Creative Final

Hi Everyone,

I was interested in opting for the creative project for the final but I wasnt sure of what particular direction to go. Does anyone have any ideas for a group project that wants to discuss a possible collaboration?

Shakespeare's Accent?

I thought this was really cool- it's a man speaking in the accent in which they think Shakespeare would have spoken.
 
http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2012/03/24/149160526/shakespeares-accent-how-did-the-bard-really-sound

Take A Break From Studying and Watch this Movie Clip :)

               In class on Monday, we talked about how Shakespeare never really specifies an exact age for the character of Mamillius. Curious, I looked up different versions of how productions casted Mamillius’s character. One portrayal that really interested me was the movie The Winter’s Tale, released in 1999 and directed by Robin Lough. This production portrays Mamillius as a young boy. His character is actually played by a female in this movie; his womanly voice and feminine features really exaggerate the fact that this version of Mamillius has not yet gone through puberty. Also, this film portrays Mamillius as ill or disabled from the get-go; this interpretation does not make it seem as if his death is caused by the stress that is put upon him, as we discussed in class. He has to be wheeled around in a wheel chair, suggesting that he was sick to begin with.
                This performance of Act II, Scene I also depicts Leontes in an interesting light. In this clip, he seems more than jealous – he comes off as a little bit deranged. In one part, he gets so worked up that he shoves Hermione, almost hits her, and ends up throwing her to the ground. His mannerisms are also a little bit lunatic. In this scene, Leontes is portrayed as a nervous wreck who is unable to stand still. The director also has him search through Hermione’s purse after he orders her to prison, which illustrates how desperate Leontes is to prove that his suspicions are right. Whenever any of the other men try to reason with him, Leontes becomes visually angry and even shoves one of them. Overall, the director of this film decided to make Leontes a considerably violent character, which adds an entirely different dimension to his madness.

Taking a Closer Look at Leontes

Leontes’s sudden madness is quite similar to Lear’s when he confronted Cordelia’s honest, “nothing” response (to “Love, and be silent”). However, what Leontes clearly lacks is Lear’s love. Lear reveals his love at numerous times throughout the play. It is also revealed in the first half of the play that Cordelia was Lear’s favorite and that he previously believed that her love understood him best (“I loved her most, and thought to set my rest/ On her kind nursery”). However, Leontes seems to lack honest words of endearment and affection in the first half of the play except for when he says, “Hermione, my dearest, thou never spoke’st/ To better purpose,” (ll. 88-89).  The lines that follow reveal that the only other time she spoke of “better purpose” was when she first vowed to him (accepted his marriage proposal after making him wait for three months). Their brief story of their eternal love, however, sounds more like a flame that was long ago put out. But what exactly sets off Leontes’s jealousy aside from the overly general answer, paranoia. Shakespeare manipulates his readers/audience by withdrawing the cause of the king’s jealousy, and through his later actions, tells us to take a closer look for what it is and where it happens. It seems rather odd that a person would hold his wife’s eternal love at the same level of importance as getting his friend to stay a tad longer. But nevertheless, Leontes puts the same value on both of these verbal acts. Maybe the thing that sets off the King’s madness is when he reflects upon these two achievements (how a great thing can not only be completed for a “royal husband” but also for  “a friend”). Comparing the two is what perhaps leads to his destructive fantasies. Similar to Lear, Leontes refuses to take his most loved person’s words as genuine and true; and instead, falls because of doubt and skepticism. However, notice how the play isn’t absorbed by Leontes’s attempt to persuade others or the audience that his wife is a cheater. That is, his psychological battle over whether his wife cheated or not isn’t played out on stage; quickly and simply, he determines that she has committed an unfaithful act. In one split second, his paranoia and made up fantasies triumphed over completely. And so, from the very start the history of Leontes is like a closed book. In addition, his quickness to give into his jealous frenzy may suggest that his doubts might have secretly been there for some time (similar to the possibility that Lear’s madness had been present even before the play started).

Moreover, it’s as though his decisions cannot be questioned. He ultimately transforms the possibility that Hermione slept with Polixenes into the only thing that could have happened. Paulina even describes how there are no definitive answers, only strong feelings and emotions to base his argument by stating, "as the case now stands, it is a curse/ He cannot be compell'd to't--once remove/The root of his opinion, which is rotten/ As ever oak or stone was sound.” Despite Paulina’s rational, it is conveyed to the reader that the only “true” answer is his own, and that Leontes is unable to distinguish between what is possible from what is likely. Yet the question still remains, what leads to this jealous drama becoming so destructive? If we reflect on all the plays we’ve read, perhaps the answer lies with one’s position of power.

