Shakespeare for the Saintly Sister

So I mentioned a while ago that I really wanted to do a parody of the St. Crispin's Day Speech Relief Society style, so I decided to work on it this week. In light of how we are developing material for our final project, I think this is quite appropriate--though we likely will not use this exact speech, I think a pump up speech of sorts is a must for whatever play we end up doing, and analyzing this one for themes and applying them to Relief Society in preparation for that seems like a productive exercise. I'm going to draw off some of the themes Austen talked about in his analysis of pump up speeches. I’ve also tried to maintain the iambic pentameter, but I’m really new to such a thing so it’s kind of rough. Assistance would be appreciated, if there are any experts in the realm, at least to point out where it’s lacking that special speech rhythm.

FIRST COUNSELOR

O that we now had here
But one ten tenth of those sisters in Utah,
That make no visits to-day!

RELIEF SOCIETY PRESIDENT

What's she that wishes so?
If we are mark'd to fail, we are enow
To do the kingdom loss; and if to serve,
The fewer serve, the greater share of blessings.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one sister more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if Facebook posts are made;
Such earthly things dwell not in my desires:
But if it be a sin to covet blessings,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, wish not a sister from Utah:
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one sister more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it to'th Society,
That she which hath no spirit for service,
Let her depart; her route shall not be made
She can Facebook posts put on her wall:
We would not serve in that girl's company
That fears her fellowship to serve with us.
This time is called the time of Sisterhood:
She that serves well this day, and reports back,
Will stand a tip-toe when report is made,
And rouse her at the name of Sisterhood.
She that visits this month, and then the next,
Will oft think on her visits to sisters,
And say ‘I loved those girls so very much!'
Then will she think of friendships dear to her.
And say 'These bonds were formed from visits made.'
Humans forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But she'll remember with fond gratitude
What love she showed that day: then shall the names.
Familiar in her mouth as household words
Sister of the Green Jell-O, the Quilter,
Maker of the Great Funeral Potatoe,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember'd.
This story shall the mother teach her dau’ter;
And vis’ting month shall never yet go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But visits to all shall be remember-ed;
We few, we happy few, we band of sisters;
For she to-day that lives this life with me
Shall be my sister; be she e'er so lost,
This day shall gentle her confusion:
And sisters back in Utah at the mall
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their friendship cheap whiles any speaks
That served with us in Sisterhood.

This is still in rough draft form (that’s appropriate for a blog, right?)—I welcome any comments or suggestions for improvement.

Shakespeare for the Source Seeker

In preparation for our "lost play" project, I did a little bit of background research about the origin of Shakespeare's plays. As Professor Burton taught us in class, most of his plays are based off of something; the histories, quite obviously, are based off of real events, at least to some degree. Where do the rest of them come from? Well, I read a lot of people's opinions, including Wikipedia, all of whom had some different ideas, but I thought going old school Encyclopedia style might be a good idea, and I found a super interesting article in the Encyclopedia Britannica (that was my favorite in high school because our library's copy was brown and looked really old and legit--full of much wisdom) here. But I'll spare you the trouble of reading it unless you're interested by summarizing some of the main points that I thought would be pertinent for our final project.

• Sources of Plots:
• --old stories (Hamlet and Pericles)
• --relatively recent Italian writers (Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado about Nothing, Othello)
• --popular prose fiction(As you Like It, The Winter's Tale)

• Even historical plays needed some source to tell him the history:
• --for Roman historical plays, Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans
• --For the English historical plays, chronicles of Edward Hall and Holinshed for the plays based upon English history.
• Some of the historical plays had been done before by other people, like King Lear and Henry V.
• Many of his plays have been lost (as mentioned in class)Shakespeare was a genius and likely had access to lots of books. He was obviously well read and used bits and pieces of lots of works, and made reference to lots in his works (like the Illiad, Montaigne, and many others contemporary and more ancient), including the Bible. (So the whole Job thing from Andrew's post would work)
• Even though he got the basic plot or idea from these many sources, he took plenty of literary licence and got rid of things that weren't dramatic enough and developed characters from "brief suggestions" from his source invented totally new characters to support the story as needed. He totally rearranged the plot for "more-effective contrasts of character, climaxes, and conclusions".

So the moral of the story is, we have good basis for doing a lost play, and having some little known fable from Africa or Greek myth or anything serve as the foundation for the plot is totally believable and in line with where Shakespeare actually got his material. We've just got to make it dramatic, and there's no problem with taking all the literary licence we need. Also, as an interesting side note and further support for the legitimacy of what we're doing, when I googled lost play, the majority of the things that popped up were about a lost Shakespeare play. If google thinks it's plausible, it really must be.

