Shakespeare for the Social

Saturday was a day of Shakespeare for me. While sitting around with my roommates, we began discussing how many words and lines in the English language have come from Shakespeare. More on that later. Then I went to the Merchant of Venice with 2 old roommates and of the 2 of my friends from dinner last Sunday. I was unfortunately feeling ill and had to jet after the play and didn't have time to stick around for the post-play analysis. But such early jetting led to a facebook invite from one of my friends to come over and discuss Shakespeare later. Then that night, my attendance at the Merchant of Venice sparked a discussion of the play on my date, which was fortunate because I still wasn't feeling a whole lot better than I had been earlier that day and easy conversation was quite welcome. So, un-anticipated by me, Shakespeare is everywhere, and opportunities to discuss it are not only readily available, but lead to excellent and enjoyable conversation in a multitude of social situations. Who knew Shakespeare would be good for my social life?

Shakespeare's influence on the English language:

I noticed that the program for Merchant of Venice also contained some of this information, about how much of our language comes from Shakespeare, but the following quote my roommate found contains even more words than the program. It's fascinating how much of our vernacular we owe to Shakespeare, which is ironic since many people associate him with difficult to understand and archaic speech.

“If you cannot understand my argument, and declare ‘It’s Greek to me,’ you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger, if your wish is farther to the thought, if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise – why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare;… if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then –

to give the devil his due – if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head), you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or blinking idiot, then – by Jove! it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.”

– Bernard Levin in The History of English by McCrum, et al

Children's Theater: Merchant of Stratford?

Having procrastinated buying my tickets, I ended up sitting on the floor, which was kind of fun, minus the fact that I didn't get to sit with the company I had invited. Like several other people have mentioned, I loved the interaction with the kids. I thought the actors were clever in their interactions with them and getting them to appear to say things even when the kids were too shy to say them. The way they cast the characters also very much highlighted which characters were essential to the plot and which were not. I was surprised when Nerissa was chosen from the audience because she seemed to me that she had been quite essential to the plot, and I was curious how they would have the little girl do everything she did, but it made me realize that she really was not that essential to the plot--she was just a side kick for Portia. The casting of Antonio as Antonia also surprised me, and like Rebecca, I initially thought it was because they had more guys than girls. But the scene in court where Antonia is facing her last moments and Bassanio is comforting her is definitely different when Antonia is a girl, rather than a guy. In the play they had Bassanio comforting Antonia in a physical way, and I happened to be sitting right next to them both, and I could see this interaction very closely. I could also hear Bassanio whispering things to Antonia, which nobody else could hear, or likely was intended to hear--to the majority of the audience, all they could see was them in very close and intense whispered consultation. I was super curious to hear what the actors would actually be saying, when nobody was intended to hear, but it turns out it was right in character with the rest of it. He kept saying, "Look at me, don't worry" and comforting her with similar phrases, which struck me definitely more the way a man would comfort a woman. I thought this was a departure from the way Shakespeare had written it, but Rebecca thought maybe it really was that way--intended as a homosexual relationship. I'm not sure, but it's an interesting thought for sure. That's how the company we were watching seemed to interpret it. And it certainly makes Portia's outrage at the loss of the ring more understandable. I'd been thinking she was kind of a jerk for reacting so dramatically. But if he was giving it on Antonia's recommendation...that makes it more serious.

Shakespeare for the Seeker of Quotes

I am discovering that I am obsessed with quotes--I love knowing their source, their context, what the have come to mean. While reading these plays, the oft-quoted lines are the ones that jump out at me first, and I love trying to figure out why they have become famous, or why certain gems of wisdom that strike me are not famous. Since we have all just read the play (and because this is a post about Hamlet) the source and context will be familiar to all, so I will not rehearse them here. But the rest of this post will be my thoughts and the thoughts of others about lines that caught my attention, especially why they have or have not become oft-quoted.

