Cambria's Redemption

As English majors and literature enthusiasts, we all like to "over-think" things; we thrive on the existence of multiple, varied "deeper meanings" and, in some cases, invent meanings to add supposed value to trivial works. 

This technique can lead to a full comprehension and and deep appreciation for most written pieces.   Sometimes analyzing something to death, though, can squelch the joy and pleasure out of it.

I believe that, while the deep analytic understanding of the underlying "information" in Shakespeare and his peers' works is meaningful to some, and very much important to the overall value of such writings, it is not ALL there is to them. At some point, beauty has to be appreciated for its plain, simple, face-value. Artistic excellence can, in fact, reside in the lyrical rhythms as much as in the "deeper meanings". 

William Shakespeare created art. Fredrick Turner creates art. I decided, for my final project, to attempt to do the same. So here goes nothin...

 Cambria’s Redemption

Waiting

He waited, albeit nervously, with quiet, gentle resolute

The lady ‘cross the room in shrouded silk and velvet garb

A crowd expanses ‘tween them, room hushed all eyes awaiting

For the silver lady’s speaking, though cold steel lips remain

The velum veil that masks her face caresses softly midnight curls

A mystery a dream that though awake she’s surely living

Eccentric many call her yet the seats are nightly fully filled

Familiar faces some, and others strangers, wanderers weary

Weeks and miles traveled every coin to each soul’s name

Is left with dark-skinned doormen ‘fore the stage can ev’n be seen 

No crystal ball but incense fragrant drifts in windowless draft

A musty slightly chilling feel creeps through stale and fetid air

  

The man’s is one of many tales, wrought with pain and memory

A tear descends to meet the spot where fades his fastened tie

Though blink is nonexistent lest his dark rimmed eyes to miss

The year he saved to catch this moment ‘feard the lone last chance

Seated near the back his hand is raised when lady long-last speaks

Upraised it stays though called he’s not, exchanging left and later right

The hour grows late and heavy a heart grips the weary silent man

Age’d far beyond his years, time lies only beneath his eyes

In the lines and in the sadness clear in lonely hollowed cheeks

They file out, the rich, the boring, haughty in their bleak existence

There for entertainment many, few for miracles  

Their suits and muffs and monocles would set the tone for opera

Gentlemen with ivory pipes and ladies bejeweled clutches

Stitched in silver; a play it is, a stage for false performance,

A game believed by lady and few a whispering tormented soul

Yet the man is lost and loosing and has reached his last resort

The others file out now and lady to shadow vanishes

White knuckles and a furrowed brow he lingers for the last to leave

Then makes his way to stageside where he hums soft an eerie tune    

   

Waking

The melancholy minor tones of mystery and dreaming

A drop or two now roam his cheek, she hears him call behind the stage

Forth she comes with uns’prised eyes all-knowing now in simple garb

A hand extends in feeling, sympathy supposed yet in the dark

Appears her wise beyond her years he marvels at her tresses silken

Colorless her lips, her hands, no veil now hides her piercing eyes  

Beside him on the oaken floor she crosses legs and runs her thumb

Beladen with three silver bands across his lip where rests the tear

Her eyes reflect the pain and longing churning in his consciousness

Silence with his unforgiving chokehold now is welcome here

The tension taut betwixt the man and lady penetrates the still

“I lost her” now he hoarsely murmurs, albeit expressionlessly

“I know” replies her silken tone, a seductive drug to hungry ears

“Tell me about her” a low command; she nears him now though motionlessly

Strong and heady opium engulfs the man now all-alert

No further sound he utters and alas, no discourse now is needed

Though a decade and a lifetime separates two minds now melded

When their lips and bodies meet the fierceness cultivates releases

He drinks her in as piquant wine, erotica eludes them though

At least the human mortal form which based in carnal pleasure lacks

Walking             

Smoke swirls in the pipe she held, visible through opaque glass

And passed to him with swimming head he once again does draw

Then clutch his wrists as eyes hers close, moving still beneath their lids

A droning tune she chants in tone and verse unknown to those still living

And through the haze that clouds the mind of roused and anxious gentleman

He hears a voice as in a dream, yet eyes now op’ning catch a glimpse

Hazy first but clearer coming walks a girl’s translucent figure

“You are not my bride” says he to waist-length silver curls and weathered skin

“You are not the love I too soon lost, the aim my presence here”

