Reflection. Blog. Posted.

1. Gain Sharkspeare literacy

• This class has definitely made me much more Sharkspeare literate. I have loved reading so many of his plays this semester and going into depth about them. Now I'm sure I will enjoy many more fruitful and purposeful discussions about this wonderful world of Sharkspeare.  Blog posts: The Tempest, Henry V, Merchant of Venice 1, Merchant of Venice 2, Hamlet 1, Hamlet 2, King Lear 1, King Lear 2, King Lear 3, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost 1, Love's Labour's Lost 2

2. Analyze Sharkspeare Critically

•  Done. Done it. Done, done, done it! Proof: Miranda and Ferdinand--Lovers or Lusters?, Holy Cow--Henry V, If you prick us, do we not bleed?, The Lead Casket,  Claudius the False,  To Be or Not to Be, Is Man No More Than This?, My Maturing Love of Shakespeare

3. Engage Sharkspeare Creatively

• Ok, I've stretched my creative bounds a bit with this class :) Drawings, movies, monologues. I can say that I really am a better person because of this class. Blogz: (Ok, I know that all of my blogs have been creative, so I'm only going to list the really good, really creative ones, haha)  A Midsummer Night's Dream, William the Conqueror in a Visual Way, Lost Play? Yay or Nay?, William the Conqueror-- Monologue Style

4. Share Sharkspeare Meaningfully

• It's been fun to be able to catch a lot more Sharkspeare references as I've become more familiar with his work. It's also been fun to make a lot more Sharkspeare references :) I've been able to step out of my comfort zone by putting links to my blog on my Facebook. Scary! But people have actually looked at it and talked about it. Haha, I think my favorite experience with sharing Sharkspeare was when I got to tell the Merchant of Venice as a bedtime story. Lucky kids ;) The link to that experience.

5. Gain Digital Literacy

• Ok, practically everything that I've done in this class has made me more digitally literate. I'll admit, some of it I was resistant to before, but again, this class has just stretched me. Stretched me right out. For example, before this class I was pretty sure I was never going to have a blog. And look, now I've got one. Given, I can't promise I'll keep blogging after this class is over, but I can mark it off the list of things I've done. Nice. I learned how to use a Wiki. I learned how to post something on Youtube. I learned how to use iMovie. I learned how to make the world a better place using nothing but my own brain and Sharkspeare. Mission Accomplished.

William the Conqueror--Monologue Style

So here's the previously mentioned monologue. Go, William, go.

Thanks Nickson and Caleb for your help!

(Funny story--we were hooked up with a random actor to do the monologue and when he showed up I realized I knew him from the BYU Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu club. Small world :)

Lost Play? Yay or nay?

So I posted this on the Wiki last week but I figured it might be nice to have it here as well. Just to show off my work, you know.

And I guess to validate everything I've been doing for the past few weeks :)

William the Conqueror in a visual way

After doing extensive research from description of William in the lost play, I did a quick drawing of what I imagine the great William the Conqueror to look like.

Love's Labour's Lost--1940 style

Sorry for my absence! I was really occupied with getting ready for my very first Jiu-Jitsu competition which was on Saturday. And it paid off because I got second place in my division :) Boo-yah!

I really, really love going to live performances of things. Music, art, theater, whatever. I love it. So going to see BYU's performance of Love's Labour's Lost was super fun! Plus I got to go with one of my awesome mission companions, Katherine, which made it even better :)

I'll start with my favorite things about the performance...I thought the idea of setting it in 1940 was a little weird at first but in the end I thought it merged with Shakespeare really well. Especially after reading the director's story about how her grandparents had met during the war and how they had an introduction similar to Biron and Rosaline. Their witty encounters and sharp banter ended up endearing them to each other--just like in the play.

I LOVED the fact that during the intermission they had a dance and let the audience be involved. That was probably the best part,  because I love dancing :) And dancing was such a big part of that era. It helped keep the audience in the right time period. And it was hilarious because the actors stayed in character when they asked people to dance. Costard asked this girl to dance and she kind of shrunk into her seat a little bit and he was like, "HA!" in this really funny/obnoxious way and grabbed her hand and took her to the stage.

And the live band was AWESOME!

