I Cry To Write Again

I've had a very difficult time keeping up with my blogs in this class. This has been an interesting semester for me. I wouldn't necessarily say that it has been a dry spell, but it has been a time when I've been absorbing a lot of information from a lot of different places and I've had a lot of trouble coming up with things to say on my own. I've also been having troubles with reading my secondary criticism. Shakespeare After All is an interesting book, but I've gotten so much more enjoyment just from reading the bard himself. I'm one of those people who is very convinced that the meaning of the story is the story, and I hate when everything has to have a moral. I don't like the way literary criticism tries to find a meaning in everything. I prefer to read the story just to find out what happens, and not to think about how it teaches us about what we should do. And I hate stories that blatantly tell you the moral at the end. That's dogma, not writing. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind if a story teaches me something. I think that's essential. I just don't like when the cute fluffy moral gets shoved down my throat. It gets stuck and then I choke. That's never fun.

And besides, Shakespeare does not tell us anything in any of his stories. It is the characters that speak, and not out of a desire to teach us, to inspire us, or even (for most of them) to entertain us, as they do not know that we watch from the other side of the curtain. Likewise, we go about our own daily tasks, and only the most moon-struck (some might use the word crazy here) think that anyone is watching us. And yet who can say that they are not? Who dares say that we are not the rude mechanicals, poorly acting out a role put on for the amusement of others, and yet pretending that we are the most important thing in the world?

Maybe this is just me being sad again. The worst part of that is, as sad as I am, I don't think that I fully understand the tragic sense of life yet. I've been trying. It is definitely a struggle. There are so many sad things that go on every day, and I know that I only hear a tenth of a millionth of them. Even in reading Shakespeare I feel I have only tasted the foam from the top of a glass frothing over with tragedy. I'm slowly being wooed to the place where I should be. And yet I find myself running to embrace the comedic side of life as Shakespeare sees it, the continuity and continuation of the social realm. But then I do so love reading a good tragedy! I think the problem is that people are so afraid of getting hurt that they only want to see bad things happen to other people.

Then again, I've always been the kind of person who hates seeing other people get hurt (the ones I care about, at least). The best way for me, then, to embrace this tragedy is by reading and writing these sorts of terrible things, because I don't want to see it in real life. It's a bit of a conundrum and it's been hard for me to figure out even what it means to embrace the tragic. I don't even know whether I will really know if the tragic sense if life embraces me; perhaps it will be a moment of epiphany, but perhaps, as has happened so often in my life, the realization will sneak up on me before I even know that it is there, and I will just wake up one morning and see things differently.

As difficult as this semester has been for me (in general), I have still learned a lot. Right now I feel as though I am a sponge, soaking up as much brilliance as I can until I am over-saturated with it and cannot help but spill words onto the page. Someday I will find the words to express just how much Shakespeare has changed me, but for now I am but tongue-tied at his brilliance and am left as lost for words as Lavinia. So I will leave you, once again, with a quote, this one from C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle.

"The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning."

Tragedy Again.

I have a lot of catching up to do, I'll admit. It's somewhat overwhelming when I think of all the things that I have wanted to say but haven't had a chance to yet. This has been a hectic semester for me. In fact, I just dropped off my portfolio this afternoon for review (to determine whether I get to continue on into upper-level classes). Hopefully, with only one project remaining not outside of Shakespeare, I'll have a chance to post more of my thoughts in a way that actually makes sense, unlike I have been doing the past few months. This class has really been inspirational for me. I feel like I understand the world more completely now. I'm learning more about just how sad it is, too. I guess I'm kind of a sucker for sad stories. I don't like happily ever after, because I know that it doesn't happen in real life. We cannot remember anything about life if we do not write it down. Words chosen of desire.

I found a poem the other day while proofreading a friend's story and it was so beautiful it almost made me cry. I think it speaks to a lot of Shakespeare, and in just those few lines I think I cam just a little bit closer to understanding the tragic sense of life and I thought it would be a shame not to share it here.

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

I don't know if anyone else will see it the way that I do, but it took my breath away. Anyways, on a lighter note, I was watching Aladdin with some friends the other day and realized, for the first time, that the parrot's name was actually significant. Then I found these.

It made me laugh a little bit. I know it's not really that significant, but I always feel clever when I find those little connections. It's like the world is coming together again, like I've found another piece of the puzzle, or seen another ripple in the pond. I'll be trying to write more posts this weekend, but it's been a hectic week for me and I have a project due on Monday that I haven't been able to work on at all because of the craziness, so we'll see how it goes. Definitely going to do a lot of reading. I think I'll close out now with a quote from Sexson in class yesterday.

"Life is not a problem to be solved. It is a mystery to be experienced."

Final Questions!