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father;

But, you must know, your father lost a father;

That father lost, lost his; and the survivor bound,

In filial obligation, for some term

To do obsequious sorrow: but to persevere

In obstinate condolement is a course

Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;

It shows a will most incorrect to heaven;

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient;

An understanding simple and unschool'd;

Famous because it is so outrageous, and so condemning of its speaker. A reader definitely begins to sympathize with Hamlet and despise Claudius.

Frailty, thy name is woman!

Famous for its poetic value? Certainly not because of it's broad application.

Polonious' speach:

Neither a borrower nor a lender be...

to thine ownself be true...

Famous for the gems of wisdom it contains (ironic, considering the talk he gives his daughter just moments later, lacking any kind of good wisdom.)

I do not set my life at a pin's fee,

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

So this is one that is less famous--in googling the phrase I found other people have analyzed it and thought about it, but mostly they were just explaining what it meant--basically Hamlet is saying that he values his life as much as the cost of a pin, which is practically nothing, or in other words, that he doesn't value his life. The whole thing struck me as a poetic expression of bravery and a good lesson for all. Various sources I read pointed to it as revealing Hamlet's character--that he does not value his life (also citing his later contemplation of suicide), or that he is a very moral person who considers the value and immortality of his soul. How you interpret this quote depends on how you view Hamlet--is he a depressed, suicidal person, or a morally bound God-fearing noble person, trying to do what is right? This passage makes me think of Acts 20:24, " neither count I my blife dear unto myself", and I tend to think Hamlet more the latter, not that he doesn't value his life, but that he understands eternity and that this life is short and the events thereof less important by comparison.

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Now, compared to the profound lines I just analyzed, such a quaint phrase seems trivial by comparison. Why on earth is this one famous? It has come to be used all over to indicate that something is wrong, particularly referring to corruption at an upper level, but why such a phrase has found such common use in our vernacular is beyond me. Spark notes and a couple other sources I looked at explains it in the following way,

"This line is spoken by Marcellus in Act I, scene iv (67), as he and Horatio debate whether or not to follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night. The line refers both to the idea that the ghost is an ominous omen for Denmark and to the larger theme of the connection between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the state as a whole. The ghost is a visible symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime."

but this still does not satisfy me.

Brevity is the soul of wit

I had no idea this phrase, which has become a proverb, originated from Shakespeare. What a gift to the English language! I think the explanation for its fame is self-evident.

Words, words, words

Enough said.

That's as far as I have time for right now. The following are the other quotes I picked out while reading that stood out to me...perhaps in a subsequent blog post I will finish analyzing them. But the fact that so many famous quotes have come out of one play really says a lot for Hamlet, and the universality of Shakespeare...

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite in

faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in

action how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the

beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what

is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me; no, nor woman

neither,

To be or not to be...

Get thee to a nunnery!

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

The lady protests too much, methinks.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio;

Shakespeare for the Slave

Despite the fact that I think Antonio made a foolish loan that ended unfortunately for him because of unfortunate and unforeseen events, I cannot condone his apparent discrimination against Shylock. I do not see Shylock as a saint either, but I have to disagree with Antonio's treatment and attitude towards him. In an eloquent stand against discrimination, Shylock makes a very good point:

I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that.

That may have been his only good argument in the entire play--not a page later he's lamenting the loss of his daughter, not because she turned away from the faith or left him, but because she stole his money! He even wishes her dead! That was sickening. But however lousy of a father he is, he still was human and the passage he quotes makes me think of the slave trade (world wide, but my experience is with the history in the US), the Holocaust, child and elder abuse, the civil rights movement (again, world wide, but my experience is with our US history), Roman persecution of Christians, Christian persecution of Jews, Native Americans, and other groups, and countless other cases of discrimination and abuse throughout history and around the world rationalized because a group of people are somehow "different". I thought it ironic how, after this noble speech against discrimination and plea to treat all humans humanely, when Antonio is at his mercy and all around him are begging him for mercy, he sites the standard treatment of slaves as rational for why he should be able to do to Antonio whatever he pleased, because he "owned" him.