Lear, Prospero, and Leontes are all characters of power. As we all know, Lear was a king who desperately wanted to hear what he already scripted out in his head. In addition, there was little to no one that objected his decision to banish his beloved daughter. Prospero, also serving as a person of authority, obtained magical powers and served as a ruler to the island. Similar to that of Lear, Leontes is a king who is able to make whatever decisions he wants because he, in the simplest sense, is able to get away with it. All three men have and share this unrestrictive power and authority, and because of their status, there isn’t anything to hold them in check. Leontes especially is like an apex figure, on-top of our social hierarchy (his word is unquestioned and supposed to be taken as truth). Moreover, what all these characters have in common is their insecurity (Lear with needing to be flattered and for his daughters to affirm their love for him, Prospero with his competitive need to flaunt his humanity and wisdom, and Leontes’s inability to trust his friend and wife). As a result, the author leads the reader to believe that these characters are vulnerable when it comes to love. Leontes  in particular serves as an accuser and as a destroyer of love in the first half of the play.

It’s important to note how Shakespeare highlights Leontes’s role as love destroyer by the way he multiplies the love bonds throughout the play. It is made clear that Hermione loves her husband and even forgives him. Leontes, however, isn’t just a husband, he’s also the father to her son, her king, and the father to her new born child. These various bonds tie her to him and ultimately illuminate her inner dilemma. These bonds, in addition to Hermione’s helplessness, is what intensifies Leontes’s cruelty. It’s equally important to compare how Hermione’s honest actions are misinterpreted by her husband. Throughout the play we return to this idea that something really can come from nothing, that is, nothing that’s seemingly harmless. When he is told that there is “nothing” between Hermione and Polixenes, Leontes responds by saying, “Is whispering nothing?... Is this nothing? / Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing, / The covering sky's nothing, Bohemia nothing, / My wife is nothing, nor nothing have these nothings, / If this be nothing” (ll. 284-296). Obviously, Leontes interprets this “nothing” as something, and what results is an entire sequence of dramatic events (similar to that of King Lear). This just goes back to my initial argument that something can come of nothing (differing from Lear’s logic that “nothing will come of nothing”). Throughout the entire play we have this echoing of the word “nothing” and the ramifications from uttering the mere word. What this may suggest (in both King Lear and The Winter’s Tale) is that the more we love, the more we are vulnerable or susceptible to corrupting that love. Perhaps we need to take Shakespeare’s advice in King Lear to simply “Love, and be silent.”

Seasonal Associations

Despite Mamillius’ warning that a “sad tale’s best for winter,” Shakespeare includes other seasons within his play that doesn’t necessarily reflect sadness. The first half of the play indeed takes place during the gloomy months of winter. The icy season/setting seems well-fitted as it highlights the tragic hero, King Leontes’s cold heart. Unlike the first half of the play where we see Leontes’s cold behavior (as he tears apart his family), later on we see how the seasons change with the temperature of the play itself (from cold setting to warm ending). In other words, it’s interesting to see how the play’s title, The Winter’s Tale, leaves room for the reader to imagine a dual meaning—one that is a harsh, chilly and dark story (interpreted as more of a “sad tale”), and another part that is more fairy-tale, happy-ending- like. In the second half of the play, the Spring and Summer seasons set in, which allows us to read into the multiple layers and different meanings this play holds as these seasons are typically associated with life and regeneration. While we can see how Leontes’s character may represent the coldness of winter, we also see how the young Perdita can embody the warmth and life of Spring and Summer. Decorated in flowers, she can easily be linked to Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers, or Proserpina, Roman goddess of spring and growth. She also encapsulates young love as the lovely, faultless Perdita and Florizel eventually meet and fall in love with each other (in Bohemia where their love blossoms). On a side note, I can’t help but recall the story of Sleeping Beauty. I remember how at the beginning of the story, Aurora—the new born princess—is cursed to death by her sixteenth birthday by an evil fairy. Later on in the story, however, she finds and falls in love with a prince (who she was destined to wed) while being unaware of her own royal lineage. At the end, Aurora learns of her royal status, marries her prince, and is reunited with her family (which is quite similar to Perdita’s ending). These are only a few similarities, but in this way, Perdita is an Aurora, fairy-tale like heroine; that is, she is a princess (raised in the countryside) and brought up to think that she is a commoner, who eventually falls in love with a prince and lives “happily ever after.” In a sense, this echoes how Perdita and Florizel found each other, in addition to how the story switches from a dark tone to a lighter one (emphasizing the fairytale-like element of Shakespeare’s play).

Ultimately, the seasons play a significant role representing not only change, but serving as a metaphor for a journey (developmental stages of life, the characters’ growth, and even the play itself). Overall, Mamillius was only partially correct as he promised to tell his mother a sad tale. However, at the end, the reader learns that the best winter story isn’t a sad one, but instead, a tale that concludes with the hope and promise of spring. 

Wikipedia > Encyclopedia

Before break we spent some time talking about dictionaries and how they are practically obsolete due to online versions of them and whatnot. A few days ago, I saw this on the tv, and thought it was quite relevant to our discussions--apparently the Encyclopedia Brittanica will be no longer issuing print editions. Anderson Cooper does make jokes about the whole thing (I especially love the Louis C.K clip), though I do think online encyclopedias have significant benefits.

Anderson Cooper's "The Ridiculist"


Hope everyone had a nice spring break!