1.Memorize: The worst returns to laughter
2.Aaron the Moor asks for forgiveness for anything that he did that was __________.
Good
3.What does Titus feed to the Queen of the Goths?
Her children
4.What song did the group sing that matched othello?
Ring of fire
5.Which character represented othello?
Indian chief
6.Banish, John, and banish _______ _____ _____________.
All the world
7.What animal is commonly represented in Henry IV?
The Boar's Head Tavern
8.What play is the hammock of time represented in?
Much Ado About Nothing
9.In Elizabethan slang, the word nothing means what?
Female genitalia
10.What did Angelo want Isabella to give him?
Her virtue
11.The title Measure for Measure comes from where?
The Sermon on the Mount (New Testament)
12.To Be or Not To Be!
13.What creature does Coriolanus embody?
The boar
14.Antony and Cleopatra are the mature version of:
Romeo and Juliet
15.Iago is which mythological person according to Riley?
Prometheus
16.According to Spencer, if you want to change your personality:
Change your hat!
17.What was Nick's advice on the roles that you play?
Play them as best as you can.
18.What sin is most prominent in Shakespeare's play according to Taylor?
All of them
19.According to Jamie, Rosalind and Celia are like which two biblical characters?
Naomi and Ruth
20.What is the question?
Presentism
21.The remembrance that really counts is the one that...?
Traces back through the real to the mythological.
22.Which person in this classroom did not have a question, and became an archvillain?
Roberto
23.Who did Roberto compare Caliban to?
Smerdyakov
24.According to Lauren, what is the myth surrounding Caliban?
Andromeda
25.According to Shelby, why does Shakespeare go away from conventional plot in his last four plays?
To elevate us to the sublime.
26.Two presentations had to do with the notion of silence in these characters _______ and _________
Cordelia and Sycorax
27.What was the point of the class?
Mything the point.

Embracing Your Godhood (final paper)

When most people hear the name Shakespeare, they tend to think of sophisticated, high-brow writing. Shakespeare is indeed one of the most brilliant minds of his day—even in all of literature—but this does not mean that his writing was always classy and proper. In fact, when we actually take the time to read Shakespeare, we find the exact opposite to be true. His plays are chock-full of sexual innuendos of all different levels. Perhaps the best and most intriguing part, though, is the subtlety with which they are written, so that each person reads just as much into it as they look for. Many of Shakespeare's innuendos are not obvious at first. Although part of this is because of the changes in the English language throughout the years, another large portion is due to Shakespeare's subtle mastery of the written word. Language is its own form of art, a medium that Shakespeare was brilliantly fluent in. It takes a clever man to twist a turn of phrase, but to do as Shakespeare does and create three or even four levels of meaning in a single phrase is a form of genius rarely seen in today's pirate stories. The best part of Shakespeare's writing, though, is that it is not dirty just to be dirty. Believe it or not, the innuendo serves as more than a vehicle for sexual jollies. Shakespeare's use of sexual references in his play engages the reader, drawing them in to the mythological realm, helping them to discover who they really are.

Upon taking a closer look at Shakespeare, the sheer number of sexual references is surprising. However, they are not meant solely to please the primal aspect. Rather, they serve as a catalyst, as it were; a springboard for the escape to the mythological realm. A prime example of this is in the relationship between Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Although it was definitely a heartfelt embrace of the lower, more primal aspect of humanity, it leads up to something so much greater than that. Titania—representative of the Goddess of Complete Being—is so much more than a pretty face and a steamy evening. She can offer him the world, an escape from his normal, boring life, and she says so in Act III, Scene I, starting in line 163.

“The honey bags steal from the humblebees,
And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,
And light them at the fiery glowworm's eyes,
To have my love to bed and to arise;
And pluck the wings from painted butterflies
To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.”

Those are not everyday requests. You certainly cannot go to Wal-Mart and pick up a pair of butterfly wings to fan moonbeams from someone's eyes. For Titania, however, it is an everyday occurrence. She lives in a realm outside of our own, where everything is possible, and nothing is too much to ask. If Bottom only asked, Titania could give him everything that he ever wanted. He could literally hold the world in his hands, but it would not be the world that one would first expect.

The goddess also beckons in Venus and Adonis, which is a prime example of what happens when one rejects the completeness that she has to offer. It matters not why Adonis chose to deny Venus, his fate remains the same. And deny he does, with a vengeance. In the end, it is his downfall, although he does not realize it at the time. In fact, he thinks himself noble for resisting temptation.

“'If love have lent you twenty thousand tongues,
And every tongue more moving than your own,
Bewitching like the wanton mermaid's songs,
Yet from mine ear the tempting tune is blown;
For know, my heart stands armed in mine ear,
And will not let a false sound enter there...”

Lines 775-780 marks just a small portion of his foolishly eloquent rejection. The play is a beautiful display of love and lust that is chock-full of sexual innuendo as well. Even Adonis' fate of being gored in the groin by a boar is representative of sexual acts. Yet even that saving temptation is not enough to save him from his death—not “death” in the sexual sense, as Shakespeare used it, but the physical. Adonis could have achieved immortality if only he had not resisted the goddess' wiles, but as it was he lives on as a memory, an example of what can happen to us if we are not careful with how we handle our myth. You could even say that Adonis mythed the point. It wasn't about sex. Although that might have been what it seemed to be on the surface, the reality was that Venus offered so much more than that. In fact, she offered him eternity.