You have among you many a purchas'd slave,
Which, fike your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,
Because you bought them; shall I say to you
'Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their

palates
Be season'd with such viands? You will answer
'The slaves are ours.' So do I answer you:
The pound of flesh which I demand of him
Is dearly bought; 'tis mine, and I will have it.

By using such treatment of slaves as justification for his own plans for Antonio, he is in essence condoning such a practice, which stands in sharp contrast to his plea for civility in the earlier quote. Perhaps he wasn't asking for civility outright--he was simply explaining why he felt the way he did, saying that he felt and reacted the same as anyone. But to me an underlying message of humane and civil treatment for all runs through that passage. It doesn't matter what people look like or where they are from or what they believe or from what socio-economic background they hie, all men are, as Jefferson said, created equal. But as some of those examples I cited earlier point out, though that phrase was a part of the Declaration of Independence, complete implementation of it did not come until much later in the history of the United States for non-land holders, blacks, and women. Perhaps it takes some time for that self-evident truth to go from being a sentiment with value which people recognize to being reflected in their actions and attitudes and practice. Thomas Jefferson himself was a slave holder, I believe, and Shylock himself felt he was justified in doing whatever he wanted to Antonio because he owned him. In Shakespeare's day it sounds like slavery was a generally accepted practice. Certainly there were huge distinctions of class. Their entire society, and many of his plays were based off of such a culture. It is interesting that people could recognize the truth of such an idea, that all men are created equal, but because of cultural norms be so blinded to blatant violations of it in their own lives. Are there similar violations in our own culture to which we are blind? And if we so blinded, are we not then slaves ourselves to that cultural norm?

Shakespeare for the Soaked

It was an oddly warm 45 degrees Saturday morning when I left for my run, but except for the lack of snow which meant a lack of skiing, I didn't see any need to complain. I also didn't see the need to put on anything warm. By the time I got half way to the mouth of Provo Canyon, it was starting to drizzle a bit, but I love running in the rain so that was an added bonus. "What a glorious run!" I was thinking. "I pity every person who is inside!" The further I ran, the harder it rained, but my spirits were still high. The challenge against the elements united me to to the few fellow runners I saw along the Provo River trail. When one runner saw me wiping rain water out of my eyes so I could see, he said, "It's wet, hugh?" I felt like Henry V in his St. Crispain's day speech, lucky to be among one of the brave runners out that day, enjoying a crisp run..."We few, we happy few..." I reached my turn around point up the canyon and headed back, still thrilled to be out running and excited by the challenge of the elements. However, as the rain kept coming, and I kept getting wetter and wetter and colder and colder. Eventually, I started to feel less the valiant warrior, and more of a need to "Stiffen the sinews and summon up the blood." I was getting to the point of my run where you just grit your teeth and tell yourself you're not going to stop until you get home. I was getting to the point where the battle starts to get mental. But I just kept going. The more I stiffened my sinews the more I began to feel trapped, like Antonio in The Merchant of Venice. Like Antonio, a small gamble and a misjudgment of the circumstances had placed me in an uncomfortable position. I thought embarking on such a run with the clothing I had would be sufficient. The unforeseen storm put a literal damper on my run, similar to how the unforeseen the mishap with his ships put unexpected pressure on and almost cost the life of Antonio. We neither of us an obviously stupid move--Antonio was sure his ships would come back, and I was sure I would be clothed sufficiently. We both made what we assumed was a reasonable gamble, but because of an unexpected change in circumstance (him loosing his ships, me getting caught in a suddenly cold rain storm), we got stuck in rather uncomfortable positions. He was luckily saved from his oversight by friends. What happened to me? Well, the consequences of my poor decision were not as drastic as Antonio's--my life was not on the line. I couldn't stop running because then I really would have gotten cold, so I just gutted through it--by the time I had a mile left, I was miserable, but I knew I could make it through anything for a mile. When I staggered into my apartment, soaked through and exhausted, my motherly roommate exclaimed, "There you are! I've been worried about you!" Not taking my phone, water, or food, like I normally do on a run that long may have been another oversight that contributed to my misery, in addition to my freezing hands. After a painful shower while my hands un-thawed, I was back to normal and ready for the next adventure, none the worse for the wear.