The set was great. I really liked the simplicity of it because I think it allowed the focus to be on the characters and their interactions. The idea of having the characters look at "mirrors" while facing the audience was genius. I think it helped accentuate the aspect of dramatic irony in the play. This play was full of scenes where the characters only had their limited perception of events while the audience could see much, much more. For example, the entire scene where, one by one, the men all admitted their love for the ladies the audience could see that Biron was actually in love, and that he was watching the others as they divulged their secret admiration, but each character thought they were alone. Another example was when the ladies switched wardrobes before the men arrived in their Russian costumes. We knew that they weren't the right girls, but the men had no idea. The mirrors helped represent the limited perception of the characters.

Ok, now for the things I didn't like so much. I really, really did not like that the script and dialogue was split up among so many people. It made the play so confusing! I had just read the play and I was even confused. It was so hard to follow who was who and who was in love with who and it took me like half the play to realize that they weren't just taking forever to introduce the main characters; it felt like there weren't really main characters. Their parts had been split up so much and since I had just read the play I was like, "Oh, that girl is Rosaline cause she just said her lines....no wait, that girl must be her....wait, who is Rosaline?? There are like ten girls saying her lines!" It was just confusing. And it made it harder to become emotionally invested in the characters because half the time I was battling exasperation with having to try to follow so many people.

But overall I liked it and it was a fun experience :)

My Maturing Love of Shakespeare

As I keep reading Shakespeare more and more, my respect for him just grows so much! His talent is so impressive. I really love being able to read his plays for my class because it opens up his world to me. In high school I read the common plays that everyone is familiar with, like Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet. I think we read Julius Caesar as well. But I had NO IDEA what a gold mine the rest of his works are! Right now I'm finishing off the gem Love's Labour's Lost. To be honest, I don't know if I'd even heard of this play before my Shakespeare class but I love it! Love's Labour's Lost is super witty and lively. It's so great! I really love Shakespeare's gift with working the language and it is super evident in this play with all the wordplay between the characters. For example, I find Ferdinand's receival of the ladies especially amusing. It just shows how Shakespeare was able to take something simple and make it dynamic.

FERDINAND
It shall suffice me; at which interview
All liberal reason I will yield unto.
Meantime receive such welcome at my hand
As honour without breach of honour may
Make tender of to thy true worthiness:
You may not come, fair princess, in my gates;
But here without you shall be so received
As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,
Though so denied fair harbour in my house.
Your own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:
To-morrow shall we visit you again.

This part just gets me! It's so funny! Because he could have just said, "Well, you can't come in my kingdom. Have a good night and see you tomorrow." Which would have been more fitting considering that he's actually being pretty rude by not allowing them to come inside. After all, they've just traveled all the way there from their kingdom and he's not even giving them the hospitality of inviting them in. He makes them stay outside! But I love the irony of his language because it is so flowery and warm to contrast the situation. "As you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart..." Haha. How kind of him, the sweet king.

I think this double meaning stuff is something I might want to experiment with. Shakespeare wasn't the only one that loved wordplay and double meanings. I really love Latin people and as I've become more familiar with the Mexican culture, I've realized that they LOVE this type of stuff. They love when words say one thing and then have some hidden meaning behind it. (This passage of the play isn't quite the ideal example, but this thought just came to me). Anyway, in my Spanish class the other day, my teacher was showing us some Spanish wordplay. She showed us the word inestable and it's definition no estable (unstable) but how it can also mean la mesa de Ines en norteamerica (Ines' table in North America). Haha :) Hm, it's not as good when you have to explain it, but the point is, wordplay is fun. Probably why it has the word play in it.

"You got me monologuing!!"

NEWSFLASH: This just in from our reporter on the scene...of the archives...at that one really old place...

The archivists have just revealed a portion of a speech they believe came from a play written by William Shakespeare. The subject of this play? William the Conqueror! Dun da duhhhhh!!

"O that I had never seen such darkness
In my tender infancy. Such a life
Would have overcome weaker men than I.
To think I might have been born a shepherd;
Whose only role is to watch young lambs play
In their peaceful fields, his hardest task to
Protect his flock from wandering wolves.
I confess, at times my heart longs for such
A dream as this. To see those peaceful fields.
But I fear my soul was not shaped for a
Shepherd. When I feel that fierce burning in
My veins to render my will on those who
Seek to take what's mine, to defy--"

And that's as far as they've uncovered. How exciting! What kind of character would have spoken lines like these?? I guess we can only wait to find out...