Another example of the goddess chasing after a foolish, disinterested man is found in All's Well That Ends Well. Perhaps the play escaped the lauding that it truly deserved, for Helena was a goddess in her own right. She may have been pushy and chased after a man who was a real boor, but if we can laugh at the innuendo flooding this play, we are most certainly boors as well. Bertram was too interested in other things, rejecting Helena because she was not “of his rank.” Although this is true, the scales are not tipped in Bertram's favor. After all, a boor can do nothing to stand beside a goddess, unless she first offers him her hand and promises him the world. But he must first be clever enough to realize that this is in his interest, and that going off hunting or fighting battles with his man-friends will not do him any good in the long run. In fact, it will most often end up getting him into a lot of trouble that he could very easily have avoided. All that he has to do is to open his arms and embrace his goddess, and the entire world can be at the tip of his fingers. Hunting with the boys simply cannot compare to ruling the world beside a woman of incomparable beauty, and yet so many boors think that it can.

One would think that this would be obvious, that we would make the connection. However, when we see the mistakes that others have made, it does not remind us that we should not follow them. Instead we rejoice at their misfortune or laugh at their stupidity, never realizing that we are doing the same thing that they did. The problem with this is that people do not like to see others get everything that their heart desires. Our jealous little hearts do not enjoy seeing other people successful and happy when we are not. This leads to a denial of the mythical realm of happiness, because we see it as something that is not attainable. People are generally uninterested in the realm of the Woode. After all, it is not actually even a part of the real world. It is merely a figment of imagination. But there are times when imagination is the only thing that keeps us alive. And sometimes, though we hate to admit it, it is escaping into a world where everything is fantastic that actually keeps us from losing our minds. We are all Persephones, separated at birth from our great mother goddess and spirited away to a place full of vile, despicable things. We delight in filth, lust, and all sorts of terrible things, and forget the goodness that we knew in another life. So Demeter calls to us through Shakespeare, drawing us in with the bawdy and obscene that we love so much, and reconnects us to herself and the world that she has to offer us. Some say that embracing this realm makes us lunatics, but in reality it is only when we lose our minds and run into the arms of the goddess that we find ourselves truly sane.

Test Questions #2

1.What obsessive question does Prospero ask Ariel?
What time it is
2.how many times does Prospero use the word now?
79 times
3.what game are Miranda and Ferdinand playing?
Chess
4.what chore do both Ferdinand and Caliban have to do?
Carry wood
5.what are the three things raised to the level of the sacramental?
Seeing, doing, speaking
6.how is Antony like Prospero?
The conquer of the feminine
7.which persona did your instructor not associate with Prospero?
Hobbit
8.what does the name Sycorax represent?
Sow or boar
9.what is curious about all of the scenes with Antony and cleopatra?
They are never alone
10.entrapping someone in fantasy...
11.what is the consuming myth of pericles?
Demeter and persephone
12.why is the handkerchief in othello important?
Cowslip pattern, mole on the breast of imogen
13.the answer is everything. It's all an echo
14.who is the most important female magical figure?
Paulina, the old turtle
15.what does Paulina do to wake hermione?
Plays music
16.what poem does MSU's motto come from?
No worst, there is none – Gerard Manly Hopkins
17.what killed Cleopatra?
An asp
18.who always shows up in Shakespeare's romances?
Pirates
19.what word is mentioned prolifically in a Winter's Tale?
Issue
20.when Antony mentions the Shirt of Nessus, what myth is he referencing?
Hercules and the shirt of flame
21.why does Alonzo believe that he will not die in the shipwreck?
Because Gonzalo knew that the mariner didn't have the “drowning mark” on him
22.what is Shakespeare's most famous stage directions?
Exit, pursued by a bear (winter's tale)
23.what does Imogen change her name to when she is in disguise?
Fidel, meaning faithful
24.Maximallius tells the story of a man in the church yard who represents whom?
Leontes
25.what three words did Frye say prepares you for the reading of King Lear?
Nothing, nature, fool
26.in the beginning of King Lear, who offends him the most?
Cordelia (my heart)
27.what is Lady Gaga swimming in?
A vat of cottage cheese
28.of you will weep my my fortune, _______________
take mine eyes
29.the longest recognition scene?
Pericles and Imogen
30.what seest thou else in the dark ________ and ________ of time?
Backward; abysm
31.which play has a Scooby-Doo ending?
Cymbeline
32.what happens to Guiderius in Cymbeline just before he is revealed as Cymbeline's son?
He is exiled
33.what are the three goddesses revealed at the end of the Winter's Tale in Paulina, Hermione, and Perdita?
The maiden, the mother, and the crone
34.what is the answer to the riddle in Act I in Pericles?
incest

Nonsensical Notes

Once again I find that the biggest problem I have with recording my notes is that none of them make any sense. At all. But I will say that one of the things that pops up the most is that literature is nothing but displaced myth. We might try to take the mythology out of a story, but it creeps back in where we least expect it. There's also quite a bit about alchemy, which we talked about in the first test too, but the refining of the soul is what we all strive after, so why should we not include it in our further discussion? Then, of course, comes the all-important law of villainy. If you're going to be a villain, be a good one. Don't be a Cloten.