She cannot speak, cannot explain, though in his throat the words now catch

A sharp inhale when in her eyes familiarity faintly flickers

“But how…” he stammers, lost for words, “you…my wife…yet she is gone”

And gone so soon yet age’d now so far beyond her timely years

His mother does appear as this, a matriarch, long-standing queen

A robber once of many a’ heart yet now an earthly solemn seer

Still, the girl he called his wife was younger when just a year ago

The thief called death of plagued disease did filch her and his unborn child

Beyond a doubt though now before him stands the girl he wed in spring

With weathered skin and silver hair in smiling eyes the gleam of life still lingers

And as he stares her beauty grows, surpassing ev’n that flawless day

When eternity was promised, forever never thought t’would be cut short

His lover’s age remains unchanged yet changed are his perceptions

Established in this woman now, beauty in a way uniquely he can understand

But as he reaches toward her, the sanctified image away does start to fade

Precipitously frantic he becomes and reaches in desperation

What’s left lingering as she walks away, a shadow now, then gone her frame

“Don’t leave” he calls, first loud then whispered, to knees he sinks disheartened 

“I love you” but the earnest words now fall in empty mortal air 

A daydream was it, fantasy of what he most desires, a single instant glimpse of paradise

Though far from how the meet had gone when in his waking hour or dream

This shooting blast of heav’nly light does overtake his musing mind

Yet as said light burns out so soon so does his smile as angel leaves

Now left alone with cryptic seer a hollowness engulfs his heart, his mind

She doesn’t move, just watches him, pure empathy not jealous

Coming down from heady high together both are motionless

He rises then to take his leave though back she knows he soon will come

And at the door he turns to better hear the lass from where she sits

“You’re best to come in timely form” the deep and cagey voice proclaims     

“For aged as does appear your bride quite limited tis time that’s left”

A single solemn nod and turning gone is he from furtive hall

No charming disillusion lives, no needed explanation for heart’s fate

He walks along the riverside, hands in pockets, eyes cast down

Then stopping now to stare unseeing at floating murk, the foul debris

A purgatory or the like she now was in as he had thus presumed

Inherently he felt her—he had since fated day—as one still undeparted in entirety          

Heart his clenches though as dawns the realizing she soon will go

Beyond the present in-between to places distantly unknown

For in one year by mortal scale a half-century has aged the girl

Yet girl no longer fits her though for age’d don’t approve such terms

He must go back! soon! tomorrow! before his brides expire completes

Lucidity returns, though briefly, to wake him from his lingering trance     

First time in months he’d had a purpose, leaving drifting for direction

But to see the seer again would mean the loss of fortune great

A privileged affluence that quickly lessens day by dreary, passing day

Pressed from his mind are menial matters though for on this glorious eve

Cambria, his love, his life, had shown her flawless face again.    

©Annika Stampfel 2013

Final Project

After a lot of reading up on the topic of Hieros Gamos, a subject that I did and still do find extremely fascinating, I have come to the conclusion that, while I could write a three or four page paper about it rather well, I do not have enough experience, knowledge, or patients to drag holy marriage out into 10+ pages. The last six or seven, I am confident, would be repetitive and rambling. I have therefore decided to switch my final project to an even more fascinating and hopefully rewarding endeavor - composing my own epic.

-AS

Frederick Turner

Having the opportunity to see Frederick Turner both Thursday night, and Friday in class, was an experience that I am sure touched many of us. After reading some of his works, I was prepared for a so-smart-it's-dull presentation, but instead the vibrant poetry reading and engaging class discussion were understandable, gripping, thought-provoking, and over all, fantastic.

Starting out his presentation by talking about the "travels" we all experience in life, Turner described the ever-changing "now" and the remoteness of previous life that exists after moving experiences. This was the setting for the first work he read to us, a section of The Undiscovered Country. "Space and Time" he reads "clocks don't matter anymore". and, on another corresponding level, "nothing in life was dearer than to leave it". Here he reflects about someone in turn reflection about an encounter with an Italian Woman whom he wonders about in a sort of ghostly magical way. We never, at least in this section of the epic, find out if the narrator is a ghost or spirit, or a crazy man suffering from amnesia, or a being speaking from the afterlife...or all three?? The narrator appears to be somewhat of a Hamletian character, expressing sort of a philosophical musing that is both brilliant and insane.