Shakespeare for the Sabbath-Observer

Yesterday, which conveniently happened to be Sunday and thus lent itself so nicely to my alliterative title, in true Sabbath style my apartment invited some people over for dinner. Dr. Burton mentioned that it would be easy to find Shakespeare everywhere, and I've been surprised at how true that has been. This episode of sharing Shakespeare meaningfully just fell into my lap with no effort (besides making dinner). Upon mentioning that I was taking a Shakespeare class, I found that the uncle of 3 of our guests taught Shakespeare and that they themselves had taken Shakespeare at BYU, which led to a discussion of said topic, which eventually turned more into a discussion of digital learning when we started talking about the pros and cons of using blogging as a educational tool. I also found out that one of my friends, whose high recommendation for the class led me to consider taking it in the first place, is planning to go see the Merchant of Venice on Saturday, and so we decided to go together.

Shakespeare for the Stately

Shakespeare for the Stately

After reading and discussing Henry V last week in class, I was thinking quite a bit about leadership and royalty. Whether you agree with Henry's actions and motivations or not, you can't argue with the fact that he was a royal, dignified, distinguished, aristocratic, noble figure. It was mentioned that in a book about leadership, Henry V was used as an example and I completely understand why. When I was watching and reading the play, his leadership was exactly what I was thinking about. I left thinking about what gives some people the ability to be natural leaders, and hold themselves in a particular way, and if it's something that's learned and practiced or natural and inherited, or some combination. I started talking to my roommate (sharing Shakespeare meaningfully) about it, and explained to her the premise of the play and why I was so impressed with Henry V, and we began talking about leadership and the manner in which one holds themselves. The conclusion we came to is that all of us have the potential to be stately. I think it primarily stems from what we think of ourselves (Johnny Lingo). And considering that we each hark from a divine heritage, every single person in the world has the potential to become just as stately as Henry V. Some people recognize that potential a little earlier than other people. Perhaps they are the ones who go on to be natural leaders. So for them, particularly for BYU students, who tend to go on to positions of leadership in the world, learning principles of leadership is especially important for their ability to make a positive difference in the world.

Shakespeare for the Statuesque

Whoa what a play! I loved Henry, and his depth of character. What a king!

Thoughts about the film

So I read half the play, then started watching the film adaptation, then read the rest of the play and watched the film at the same time, act by act. I had a few thoughts about the film...

Advantages: actors not pausing at the end of a line makes it easier to understand; humor, drama highlighted when actors laugh, react accordingly; flashbacks show how Henry's past interaction with Bardoff and the other gentleman who died, which gives greater depth of emotion

Disadvantages: the film omits some of the details--the forgiveness of the traitors, the invitation for the ambassadors from France to be Frank because they are with a Christian King--some of my favorite parts from the play that speak for the character of Henry.

Favorite Quotes

-Both Henry's speeches: "We few. We happy few..."

-When Henry hung Bardoff even though it was hard for him because he didn't want people to take advantage of the people. A moral dilemma we face--I faced such a dilemma in one of my classes just last semester--a classmate asked me to cover up for them. I could relate with Henry.

-"We are in God's hand brother. Not in theirs."

-When Henry speaks of the burden of a king it reminds me of King Mosiah from the Book of Mormon when he talks about the burden which a righteous king faces.