We also had a discussion, although brief, that has stuck in my mind for quite some time. It was about how entrapping someone in fantasy is sometimes the only way to save their life. This of course made me think of the movie Inception. Anyone who's seen it should have at least some idea of what I'm talking about. Perhaps the reason I'm so interested in this idea is because I've spent most of my life being "saved from fantasy." My parents are what some people call "realists." Others might refer to them as groundlings. They refuse to take part in anything that has anything to do with fantasy, and even explained that they would never take the family to Disneyland because "it's not a part of real life." For me, fantasy has always been my escape from that, and indeed, at times very well might have saved my life.

One of the things that I've done my best to be on the lookout for (though my best wasn't very good in this case) was how the characters deal with immortality. I think there are a lot of interesting points that can be brought up with this in mind. But there is an even more vital question to ask - What do the romances have to do with Shakespeare connecting with mythology? The romances are mythology. The separation from the goddess of the complete being, the rejection of her offspring, the goddess wailing and searching for her child who was lost, and at the end, the circle, made complete only through our imaginings.

I had planned to write more about the puttock, and what nasty little creatures pikes really are, and I might come back to that, but I have pages more to fill before I feel I have time to catch a breath. So I'll ask the question that all of us long to know. Why are women sacrificed? Is it because we are meant to symbol purity? After all, the virgin sacrifice is one of the most common. And we rarely see the sacrificial man. But wasn't a man's job to protect a woman? It doesn't seem to fit that the one that's supposed to be protected ends up on the altar. But then the world rarely makes sense.

The definition of a romance isn't seen the same way these days. Although there are just as many pirates. People still love pirates. And pirates understand that if you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself. That and honey torture is the most terrifying thing ever. Forget waterboarding. That doesn't hold a candle to this. But class is starting soon and I need to go. So more later.

Weekend's Not Over Yet!

So Cymbeline kind of petered out after a bit, but the first three acts were enough to keep me in love until the very end. And to be honest, I didn't read most of Pericles until after we talked about it. I'm not sure if it was that or whether it was the first two acts that were so very plain, but it was very easy to figure out what was going on in the play. In fact, it was almost deceptively easy. I feel as though maybe, once again, I've missed something.

Anyways, I wanted to throw out an idea for my term paper that I've had rolling around in my head for a while. It's very amusing to me the way many people say that Shakespeare was "high class" and one of the most sophisticated minds of his time. Those people are either very sheltered or have not read WS at all, because as it has been frequently observed in this class, Shakespeare's plays are chock full of innuendos and generally bawdy stuff. And that is precisely the point. I hope to illustrate that in flooding our minds with sexual references and perverse jokes, Shakespeare was subtly connecting us to the realm of the mythological, a realm with which "adults" seek to sever all ties. In doing so, he gently helps us to have a better understanding of our own world.

That was just a thought I had. It's probably just utter crap, but ideally I can shape it into something entertaining and mildly informative. I just have to go finish my readings first.

Goodnight, Sweet World.

So I'm in Act III of Cymbeline right now and I've reached a point where I've been awake for so long my eyes can't focus on the page, so I figured I would come and blog a little bit and post my favorite line. As usual, I've touched on all the naughty bits, and I've come to find that I genuinely enjoy this play. In fact, it might be my favorite that we've touched on so far this year. The plot so far seems to make sense, as far as Shakespeare goes, and the characters are entertaining. We'll see if this good luck holds up or if it's just a fluke.

Oh, and, the favorite line. Made particularly amusing by the notations presented with it, which basically explain each of the terms by saying it's a sexual reference. As if we didn't know that already.

If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we'll try with tongue too.

In Her Strong Toil Of Grace

I have killed Antony and Cleopatra! It didn't take as long to finish as I thought it would. It helps when you don't try to read another play in the middle of it. These people are ridiculous and they overreact to everything. Ever. I was entranced, too, by Caesar's words of Cleopatra. They don't strike me as something that he should say. They're too poetic. Maybe it's just because I've had some bad experiences with Italians, but I don't think of Romans as poetic. In fact, it might be interesting to note that the Romans that I know are still logical and orderly, and they clash quite often with my whimsy and lack of structure. But anyways.

The fact that Caesar is so touched by her beauty, even in death, is somewhat of a mystery to me. Any yet how could one not be touched by her marvelous performance? She acted it perfectly, and the ending turned out just the way she had planned. Maybe her memory will not be as perfect as she was hoping that it would be, but nevertheless she did better than her best. And the show must go on. But class is in a few minutes and I should really get my things packed up just in case. So it's time for me to say goodbye again.

