Finals and what comes after

Here at BYU, we are firmly in the middle of Finals week.  I'm not too worried, mine aren't that bad, except for the fact that I had one scheduled at 7:00 am this morning.  but I was done by 8:30, so it's not all bad.  And I only have two other finals, the rest of my classes just had us turn in papers on the last day of classes that counted as our finals.   I have a take-home German linguistics final, that should actually be fun (I told you I was a nerd!), and my final for this class for which I created this blog: Shakespeare.

As the professor explains, this final will be very different from anything I've ever done before.  It will be sort of a group discussion of what we have learned and experienced this year.  We will discuss our individual learning plans and how we have met the learning outcomes of the course.  It seems like we'll also have a chance to discuss the progress and the product of other blogs in the class.

I am excited for this,  I am looking forward to an opportunity to expand the conversation and the discussion about Shakespeare and my interests in Hamlet and Germany.  This has been a very interesting class, exploring the future of academia, by creating research blogs that can connect with scholars and students across the world. This social learning has been fascinating to observe, as students become friends and help each other with research and ideas via comments in class and on the blog.

I have long been amazed at the concept of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Centered Support, which are usually applied only to businesses or IT departments.  The basic idea is that knowledge is an asset and needs to be managed and used in order to be a benefit for the company.  Knowledge is key, and access to knowledge should be easier and better.  I am a big believer in Collective Knowledge and Open Source, especially Open Source Education (thus the title of this blog), where knowledge is free and freely shared with anyone who wants it.  For me, it all comes down to this: I don't know everything, you don't know everything, but if we add what you know to what I know, and add that to what everybody else knows, then collectively we do know everything.

And so, with Shakespeare, these ideas, for me, have meant that I have documented my thought process and my findings, my research and my ideas for anyone who cares.  This blog exists and will continue to exist, and I will add to it when I have new things to say pertaining to Shakespeare, teaching, Germany or Hamlet.  I have welcomed the comments made on this blog, and I have made comments on other blogs.  I have collected and cited sources, both traditionally academic sources as well as web resources.

"I am not what I am": A Self Evaluation of this blog

The semester is almost over and it has really been a wonderful opportunity to explore the works of Shakespeare through this research blog.  It started out very generally, with just a few posts about my thoughts as I read several plays, but then it really took off as I developed my focus of studying how Shakespeare has been accepted, appropriated, and interpreted by the Germans.
And now is the time when I step back and reflect and discuss what I have learned, following the guidelines set forth by my professor.

• Posts
• Quantity--  Over the past 3.5 months I have 55 posts, of which 15 are tagged about Germany and 18 are tagged about Hamlet.  I believe that's quite a focus, that's quite a few posts devoted to my theme.
• Content -- I have tried to do a variety of posts, with some being textual analysis, others being about productions and performances, and others being about secondary sources regarding Hamlet and Germany.
• Format -- I have used titles that help introduce what each post is about, and I have used the jump break to break up my longer posts.  But I am most proud of my tags, this has helped me review what I have talked about and find older posts again when I wanted to reference them.
• Research
• Thematic Focus-- My theme as I started out was just looking at how Shakespeare has been treated in Germany, but as I did my research and wrote about it I found that Germans are particularly fond of Hamlet. So, I began to focus on how Hamlet has been interpreted and adapted throughout its history in Germany.
• Thesis & Cohesion--My hub post, wherein I argue that Hamlet is now more German than English, links back to several of my older posts where I argue my point.
• Sources -- As I detail in my Sources and Other Links pages I have read books and articles as well as visited websites devoted to the study of Shakespeare in Germany.
• Personal & Social
• Author identity -- I believe I have allowed my identity to come through on this blog, I mean, if it weren't for my identity and my love of all things German I would never have developed the focus that I have.
• Documentation of Process-- I have a few posts where I describe not only what I have learned but which resources I gleaned my information from.
• Interactions-- I will admit, I haven't done a lot of interaction with others in the class, but that is mostly because my focus is so narrow that others are not talking about the same subjects.  I have appreciated the comments I have received and I have enjoyed reading the blogs of other members if the class. 
• Design
• Appropriate to Theme -- I didn't put a whole lot of thought into the design, I just used one of the default themes, but I like the simplicity of it, putting focus on the content of the blog itself.
• Side content -- I really like the tag cloud that I have in my sidebar, and I have used it a lot to find older posts of mine about certain topics, which is particularly helpful when doing a post like this and I want to link back.

