make such a Christian analysis of Shakespeare. Even though I have always meant to read the Bible in order to become a better critic, I believe such personal effort on my part may not be possible. As a result, I am grateful for the aid my peers gave me with their interpretation of the text. I, unfortunately, will most likely analyze Shakespeare from a Marxian perspective in the future. Even though Marx is not a Biblical analysis I believe it provides a similar interpretation to the material world. Plus, I know Marx. I don't think I will ever know the Bible.

Othello Theatre Rehersal

Our session with the theatre department this week was exceedingly helpful for further blocking. We learned many new techniques, such as remaining 'open,' which is keeping our bodies at an angle so that we do not distance ourselves from the audience completely by not facing them directly. Odd to say, I also learned how to hit properly. Apparently I am supposed to hit Iago with the first two inches of my fingers and strike by his jaw so that it doesn't overly distract from the rest of the performance. I yet am uncertain of how to act drunk however. The theatre student informed me to look like I was trying to hide the fact that I was drunk. Hopefully I can pull that off. Plus, our last scene involves three of us dying within two seconds. It’s going to be rather interesting with all three of us falling down. I get to do this little twirl thing. Hopefully I won't look completely idiotic. Right now I simply have to focus on memorization, which is something I am good at. The rest of it, not so much. We have another practice day November 10th, so hopefully we will be much improved.

The Last Stages of Play Production

Throughout this semester, the largest focal point has been on the production of our various plays. Seeing how my particular group decided on reforming the entire Othello play into fifteen minutes, we have experienced multiple complications. The majority of which involved rewriting the play to a Law and Order theme, switching genders of characters to that of the actors we have available, and coming up with appropriate and believable dialogue for a tragedy. However, I believe our most problematic situation is that of our individual roles in the play production. For instance, three of our members wish to be the head of the group, resulting in multiple power struggles. Such instances involve stepping out of bounds in regards to the specific duties as actors and directors. Two actors, for example, wish to take more of a lead approach in regards to directing the play and writing the script. This is obviously not their duty and has created various conflicts in the group as a whole. When it comes to the director, she does not allow anyone else to maintain their own personal duties and takes it upon herself to dictate to everyone. She does not allow individual interpretation of characters by the actors themselves and she completely does not allow the production designer to do any of her own responsibilies. For future classes, I believe it would be beneficial to encourage production groups to work more as a team instead of forcing students into specific roles. From what I see, this has only resulted in dissatisfaction with specific roles and the typical corruption of power.

Orientalism in Othello, Act I

If you will recall, my literary comprehension paper suggested that the best way for me to achieve the third level of reading development is to purposely interpret a text from a world perspective and/or theory. As a result, I found the class discussion of Orientalism in Othello as exceedingly helpful because, even though I have picked up on Orientalist characteristics in other texts, I personally have never connected Shakespeare to this particular world perspective. I do not know why this is the case seeing how Shakespeare was alive during the time when there was not that much exposure to non-Western cultures, which resulted in such fantasized Orientalist opinions. However, the class discussion allowed me to finally analyze the various reasons behind Shakespeare’s use of Orientalism, whether it was to criticize or simply incorporate accepted Orientalist views. I personally am torn between these two interpretations of the text seeing how there were not many individuals during Shakespeare's time that were apposed to Orientalism, which makes the likelihood that Shakespeare is apposed to Orientalism rather slim. Yet, since Othello obtains some mild sympathy from the audience for all that has befallen him and his loved ones due to the greater evil of Iago, which is typically the overall purpose of any tragedy, I am slightly swayed to believe that Shakespeare himself does sympathize with Othello and is consequently against Orientalism. Though the degree to which Shakespeare is against Orientalism may be slighter than what would be desired by modern cultures.

Literary Comprehension Paper

The quest to become a better reader should be an endeavor that everyone seeks to fulfill. Such a task is something I have laid before myself not only to understand the author’s intention within certain texts, but to also become a better writer myself by comparing the various literary techniques employed by various authors. However, the task to become the ideal reader is yet to be achieved because I have not mastered the third and final stage of literary development. It is only through time and practice that this final step can ultimately be established.

