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.