Sein oder Nicht Sein: German Hamlet Audio

As I have been dealing with Germany's handling of Hamlet and as part of that I have found online an audio recording of that most famous speech, Act 3, Scene 1 "To be or not to be", "Sein oder nicht sein". 
Here is the sound clip:



And for those of you who would like to follow along at home, here is the text.  The audio doesn't follow this text exactly, there are a couple lines that are a little different from this text and I think he's got a newer translation, but this is close enough.

Blog Review: Christopher Welcker

Christopher Welcker: Thine Own Adventure

• Posts
• Quantity - It is hard to tell, the posts are not linked together in any way.  I would suggest linking to previous posts that relate to the same topic, or at the very least using labels that could be used to find all posts on similar subjects.
• Content - Most of the posts are long, lot of research has been done, a lot of explanatory posts.  Media is used, but mostly just simple clipart that are only somewhat related to the text of the post.
• Format - Titles are good indication of what each post is about.  There is good use of the jump break, splitting up the long posts.  Tags or labels need to be used.  This will help with the overall organization, and help readers find other related posts.
• Research
• Thematic Focus - The focus seems to be about Shakespeare's life and how much we actually know about the man, and how that knowledge affects a reading of the plays, or how we can learn about Shakespeare by reading what he has written.
• Thesis & Cohesion - The thesis seems to have developed well over time
• Sources - I like the Works Cited page, there are some good scholarly sources there
• Personal & Social
• Author identity - There is no About Me on the blog, no author information
• Documentation of Process - There are a few posts about movies and documentaries that he has seen and what he has learned.  
• Interactions - He does have a post describing an email to and response from a scholar
• Design
• Appropriate to Theme - The design looks good enough for this purpose.  
• Side content - Blog archive is useful, but I would also suggest adding tags or labels to the blog posts and then adding a tag cloud to the side to help readers find posts baed around certain subjects.  

It's a good blog, but a little hard to tell the overall focus or the general theme.  Each posts needs links back to previous posts that deal with the same subject, labels and tags would definitely be helpful, as well.   

MST3K does Hamlet, a German version

I found a gem on Netflix the other day.  Mystery Science Theatre 3000 did a parody of Hamlet, but not just any Hamlet, a German version from the 1960's made for television.  It was obviously dubbed into English, but you can still see some directorial choices, like costume and set.

Aside from the hilarious jokes made of the show (like, "Hey, that line's from Hamlet!"), the movie was fun to watch.  Even my wife, who is not usually into Shakespeare, or German films, enjoyed it.  Here are a few of my thoughts as I watched.

The "too, too solid flesh" speech done as voiceover while the coronation party are departing, then becoming spoken when they are all gone.  This leads the audience to believe that Hamlet is constantly in his head, talking to himself, thinking too much.

There is a minimalist set, it looks like it was leftover from a stage production.  That was probably intentional, as they were probably trying to imitate a successful theatre production.

When the ghost speaks to Hamlet, we do not see the ghost, we hear him, but the camera is focused on Hamlet's face the whole time.  Interesting, does this imply that the ghost is merely in Hamlet's mind?  

The scene that Ophelia tells her father about, that Hamlet came to her ("As I was sewing in my closet....") they actually show.  A little creepy, actually.  Hamlet wanders in, shirt undone, hair all frizzled, and wide-eyed and stares at Ophelia, then slowly backs out of the room, which causes Ophelia to run off and find her father. There are no lines, no speech, just Hamlet staring at Ophelia, then walking away.

The "To be or not to be" speech starts out with Hamlet standing behind a wall, or a doorway, or a stairway (it's a black and white film and filmed with a lot of dark shadows so a lot of detail in the set are hard to make out).  Still, for the first half of the speech Hamlet's face is mostly blocked, you can't see his mouth, only his eyes.  Strange.

Ophelia, mad Ophelia, does not sing.  She just smiles and says her lines with a goofy grin.  Doesn't really look that mad, except that she's handing out weeds and calling it different flower names.

It was a fun film, mostly because of the commentary that MST3K provides, but I found it interesting looking at the elements of the German production.  I would recommend this movie to anyone looking for a good Shakespearean laugh!

Hamlet ist Deutsch: My Conclusions to Studying Hamlet in German

As I have studied Shakespeare in Germany over the last few months I have come to one conclusion that I would like to posit as a thesis for this research blog:

William Shakespeare's Hamlet has become and is now more German than English, because of the way that in which the German people have adopted and interpreted the play and incorporated it into their culture.

From the very beginning Hamlet has been a favorite play in Germany, there is a German translation that dates back to 1710, though there are accounts of the play being performed in Germany within five years of Shakespeare's death.