Flyting!

So I feel bad that it took me so long to post this...but I actually saw this the day before we talked about flyting and then I just had to post it. Yes, there are quite a bit of curse words in it, so it's not for those with tender ears.

Shakespeare Ate Me

Anthony and Cleopatra have killed me. The play simply goes on too long. If it is truly supposed to be this tedious, it does a commendable job. It reminds me a little bit, indeed, of the monologue of some old person who's seen better days and now, deaf to the pained cries of his listeners, blathers on for hours and ends up saying very little indeed. I wonder how audiences managed to sit through it without simply getting up and walking off. Honestly, I wouldn't blame them at all if they did.

In the beginning I was excited, for I felt that I understood Cleopatra, and I was glad to pick it up again, to go back and reread the first two acts. Certainly it was a welcome change from the ten papers and counting that I've had to write this week. But it's been over and hour and I've barely gotten further than I did last time. Now I just beat myself over the head with Act III and hope that the torture will end soon.

But should I play the fool or what? I just went to open my book again and found that somehow the last 10 pages I'd read were actually in Coriolanus...I was wondering why everyone had suddenly decided to burn down the village...or something like that? I'm not sure whether to be amused or ashamed.

There were a couple of things, though, that drew my attention this time(yes, to AAC). I have to admit that I didn't notice them on the first go-round, but I've been reading and looking for Cleopatra's becoming and I found one instance that I thought was a very good explanation of why, in fact, she is so obsessed with her image:

Since my becomings kill me when they do not
Eye well to you.

I had to read this two or three times before I got some sense out of it, but then it hit me. Cleopatra puts on this whole show for Antony. She wants him to see her as mysterious, desirable, and beautiful. There is a sort of selfishness, I've found, in love. It makes you do silly things in order to get the attention of the object of your affections. I know I'm particularly guilty of that. And it's crazy the sorts of lengths that even a "normal" person will go to. This next line, too, was one of my favorites, and anyone who's ever - hell, anyone can identify with this.

Give me some music: music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.

Jesters Do Oft Prove Prophets

I was really worried about reading King Lear. I tried reading it for fun in high school (who read King Lear for fun, anyways) and found myself horribly, horribly confused. I have to admit that it didn't make any more sense to me this time, even though I did read all the way to the end. I feel as though I missed something vital: one moment King Lear was out in the rain, the next he was insane and two of his daughters were dead. What on earth happened? I'm going to sit down soon (after I get something to eat) and read my commentary. Hopefully that will help me figure out what happened. But I do so love the big towards the start of the play with the bastardization and the "tribe of fops got t'ween sleep and wake." This was another one of my favorite bits.

Love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide.In cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father.

At any rate, I'll edit and add more to the post later but it's lunch time =]

Questions For The Exam!

1)Is there a play that's going to be weighted much heavier on the test?
No.
2)About which play did Northrop Frye say that critics were making faces?
All's Well That Ends Well
3)A great reckoning in a little room may possibly reference whom?
Christopher Marlowe
4)These are the councilors that ___________
Feelingly persuade me what I am.
5)What name does Rosaline take for her male character in As You Like It?
Ganymede
6)What act of speech is spoken in each of the seven stages of life?
Mewling, whining, sighing, in strange oaths, through wise saws, whistling, silence
7)What does Miles Gloriosus mean?
The braggart soldier
8)Which character in All's Well That Ends Well is a perfect example of a Miles Gloriosus?
Perolles
9)Puck is addressing...
A wide variety of audiences
10)What profession does Jacques want to pursue after at the end of As You Like It?
To join Duke Frederick and become a holy man
11)Why is Lavache the clown getting married?
The devil drive (lust)
12)What is the turn for an unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation?
Deus ex Machina
13)In this class, which two levels of Shakespeare are stressing?
Historical and mythological
14)What did TS Eliot say about Shakespeare?
We can only be wrong about him in a new way
15)According to Borges, who is Shakespeare?
He is everyone and no one
16)The human mind has the power to encompass what?
The entire universe
17)Which god descends from the sky at the end of As You Like It?
Hymen
18)What does neologism mean? (create your own neologism)
Come up with a word that doesn't exist, and include up with a definition for it
19)What term did Keats use when he referred to an artist ridding himself of everything?
Negative capability
20)Orlando is to Rosalind as Touchstone is to ____________
Audrey, the country wench
21)The metaphor turning lead into gold refers to what?
Turning water into wine
22)To Shakespeare, what does to rot also mean?
To ripen
23)What is a Hieros Gamos?
Holy marriage
24)The Woode in MSND refers to?
The outskirts of town
25)The 16th and 17th sonnets refer to immortality as what?
Giving birth to mind babies
26)What does Ted Hughes say is Shakespeare's consuming myth?
Venus and Adonis
27)What is the Forest of Arden?
The Green World
28)We are their ___________ and _____________.
Parents, originals

The Bed Sieve

So, I learned something very interesting when I went to go and google the bed trick. A nerve-wracking proposition, to say the less, but contrary to the class' worries, nothing extremely vulgar popped up on google, though I did find at least one rather amusing image. However, in all seriousness, in examining the wikipedia article, I found something rather interesting about AWTEW.

