Final Assessment

Shakespeare Party! The art group has been looking forward to this event. It was a wonderful opportunity both to see all of our physical art represented in one location and to receive feedback from a larger public. Before the event started, I played the song that I had written about Shakespeare's Hamlet on the piano to 'get in the mood', and was able to get feedback from a classmate! With regards to the art itself, it was gratifying to see people go up to the easel and point and make comments; it is motivating to continue to share Shakespeare via the websites that we have created: cnx, youtube, and deviant art. Also I enjoyed the comments that were made by one roommate of a classmate in the crowd that asked a question about how much feedback we had gotten from these websites already. I do admit...

Posted by Erik on 8:26 AM · Comments (0) · Full article

La Casa de Bernarda Alba and King Lear

In Both "La Casa de Bernarda Alba" (by F. Garcia Lorca), and King Lear, by Shakespeare, there are similar themes that seem to crop up again and again. I feel like they are making commentary on the same ideas, but come to some very vastly different conclusions.                                                                                              ...

Posted by Erik on 1:48 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Borges' "Shakespeare's Memory", & criticism

"Quien adquiere una enciclopedia no adquiere cada línea, cada párrafo, cada página y cada grabado; adquiere la mera posibilidad de conocer alguna de esas cosas. Si ello acontece con un ente concreto y relativamente sencillo, dado el orden alfabético de las partes, ¿qué no acontecerá con un ente abstracto y variable, ondoyant et divers, como la mágica memoria de un muerto?" (Borges, 1998). Found something cool Borges' "Shakespeare's Memory" is a fantastic short story I happened to stumble across this morning. Interested, I began to research literary criticism on it major themes after devouring the text itself. Though it does not appear to deal thematically with Shakespeare himself, its connection to Shakespeare and the themes that it does...

Posted by Erik on 1:53 PM · Comments (3) · Full article

"Nothing can be made out of nothing"

OSWALD:  What dost thou know me for?KENT:  A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats;a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave ... EDMUND: This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune,—often the surfeit of our own behavior,—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars:  as if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion ... KING LEAR:                         It may be so, my lord.Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intendTo make this creature fruitful!Into her womb convey sterility! While reading the...

Posted by Erik on 9:48 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Shakespeare Project

Just some simple project ruminations... At first, I got to thinking that Spanish Translation had to take a part no matter what in the final project that I am going to do with Shakespeare. I still think that I am going to continue this work, but I have been captivated by the idea of the Shakespeare Art Gallery and would love for that to take its place. Mason and Cassandra and I have been chatting about how this will work, and it sounds like a blast; we are about to start working on the ideas to 'finalize' it. My initial ideas: I would love to try to experiment in Mixed media, and also do some piano composition. I am not extremely well-practiced in art at all, and making anything at all would take a lot of time; that would certainly make it worth it. I am anxious to see what others are thinking...

Posted by Erik on 10:33 AM · Comments (2) · Full article

Formalism, take one

King of France, “proposal” to Cordelia: (King Lear, Act 1) °Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich, •being poor;                 __          / u u / u u u u / u / Most °choice, •forsaken; and most °loved, •despised!          __            u / u / u / u / u /**    Thee and thy °virtues here I seize upon:                               __              …Be it lawful I take up what’s...

Posted by Erik on 9:40 AM · Comments (0) · Full article

Self-Assessment

A. Learning Outcomes: 1. How have I gained Shakespeare Literacy? Honest confession: when I started to read our first play together, Hamlet, I had to spend significant amounts of time in order to be able to understand simply what was going on. I started from scratch, not knowing what was going to happen, and trying to pick it all out. Since then, I have developed literacy in two ways: (1) utilize better tactics to understand Shakespeare: for the rest of the plays now, I use sites to get a background knowledge on the plot, and I understand the importance of using video renditions (see here too) and the plays themselves to get a better context and comparative analysis. The more times I have repeated this process (with The Winters Tale, Richard II, Love's Labour's Lost, and The Tempest). Doing...

Posted by Erik on 1:19 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Global Shakespeare Sharing

First off, I admit I have enjoyed becoming much more technologically literate through my BYU Shakespeare class. It started off with learning how to create and modify a blog (including modifying blogger templates with HTML), then how to use RSS feeds and cool sites like Google Reader, and recently how to connect to others that are talking about the things that I am also interested in. A few weeks ago, I made a breakthrough discovery of a group of professors in Spain working exactly on the topic that I was most interested in. They together had published a book about Shakespeare in Spain, which I have been thoroughly enjoying. I sent an ambitious email to one of the editors (in Spanish), hoping for a response, or help to direct my research further....

Posted by Erik on 1:10 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Whoa, Shakespeare... everywhere...

Claude is a cheerful guy living day to day by a means that is unbeknownst to me. We met at a park a few weeks ago and occasionally have had a few short chats. Driving back to Provo this morning, I decided to drop off with him a small bag of bagels that I had received from my Mother-in-law (don't tell her I gave them away), and we started a conversation about the upcoming Halloween 'holiday' this year. Then something happened that took me off-guard... this affable, simple guy started to engage me in Shakespearian banter! The conversation went something like this: "So, whacha been up to man?" He asks anxiously, more genuine than most people. "I've just been studying", I respond, "and been teaching up at the MTC". "That's so great,...

Posted by Erik on 12:47 PM · Comments (3) · Full article

Children's Questions

I don't think that any normal second-grader could easily dissect the language of the master English-wielder. I too sometimes find it a little dense; yet studying Shakespeare this past semester I have come to love seeing how immediately the concepts he discusses influence my life. I have talked about justification, love, and other topics in the past, and have enjoyed seeing similarities that I have with people like Hamlet, Laertes, and Richard II. Shakespeare does so well at pointing out aspects of their character (that may not be all that great) of which I find I am also possessed. It does so well to see the flaws of others that one also seems to have in order to learn how to get rid of them. Also, recently I have been reading the first several...

Posted by Erik on 1:05 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Comparative Translation

These are the three texts that I analyzed side by side (feel free to skip over them to the explanation afterward if you wish), of one of my favorite speeches by King Richard II, exhibiting the emotional, depressing experience of losing it all: Original: "What must the king do now? Must he submit?The king shall do it: must he be deposed?The king shall be contented: must he loseThe name of king? o’ God’s name, let it go:I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,My gay apparel for an almsman’s gown,My figured goblets for a dish of wood,My sceptre for a palmer’s walking staff,My subjects for a pair of carved saintsAnd my large kingdom for a little grave,A little little grave, an obscure grave;Or I’ll be buried in the king’s highway,Some way of common trade, where...

Posted by Erik on 11:27 AM · Comments (3) · Full article

Richard II analysis: cinema production

So, after watching Richard II, I was pretty impressed with how the emotion was captured, but there were a few things I didn't favor so much. A few thoughts: MusicI was displeased by the lack of soundtrack in the production (BBC, 1978). It doesn’t occur at all, and the only other sounds that exist are the occasional diegetic trumpet blasts when the stage directions call for them. In this way it can be seen that fidelity to the text was one of the highest priorities in producing this version. A soundtrack could have certainly enhanced the emotional apexes that are high in this production. I wonder if it was a conscientious decision to leave music out, or if it was simply not an established thing to do at the time that this production was released. Cutting...

Posted by Erik on 2:22 PM · Comments (0) · Full article