Shakespeare for the Stoic

So, I'm in the midst of reading Henry V...I was going to wait til I was done by I was so struck by the betrayal scene from Act 2 Scene 2 that I could not wait. I guess that's what makes great literature timeless is that it appeals to human sympathies with situations and feelings with which all people can relate. I read about poor Henry, listening to his supposed friends sucking up to him, knowing all the time that they are betraying him. What a horrid thing! They argue that the subject who committed a minor crime against the king ought to be severely punished, pretending like they have some great loyalty to the crown when in reality they are plotting a far worse crime against him. How sickening! After an impassioned speech mourning their betrayal, he finds it within himself to forgive them, "touching our person we seek no revenge" but nevertheless for the safety of England feels he must still condemn them to death, which he stoically does. His calm demeanor in the face of what must be a wrenching situation is inspiring to me, and speaks for his ability as a king.

Shakespeare for the Smitten

What is Romance?

I really enjoyed the discussion we had in class on Wednesday about romance. The discussion about "love at first sight" particularly caused me to think. We were discussing how romance, in reference to a literature genre, particularly Shakespeare's plays, means something one fantasizes about, rather than romance in terms of romantic love. We talked about how anything exotic or with which we don't have a lot of experience or understanding can seem magical, and we tend to idealize, or romanticize, about those places or things. We talked about how books seem magical, and the dealings and language of any discipline which we do not understand can seem magical. In light of The Tempest, the characters with limited understanding of the island romanticize about it; Gonzalo dreams of a utopia, Stephano assumes it is exotic, and they begin to feel that almost anything is possible on the island. But hang with me--I have a point in recapping this discussion--its not just to give background to anyone who may not have been present in class. The discussion then turned to Miranda and Ferdinand, and how they romanticize each other, which lead to a discussion of love at first sight. This seems like the ultimate expression of romanticizing--off of very limited information, concocting an entire image of someone. Surely this is how the two terms were originally linked.

Romanticizing...

That got me thinking. Really, every perception that we have of people is only that--a perception. When we first meet someone, we immediately create an image of them in our minds. Hopefully its not a judgmental

or harsh image, but based off

of many different things, we form

some idea of what that person is like. The more we interact with them, the more refined our image becomes. Every additional data point we gather from interaction provides some feedback about the image we have of them. Some of those data points may fit with the image we have created. When they do, our image of them is reinforced. When the data points do not fit, we either ignore them (consider those data outliers) and gloss over them and stick with our original image of the person, or we change the image. I made a handy flowchart for your visual enjoyment (and as an attempt to use my engineering tools to analyze Shakespeare creatively). The more interactions we have with someone (if we allow the image to change with additional data) the more accurate our image of them becomes. That's called getting to know someone. But all we ever really have of someone is an image.

We like to think that people who hardly ever have data points that don't match our image we know very well, but all we really know is an image, and we believe that image matches reality. In romantic love, it works exactly the same. When you like someone, you romanticize or imagine an image of this person that is appealing to you. When you like someone, what you really like is the image you have of them. When you date, you are gathering data points. If you are infatuated with someone, you may ignore data points that don't match the image you have. "Love at first sight" is falling in love with the immediately concocted image of the person, because you can't possibly have enough data points to construct a realistic image of the person. Maybe that immediately concocted image is exactly right on, but most likely it's not. As you get to know them, you can either fall in love with your new image of them or fall out of love. But in any case, whether your feelings are for a person whom you just met or are for someone you feel that you know quite well, your feelings are really for an image that you have romanticized. That is what happened to Miranda and Ferdinand. This is a universal phenomenon to which all people can relate, which is why there are countless books and movies written exploring this very theme. Shakespeare, in the context of exploring all types of romanticizing in his romantic play The Tempest explores this very type of romanticizing in the relationship between this couple.

