Shakespeare for the Satisfied

The title of my blog came one night when I was in the attitude of alliteration, seeking some sort of theme that would be catchy and memorable for my blog. I am a very happy person with happy life circumstances--family, friends, major, and job which I adore, and plenty of faith and hope for the future. I was a supremely satisfied person, and thought that would be a good descriptor and introduction to me and my life. As I am now reviewing my blog and this semester worth of Shakespeare learning, I am finding I am still supremely satisfied with my life, and I am also satisfied with my blog and my Shakespeare learning experience. I managed to keep the alliterative theme throughout the entire semester, and though sometimes it was a stretch, the title of each blog always made sense to me. The purpose of this specific blog post is to review in further detail the learning outcomes of my Shakespeare class and why exactly I am satisfied that I have met them.

1.) How have I gained Shakespeare literacy?

I have read many different Shakespeare plays--all the ones assigned for our class, plus my individually assigned play, which was Macbeth. I could have done without that one, by the way. I was also exposed to the general plot and theme of several more Shakespeare plays by reading the blogs and listening to the discussions of class members regarding their individually assigned plays. I've experienced Shakespeare in 2 live performances, as well as a good mix of audio book recordings, from the occasionally extremely dry Librivox to the professionally done BYU audio recordings, as well as couple of screen recordings as well. I still have to say that Henry V was my favorite out of all of them. I probably did more in-depth analysis of that play, but I also spent plenty of time on Macbeth as well. From seeking information about how to try and make our lost plays look legit, I've gained appreciation for the legacy of Shakespeare as well--how the plays have come to us now, what types of analysis and engagement of the plays have occurred in the past, and are occurring now. Also, just for fun, I analyzed and performed a Shakespearean sonnet for my public speaking class, Sonnet XXIX, When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men's eyes, since I knew we wouldn't have time to study Shakespeare sonnets in our class. I never did blog about that experience, but it was a fun one that contributed to my Shakespeare literacy. I've still got it memorized and sometimes quote it to myself when I'm driving alone in the car.  

2.) How have I analyzed Shakespeare critically?
One of my favorite ways to analyze Shakespeare was to pick out famous quotes from the plays we read and analyze them. One of my main motivations for taking this class was to be better able to recognize and understand Shakespeare references, which the vast majority of the time come as quotations of famous lines or speeches from Shakespeare. Several blog posts do nothing but analyze several Shakespeare quotes for both textual and contextual analysis. Probably half my blog posts analyze Shakespeare critically in some form or fashion.

3.) How have I engaged Shakespeare creatively?
I have to say, my favorite way I have analyzed Shakespeare creatively this whole semester was with the parody of the St. Crispian's Day Speech, Relief Society style. I suppose the recitation of the sonnet for my public speaking class would also count--that was the only speech I gave all semester that I 100% on, and it's because I practiced so long having good vocal range, hand gestures, and facial expression, all of which was a big step outside my comfort zone. Writing about Shakespeare and running has also been fun, and has definitely required some creativity. There is not a whole lot out there in terms of Shakespeare and running, but one of my favorite blog posts (Shakespeare for the Soaked) was a comparison of my run and several Shakespeare plays. Development of the story for the lost plays was also creative engagement, and involved lots of outside research about the origin and analysis of First Folio documents, manuscript analysis, etc.  (See the Wiki and my blog)

4.) How have I shared Shakespeare meaningfully?

Over the semester, I have shared thoughts and insights about Shakespeare with family, roommates and even on several dates. The more noteworthy experiences I blogged about, but there were many more that did not make it to to the blog level. I also of course, shared my thoughts and insights about Shakespeare with the world via my blog. Though most of the traffic on my blog has come from others in our class, my friends and family outside of the class have also read my blog. One example of this is a guy I taught on my mission in Los Angeles, CA who has started reading my blog.

5.) How have I gained digital literacy?

Well, blogging was a new experience for me, which I have definitely enjoyed, and at which I am much more adept. Google reader was a new introduction for me also which has completely changed my consumption of blogs, and which I will certainly use a lot in the future. Learning how to use and edit a wiki, upload and share videos on youtube, and use prezi have all also been new learning experiences as well. Taking videos on my phone and editing them and putting them together into prototype videos, as well as participating in green screen filming all were also new for me. I am a veteran skyper, so that wasn't too new, but skyping with a professor certainly was. Through blogging, I was able to connect with my classmates in a way I never had in other classes. I was also able to connect with Brad Westwood and share in his expertise with rare books and rare book collecting, which in turn contributed to our ability to develop a creative and believable story in regard to the discovery of our lost plays. This class has certainly been a real demonstration of Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat.