Shakespeare for the Scorched

"Woah, hang on, it's only 2100 degrees; that's not hot enough!" For my senior design class, my team was given the project to design a piece of hardware for Rio Tinto's copper refinery: a sacrificial enclosure to go inside a molten metal bath and keep the electronics it protects cool enough to survive. After working on this all year, we finally were ready to test our design in the heat treating ovens here at BYU. We got a steel enclosure and placed the insulating material we've been working to develop inside, and stuck it inside. The video below is me putting the enclosure in an oven very appropriately named Lucifer. (This has a tie to Shakespeare; just hang with me.)

The furnace has to get up to about 2200 degrees F inside; as a point of reference, a flame burns about 1800 degrees F. Without gloves and protective gear, I couldn't even get close to such heat. Even my gloves, just from being close start to smoke, and if they are close long enough burst into flame. Even something that you think of as being indestructible like steel can't take the heat forever; when the steel enclosure started out, it was a bright and shiny steel. After just a couple hours in the furnace, it was black and beat up. Every time we put it in, more of the metal oxidizes and more of it oxidizes and cracks and peels off. The picture shown is a pile of steel

shavings that came off after one of our tests. Although there are certainly metals that can withstand such temperatures, the analogy still was impressive to me. There are things in life that take their toll on human souls and no matter how toughened and hardened a soul might be, it cannot withstand forever the heat. This is a theme Shakespeare treats often in his plays, and one which I think would be very appropriate to include in our own version of Shakespeare. Lady Macbeth really is the inspiration for this analogy--even she, a tough and hardened character ("unsex me now") that wishes to be impervious to the weaknesses of a conscience can't stand forever the memory of the black deeds which she has committed and to which she contributed. Like the steel, though initially she appears untouched by her conscience, and curses her husband and his, eventually starts to crack under the pressure. She begins walking in her sleep, confessing her terrible deeds. She rubs her hands together trying to cleanse them. Macbeth calls a doctor and asks,

“Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff’d bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?”

Isn't there something you can do to cure her of her guilt? The doctor's response?

"Therein the patient must minister to himself."

There's nothing any outside person can do about such guilt. The damage is irreversible unless repair is initiated by the guilty party. Unfortunately for steel, that pretty much seals the deal. For Lady Macbeth it apparently does too: she breaks completely and goes crazy and dies. Her guilt and suffering are a huge theme in Macbeth, and one Shakespeare treats so well it has drawn countless references over the years. (One of my favorites is a gospel classic from Elder Holland.) Anyway, thinking about themes from Shakespeare made me think of these themes of guilt and suffering, and how damaging they are to the human soul to the extent that they frequently lead to the end of the afflicted party's life. They are so well addressed in the tragedies. If we do end up doing a tragedy of some sort for our final project, this is a theme that must be included.

Shakespeare for the Singer

My roommate was in BYU Concert Choir a while back and they sang this song...What the random? First off, this is a weird passage from Macbeth--it's the witches doing their weird witch stuff. On the Librivox audio, it sounded creepy. So why anyone would think to put it to music beats me. But it's a cool sounding song, so in the name of multidisciplinary goodness I'm posting it.

Well, I can't figure out how to post their version, but here is the University of Utah choir singing the same song...they did it almost as well....just kidding.

And, speaking of awesome cultural references, JK Rawling totally got inspiration from Shakespeare on this one...check it out!

Shakespeare for the Sincere

"She is herself a dowry," says the French prince in response to the information that Cordelia would have no dowry. I would be hard pressed to find a more sincere expression of love in all of Shakespeare's works. Every husband and potential suitor ought to feel that way about the woman he loves. Contrast that with the countless other expressions of love in this play, many of which demonstrate a lack of sincerity, honesty, and integrity which is absolutely nauseating and heart wrenching. The play opens with declarations as nauseatingly sweet as they were blatantly false from Regan and Goneril. The king completely buys their falsity while casting out and disowning his sincere daughter who refuses to suck up. (I suppose it is fitting that the sincere Cordelia should receive such a sincere compliment from her lover. As we are so often told these days, light attracts light.) Before the scene even ends the 2 deceitful daughters are already plotting against their father. Of course there is the backwards relationship of Gloucester and his sons; again, the loyal and sincere son Edgar being ousted in favor of the deceitful and malicious son Edmond.