In the 1800's,Shakespeare, and Hamlet especially, were well loved and talked about by the great German thinkers and writers, like Goether, and Schiller.  In fact, now Shakespeare is considered their equal in German eyes, and they refer to the three great Klassiker Goethe, Schiller, and Shakespeare

In 1844, the German poet Ferdinand Freiligrath wrote a poem entitled Hamlet, where we wrote that Germany is Hamlet. I have translated this and done some interpretation, that indicates that Germany is Hamlet because, at least in the 1800's, it was full of great thinkers and philosophers, but few men of action.  At that time there was no German state, but several German kingdoms.  Freiligrath seems to mean with his poem that Germany should stop being so concerned with thinking and hesitating, like Hamlet was, and should start acting, or they would end up like Hamlet, stabbed and killed.

Hamlet is German

In looking at how Germany has appropriated the play Hamlet, as I have discussed before, I decided to look at current productions of Hamlet in Germany. 


I found the Shakespeare Festival at the Globe Neuss.  (Yes, the Germans have built a replica of the Globe on an old racetrack, and they hold a Shakespeare Festival every summer.) They have done productions of Hamlet in 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 and it's on the schedule for 2011.  The program for this summer's festival shows that there are no less than 4 different productions of Hamlet!  One by the Globe Touring Company from London (performed in English), and one by the Bremer Shakespeare Company (from Bremen, performed in German), Kupenga Kwa Hamlet, which is a shortened Hamlet done by two Zimbabwen actors (performed in English), and Hamlet (from the East) performed by the Yohangza Theatre Company from Korea (performed in Korean).  There is also a lecture/discussion Shakespeare - A German writer, which will discuss Shakespeare's influence on German culture with "bilingual readings from Shakespeare and German poets from Goethe till present day."  All of this in four weeks! In addition to Comedy of Errors done in French and English, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus and Cressida all in German, Richard III in English, and Macbeth done by a Swedish choir!  Who wants to pay for me to fly to Germany????


Hamlet is very much alive in Germany today.  It has had a long, rich history.  And, although it was technically written in English by an Englishman, Hamlet is very much German now.  There is something about German culture and history that has drawn them to this play, more than any other, so much that they write poems about it, do postmodernist theatrical adaptations of it, and continue to perform it regularly.  Lines from the play may have slipped into the vernacular in English speaking countries across the world, but the play itself has wormed its way into the heart of the German people.

What is Hamlet?: A Look at How Translations Affect the Text

Furthering my exploration and study into the subject of Hamlet, and especially German versions and how the play has been performed in Germany, I find myself coming back to this one defining question:

When does an adaptation or translation of a play become a different play?

Are there essential elements of a play that define it, which would, if changed render a different piece of work?  How much of the plot and characters can be modified or adapted and still retain the essence of the original work?

Let's look at Hamlet specifically.  What about the play Hamlet makes it Hamlet?  I mentioned before that I found a German version of the Hamlet story from 1710, called "Der Bestrafte Brudermord", which has enough similarities to Shakespeare's play that some scholars believe it is a translation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, but with enough differences that others believe it may be the Ur-Hamlet, or original Hamlet text that Shakespeare based his play on.  

The Joy of Live Theatre

This post is a combination of a couple of posts I wrote for my personal blog last September and October, as well as the opportunity I had this weekend to see New Play Project's newest show, WWJD, by Anna Lewis.


I love live theatre.  I really do. For the last three years I have been acting as Technical Director for New Play Project.  This has given me opportunity to read a lot of plays, hundreds probably.  Some of them I have really enjoyed, and others I haven’t enjoyed so much.  There have only been a very few that I downright disliked.  But the interesting thing is that often when these plays were performed and I watched them, I found myself interested and enjoying the play.  What is the difference, what causes this?

I have thought about this quite a bit, especially as I have had theatre classes at school where I have been required to read certain plays and as I have thought about how to teach theatre to high school students as I prepare to become a teacher.   I have found that I have a difficult time just reading plays sometimes.  I am not a very imaginative person, I don’t picture things very well in my mind and so just reading the words on a page it becomes hard for me to really see what is happening in the play.  Plays were written to be performed and they are written in a specific way to facilitate that, but that makes it hard to just read a play.  I think this is partly why students have such a hard time reading Shakespeare. Aside from the language, Shakespeare’s plays were not meant to be read.  In Shakespeare’s day people did not go to ‘see’ a play, they went to ‘hear’ a play.  The focus was on the words coming out of the actor’s mouth, as they are spoken. 