Shakespeare for the Sneaky 6

Draft 2 of our documentary...

Shakespeare for the Sneaky 5

Here's what we've got so far as a prototype for production content.  The first is a News Report.  The second is a documentary.  Keep in mind these are just rough draft versions.  Enjoy!

--The Story of Team

Shakespeare for the Sneaky 4

Segment 1: Breaking News Story

Kim: And in other news, in Pasadena, CA, in the Huntington Library, 4 lost Shakespeare plays have been discovered.  News Correspondent Moriah Manwerring has the story.

Moriah: Here in Pasadena, CA, the Huntington Library has always been famous for its extensive collection of rare books, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, and other materials in the fields of British and American history.  The Library collections range in time period from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. The greatest concentration is in the English Renaissance, about 1500 to 1641.  Much of the content for the library was purchased back in the 1890s by the library’s founder Henry E. Huntington.  Recently, horticulture expert Dr. Dan Adcock was taking advantage of the library’s ancient collection of horticulture documentation, and discovered something remarkable.  Dan, would you mind telling us what happened?

Dan: I was looking through one of the really large portfolios on horticulture they have here, discovered that some of the sections were missing.  I spoke with the horticulture curator and he told me that there was a duplicate of this particular portfolio they kept in the vault.  We opened it up and as I was going through this duplicate book which quite obviously had not been opened for many years, towards the back I came across a collection of older looking documents; they looked like they were manuscripts from some kind of play or something.  I asked the curator about the documents; she was baffled.  We contacted the manuscript section of the library, and after some precursory examination, they’re saying it looks like Shakespeare! 

Moriah:  Wow, that’s a pretty incredible discovery!  Kim, back to you.

Kim: Thanks Moriah.  After only a couple days of analysis, the results are still inconclusive as to the origin of this play, but the Shakespeare world is abuzz with the news of this possibility.  Experts are performing ink and carbon tests; handwriting and manuscript experts are pouring over this recently discovered text, trying to piece together what really we have here.  But an initial examination it looks like there were pieces from 4 separate plays that quite possibly might be Shakespeare originals.  We’ll have more as this story continues to unfold.  

Shakespeare for the Sneaky 3

Idea Better:

After consulting with Brad Westwood, Dr. Burton's friend who works now for the Church doing special collections stuff, but used to do that at BYU, I have a few more ideas a whole lot of good details to make this sound legit.  I have awesome notes with a couple of his different ideas, but for the sake of time and progress, for now I'm just going to put up my favorite that I vote we use as the story of discovery.  So how's this?

During WWI and WWII in England, old aristocracy had incredible, really old family libraries with lots of original manuscripts.  As the fell on hard times with the war, many of these libraries were sold off wholesale; Americans with wealth (from the Guilded Age in the 1880s to the depression) would buy these libraries.  There were large estate sales where series of manuscripts were sold off.  they could have easily been inventoried and misidentified..."Its still possible that they could have stuff...not discovered." (I got tons of quotes like this from him we could use in an interview or something.)   So all this rich English literature ends up in the US.  We're still treading on the non-fiction so far.  Huntington Library, in Pasadena, CA is a private library founded by a guy who loved horticulture and literature, and from what I understand from Bro. Westwood,  aquired large amounts from British libraries in the "rape of Europe" as he called it.  At this library, they have a huge backlog of "elephant size books", many of which have not been opened in a long time...like maybe even since they came over from England.  All of this is fact.  So here's the story: in a cache of 17th century books, there is an elephant portfolio on horticulture with a duplicate set; the duplicate has been left in the vault.  A horticulture curator (Dan Sagen) going through the one left out notices some missing plates, and pulls out the duplicate to consult.  He finds some literature that obviously doesn't go in a horticulture book...its in iambic pentameter, and appears to be some plays, or something...he contacts the manuscript section and hands it over to them.  The manuscripts are just sections of paper bound together with red fabric, tied through 2 holes in the top (typical for manuscripts of the time.)  The ink is from a quill pen on handmade stationary, of the kind used by gentlemen back in the day.  Red pen marks from editing litter the manuscript; handwriting experts find that it is from some undetermined hand that matches the hand of edit marks on a known manuscript--someone who worked closely with Shakespeare on other plays.  The ink is tested for mineral content, carbon test done on the ink and paper, UV light tests, all done--results  match that of other Shakespeare original manuscripts at the time.  It's breaking news!  And soon I'll have a news story for it.  That can go on our YouTube Channel.  Along with all the other awesome videos that result from this discovery.  It's such a legit story, we might not even need any doubters!  What think ye? https://sites.google.com/site/firstfauxlio/story---documentary/story-of-discovery