In All's Well That Ends Well, Bertram thinks he is going to have sex with Diana, the woman he is trying to seduce; Helena, the protagonist, takes Diana's place in the darkened bedchamber, and so consummates their arranged marriage. In this case, the bed trick derives from Shakespeare's non-dramatic plot source, the ninth story of the third day in the Decameron of Boccaccio (which Shakespeare may have accessed through an English-language intermediary, the version in William Painter's Palace of Pleasure).

Just another example of how no story is truly ever an original. At least not in this realm. As stated in class, history is the plane of desolation where mythology does not exist. It always ends in being torn limb from limb, and presumably devoured. If our world is history, we are all doomed. In all honesty, though, I fail to understand why the unwashed masses didn't fall in love with all the foreplay in AWTEW. I found myself giggling more than a few times at the sexual references therein. Perhaps that lumps me in with the masses as well, but I found that I didn't care so much about what was going on in the plot. I was scouring for the next little pun that I might not have noticed had I cared what was going on. Of course, I've always been the one looking for those little plays on words that make a story truly great. I take pride in inserting them into my writing as well (though it might not show in a blog thrown together at a moment's notice). Perhaps Shakespeare was going for crass humor to please those unwashed masses, but that doesn't mean it wasn't funny. Just as the suspension of disbelief is required to keep the audience from scoffing at As You Like It and the absurdity of the (male)deity Hymen descending from the sky, a rejection of what we consider normal is required to make All's Well That Ends Well pleasing to the general public (acid, anyone?)

Oh, and speaking of acid, I watched Moulin Rouge the other day. The play within a play stood out to me in a way that it hadn't before. There were a lot of other things that I noticed too. A lot of them came from my art history class, where we talk about Buddhism and immortality and the brother battle. We haven't yet discussed the purification of the soul that comes with Alchemy, but I have FMA for that. Young Edward Elric trying to right his wrongs and refine his soul while restoring his brother's body - what better example of Alchemy's true meaning can you find?

Now one last thing - I've found the doubling sieve. In Shakespeare's pattern we once again find that there are two traits to this sieve. It is first captious, or fault-finding, raising petty objections with a feeble voice. Secondly, it is intenible, or uncapable of holding, as a real sieve might be. Now for the text.

I know I love in vain, strive against hope;
Yet in this captious and intenible sieve
I still pour in the waters of my love
And lack not to lose still: thus, Indian-like,
Religious in mine error, I adore
The sun, that looks upon his worshipper,
But knows of him no more.

The idea of vainly pouring water - or love - into a vessel, not only without reciprocation, but without its even holding onto your efforts, but just letting them slip through his fingers as though it meant nothing at all seems like a horrible way to live. Maybe it's just a thing for me, but it seems a little bit like sparagmos.

Splitting Heirs

I love the idea of creating heirs of the mind. I might see it differently than most people do. To me it seems more to speak of the birth of progeny; followers or disciples, as it were, to give our muse to them so that they might be amused. We must teach them brilliance, immortality, and good taste. Without good taste our mind babies will just be boors. We must also find sugar daddies, for after all, artists always need a good sugar daddy.

Is it really such a bad thing to be a lunatic? You are merely possessed by the moon, the mother goddess, who will grant you your every desire. Have you ever seen a man try to imitate a woman? That is where madness truly lies. "My daughter wants to marry this dipshit," he says, and the embodiment of the elements merely laughs. Is lunaticism not merely a marriage to the gods, Hieros Gamos with the woman-in-the-moon?

The biggest problem with focusing on the comedy in A Midsummer Night's Dream is that we miss out on the beauty that is tragedy. We miss out on the reality of the scenario. Life is rarely a comedy. Comedies end with dances, weddings, and feasts. Real life ends with divorces, funerals, and prom. We do not celebrate the creation of the realm's newest beings, but rather declare it vulgar, as Plato did, rejecting the "role" of parenthood.

As far as the Lord of Misrule goes, here's what Wikipedia has to say about that:

In Britain, the Lord of Misrule — known in Scotland as the Abbot of Unreason and in France as the Prince des Sots — was an officer appointed by lot at Christmas to preside over the Feast of Fools. The Lord of Misrule was generally a peasant or sub-deacon appointed to be in charge of Christmas revelries, which often included drunkenness and wild partying, in the pagan tradition of Saturnalia. The Church held a similar festival involving a Boy Bishop. The celebration of the Feast of Fools was outlawed by the Council of Basel that sat from 1431, but it survived to be put down again by the Catholic Queen Mary I in England in 1555.