Previous to Shakespeare’s Tragedies, I consider my reading development to be between the second and third stage because I typically had a personal response toward any given text while comparing that same text to other forms of literature. However, I was not able to similarly evaluate the text from a world perspective. Being unable to implement such world perspective analysis habitually hindered me from fully achieving the third stage of reading comprehension. For instance, while reading fantasy literature I previously had a tendency to analyze the text as I read it in order to determine what textual structures were effective. This process allowed me to have a personal response toward the text at the same time that it allowed me to compare the text to other structural forms that were either more or less effective.

Anne McCaffery’s Pern series, which began as a trilogy and was later expanded by twenty additional texts, is a good example of my customary reading process because I personally felt that the extra texts in the series were unnecessary since each text simply repeated the story line of the Pern trilogy from a different character’s point of view. As a result, I viewed Anne McCaffery as a copout author who over-extended her popular series, including the Acorna series, in order to make more profit.

I also compared Anne McCaffery’s texts to other authors to determine who had a better writing technique as well as any similar textual devices each author implemented, such as the parallels between Anne McCaffery’s Acorna series and Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game series. When I compared the two different writing techniques I could visibly see that Anne McCaffery’s writing style was more whimsical, while Orson Scott Card’s was bleak and philosophical. I also noted that there was one drastic similarity between the two series, which was their use of an insect-like alien species who was attempting to concur the universe. Even though insect-like aliens are common among fictional texts, the description of McCaffery’s and Card’s species were drastically comparable. Such analogous characteristics and qualities enabled the controversial question as to whether who truly created the alien species first and if one author was guilty of plagiarism. Yet, I was unable to analyze these two authors from a world perspective because the quality of social commentary was either completely absent from the texts or just an unreasonable variable with the given story line.

This was not the case with other fiction writers, such as Margaret Atwood who composes fiction and science fiction texts while conveying rigid social commentaries. The Maiden’s Tale is but one example of this because it is apparently a well written text with a feminist message at its heard. The text itself therefore enabled me to analyze it from a personal, textual comparison, and world perspective. As a result, I was capable of analyzing texts using all three developmental reading stages, but I was unable to always use each reading technique simultaneously. Such a dilemma consequently placed me in-between the second and third stage of reading development previously to this course.

Unfortunately my current reading status has not much improved since the beginning of Shakespeare’s Tragedies because I am still mainly having personal responses to texts with external textual comparisons. For instance, I am completely incapable of enjoying “Titus Andronicus” since I personally do not appreciate violence and gruesome rape scenes. Due to my personal tastes I am hindered from analyzing the text objectively from a world perspective. Yet I still can compare Titus Andronicus to other texts in regards to its structural technique. Since Titus Andronicus was Shakespeare’s first tragedy it is easy for me to compare it to his later refined tragedies and his skillful composition in his previous comedies. Consequently, I am able to determine how Titus Andronicus was a literary failure in relation to the character development of his comedies as well as note how his tragedies improved as he had time to practice the tragic form.

Conversely, like my previous reading comprehension, I can occasionally read texts using all three reading devices, which is particularly evident when I address the question of Hamlet’s insanity in my blog. I state, for example, that as an individual reader I do not perceive Hamlet as insane given the textual evidence in the play as well as that textual comparison to other Shakespearean texts and analysis using world perspectives gives further evidence that Hamlet is not truly mentally unstable. In order to develop this argument, I compare Hamlet’s character to Macbeth and Othello to prove that all three characters are essentially similar and that Shakespeare is simply following a common character template for all of his plays because each main character is fundamentally irrational and dangerous. I further analyze Hamlet by implementing the world perspective that ghostly apparitions during the time period were accepted as an element of reality and that such sightings would not be viewed as hallucinations induced by an insane psyche like it would in this modern era. As a result, like my prior development as a reader, I am still between the second and third level of reading progress.