Ok, writing like Shakespeare is super hard. I do not know how he managed to be such a writing genius!
But I did my best to do iambic pentameter. I'm not sure if the unstressed-stressed all works out, but whatever. I threw some imagery in there and some alliteration and wah-lah! There you have it. For my folio.

Brainstorming, Round 1 A

Ok, I think that a history play with William the Conqueror has a lot of potential. We've got the big hero (or villain), potential for some great pump-up speeches, character development, etc. Especially cause I found out that William became a duke when he was only about 8 years old and there was a LOT of chaos around him as he was growing up and maturing as people were feuding around him. And remember the illegitimate birth around 1027ish...

Then when he became king of Normandy and conquered England in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, he had to deal with treacherous English lords and political marriages and all that good stuff.

So plot development. Maybe the play could open with Duke Robert, William's father, leaving to go on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Before he left, he made the Norman magnates (I don't really know what that word means...I'm assuming its like the Norman lords around there...yep. Just dictionary.commed it. I'm right.) swear fealty to William, even though he was an illegitimate son. Then, Robert ends up dying on his way back. I'm not exactly sure how we could show the time change and growth of young William. Maybe have a scene where he finds out his dad died and he's recognized as the duke. And then...have snippets of plotting lords trying to kill him or something and his narrow escapes...so I feel like this act would be dedicated to William's growth and taking on the responsibility of being a duke. Seriously, there had to have been a lot of growth. Men were getting killed in his sleeping chamber and his uncle had to hide him in peasant's houses to keep him from being killed!

Act 2 - Conquest? Of his own lands? Yeah, I don't know when this should all take place...but let's include his political marriage to Matilda of Flanders in 1050 that helped him out.

Act 3 - Conquest of England? Battle of Hastings? Apparently King Edward of England decided that he wanted William to be his successor in 1051. So maybe Shakespeare would have portrayed him as the hero after all.

I don't know. Shakespeare was way better at writing this stuff than me. Somehow in Henry V he managed to have the battle as the pinnacle point in the play but then also managed to end with some romantic cuteness. I'm not sure how we should work it with William.

And...to tie in Nickson's African story, maybe we could have an act during William's character growth and conquest stage where he gets cocky like the hyena and loses the battle because of it. But he's able to learn so he doesn't make the mistake again and is able to conquer England. I think it works :)

Brainstorming, Round 1

Ok, just a thought.

History Play about William the Conquerer. That was a big deal in English history, right? And it could culminate in a battle like Henry V. Before he conquered England, he was known as William the Bastard. (Edmund flashbacks, anyone?)

Questions:
Would Shakespeare have made William be the hero or the villian?

...need more research...

Is man no more than this?

Ok, so these thoughts are spurred by King Lear and the discussion we had about him in class.

In the play King Lear, there is a part where King Lear is thrown out of the households of both of his two evil daughters. Because of their betrayal, compounded with being exposed to the elements while living on a heath, King Lear starts to lose it. It's kind of a rough time for him. And because of the harshness that his fate has dealt him, he starts to lose his identity. He just lost his family, his power, his soldiers, his kingdom, most of his friends, his self-respect, etc. and his senile mind can't really handle it.

Ok, so identity is one of the themes of King Lear. There is also a strong motif of nature throughout the play. And as I was thinking about this, and about the things that we discussed in class, something clicked in my mind. So often in life we base our identities on things like our possessions, our wealth, where we live, how we look, or other people's opinions of us. But none of these things can bring us true joy, as King Lear was able to experience. These things don't last and once they're gone, what are we left with? Emptiness and a sense of being unfulfilled. So what do we base our identities on? This is where it gets interesting.

I was sitting in class thinking about this and I realized that if we are basing our identities on these temporal things, we are limiting our progression because we are limiting how far our identities can grow. We are chaining ourselves to temporal objects. And then I realized that the gospel of Jesus Christ truly liberates us because it gives us an identity that is independent of the world. The gospel helps us to understand who we truly are. As we recognize our identity as children of God, that  is something that will never change, no matter what situation we are in. And this identity is far more fulfilling than anything the world has to offer. So to relate this back to King Lear:

KING LEAR
Why, thou wert better in thy grave than to answer
with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies.
Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou
owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep
no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on
's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself:
unaccomodated man is no more but such a poor bare,
forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings!
come unbutton here.