The second work he read, about the Galapagos islands,was easier to grasp, not quite as entertaining to me, but still beautifully written. The message here was a need to "love the planet through and through before I leave"

Other beautiful and moving Turner presentation quotes/ideas:
         we are "given being by eradication"                 
        "death is but a pruning"
         genius of action, and genius of reaction
         epic - the world is significantly different at the end of the tale

Having Frederick Turner visit our class on the day after his poetry reading was also a great experience that was improved by knowing a little bit about this man from the reading the night before. His graphs about blazing a trail from the known, speak-able past to the "nothing" is the chaotic travel that I believe many if not all people experience to some degree as they grow up. One interesting distinction about "nothing" that I had never before considered is the two basic types - the nothing that rips apart, splits kingdoms, splits crowns, etc. and the profoundly creative nothing, the accepted nothing that makes "something" more fantastic. Although I have already began my project on a different topic, I am going to incorporate the idea of nothing into my piece about Hieros Gamos. Because I am now very much intrigued.

**Interesting note: This girl found a sonnet she actually likes!!! Haha thank you Frederick Turner and The Lady's Impatience for doing your part in curing my hatred of "prison poems". The key: humor :)
       
-AS

what DO we "need"...?

"What do we need" is a question that most people ponder on a variety of levels, but few actually live by what they say they believe. Typically we divide what we "need" into a few basic categories. There are needs for surviving: water, oxygen, protection from extreme weather. Needs we have socially: the "right" car or job or outfit. And needs we have emotionally: security, love, etc. which are perhaps the most basic and necessary "needs". 

At the risk of sounding extremely sappy and twelve, I have to admit that after a full day of pondering this question I have come to the conclusion that I believe (at least at this point in my life and with a not-so-impressive maturity level...) that all we need is love. Love is the one thing that ALL people (no matter their social standing, income level, cultural background, age, etc.) strive for. Be it from one's family, friends, romantic interest, or God, everyone wants to feel needed and cherished; being truly happy and content relies on one satisfying this craving. With love, the poor feel rich, the rich feel equal, the powerful are humbled, the insignificant gain meaning. To survive, yes we need basic bodily substances, but surviving is not truly living. Material possessions, also, to not allow us to live. Love, though, makes true living possible. It is therefore the one thing that we truly need.

*end rant*  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLGWyfGk_LU

Final Project

First, I would like to note that I do not, in fact, dislike tragedy. On the contrary, I very much enjoy reading it, perhaps more than any other genre. In my last post, I merely meant that personally I do not believe life itself to be tragic. Yes, it contains tragedies, but those are what steers life away from monotony and toward "worthwhile". Tragedy, also, is a matter of personal circumstance - we can only, I believe, experience tragedy to the extent of which we allow ourselves to experience it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hieros Gamos, the topic that I have chosen for my final project, is something that fascinates me more and more as i continue to familiarize myself with the works of William Shakespeare. Back in January, I was already considering pursuing my analysis of holy marriage further (see older blogs) and, as we pass the midpoint of this course, I am even more convinced that this is the topic I wish to write about. 

The focus of this piece will be The Tempest, namely the relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda, but I will also reference A Midsummer Night's Dream and Hamlet. Hughes and Turner, as well as The Bottom Translation will serve as my outside sources. 

I plan on discussing not only holy marriage, but also love in general, infatuation, passion, and looking with the eyes v.s. the mind v.s. the heart. I will also show how the Shakespearean angle of these concepts is timeless, and how it relates to our current American culture.  

Signs and Symbols

"This, and much more, she accepted - for after all, living did mean accepting the loss of one joy after another, not even joys in her case - mere possibilities of improvement." Honestly I was not even planning on reading the Signs and Symbols piece by Vladimir Nabokov - at least not during spring break. But I ended up having a little down-time at work this evening and was able to pull the pdf up on my phone...and wow. Without being overly wordy, excessively descriptive, or sickeningly emotional, this short, inconclusive piece is intriguing and beautifully written. It embodies lovely rhetoric with suspense and raw human emotion, all in less than four pages. 