The French Prince's expression of love reflects more than just love but an understanding of the worth of man (or woman in this case). Such a theme is also addressed in this play, with Lear's question, "Is man no more than this?" (Act 3 scene 4) provoking further discussion of this issue. Present in the statement from the French prince is an acknowledgment of the inherent worth which Cordelia has, even without a dowry of money. Lear's question, posed after seeing poor Tom, who is devoid of all man made trimmings, implies the worthlessness of man. "Consider him well," says Lear. He points out that without the coverings that come from other animals and plants, Poor Tom demonstrates the essence of man. "Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art." A poor, bare, forked animal? That sentiment is a far cry from the French Prince's sentiment. The contrast reminds me of one of the best talks of all time, "You Matter to Him" by President Uchtdorf. He explores the
contrasting descriptions of the worth of man of man "The worth of souls is great in the sight of God" and "Man is nothing" with the statements "We are greater than you suppose" and "We are less than we suppose." I highly recommend the talk, and will refrain from saying anything else on the subject because President Uchtdorf says it better; but it sufficeth me to say that Shakespeare yet again hit upon one of the great questions of the soul, and yet again God's servants addressed that question perfectly with the light of the Revealed Gospel.

Shakespeare for the Silly

Project Proposal/Ideas:

So I really really liked the kid history idea we had in our class. I also liked the idea of mixing and mashing Shakespeare plays--characters, themes, etc.--what if we combined the 2? Kids are super good at confusing and mixing things up, and humorous when telling their version of stories. What if we got a bunch of kids and then asked them to tell us about Shakespeare plays, or showed them some Wishbone episodes or told them stories (like Katie did babysitting) and then asked them to recount them back to us? Then we could use that as our script and act it out. To test out how this might work, I called my 10 year old sister and 13 year old sister and asked them each to tell me what they knew about Shakespeare. It was great! I only talked to them for a couple minutes but I was first off impressed by how much they knew, and second off interested in what parts stuck in their memories, and third off thoroughly entertained by their versions. I think my favorite was when I asked my 10 year old sister which Shakespeare plays she knew and she said Romeo and Juliet and Hamelton. Then she gave me great renditions that captured the essential elements of the plot. So I think it would work. And I think it would be hilarious. And not only that, but I also think it would be instructive. For me, taking this class was in large measure motivated by a desire to understand Shakespeare from a cultural standpoint--to understand when people are quoting/referencing/alluding to Shakespeare and what they imply by doing so, to be able to make reference to various plays myself, and to be aware what people are thinking about when they mention different plays. Seeing Shakespeare through the eyes of a child, whose understanding of Shakespeare has been taught wholly by society, would be super interesting. It would certainly fall into the category of gaining Shakespeare literacy--we would have to pick out (or have picked out by them) the essential elements of one or many plays. It would definitely be a creative engagement. It would be an awesome way to share Shakespeare meaningfully--most of the kid history videos have over a million views, and this is something I think people would love to watch. We could post the video on our blogs, on youtube, and facebook. I would be proud to display such a thing on my facebook wall. :) Creating the videos and sharing them would require digital literacy. I'm not sure how well it would fit with critically analyzing Shakespeare, but we could look at the "essential elements" or the parts that society picks out to focus on from the plays and analyze why they have become famous and how they have become a part of our collective cultural background. I'm sure there are other things as well. I think it would be awesome and I'd love to be a part of a project like this.

PS In case you have not had the blessed privelege of watching kid history, here is some of kid history. Watch it for your cultural and social education.

Shakespeare for the Shopper

So I finally tried Librivox. I wanted to try listening to some Shakespeare while I ran, so for my long run on Saturday morning, I loaded up my brand new phone with Macbeth and took off. But for some reason, it just didn't work for me. Maybe it's cause I'm not used to listening to anything while I run, but Shakespeare distracted from my run, and my run distracted from Shakespeare so it didn't last very long. But after I got back home, I tried listening while I did some other random chores: cleaning, doing dishes, laundry, and even when I went grocery shopping. This worked great and added an interesting variety to my Saturday. I have to admit, it was kind of depressing, listening to Macbeth all day because it's such a depressing play. But now I have a tempo-spatial link forever in my mind with some scenes from Macbeth, based upon the places I was when I was listening to them. For example, Lady Macbeth's unsex me speech will now forever in my mind be linked with pulling into the Smith's parking lot. Whenever I re-read the scene when Macbeth is informed he is the new thane, I'll think of the bridge on the Provo River trail under 800 E in Orem. When Macbeth visits the witches to ask for additional foresight, I will always remember folding my laundry...maybe slightly disturbing, but there you go.

As for what I thought of Librivox? For being free, it's really not bad, at least Macbeth was pretty palatable. There was huge variety in the actors; some were great...some were horrible. Lennox had a weird accent that kind of distracted. Lady Macbeth was so good it scared me to listen to her. I was seriously disturbed while parking at Smiths, and thoroughly disgusted. One of the witches was so flat and dry I almost think she had to be doing it on purpose. But the variety in their voices was fun. Even with the bad actors, having a different voice with the different characters helped give life to the play. After all, Shakespeare was written to be performed, not read.

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.