King Lear is recognizing that the identity of man does not rely on external sources. You don't need silk, hides, wool, perfume. You are the thing itself. You are your own identity, independent of anything else. The nature motif in this play neatly takes the role of God. It was in nature that the characters were able to have revealed to themselves who they really are.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

So I read A Midsummer Night's Dream last week. It was sooo good! It's full of love, and confusion, and brilliant comedy. To be honest, all of the love triangles/squares remind me a bit of the college life :)

Anyway, to lessen the confusion of who the main couples are during all the switcharoos, I've made some beautiful and detailed pictures to help.

There you go! So now you can read the play and remember who really loves who...or who will really love who in the end.

Familial Love. Or lack of it.

I really hope the characters in King Lear are not an accurate perception of what people are really like.

Because, seriously, everyone (aka. Goneril, Regan, Burgundy, Edmund...etc.) is so driven by greed! And THEN everyone else (Gloucester, King Lear) is so willing to be deceived by the above persons!...(minus Burgundy).

Really though, you would think that with the way that Gloucester goes on about how much he loves Edgar because he's a legit son, and how well he knows Edgar, and how much he loooooves Edgar, he would be a little slower to accept a story about Edgar betraying him. But nooo, he's eager and willing to believe Edmund's lies. No hesitation.

And King Lear is so quick to conclude from one speck of time that Cordelia actually doesn't love him. Right, pretty safe to assume that the previous however-old-she-is years don't really matter at all.

The familial love in Shakespeare's plays often has such big misunderstandings.

Gloucester  "He cannot be such a monster--"

Edmund "Nor is not, sure."

Gloucester "To his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him."

But if Gloucester really loved Edgar, wouldn't he have a harder time believing that Edgar is trying to kill him? It reminds me of Hamlet, and how Claudius misunderstood so greatly what a father's love is really like. (See previous post about that--Claudius, the False.) Except that Gloucester really is Edgar's father, sadly. What a downer.

Lord of the Lear

This week has been super busy and I'm afraid my blogging has suffered. Maybe if I practice flattery I'll become as good as Goneril and Regan and be able to talk my way to my Professor's good favor. Ha. No thanks.

Ok, King Lear. To be honest, this is the most interesting of all the Shakespeare plays I've read so far because before I read it, I really didn't know anything about it. It isn't Shakespeare's most popular play. I really like reading it because I have this wide open slate with really no expectations. I get to make my own observations about it without being influenced from stuff I've heard about the play before.

And because I don't have a preconceived notion of what King Lear is like, the first image that my mind drew upon as I was reading was.......wait for it.......DENETHOR! Lord of the Rings, baby.

Don't you see the resemblance??? They both have these awesome kids, Cordelia and Faramir, who really love them and they just don't get the picture. King Lear and Denethor are just blinded by....stupidity? I dunno. They're blinded by something... .... ....Yeah, actually, I'm pretty sure it is stupidity....

I'm so impressed that my mind made this connection because it's been like.....what, like maybe 2 years since I've watched the Lord of the Rings. I'm going to have to fix that. I just realized how much I miss those movies. But anyways.

Cordelia. Faramir. Both of them love their fathers. Mom's out of the picture. (Maybe that's why their Dads act so dumb....?) Both super noble, willing to sacrifice for their father...and both of them actually show their fathers their love...how interesting. Who knew Lord of the Rings and Shakespeare have connections???

To be or not to be.

(Chloe, this is for you. :)

Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is super good. The production design was especially well done. When I watched it I drew some conclusions that I thought were interesting.

So the main color scheme for the film is only 3 colors: white, red, and black.

White & Black
The setting is the castle where the floor is a checkerboard of black and white squares, which seems unusual for the time period that the movie is set in, but to me it represents the theme of conflict throughout the entire play: Hamlet's internal conflict, the conflict with his uncle, his conflict with his own mother, the conflict between Hamlet and Polonius and eventually Ophelia and Laertes as well, etc. It is a constant reminder that things are not right in Denmark.

