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.