While mostly known as a British holiday custom, the appointment of a Lord of Misrule comes from antiquity. In ancient Rome, from the 17th to the 23rd of December, a Lord of Misrule was appointed for the feast of Saturnalia, in the guise of the good god Saturn. During this time the ordinary rules of life were subverted as masters served their slaves, and the offices of state were held by slaves. The Lord of Misrule presided over all of this, and had the power to command anyone to do anything during the holiday period. This holiday seems to be the precursor to the more modern holiday, and it carried over into the Christian era.

So, in what way does mythology operate in As You Like It? I'm still trying to figure this out. I haven't reached the end of AYLI yet, but between the Battle of the Brothers, the play's start in an orchard, and the green world, there's magic all up in this bitch. Oh, and as for the green world... This is what I found. Not quite what we were looking for. There's also this song, by the Gorillaz, called O Green World. It's a bit trippy, but it's not too bad.

I'm going to fly off on wings of desire now. It's quite late. Past witching hour, in fact, and long past my bedtime. But alas. If I'd just stop blathering on, I'd get those last few minutes of sleep that will make all the difference tomorrow morning. Goodnight, sweet world.

Sonnets and...Things

Perhaps I'm not so lazy after all. Perhaps I shall actually do some musing along with this dear little sonnet I've posted. This class has been slightly overwhelming for me. I feel as though the bar has been set astronomically high, and I'm definitely not a pole jumper. The problem has been for me that I usually read when I'm not near my computer, because the internet is a terrible, terrible distraction. But then by the time that I wake up from my nap, the brilliant thoughts that had been tap dancing in my head are far away. I've finished Venus and Adonis. It was a very frustrating poem for me. It was almost as though I could feel Venus' frustration, the unattainable perfection, the one that she would have done anything for resisting her every advance. I had to go and steal a kiss from my otter after I'd finished reading. Even that was only vaguely satisfying. I've always been a very affectionate sort of person; particularly in the physical sense. The denial that I had to experience through Venus left me physically pained as well.

Denial of love is something that I've never understood.

Anyways, I finally wrote out a sonnet. Not the best one ever, by any means, but I felt that it was almost, somewhat close to clever for coming up with bits of it. It doesn't have a title, of course. I hate coming up with names for things.

Some claim that life is found through frozen heart,
Denying all you know; ignoring love,
Some claim that on a quest you must depart,
In search of special fruit from magic grove;

Though many legends tell of this device,
This fount of youth, this holy grail, this seal,
Yet still no man has paid the proper price,
And in the end, all find time life does steal.

Perhaps it is a fountain we must drink,
That brings us to our frail eternity,
Though many men have stumbled at the brink,
Yet none have yet gained immortality.

Our weary souls may seek eternal life,
But all our seeking brings us naught but strife.

Eventually I'll go back, reread A Midsummer Night's Dream, and find the snippets that I wanted to post because they were beautiful, but I've decided to be fundamentally lazy again. Probably in the form of getting something to eat.

What We Are To Do

I'm just going to take my jumbled, mismatched notes, attempt to arrange them in an (organized?) fashion, and throw them up here so that at least I don't have to worry about it anymore. Until tomorrow, that is. Keep in mind that these are just questions that we were asked and not the answers - they should serve as more of a springboard. We should read the Bible, and read Shakespeare, and read Greek mythology. Plus Ovid and the great age of Classical Greek drama. Secular scripture=everything else. Why Shakespeare? What makes him more significant then anyone else? What structural principles do we find? Cabala, Neo-Platonism, the Hermetic mysteries. What do these things mean? We are to become members of the school of night, to change the world. Myths are our parents and originals and from them spring life as we know it.

Blog about commonplaces - important things, topics of conversation. Next to God, Shakespeare created most. The mythical world is not real to us, it is such things as dreams are made of. But do we ever stop to think that we might be mythical beings to them? There are mythic and realistic levels of life. We do not read the way we used to. Oberon and Titania are high-class. And then there are the common people; they never labored in their minds, even one day. Shakespeare is one of the most widespread religions in the world. Salieri looks like garbage compared to Mozart. The difference with Shakespeare is that he offers real people, not those on the mythological plane. We should be people capable of imagination. It's time to write another Shakespearian sonnet - use iambic pentameter! We should be nobody, because in being nobody, you are everybody.

Women cannot commit seppuku, they must instead hurl themselves off of cliffs. We should begin to make comparisons. Pity like a naked new-born babe striding this blast. What is going on in this class? What is consuming us? Shakespeare knew about Hermeticism and Metempsychosis, so why don't we? We can't say what Shakespeare said because he didn't say anything! His characters speak through him, for he is all of them and none of them at the same time. Is Shakespeare actually Sir Francis Bacon? We should be horrified by how little time we have. February 3rd is time to do a presentation - why act 5? We can do commentary, and we can do drama, but we have 10 minutes, so every second must count. The tempest is an excellent example of a masque. Barnes and Nobles does not have Ted Hughes. Neither can they order any more. You can't mess with a goddess without getting hurt. Whatever you do, do it quickly! Venis is not a sexual predator. She is offering something - all that the world could offer. And as we all well know, it is always, always the man's fault.