White
I think the white represents the lost purity and shattered innocence of Hamlet. When he lost his father it was a tragic loss for him, but then for it to be so immediately followed with his mother's wedding was unthinkable. It completely destroyed his world. You can see in this picture that the white petals are his broken innocence, falling to the ground.

Red
Which brings me to red. The scarlet represents the sin and wrongdoings of his uncle, who is the one that destroyed Hamlet's world by murdering his father and marrying his mother.

Hamlet's mother is dressed in white and his uncle in red, because his uncle blemishes the purity of his mother. It symbolizes his shame and guilt (that he SHOULD feel).

Black
Aaand black is Hamlet's discord with his surroundings. He just does not fit in with the rest of the castle because there is such a barrier between him and everything/everyone else in his life. And he holds onto it throughout the entire movie until the very end when he is dressed in black and white for the final scene, when his conflict is resolved.

And see how the color for his uncle's sins isn't there anymore. Hamlet triumphed in the end!

Claudius, the False

Mmk. So I've been trying to sum up my experience with Hamlet, like what the theme is and and what message it is trying to get across. Unfortunately, there's really not much uplifting material here to work with. I think Marcellus says it best at the very beginning of the play, "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." Point made.

And I would definitely say that that rotten 'something' is Claudius. The scheming, slimy uncle of Hamlet.

Exhibit A:

When I read Claudius' speech to Hamlet at the beginning of the play, I wanted to puke. He is so artificial and ingenuine! And scummy. He gives me the willies.

KING CLAUDIUS (Act I, Scene II. Hamlet)

'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,            (First, he uses flattery.)
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;                         (Then, he shows a complete
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound                      detachment and callousness by
In filial obligation for some term                                              talking about death as just
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever                              another part of life.)  

Ok, Hamlet has every right to mourn for his lost father. He is showing his love and attachment for him by doing so. It is a natural thing to be sad. Yet Claudius begins his speech by using words like duty, filial obligation, and obsequious to describe the act of mourning, as if Hamlet is putting on a show out of a sense of duty for his father. Claudius has no concept of what Hamlet feels.

In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart?

Claudius uses words like obstinate, impious stubborness, unmanly, heart unfortified, mind impatient, understanding simple and unschooled, peevish opposition to show that he sees Hamlet like a contrary child that is simply not complying because they just don't want to do what their parent wants them to.

                           Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;                            (And then he ends the sham by 
And with no less nobility of love                                         saying the love that he has for  
Than that which dearest father bears his son,                    Hamlet is a father's love, which 
Do I impart toward you.                                                     clearly he knows nothing about.)

I also find it interesting that Claudius speaks so much of Heaven in this speech. He does his best to portray Hamlet's mourning as being discordant with God's will, while the truth is that Claudius is the one that has done a pretty good job of  distancing himself from Heaven.

Everything that Claudius does, says, or is in this play is treachery. He truly is rotten and causes the fall of the royalty of Denmark.

Clever Gem

The other day I was looking up songs that mentioned Shakespeare and I found tons of really weird ones. But I also found this gem :) Hamlet parody! Rugs from Me to You by Owl City. Check it!

Midterm Assessment

Learning Outcomes

• 1. Gain Shakespeare Literacy
  
  
  
  
  Demonstrate mastery over fundamental information about Shakespeare’s works, life, and legacy

  a. Breadth (knowledge of a range of Shakespeare’s works)

  I'm gaining a broader knowledge of Shakespeare's writings as I continue to read his works and study them.

  b. Depth (more thorough knowledge of a single work)

  I'm going to choose one of Shakespeare's plays and go more in depth with it.

  c. Performance (stage and screen)

  We got to watch the Merchant of Venice on Stage and I've watched the Kenneth Branagh films of Henry V and Hamlet. I've got a blog in the works about the Hamlet film.

  d. Legacy (history, scholarship, popular culture)

  Hm, this is probably the area that I'm struggling most in. I'm not super in touch with pop culture but I've been trying to relate Shakespeare with things that are more relevant in modern day. (Time Travel and Shakespeare; The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)

• 2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically
  
  
  Interpret Shakespeare’s works critically in their written form, in performance (stage or screen) and in digitally mediated transformations. This includes 
  a. Textual analysis (theme, language, formal devices)