In order to fully reach the third stage of reading comprehension, I will have to actively employ the third literary technique in each text covered in order to eventually master it since it is not always natural for me to incorporate a world-based analysis of every text. I will therefore have to be consciously aware of my personal reaction toward a text as well as my comparison of the text to other forms of literature, and any potential cultural, gender related, or other world perspective analysis feasible for the text under scrutiny. In this manner, it will be useful for me to employ theorists in order to enable my achievement of the third reading level, such as our in-class analysis of Hamlet from a Feminist and Freudian perspective. This method actively aloud me to interpret Hamlet by two different world perspectives, which would generally be difficult for me to accomplish left to my own devices because I am not a serious Feminist or Freudian theorist. It is consequently crucial for me to employ theorist in my future textual analysis to enable me to finally reach the third level of reading development.

It is through this process that I hope to finally achieve the highest level of reading comprehension so that I can interpret, discuss, and eventually teach various texts effectively. Once this is accomplished, I will be able to analyze texts through multiple world perspectives simultaneously in order to allow all possible literary deductions. As I suggest in my blog, the author is dead, so it is imperative that I become the best reader I can in order to get into the mind of the author through the heart of their written text.

Hamlet Act I

The main question that is always asked about Hamlet is whether he is insane or not. I personally do not understand why this question first came about. Is it because Hamlet saw his father's ghost and critics believed he was having crazed hallucinations? Is it because Hamlet is obsessively protective over his mother? Or is it because Hamlet is extremely paranoid and kills without regret? That aside, on reading Hamlet I personally do not feel he is insane. For instance, I would be upset if my mother married my uncle less than two months after my father's death. I do believe in the possibility of ghosts, so I don't hold Hamlet seeing his father's ghost against him. Plus, if I found out that my father was murdered, I would also be paranoid and probably desensitized towards death if I killed someone to protect myself. During the time period that Hamlet was written ghosts were also viewed as real entities and it was encouraged to avenge the wrongful death of a loved one. Therefore, the storyline and character development of Hamlet would be acceptable. The only thing that Hamlet did wrong was that he waited too long to invoke his vengeance, which obviously had drastic consequences. Also, in comparing Hamlet to Shakespeare's other texts, there are plenty of characters who are similar to Hamlet, such as Othello's paranoia and rash actions or Macbeth's encounter with three witches. Othello acts rashly because of male jealously. Macbeth acts rashly because of the words of witches, who are also mythological creatures along with ghosts. Consequently, both Othello and Macbeth are practically the same as Hamlet, yet they are not viewed as insane. How can that be? All of these characters are obviously modeled after a single Shakespearian template. I think it would be interesting to determine whether there is any evidence that Shakespeare had Hamlet performed as an insane character or if the interpretation of Hamlet’s insanity was put into play by later directors, which resulted in the continuance of that specific interpretation. Whatever the case may be, Hamlet’s acts and psychological instability are completely understandable for the stressful situation he finds himself in.

Personal Reflection

On brainstorming for our upcoming paper, I find that I can be any of the three demonstrated readers. I can have solely a personal reaction to a text, I can relate manuscripts to various other manuscripts, as well as put a text into a historical and societal framework. I don't know what level of a reader this makes me because I can either read a text in all three ways to varying degrees or I can read a text only in a single way. For instance, when it comes to Margaret Atwood's 'Handmaid's Tale' I can easily read it as a social commentary on patriarchal society and can therefore compare it to other feminist texts. However, I can also read it from a very personal point of view seeing how I am female and see the treatment of female characters in the text absolutely abhorring. On the other hand, I can read a text like Gregory Spencer's 'The Welkening' from only a personal level because I can't get past the fact that his writing technique is completely inadequate. As a result, I can't put his novel in a social context or even compare it to other texts because it is beneath my personal standards. From such a hodgepodge of inconsistent literary reactions I find it very difficult to define myself as a reader.

Othello the Remake

I am actually a little bit thrilled with our Shakespeare production. I know that I was a bit worried about acting in front of a lot of people, but now I think it is going to be a peace of cake because our director, Eliza, has decided to remake the whole entire play in a shortened version of about fifteen minutes. She has removed the love story behind the characters, is insisting on modern language, and has the play following the familiar plot of ‘Law and Order.’ These decisions are acceding helpful because it gives some leeway when we perform, such as allowing us to improvise if we don't have a certain line memorized. Plus, my character Desdemona, a.k.a Debra Santiago, is revamped to be a feisty investigator that is pissed off at everyone for accusing her of being a bad cop. There is one thing that I excel at and that is being pissed! However, I am worried that I won't be able to act drunk and die successfully seeing how these two acting techniques are quite complicated. Hopefully when I perform it won't be completely unrealistic and cheesy.