Shakespeare for the Sick

Perhaps this is more detail than anyone cares to know about, but I got sick last week and have very unfortunately not been able to go running in over a week. :( So much for that part of my self-directed learning. But laying sick in bed afforded me similar opportunities for contemplation, so I guess it all worked out. I read The Tempest while I was sick, which was nice because then I was able to still be productive. I really enjoyed the play--I thought it was an entertaining play with an unusual (for Shakespeare) theme forgiveness and a happy ending. Maybe I'm just not well-read enough, but I think of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet when I think of Shakespeare, and both of those are completely lacking in the departments of both forgiveness and happy endings. The thing that stood out to me the most from the play were the oft quoted lines that I didn't even realize were from Shakespeare until reading. I mentioned that I took the class to become more culturally aware--knowing from where and in what context oft-quoted lines originate is just exactly what I mean by that. So whenever I was reading and came across a line I recognized, I stopped, googled it, and saw what people had to say about it. I only came up with three (probably indication of my cultural ignorance) but that's why I'm taking this class. Here they are, along with my thoughts and the thoughts of some other folk.

"misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows"

Being miserable and in bed while reading this line, it kind of caught my eye. So what does it mean? Well, in context the impending storm causes Trinculo to seek shelter under Caliban's cloak. Trinculo, being miserable because of the storm, or desperate for shelter, is willing to do something he would not tend do under normal circumstances, share a cloak with this "monster" or strange bedfellow. At the moment I read that, I certainly could relate. I was miserable because I was sick. Because I was sick, I had decided to stay home from school and work, something I hardly ever do. I hate wasting time and have to be always doing something or working on something or engaged in some kind of activity. During the week, I normally leave either before 8 in the morning, and don't come home again until 7 or 8 or 10 or 12, depending on the week. Being sick dictated other circumstances, and I spent an entire day in my apartment sleeping, eating, and doing things other than homework and work--all strange (or unusual) companions (or bedfellows) for me. What did other people think it meant? Or what has this phrase come to mean? One lad said "misery loves company". Eh, I guess you could say that--when you're miserable, you seek the company or commiseration of other people who are also miserable. Another said that it means your attitude attracts people with similar attitudes--if you're miserable, you will attract other people with dark attitudes. Enotes.com says strange bedfellows has come to mean unexpected partners. Dictionary.com says strange bedfellows means “unlikely companions or allies; often used in the phrase ‘politics makes strangebedfellows.’”

"we are such stuff as dreams are made on"

This struck me as more the existential depressing kind of stuff of which great literature is full--it reminded me of Jacob's "and and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream". I thought it was saying that our lives just kind of float along without direction. I've never really known what Jacob meant by his phrase, but it is plenty poetic. One reader interpreted it similarly,

"Prospero is making an analogy between the spirits, who seem like illusions, to life itself. The spirits can produce marvelous visions, but when they are done there is nothing left, and not even any sign that they ever were. Rather like a dream... something which can be fanciful or terrifying, but then you wake and it is gone. Prospero is suggesting that human lives are no different; a sentiment echoed by Hamlet in another work of Shakespeare's. The suggestion is the people live their lives and then are gone, leaving no appreciable mark and eventually not even a memory of their existance. And arguably this may be so - even if we do remember a few figures in history, there are billions more who get no mention; it's even likely that many of the ones we think we remember have little resemblance to the actual figure.”

Deeper thinkers read more into it--cliffnotes.com said,

“This is a reminder that the masque, with all its heavenly creatures, is not real. Like the masque, life, too, will come to its inevitable end. Prospero reminds Ferdinand that each man's life is framed by dreams. The evidence of that life, with its earthly possessions, is only temporary. Again, this points to the role of the young couple as redeemers for their father's sins. Alonso, and through him, Antonio and Sebastian, have placed too much emphasis on worldly possessions and titles. Even Prospero, with his focus on books, has forgotten that they are also only temporary vestiges in this life. This reminder that corporeal riches are only temporary also seems to be directed toward Stefano and Trinculo.”