  I've done this my blogs about The Tempest and Henry V. 

  b. Contextual analysis (historical, contemporary, cultural)

  I think I need to look more into the context of Shakespeare's plays cause that's pretty interesting. I did a little bit with the Tempest when I read about how it was Shakespeare's last play and it was kind of like he was saying goodbye to his audiences through Prospero. But I didn't blog about it.

  c. Application of literary theories 

  Um...yeah...I'm not sure exactly what this means soooo....I'm probably not doing it.

  d. Analysis of digital mediations

  I've analyzed Kenneth Branagh's films of Henry V and Hamlet (although I haven't written my blog about Hamlet yet).

• 3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively
  
  
  
  
  a. Performance (memorization, recitation, scene on stage or video)

  I need to be better about finding speeches that I want to memorize.

  b. Individual creative work (literary imitation, art, music)

  Hm, I've been rolling thoughts around in my head but I haven't really gone anywhere with it yet.

  c. Collaborative creative project

  Again, I've been trying to come up with ideas to collaborate with people but so far, nothing outstanding has surfaced.

• 4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully
  
  
  
  
  This includes engaging in the following:

  a. Formal Writing. Develop and communicate your ideas about Shakespeare clearly in formal and researched writing and through a format and medium that puts your ideas into public circulation.

  Not so much formal writing. Except that my informal writing (blog) tends to be kind of formal... 

  b. Informal Writing. This mainly means through regular online writing

  I'm trying to be better at blogging more frequently and more interestingly. I think I'm still not very successful at being a good blogger but I'm trying.

  c. Connecting. Share one’s learning and creative work with others both in and outside of class.

  Haha, this one. I think I'm doing a fair job. So I haven't been able to find anyone yet to have an in depth Shakespeare conversation with but I definitely have been able to use it when I was babysitting (If you prick us, do we not bleed?) and when my roommate had to go to the emergency room last week I got to read Hamlet to her :) 

• 5. Gain Digital Literacy
  
  
  Students use their study of Shakespeare as a way of understanding and developing fluency in 21st century learning skills and computer-mediated modes of communication. Those skills are grouped under the following categories.

  a. Consume - Effective and independent selecting, searching, researching, 

  I've been able to read about Shakespeare's life and I've found some external blogs that are interesting.

  
  

  b. Create - Producing content that demonstrates learning and which can be shared for others to profit from.

  I've been trying to blog about my learning. I don't know if it's that interesting, but I hope that others can find some kind of profit from it. I've changed the layout to fit better with the focus of my blog and the tone of it.

  
  

  c. Connect - Engage with other learners within and outside of the class to develop thinking and share more formal work.

  I think I'm pretty good at connecting with others through making comments on others blogs but I don't know about the formal work...

The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Part One)

Hamlet. "To be or not to be." The famous line. What kind of man says these words? And why?

So we had a pretty good discussion about Hamlet in class today that helped me out a lot, actually. I'll admit that I've been struggling with this play. And it's weird because I've seen it before on stage and I LOVED it. I don't know if it's because I'm like post-mission or what. . . nah, that's not it.

Ok, well it kind of is. Kind of. On my mission I really learned how to relate to people and how to love them and be empathetic to them and just all sorts of good stuff. So my struggle with Hamlet is I feel like I can't relate to him. Or anyone in the play for that matter! It's like. . . weird.

In class today we discussed what makes a tragedy a tragedy. Basically what I learned. . . it's the body count when the curtain closes. Pretty much. Actually, normal tragedies begin with the murder of someone and then for the rest of the play we get to see the outcome of it. But in this play, Hamlet sits around (Lie. He actually erratically wanders around pretending to be crazy.) for almost the entire play musing aloud about what he should do. He's a thinker, this one.

So in the "To be or not to be" speech, Hamlet is pondering on whether it would be better for him to just kill himself and end his troubles or if he should stick around the twisted world he finds himself in. He says it waaay better than I just did, though, cause he's so DEEP. Shakespeare really did do a great job of making his characters three-dimensional. Maybe I can't relate to him cause I'm actually a two-dimensional person. When I turn sideways, you can't see me.