Acting and the Task of Directing

Acting should be left to the professionals. This is a principle that I have held for years and have thus been able to avoid the humiliation that would inevitably befall me if I ever took up such a career. Unfortunately, this last week I was subjected to the task of performing act 4, scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet in front of our class. This experience has further instilled in me that I hate acting and that I would also never be cut out to be a director. For instance, there is too much that a director has to simultaneously think about not only in the minute details of the scene itself but the gestures, actions, and voice of each individual actor as well. Consequently, directors are forced to achieve a level of superior multi-tasking that is practically impossible to reach. In my small performance, as an insignificant example of my failings, I had no idea how to give a character with few lines (Juliet's nurse) a life of her own. From observing my fellow classmates I noticed that many were able to discover their characters to be soothing, arrogant, timid, angry, desperate, etc, and emphasized these qualities in the character's actions and voice. Hopefully I will improve in my ability of discerning a character's true personality from the text and presenting that to an audience. Time will only tell if I will be able to achieve this goal when the spotlight falls on our class' production.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 1

One of the necessary key elements of every text is the ability to keep the audience's attention. In order to accomplish this goal, an author must use a plethora of conflict and action. However, this is particularly difficult if the audience is reading a play instead of viewing it live on stage. Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' is consequently a work that is well written, but it lacks the essence of a live production. For instance, Shakespeare did not write down the stage directions in the script itself so that the reader could equally follow the dialogue and actions of the characters. As a result, the reader is at a loss when it comes to the emotions of the characters and the means to which they physically convey these emotions. This is not the case in Luhrmann's 'William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.' The actors and actresses in the film are able to create a visual representation of what Shakespeare intended for his characters through facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice. This visual perfection is evident in the scene right before Romeo and the rest of his party attend the Capulet's celebration. In this scene, Mercutio provides a vehement dialogue in relation to Queen Mab. He energetically gallops across the setting screaming out his speech in defiance. Just reading the play does not convey such deep emotion and rage. We can only discern from the script that Mercutio talked about Queen Mab. The audience has no concept as to whether Mercution is just being informative or if he's being sarcastic or frustrated in his speech to Romeo. Consequently, Shakespeare's script will always fall short of a live production.

Shakespeare in Love

8/28/08

New Historicism is finally becoming part of the foundations of critical literary theory much to the chagrin of contemporary New Criticism fanatics. Madden's "Shakespeare in Love" is but one example as to how New Historicism is establishing itself in the interpretation of one of William Shakespeare's greatest works, "Romeo and Juliet." One of the key elements of New Historicism is that the author of a text is not considered a genius that is self-inspired but a regular human being that needs external experiences in order for him or her to creatively write. Such a modern emphasis as this is obvious in one of the film's beginning scenes where Shakespeare is attempting to write his next play. There are crumpled sheets of paper all over the floor, ink-blotted pages with scratched out words, and Shakespeare himself disheveled and frustrated. This scene does not represent the stereotypical author genius, but the realistic writer who needs external inspiration. This inspiration is obviously gained once Shakespeare takes himself into the social sphere and is exposed to various individuals, namely women. Likewise, another element of New Historicism is the emphasis in power relations. Such a social structure is evident in the scenes where the Queen's deputy shuts down the Rose and attempts to imprison the actors and director when they perform Shakespeare's play in another location. The Queen's deputy does not only throw around her Highness' title in order to belittle and wrongfully punish the lower classes, he does so without her true authority believing that he has superior power in such a position even though he is indispensible just like everyone else. As a result, New Historicism is paramount in today's literary criticism because it allows such films as Madden's "Shakespeare in Love" to portray historical figures and societies in the way they might have truly lived and functioned.