G-Rated Version of Romeo & Juliet meets King Lear

Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale challenges the conventional fine line between tragedy and comedy, death and rebirth through romance, in that it presents an interesting mix. The first Act of the play presents an Othelloesque conflict as King Leontes irrationally fears that his wife, Hermione, has been pursuing an affair with King Polixenes of Bohemia. Against the advice of Antigonus and Camillo, his trustworthy servants, Leontes is quick to anger as he requests that Hermione be imprisoned; this scene is similar to King Lear’s rashness when exiling Cordelia against the wise advice of Kent, his loyal sidekick. Emotion and injured pride reign over better judgment and common sense. Echoing the tragic ending of King Lear, the resolution of Acts 1 and 2 end in the sudden, unexplained deaths of Hermione, their son Mamillius, and Antigonus. Aside from the very fitting roles and characteristics shared between Leontes from The Winter’s Tale and Lear from King Lear, Leontes even resonates a Lear-like sentiment when he says:

Is whispering nothing?
Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses?
Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career
Of laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible
Of breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot?
Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift?
Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes
Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only,
That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing?
Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing;
The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing;
My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings,
If this be nothing.

This emphasis on the word “nothing” not only reminds the reader of Lear’s famous “nothing will come of nothing,” but also ironically foreshadows the fact that Leontes will be left with nothing as he loses his wife, his son, and his newborn daughter to his own pride. In addition, just as King Lear confuses the “nothingness” on Cordelia’s last dying breath for something, upon viewing a statue of Hermione, Leontes swears that: “Still, me thinks, / There is an air comes from her: what fine chisel / Could ever yet cut breath?” Even when there is truly nothing, Lear and Leontes mistakenly see something, a breath vanishing into thin air. The parallelism between King Lear and King Leontes in both their tendencies such as the quickness to judge and the theme of “nothing” invites questions regarding the relevancy of such a similarity.

Furthermore, the star-crossed love between King Leontes’ daughter Perdita and King Polixenes’ son Florizel is forbidden in that it is a love between a shepherd’s daughter and the Prince of Bohemia; dramatic irony unfolds so that the love between the heirs of Sicily and Bohemia seems to call back to the love between Romeo and Juliet. However, instead of the feuding families causing the death of two young lovers, Leontes and Polixenes are overjoyed that their children are wedding into royalty when Perdita’s true identity is revealed. Rather than splitting the two families further apart as Romeo and Juliet do to the Capulets and the Montagues, the bond between Florizel and Perdita serves to unite Leontes and Polixenes after their long separation and estrangement. Additionally, although Leontes’ son Mamillius remains the singular tragic death, the sole example of poetic injustice, both Hermione and Perdita return to Leontes’ life, reversing the sense of gloom that has befallen the first half of the play. Furthermore, Florizel and Perdita are scheduled to be married, adding a romantic aspect to the happy ending.

Written after both Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, The Winter’s Tale acts as a spin-off as it incorporates the star-crossed lovers and the ill-fated King whose jealousy causes the death of all his loved ones. However, in contrast to the ironic and tragic endings of Romeo and Juliet and King Lear, The Winter’s Tale is full of life and the promise of renewal through marriage at the end (including Hermione’s strange revival as a statue.) This conscious happy ending celebrates the triumph of romance and rebirth over unfortunate death.

Aside from the interesting plotline choices Shakespeare makes, the character of Autolycus deserves a second glance other than a background role. Unlike King Lear’s fool who speaks his truths in riddles, Autolycus is a knave, a liar, who impersonates a courtier in order to play a part in the Shepherd and Clown’s master plan. Autolycus is an ambiguous character who disappears and reappears randomly throughout the play, singing his songs and praising his own ability to pickpocket stealthily. However, when he intervenes in the Shepherd and Clown’s schemes, he declares:

“Let me have no / lying” and
Whether it like me or no, I am a courtier. Seest
thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?
hath not my gait in it the measure of the court?
receives not thy nose court-odor from me? reflect I
not on thy baseness court-contempt?”

Ironically, although he is dressed in Prince Florizel’s garments, his non-courtliness is detectable as he does not wear them as a gentleman would. The theme of class and breeding is also embodied by Perdita, a princess by blood who is raised by the Shepherd. She is continuously praised for a beauty and an air that seems greater than her upbringing, naturally attracting others to her. This mysterious dichotomy between blood privilege and upbringing is juxtaposed between Autolycus who fails to embody a courtier and Perdita who ultimately regains her right as an heir. This inevitable unveiling of her true birth serves as a social commentary on the inherent difference between someone born to the throne and someone born as a common villager.

The comparison between The Winter’s Tale and Shakespeare’s previous works as well as the ramifications of comparing Autolycus and Perdita provoke many questions regarding Shakespeare’s literary choices. What does this emphasis on revival mean? Why did Shakespeare choose to reverse the unfortunate tragedies that occur earlier in the play? Does this drastic mixture of tragedy and romance entice the audience? What were your thoughts on the play’s strange dichotomy between tragedy and happiness?