Contemplating this piece, and more so simply the idea of life itself being a tragedy, I would have to say that I disagree with this summarization - life is not tragic...it has no ability to absorb such personification. Life simply is. And at a risk of sounding cliche, it is what we as individuals make it. This concept is especially hard for our current culture to grasp - because many people today are raised in a world where they feel a strong sense of entitlement, they focus solely on their own public image in society—when the emphasis of existence orbited survival, many of these feelings of worthlessness and confusion weren't as prevalent. Now, though, society has reached a mile-marker where people have excess time and excess intelligence for the lives many of us choose to live. We make situations tragic. There is no "good" situations, or "bad" situations - they are merely what we interpret them to be.

In Nabokov's story, the parents' entire outlook is changed once they make a decision to better their situation, and that of their son. Even before the situation is changed, the tragic element is taken out of it once a conscious choice is made. To complain that "life" is a tragedy is, I feel, is merely an attempt to escape one's own credibility.The reason, then, that many people are so miserable, is because we allow ourselves to strut and fret and then blame it on the "institution" of existence.

-AS     

My Sonnet

To give a heart yet loose one’s very self

A death; surrender to what cannot be

Alone until that light of promise brings

A troubled soul and body pulled to me

His rich low voice sent tremors to my core

A miracle again to feel at all

Calm now interrupts internal war

A spring to counter never ending fall

Familiar lips can mask a stranger’s eyes

A temporary cure of shattered hearts

In days gone by a heart that solely cries

This time though a fine and abstract art

A warmth replaces empty dreams forlorn

A hope the nightstand fee left in the morn’  

As I've said before, I don't much care for the sonnet format. I still don't really care for it. But after experimenting with it, I have decided that it is a good tool, if nothing else, to assist poetry writers with allowing their writing to flow within a frame; to embody an entire meaning in fourteen lines. I strove to let the format simply be. So this is my result. While it doesn't exactly follow the prompt, I tried to keep it along the lines of butterfly-love...albeit a slightly unconventional kind. Enjoy.  

Liberating Confinement

I am still a bit skeptical about sonnets... however I must admit that our discussion on Monday forced me to look at this topic in a bit more depth. Finding a confined space as liberating is something I have thought about much. 

I have a friend who currently is doing time in MSP, and after the crazy, miserable never-relaxed life he has had, this friend has been able to have a sort of awakening now that he has been forced to take a step out of the "real-world" monotony of distractions and pointless endeavors. He is learning to focus on the beauty of simplicity and living beyond all of the meaningless crap that most of us fill our lives up with.

I tell this story not to go into detail about this friend of mine, but to hopefully illustrate a bit clearer the lens through which I am now attempting to view the sonnet. By nature, I enjoy free writing, free-verse poetry, songs with no chorus, etc. This anti-structuralism, the condition I have diagnosed myself with, is a problem that I am fairly aware of, but I never considered that it could relate to the attempt to cancel out all of the "strutting and fretting" and distractions that can sometimes cloud free-verse writing. 

Having fourteen lines in which to convey an entire message, especially a message of something as complicated and multidimensional as love, is complected to say the least. I don't think that writing a semi-respectable sonnet is okay. After much contemplation and sonnet-reading though, I believe that writing in this way can sometimes require even more talent than free verse. If one can do this well, not alright, but truly well, the results can be very rewarding. 

My sonnet currently has an outline, which I will not reveal just yet, but even though I still do not particularly enjoy sonnets, I am working on that. I do have a better understanding now, though, of how a "confined space", even in literature, has the potential to be freeing. 

-AS   

Sonnets and Other Musings...

Sonnets have always bothered me. In fact, I have yet to come across a sonnet that I did not absolutely despise. Perhaps it is the sickly sweet "perfect" way they depict love. Love is not perfect. Well, perhaps love itself is. But a relationship between two people, even a romantic one, is full of pain and trouble. I may have a bit of a cynical outlook in this area, but the "fairy tale" sonnets are cheesy and cliche. 