With More Than Haste

My significant otter and I were talking the other day about the oddity presented by the idea that James Merrill had written poetry with the aid of a Ouija board. It struck both of us as a rather ridiculous proposition - just think of how sore your fingers would grow after holding the glass in place for so long! He pointed out something, though, that I thought was rather brilliant, and explains the whole thing quite tremendously. Merrill was, in fact, being led to write The Changing Light at Sandover by the ghost of none other than Shakespeare himself. I have not read the epic, so I cannot attest to its possessing a bard-esque brilliance. However, a bit of beauty is always lost in translation, even from one's own mind to the page. Anyone can be eloquent in their minds. It takes a great man to communicate to others using that same eloquence.

I've been falling behind on the writings already, I'll admit, but I think I'll have more of a chance to catch up now. So I can spend a little bit of time discussing The Rape of Lucrece before I plunge back into my reading again. There is a certain sort of horror, reminiscent of a visit from a certain A. Friend, that keeps you glued to the page even though you know how the ending will turn out. You can't help but wish there was something that you could do to stop the inevitable, but in the end, you are just as helpless as Lucrece was. In a night with "No noise but owls' and wolves' death-boding cries," you may find yourself, as I did, scooting a little further back into your chair as if to hide from Tarquin's insatiable lust. However, one of my favorite parts seemed to go off on its own little tangent. I'll share it in its entirety as I feel my words cannot do it justice.

For men have marble, women waxen, minds,
And therefore are they form'd as marble will;
The weak oppress'd, the impression of strange kinds
Is form'd in them by force, by fraud, or skill:
Then call them not the authors of their ill,
No more than wax shall be accounted evil
Wherein is stamp'd the semblance of a devil.

I might have a backwards point of view on this, but I thought it was a rather clever excuse for girls who misbehave. "It's not my fault," we can declare. "He tricked me. I didn't know it was wrong." This isn't half so true for women today. One of the losses we suffered when we decided that we wanted to be on equal footing with men. I could go off on a tangent about sexism and how women actually want men to be sexist even when they claim that they don't. After all, sexism is just the preferential treatment of one sex over the other. Women want to have all of men's rights, but we still want them to hold the door open, buy us flowers for no reason, and pay for dinner. That's sexism if I've ever seen it.

Anyways. It's time for me to take off again. More to come later.

Just For Starters

When we were told to write about our prior experience with the Bard, I was shamed to realize that my own exposure had been very limited. You see, my high school education was anything but traditional, and unlike most of you, I never had to read A Midsummer Night's Dream, or even Romeo and Juliet. Before I came to college, the extent of my Shakespearian knowledge was a dog-eared copy of The Taming of the Shrew and a couple of odd sonnets. Since that time, I've read The Tempest and Hamlet, but I still feel as though I've gotten only an inadequate taste of the sort of beauty that can "make heaven drowsy with the harmony."

Since you can't talk about Shakespeare without talking about everything else, I might as well discuss the School of Night as well. After all, we cannot change the world without knowing how. We ought to, as they were, be affected. Our oddities should cause others to do a double-take. Whether that involves growing facial hair or not is a point I'm not sure on. Admittedly, I've never been particularly good at it myself, though, so I might just have to stick with dying in an unusual manner. However, a peculiar problem has been nagging at the back of my mind as I think on what to write. If history can only give us the facts, is it really from whence our example should be taken? How can the simple facts, the history of these (albeit remarkable) men give us insight into our own lives? Should we not then be relying on the greater truth, the myths that these great men were born from? Their lives were nothing more than a retelling of a story older than time itself.

It's an interesting problem, at least.

Anyways. To the story that I'm consumed with. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I've had a very difficult time coming up with the answer to that question. I don't think of myself as particularly obsessed with anything. Perhaps that means that I'm obsessed with the idea of not being obsessed. I've been obsessed with my own image before. Not like Narcissus, mind you, but I'm the sort of person who's always very careful to give the right impression--especially when I first meet someone. Perhaps that's been why I've been so wary about starting to fill out my blog. The idea of being in a class of such skill level is very intimidating. But perhaps my intimidation is a good thing. Hopefully it will drive me to success.

I'll be posting more later, but if you check the timestamp you'll understand why I'd be reluctant to continue writing. Even I'm not this much of a night owl.

How to Create Your Class List

Instructions for how to create a class list:
From your blog, click on "Design." This will take you to the blogger edit area. Click on the "Design" tab, and then "Page Elements," the first option in the row that will pop up right beneath it. Click "Add a Gadget" wherever you want your list to be (you can always drag it to another place later). From the menu that pops up, select "Blog List." It should be near the bottom. Then, you can title your Blog List, choose how to sort it, and add the other students' blogs. To add a blog, click "Add a blog to your list." Simple enough. Then copy-paste the URL of the other person's blog, or select a blog that you're following. You can rename the blogs on your list, if you'd like to have them arranged by student names. Once you're done adding to your list, click "Save," and don't forget to save it on the "Edit Layout" page too!
Best of luck to you all.