[ʃékspir] = Shakespeare?

             Comparing a comical exchange from Love's Labour's Lost in the original and in a Spanish translation, I have tried to see how efficient translation of Shakespeare into Spanish can be (taken from Act 1 scene 1, when Biron hesitates at first in studying with the King): English-Original     FERDINAND:  How well he’s read, to reason against reading!      DUMAIN:  Proceeded well, to stop all good proceeding!     LONGAVILLE:  He weeds the corn and still lets grow the weeding.     BIRON:  The spring is near when green geese are a-breeding.     DUMAIN:  How follows that?     BIRON:...

Posted by Erik on 2:28 PM · Comments (1) · Full article

How to Kill a Shakespeare

             BBC's short reproduction of The Winter's Tale--loved by those who do not care to read the play in its entirety--reduces the internal conflict inside the characters by cutting their lines down by more than 90%. This gives plenty of room for each character to be taken completely out of context, and in doing so BBC has created a world far from believable in which all characters are perfectly flat. It has  embarrassingly become something not nearly related to Shakespeare in all respects save, perhaps, the plot.                   Watching this video was has increased my respect for the emotional struggles Shakespeare seems to understand very well and...

Posted by Erik on 1:33 PM · Comments (3) · Full article

First Shakespeare Play!

I feel like I finally understand a little better why Shakespeare has such world-wide acclaim. Although I have read many of his plays, I never caught the full vision of Shakespeare until tonight-- the first time that I have actually gone to a live Shakespeare play:  this one A Winter's Tale. If productions are rated according to the emotive content they evoke, then this production in Cedar City, Utah was perfect. To me it is almost audible the conversation that the planners of the play must have had before the play, in which they were discussing the concept of it all. What I can hear them answer which contributed to that success is the question of how they were going to make all the details of casting work out. For me, it was the...

Posted by Erik on 8:09 PM · Comments (4) · Full article

Intentions

          I find it hard to believe that anyone ever tries intentionally to do evil. Perhaps there are people that indeed have come to that point, but I doubt that anybody starts that way. It seems like there is always a motive behind our actions that has some type of justification in our own minds. Where we go wrong perhaps is when we start to have to justify ourselves in an unnatural way... that is we start to have to go out of our way to look for the justification that we are doing right when indeed if we were to analyze our emotions we would have to admit that we are not.          I was just thinking about my own life how I soften look for justification in doing what isn't totally right....

Posted by Erik on 8:33 PM · Comments (2) · Full article

Anguish

                                                         "/that he did but see                                                          The flatness of my misery, yet with eyes                                                         ...

Posted by Erik on 11:24 AM · Comments (2) · Full article

Borges meets Shakespeare

      That's right. In this blog the world-renowned Jorge Luis from La gran Buenos Aires will take center stage. Interestingly enough, in my Spanish Lit class today, we talked to some length about an interview that my professor had with Borges many years ago in Argentina. The subject of the conversation quickly turned to Borges' work, and why he had chosen never to write anything in English (after all, alongside Spanish it had been his native language, although growing up in Argentina). He responded to Dr. Ted Lyon, "What, me? Write in the same language as Shakespeare? You must be kidding."      Borges was exposed to literature of all kinds, but the fascinating thing is his naturally assumed...

Posted by Erik on 9:24 PM · Comments (0) · Full article

Shakespeare Acculturation

Elements of English culture reflected in Shakespeare's writing (that must have seemed like a second nature to all those listening to his productions) may have had an influence of acculturaton among the hispanic audience. I am interested in finding out to what extent that may have happened-- whether just among the academic sector (in which acculturation is not very likely anyway) or if Shakespeare's influence was actually able to reach and influence a broader audience generally (the way Japanese comics affect American teens). I venture a guess that it is somewhere in between. Alas. That is not the theme for today really. I wanted to keep it here just as a reminder, so that I can remember the details and come back later. I love the theme that Shakespeare presents about...

Posted by Erik on 3:47 PM · Comments (2) · Full article

First Impressions

Everyone who seems to know what they are talking about revere Shakespeare as a sovereign of English and even world literature. I have never quite been able to understand the reasons behind that, myself. I have been exposed to Shakespeare briefly in Elementary School, a little more in High School when I participated in the play Macbeth, and also marginally in college courses in introductory literature. I have, however, never been quite aware of the factors that apparently make this man's work among the impressive pieces of the history of literature. I am fascinated by the global extent of his work and am curious about the reach and the scope that he enjoys; I am anxious to find out just how large of a prestige he enjoys across the world. Here in this blog I undertake the project...

Posted by Erik on 10:32 PM · Comments (0) · Full article