Another problem with these poems is their structure. It is all but impossible to cram feelings of love into a 14-line patterned-rhyme cookie cutter mold. The results are hollow and cramped, and often sacrifice beauty and flow for syllable count and rhyme correctness. Sonnets are so popular that love has been transformed (in the poetic literary world) into a theatrical flowers-and-butterflies dream-state. Which is not what it is intended to be. In modern society, where these sonnets have been implemented into romantic comedies and happily-ever-after stories, TRUE selfless honest love has been overlooked. This had led to young people growing up believing that infatuation and love are the same thing, and that marriage on butterflies alone is good enough. But a life can not be built on butterflies, as many people find out a year or two or ten into their marriage when the flame is gone and the fuzzy feelings are gone and they are left with a painful divorce and a wasted irreplaceable hole in their lives.

I do believe, as we discussed in class, that some writings are not meant to have a "deeper meaning". Sometimes, the deeper meaning, or interpretation, kills the magic of the piece. By the same token though, the distraction epidemic that is so prevalent in modern culture is not improved in the slightest by wasting hours reading extremely cramped, closed-structured, irritating poems. The monotony of day to day life, and all of the crap that we have filled it with, leaves us searching for SOME thing that means something. We are distracted because we are searching for something. Searching, in a sense, for silence. In my humble opinion, sonnets counteract this mission by adding to the "clutter".

Anyhow, for this class we are required to each write a sonnet about love. I look forward to the challenge of writing one that I can actually stand to read. Rhymes irk me. However, with a natural sentence flow I believe I can take the emphasis off of the choppy, annoying pattern of the typical sonnet. I will also tweak the theme a bit to make it focus on escaping love through infatuation. 
This will lead to a much more interesting piece than the sing-songy puppy-love disgustingness that is embodied in many if not most sonnets I have dealt with in my English career thus far.

-AS    

"Mis"reading

I have never bought into the myth that there is such a thing as reading something "wrong". Perhaps this is due to my lack of formal black-and-white right-and-wrong juvenile high school English classes. Because I was home schooled, I had a very open mind when it comes to interpretations, and because I am a literature fanatic, I always can find many meanings behind even the simplest verse or tale. This is something that I am grateful for, but I have recognized over the past year or so that many people do believe in singular right-or-wrong interpretations. 

The one thing that makes good writing good, though, is its ability to speak to broad audiences. Speaking to these masses can be accomplished only through writing that has many layers of interpretative value. This is what makes a "play" or "performance" real. Without generalizing too much, I would have to agree with the idea that English majors come at truth and realness from a different perspective. But this is also true for each individual. 

Fictional and/or poetic writing, like other art forms including art, music, etc., is valued for the way it speaks to people. And because each individual is a walking autobiography, there can't possibly be a universal point to a piece of this type of literature. The term "mything" the point, though, I believe to be a bit deceiving. Myths are, by definition, imaginary or fictitious. However interpretations are not mythical. They are autobiographical.

I am not sure if I am making my point clear in this post, but basically I do not think that there is such a thing as reading something wrong. Any piece of writing that is worth its salt can, in fact, be interpreted in a myriad of ways. But to interpret things in mythical ways is only useful if those myths can in turn be related to one's own life. 

-AS     

Dreams...

As Emily stated in her most recent blog, I also believe that the term "dream" is thrown around rather loosely in modern society. It is used to mean literal dreams, but also to mean hopes for the future, goals, aspirations, and realities that will never come to be. The dictionary definition of this is: a succession of images, thoughts, or emotions passing through the mind during sleep, or an involuntary vision experienced while awake. In these types of dreams, the subconscious mind is dominating the "real" mind. However the only obstacle that makes the "real" mind, or conscious mind, more important (in my opinion) is individual people's desire for control over their emotions and feelings.

So as not to stunt my readers' creativity with my own bias interpretation, I will objectively relate my most recent "complete" dream below. I will also note that I can not remember dreams with any amount of completeness on normal nights, as I have issues with sleeping. After taking Advil PM or similar sleeping aids though, I sleep well and therefore dream quite vividly.