Anyway, I think the real reason I'm having trouble relating to these characters is because. . . I'm not mad!

The Lead Casket

Ok, I just read Sarah's blog post about the lead casket in the Merchant of Venice and it got me thinking again.

The reason I brought up the quote about the lead casket ("Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.") is because I was applying it to real, pure, love. True Christlike charity requires us to give and hazard all that we have. It requires the sacrifice of all things. It requires us to give everything and take risks. It is not easy to let go of ourselves and trust others. Often I find myself struggling to perfectly trust even Heavenly Father with my life, my future, or those that I love. But it is through our sacrifices that we are able to become truly Christlike.

I love how Sarah applied the quote in relation to every aspect of our lives. Today in my Doctrine and Covenants class we talked about the Law of Consecration, which was in effect in the 1830s in Kirtland, Ohio and required the early members of the church to give up all of their substance and received in turn as much as their family needed while the surplus was given to the poor and needy. As I was thinking about it, I realized that the Law of Consecration helps us to be Christlike because it requires us to strip ourselves of pride, belongings, everything until it's just us and the Lord. Those Saints in Kirtland definitely understood what it means to give and hazard all he hath.

I was able to experience this, though not as extreme, when I served my mission. When I accepted the call to serve a mission, I gave up everything to the Lord. I left my job, school, family, everything behind. And not just the tangible things. When I was a missionary I did not hold a single thing back from serving with my whole heart. I consecrated my mind, my heart, my entire soul to serving Heavenly Father and doing the things that he wanted, not that I wanted, and by being the person he wants me to be. That was when I began to understand the love that He has for his children, not only for me but for those I was serving amongst. And that's when I really began to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ and my relationship to him and the plan that he has for me.

And that brings me to Shylock's quote, "you take my life when you do take the means whereby I live..." It reminds me of the scripture in Matthew 16:25, "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." It is when we consecrate our lives to Heavenly Father that we are able to find the life that he intends for us. And that is when we give our life away.

"If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

The Merchant of Venice is brilliant. And it was so fun to be able to go watch a live performance of it on Saturday! I admit that I was a bit speculative about it when I first found out that the play had been adapted for young audiences. I was afraid of it being cheesy or insincere. I was especially interested to see how they would adapt it because of a fun experience that I had just a couple nights before.

I was babysitting four super cute kids. It was their bedtime so I put them all in bed, sang them a few songs, and then went back downstairs to do homework. But just a few minutes later, the 4 and 6 year old girls came downstairs crying because they were scared without their parents. So I invited them to snuggle on the couch with me and asked them if they would like me to tell them a story. They immediately stopped crying, haha. The first thing that came to my mind was the Merchant of Venice, which I had just finished reading for my Shakespeare class. I mean, Shakespeare was meant for bedtime stories, right? So I started to tell them the story of Bassanio and Antonio and Portia and Shylock. I definitely edited out the part about Shylock being a Jew. And I portrayed him more as being the Big Bad-guy rather than being a sad product of his circumstances. And the focus of my story was definitely the love story between Bassanio and Portia and how Bassanio had to win her by choosing the right chest. The girls loved it :)

Ha, I'm not the only one telling Shakespeare as bedtime stories! This is cute. Bring on the Shakespeare Geek's adaptation. This convinces me that telling Shakespeare stories at bed time is definitely the way to go!

Anyway, it was interesting to me that the whole focus of the theater production of The Merchant of Venice was geared towards the fact that Shylock was different from Antonio and analyzing the lack of kindness that all the characters displayed towards those different from themselves. Their main focus wasn't love, it was the lack of it.

I thought the production was great. It did a great job of making the play personal to the kids in the audience by focusing on bullying, which is something they deal with in their own lives, and also by having the kids participate right in the play. It was so great!

My favorite, favorite part was the cute little girl they got to play Jessica. Specifically, when they announced that she fell in love and married Lorenzo, who was played by a cute little boy, and the look of disgust that she gave him. It was HILARIOUS!

Great production. I loved that they didn't change the Shakespeare language even though their main audience was children. They did a great job of not only entertaining the audience but teaching a pertinent message very effectively.

So if I get the chance to retell the Merchant of Venice as a bedtime story, perhaps I'll bring it a little closer to home and run a bullying thread through it :)