Shakespeare for the Switcher of Sex

Boyet--a woman?  Or two?  Moth in love with Don Adriano de Armado? What?  Dang, I really wish that I had written this closer to when I watched Love's Labor's Lost--I'm having a hard time remembering all my thoughts now...but I went with my sister to see the play, and like Sarah, I found that knowing the plot was super helpful understanding what was going on, and being able to explain that to my sister was a good exercise for me.  And, like a lot of people said, watching it made me be able to relate to the play a lot more, and caused me to like it a lot more too.

Since a lot of people have commented on the setting already (which I though was terribly clever and very well adapted), I thought I'd mainly focus on other things.  I thought the gender switching was interesting how in both this play and the Merchant of Venice.  In Shakespeare's day, as we've discussed, the actors were all male and the female roles were played by men and boys dressed as women.  Then of course there was the additional layer of disguise when a character cross dressed in the plays.  In both of the plays we watched, the characters themselves were changed from male to female characters.  In the Merchant of Venice, I thought perhaps it was to avoid the whole homosexual thing.  But perhaps the motivation was the guy-to-girl ratio of the actors?  They had the opposite problem as Shakespeare--more female than male actors.  But rather than maintaining the gender of the character and having the actor play accordingly, they simply switched the gender of the characters.  Or, did they do that in Love's Labor's Lost in order to allow for even more matchmaking and love potential (as if there wasn't enough already)?  Or was it to match the setting by having certain characters fulfill certain social roles?  I couldn't decide.  But here are some of the gender switches I can remember from the play.  (There might have been another 1 or 2 I forgot.  Please make note of them if I did.)

Boyet--In the Shakespeare original, a man.  In this play: 2 woman.  This is one switch I could see being motivated by the social role thing--the setting for the Princess of France and her attendants to plan, plot, and discuss is a dressing room.  Very appropriate and believable setting too, in my opinion.  For Boyet to be a part of those discussions, would only make sense for him to be female.  There is a definite divide between the men and the women in the 1940s setting, which parallels the divide between France and England in the original, and making Boyet a woman (or 2) certainly fits this.  Another note on this--all the women are dressed in very bright and vibrant colors--the woman representing the princess is dressed in red--indicative of power, or at least social prominence?  The exception is the two women playing Boyet--they were both dressed in blue--the archetypal male color.

Moth--Again, this could be a setting-motivated switch also.  It makes more sense for the radio host's foil to be a woman.  This, of course, led to obvious match and romantic potential in the relationship, which changed the feel of that relationship.  And did it seem to anyone else like Moth had feelings for Don Armado that led to disappointed love in the end, when he ended up with Jaquenetta?

Holofernes--Call me slow but I didn't get this role at all in the 1940s version.  But, it did lead to some more romantic potential, and she ended up with someone in the end, didn't she?  Was it Nathanial?  There were so many matches it was tough to keep them all straight.

So maybe all this gender switching was motivated by the setting.  Afterall, if it really was just a lack of male actors, couldn't they just dress the women up as men like they did the men as women in Shakespeare's day?

Shakespeare for the Surprised

Ok this really has nothing to do with Shakespeare at all, other than the fact that in talking with Dr. Burton about provenance, which is trying to track down and prove the origin of ancient artifacts, like what we're pretending to do with these lost plays, he mentioned the story of Mark Hofmann. What a crazy guy! He was a big time forger that focused a lot of his forgery on forging documents from Church History that make the church look bad, like the Salamander letter that was a different version of how Joseph Smith obtained the plates. And he was successful for a long time. But I just wanted to say that he is, to me, an awesome example of how no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing. Despite what the Wikipedia article said, Mark Hofmann did not permanently impair the progression of the LDS Church. Mark Hofmann is no more than a bug on a wind shield that maybe made kind of a messy and annoying splat; and like the effect of the bug/windshield encounter, I fear much more for the bug than the windshield.