My dream begins at a family reunion on my mom's side. It is a second-rate lake resort somewhere in the middle of the U.S. While there, we receive word that we are required to register ourselves as militia-men and register our firearms in order to keep them. I, of course, take my m4 and join my brothers and dad in the walk across the country to wherever, as there are no working vehicles or other methods of transportation. We travel across farmland, avoiding cities, but somehow we run into government hitmen anyway on a farm between haystacks. I am separated from the guys. Later, I meet up with a half dozen random people, two of which also have weapons, and we travel together for a while. In some sandy place with red rock cliffs, we realize that "going to register" was a sham, and that the government is merely trying to "round up" the "troublemakers" to have them executed. I break off from my new friends and end up living in a tourist cabin in a deserted cove near the ocean somewhere where there is snow. I live here for a month or two with a boy I met - we love and hate each other, but we trust each other which is all that matters. We become hardened toward life, caring little about anything but ourselves, using each other for protection and occasionally for emotional release; we forget what it is like to be happy and carefree. Eventually, I wind up leaving him too, and meeting up with my brothers, dad, and the rest of my family. We move all of the items from the farmhouse in which I found my mother and the little children, back to our home. But find that nothing is the same. So we pack up the belongings again (not ours... but no one's now) and hit the road. 
The end.

 Weird, yes. Political, yes. But definitely an insight into my subconscious.

-AS

Shakespearean Insults

Finally getting around to posting my favorite insults haha. And yes, I used all three of them this weekend at a party. Good times ;)

1. Thou artless common-kissing hedge-pig.

2. Thou vain earth-vexing lout.

3. Thou warped half-faced haggard.

Love and Desire

While I have not yet made it through the entire thing, I wanted to take a little time to talk about the first few paragraphs of "The Bottom Translation" of A Midsummer Night's Dream; namely, the distinction between love, and desire.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind according to Helena in her rant about love and madness. 

Does desire also look with “mind,” and not with “the eyes”? Titania awakens from Pier  dream, looks  at the monster, and desires him. When Lysander and Demetrius awaken, they see only a girl’s body, and desire it. Is desire “blind” and love “seeing”? Or is love “blind” and desire “seeing”? This essay asks. 

Frankly, I believe that Helena is correct in her statement; however I don't think that she is meaning to talk about actual love. True love looks with the heart as well as the mind. It is seeing, because it is complete truth, and honesty. It is desire that is blindness. Love is a feeling but also a sincere commitment - it is not something that can be created from air, or changed with drugs overnight. Infatuation, though, is a different matter; it is purely chemical. People fall in and out of this quite often; when the "high" fades, it leaves its victim empty and in withdrawals. Whereas love has the potential to result in "sacred marriage", infatuation leads to only a futile, fleeting attempt at forever. Trusting in infatuation causes nothing but heartache and hurt, because infatuation is purely selfish. Sadly, modern society often fails to recognize this difference...

-AS  

A Midsummer Night's Dream video

It's long especially if ya aren't into the dance thing, but this is lovely.

"Disturbing" comedy

The Conqueror Worm

LO! 't is a gala night   Within the lonesome latter years. An angel throng, bewinged, bedight   In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre to see             A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully   The music of the spheres.    Mimes, in the form of God on high,   Mutter and mumble low,    And hither and thither fly;   Mere puppets they, who come and go At bidding of vast formless things   That shift the scenery to and fro, Flapping from out their condor wings      Invisible Woe.    That motley drama—oh, be sure   It shall not be forgot! With its Phantom chased for evermore   By a crowd that seize it not,    Through a circle that ever returneth in   To the self-same spot; And much of Madness, and more of Sin,   And Horror the soul of the plot.    But see amid the mimic rout   25   A crawling shape intrude: A blood-red thing that writhes from out   The scenic solitude! It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangs   The mimes become its food,   30   And over each quivering form   In human gore imbued.    Out—out are the lights—out all!   And over each quivering form The curtain, a funeral pall,   35   Comes down with the rush of a storm, While the angels, all pallid and wan,   Uprising, unveiling, affirm That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"   And its hero, the Conqueror Worm This poem by Edgar Allan Poe does a very good job of portraying the micro-cosom/macro-cosom distinction that we discussed in class today. The worm does, eventually, consume the flesh of the person who is a much "higher" creature, completing the circle from the gods, to the aristrocrats, to the peasants, to chaos. Poe writes very much like Shakespeare-capturing the raw reality of human existence in an eloquent, universal way. Many elements of this poem, such as the blood and writhing and human gore, mirror the sort of sick, disturbing, pathological tones of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. While both are intended to create enjoyment, these works also both carry a heavy, unsettling view of the world. How they do this and yet remain, in a sense, "comedy" is indeed facinating. -AS