I liked this interpretation best--not that our lives don't matter, or that they wander aimlessly, but that there is more to this life than the present state we can see. Ebook.com had a similar interpretation, and pointed out that Humphrey Bogart's famous last line in the 1941 film The Maltese Falcon was a misquote of this line; it reads, "The stuff that dreams are made of," rather than on.

"brave new world"

I was excited to find the source of this famous quote--little Miranda says this upon interacting for the first time in years with humans other than her father and Caliban--for her, humanity is a new world. I enjoyed the hopeful attitude it reflects about mankind: "O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, That has such people in it!" This line has come to be used in any context when we are entering previously unknown waters, such as in using new technology to teach an interactive class in two locations. The most famous use of this line is as the title of Aldous Huxley's book. Upon further reflection I thought that was kind of ironic since that book is all about mankind's depravity. Then after reading a Wikipedia article, I realized this is probably supposed to be an ironic line since Miranda's exposure to mankind is drunken sailors.

Shakespeare for the Sweaty

• I'm not exactly sure what this learning plan is supposed to look like, but here are my rough thoughts for things I might do to learn Shakespeare this semester.
• Thinking while running is one of my favorite things to do; in fact its why I like to run in the first place--I never ran in high school, and I'm not a fast or dedicated runner by any means. But when I run it allows me to get away from whatever task or chore or assignment or problem has been consuming my thoughts and focus on something else. I like to analyze every aspect of my life while running, everything from relationships to the Sunday school lesson I'm preparing to a tricky school assignment to what I'm going to eat for dinner. My best planning and scheming takes place while I run, which is at least partially due to the fact that I have time to think and ponder while running while the rest of my day is spent frantically rushing from one activity to another. I also wonder if it may be because there is extra blood flowing to my brain. I feel like I retain things I think about while running better, and whether that's true or not, I like to memorize things while running. So in thinking about how I wanted to learn about Shakespeare, doing it while running seemed like a perfect medium. Running affords opportunities to discuss, analyze, and memorize, all of which seem like appropriate activities for Shakespeare.
• 1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
  -read lots of Shakespeare’s works

  -study in depth "Much Ado about Nothing"

  -watch "Much Ado about Nothing"

  -look for and blog about references to Shakespeare in daily life

  -listen to Shakespeare while running?
• 2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically

  -Blog about what I learn about Shakespeare from class, from online reading, and from talking with other people.

  -Analyze Shakespeare while running

  
  
  3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively
  -memorize Shakespeare while running
  -do some presentation about Shakespeare and running?
  -blog about running and Shakespeare
• 4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully

  -Share Shakespeare with running partners

  
  

  5. Gain Digital Literacy

  -Research Shakespeare and running

  -Create and maintain my blog

  -Comment on other people's blogs

  
  
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Shakespeare for the Scared

"There are way too many girls in this class." Such was the thought that caused me to double check my schedule last winter semester to discover that I had in fact walked into the wrong class room for my Statistics for Scientists and Engineers class. A similar thought walking into my Shakespeare class did not yield the same results. As a senior in my final semester of mechanical engineering, it had been years since I'd been in a class with such a high girl to guy ratio. But I needed one more GE class to graduate, and a desire to be more culturally well-rounded led me to sign up for a Shakespeare class. As an engineering major, my college experience has been completely devoid of classes even remotely similar to this one. In fact, I rarely have classes that take me beyond the Clyde-Crabtree-Fletcher cluster. A class in the JFSB is a long way from home. I hark back to my AP Lang class in high school, where our teacher, an avid Shakespeare fan, had us memorize a sonnet and watch some adaptation of Hamlet after reading the play, searching for something familiar. Yep, that's about the extent of it. Wait, maybe we had a Shakespeare unit in my History of Creativity class? Okay, add that to the short list. As I venture into this brave new world of the arts, this blog is to record my thoughts and experience with learning Shakespeare this semester.