Macbeth Act 1, Scene 7

Was the hope drunk,

Wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since,

And wakes it now, to look so green and pale 

On what it did so freely? From this time

I account thy love. Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valor

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life, 

And live a coward in thine own esteem, 

Letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would,"

Like the poor cat i' the adage?

What beast was't, then, 

That made you break this enterprise to me?

When you durst do it then you were a man;

And, to be more than what you were, you would

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:

They have made themselves, and that their

fitness now

Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know

How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:

I would, while it was smiling in my face, 

Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums, 

And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.

     This is the passage I have chosen, spoken by Lady Macbeth to her husband,to memorize. Although I have a bit of a mental block when it comes to memorizing things, I am looking forward to this passage, merely because it does not bore me like most of the other works I have "had" to memorize in the past. 

     This monologue embodies the character of Lady Macbeth. She is a very complex character; her sadness and desperation and vindictivity combine to form an intriguing and powerful woman and, though we are not reading Macbeth for this class, I believe this character to be "essential".  

--AS     

Hieros Gamos: the Holy Marriage

In contemplating the concept of "holy marriage" today after our class discussion, I was struck by how this topic is not only present explicitly on the surface of Shakespeare's works, but also in a more symbolic and intrinsic way. 

Shakespeare, in a sense, entered into a holy marriage with his writing. A marriage that combined (instead of man and woman through God), combined the ordinary people and the aristocrats through romantic, poetic language.

 "Few things are less understood than the hieros gamos – the “sacred marriage”. Considered to be the “Holy Grail” of sexual rituals, is it within reach of comprehension and explanation?"

                                                                                                  ~Philip Coppins

I believe the answer to this question, to put it simply, is no. I do not think, no matter how much analyzing we do of a text (especially a as complicated a text as those of Shakespeare) that we can ever fully comprehend or explain it. We may be able to uncover the author's meaning behind a text. And we may be able to find our own meaning in one; and this is enough, because all good works speak timelessly to their readers. But as far as fully comprehending the marriage between mind and word is as complicated as trying to understand the hieros gamos. 

~~~I am considering something along these lines for my final project for this class.  ~~~AS

Vico on the Decline of Humanity

"Human history, says Vico, passes through a cycle of three ages: the age of gods, the age of heroes, and the age of men. The age of gods is the most primitive age: it is the age when men are more beast than human, and it is the age when these primitive creatures believe that the world is shaped by supernatural forces with anthropomorphic characteristics.  The age of heroes is the age when these anthropomorphic gods are replaced by human icons.  It is the age when these icons or heroes are held to be divine, not only by the people at large but also by themselves.  The
age of men is the age of democracy: it is the age when men finally come to see all men as equals; and it is the age when men, intoxicated by their own powers of reasoning, see themselves as masters of the universe.  Allied to each of these stages is a distinct language.  The language of the age of gods is sacred or divine; the language of the age of heroes is symbolic, and the language of the age of men is vernacular."

     After googleing Vico after class on Wednesday, I found a very interesting dissertation on his works on the Philosophy Pathways website; above is an excerpt that expands a bit more on the first three phases of human history that we talked about in class. The "chaos", or degraded phase is not directly listed, but is understood as the result of the decline of humanity. 

     The author goes on to describe how Vico presents a concept of history that sees humankind working its way to its inevitable dissolution that is driven by an "unhuman" force. However, this dissolution is not its absolute demise, for
out of the ashes of chaos there emerge survivors who initiate a renaissance of primitive religious belief.   

     Relating this to our discussion about the "feather" being everything, it makes shockingly clear sense as to why Shakespeare consciously writes in the way he does - reaching from the "men" category to "hero" and, to some, perhaps nearing the "gods". 

a Midsummer Night's Dream clip from the Boston Ballet...way cool

maybe this is just because I'm a nerdy dance kid, but I thought that this clip was a REALLY neat visual of a midsummer night's dream...thought I'd share it haha

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5FCtVBxRvQ

Nothing. Does it matter?

     Nothing. This word is the central idea behind most if not all of the first part of Turner's essay. The question of whether "nothing" refers to a lack of anything, or is instead being used as a noun, is a difficult one; it can function as either. The first way of looking at "nothing" implies a sort of lack of anything concrete. Nothing matters. The emphasis is on what is not acting or being. On the other side of this equation, we have "nothing" functioning as a subject. Nothing matters. Meaning that "nothing" is actually "something".  

     One easy metaphor I use to understand this difference, is to relate it to painting. A canvas may have "nothing" painted on it yet; it is completely blank. In this state, there is nothing painted. However, after a painting is complete, there is almost always still places where different amounts of the white canvas still show through the colors. These places are important, even critical, to the portrayal of the picture. The "nothing" then, is a specific important noun. The nothing (does) matters.

     This, I believe after much close analysis, is the point and differentiation Turner is trying to explain in the beginning of his essay.


-AS

More Hughes Introduction Reflections

In reading Ted Hughes' introduction, there was one idea that really caught my interest: that Shakespeare, at least on some level, was "writing for a deadline". For some reason, in all of my previous studies (though they are minimal) and writing and reading of his works, I have had a mental image of sort of a brilliant and strange musing prodigy. This essay is the first place I have received any hint as to the legitimate effort that was put forth into the language and form of these plays and sonnets. 

On page 36, Hughes says that "...to assemble and deploy the extraordinary number (of works) that he did suggests a particular diligence of method.

In Sonnet 111, Shakespeare even says "almost...my nature is subdued to what it works in, like a dyer's hand." His writing, then, must have been more of a job to him than many people realize; instead of the Hunter S. Thompson-esque trance that I pictured, Shakespeare (according to Hughes) was merely a brilliant, but not particularly insightful or out-of-the-ordinary, poet. 

However, his way with words is unarguable. The vocabulary he uses in his poetry was no more common in the Globe theater days than it is today.   

So how did he manage to do this? "How did he manage to introduce such a steady flow of strange words and yet reduce them to what turned out to be a massively successful language of the common bond?" (Hughes 25) That question is one that I (with the help of Hughes and Turner) am striving to find an answer to.  

-AS  

Poem from Turner

Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless arrant.
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall by thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die, 
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply
Then give them both the lie.

This poem in Turner's essay is so beautiful I had to share it on this blog...this is the essence of what intrigues me about poetry as an art form. (Corona, page 51)  

Hughes Essay reflection

     In reading Hughes' essay, I was very much captivated by the idea that (as we have also discussed in class) Shakespeare's works have great and perhaps more beauty and meaning as single selections and pieces. This also allows a deeper analysis and interpretation of his passages...not a typical analysis of the plot, but one of the art that is his poetry.

     When switching the focus of our attentions to specific sections of Shakespeare (be it an act, a situation, a speech, or even a line) the timelessness of the work becomes more apparent. Through the many interpretations and adaptations of characters through theatre, dance, music, etc. the joy and significance of each individual word remains the same. 

     This is a picture of the three Macbeth witches as depicted by Claudia Boddy, the costume designer for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. I currently have the pleasure of working for this organization, which strives to make Shakespeare's works a now. 



-AS

     William Shakespeare is such a read, learned, referenced, and noticeably timeless author that, in our culture today, many people like to claim some sort of expertise in Shakespearean subject matter. We all know of his major works, we all know about his childhood, and we all know that he was able to reach all classes of people (and still can) with his lyric poetry. 

     However, to fully grasp the essence of what gives Shakespeare's works this timelessness, I believe it to be all but unnecessary to study in depth the dates and theaters and specific vocabulary of these writings and performances; instead, we should turn our key focus to the intense emotion of his writings. Human beings relate to emotion; love of art, be it paintings, poems, dance, theater, prose, or merely an acute awareness of ones self and of ones surroundings, is key in producing this emotion, and is therefore absolutely necessary to the human experience. It was Shakespeare's grasp of this that led not only to his success, but to his timelessness. 


-AS