I also firmly believe in the communal nature of theatre.  Theatre is definitely an act of multiple people coming together.  With a novel it can just be a union of the author and the reader: two people.  But with theatre, you have the playwright, the director, the actors, the tech people, the audience.  So many people come together to put on a play, they work together and their multiple ideas developed the play.  We have different people’s interpretation of the text, discussing it with each other, compromising and coming together to produce a theatrical piece. But when reading a play you are left to yourself and your own interpretation. 

In Memory of Elizabeth Taylor, and her Shakespeare Connection

As I'm sure you've all heard by now, the legendary Elizabeth Taylor died this week at 79 years.  One of the very first Shakespeare films I saw and fell in love with was the 1967 version of Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor playing Katherine opposite Richard Burton's Petruchio.  It was so well done, and I think they both played their parts so well.

I wanted to embed a short clip from that film, Kate's speech at the end, but embedding of that clip is disabled on YouTube, probably due to rights or something.  So, follow this link to go watch it over on YouTube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcQudMqwqpQ

Fratricide Revenged : The German Hamlet

As I have mentioned before, I have found a German play called "Der Bestrafte Brudermord" or Fratricide Revenged, as it is commonly translated into English.  This German play is a version of Hamlet, but it appears to be based less on the Shakespearean play and more on the original source text that Shakespeare also used for his play.  The earliest version of this play we have dates from 1710, but this play still gets performed in Germany, there was a production in Bochum at the Ruhr Universität in 2007.

Here are my thoughts as I read the play, which is surprisingly shorter than I had thought it would be.  The .pdf of the play that I found is only 23 pages, the scenes are very short, often only half a page, but the plot and the characters are similar to those we are familiar with with Hamlet.

Iambic Pentameter in German Shakespeare

In class as I was talking with Prof. Burton he mentioned looking at the use of iambic pentameter in German translations of Shakespeare.  I said that in the German translations they did not use prose much, that German did not lend itself well to iambic pentameter because in German the first syllable is stressed.  I must admit that I was wrong.  Partly.  German is stressed more on the first syllable, but that doesn't mean that German does not use iambic pentameter.  Especially Goethe and Schiller, after falling in love with Shakespeare, used iambic pentameter in their poetry.  

In the German translations that I have read, though, there is little prose.  They have chosen to translate the meaning of the English text, but with little concern for the poetry, for the meter.  So, I went looking for iambic pentameter in German translations of Shakespeare.  I chose a scene that I was very familiar with in English that is well-known for its use of iambic pentameter: the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, Act 2, scene 2.  Then I went looking for German translations of Romeo und Julia, looking for iambic pentameter.   I had to look through three different translations before I found one, by August Wilhelm von Schlegel, that used iambic pentameter.  

Here is the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet in German.  I have bolded the accented syllable to show the iambic pentameter, and I have written the number of feet at the end of each line.  A + indicates that there is an extra syllable.

Sources and Links, and another step forward

Following the suggestion that Prof. Burton gave in class today, and modeling after Bryan's blog, I set up two pages:  one for the sources that I cite in my blog and one for other links and interesting websites I have found.  Hopefully this will help keep things a little more organized and a little more scholarly as I can show what I'm studying and where I'm finding my sources.  As my German professor keeps telling us "citing shows how smart you are, how many other sources you have read, how many other people are talking about the same subjects."

In looking through all of my old posts (I can't believe I've written 44 in two and a half months!), I was also reminded of several ideas that I had found and thought about, but forgotten.  In particular, one where I mention a German play called Der Bestrafte Brudermord (The Punished (or Revenged) Fratricide).  I would like to do more research into this, as it is an interesting subject.  I found an English translation online, with an introduction that talked about how this play seems to be based more off of a Thomas Kyd play than Shakespeare's Hamlet.  Others believe it may be the German translation of the original Hamlet story that both Kyd and Shakespeare based their plays on.

As I have been doing posts about Shakespeare and Germany and trying to find a thesis, I am torn between two ideas that keep recurring.

1. Shakespeare and the Nazis -- I want to continue my research into how Shakespeare was treated and performed under the Nazis, maybe comparing the plays produced in Nazi Germany with plays produced in England or America in the same time period.  What does the choice of plays say about Germany and German culture?

2. Germany and Hamlet -- Especially with this reintroduction to Der Bestrafte Brudermord (which I did find a copy of in German!) I would like to study Germany's history with the play and seek to understand why it is so popular in Germany more than elsewhere and more than other plays.  What is it about German history or culture that keeps this people interested in Hamlet?  And, going off of something Prof. Burton said in class today, are German productions of Hamlet more 'real', more 'authentic' than an English or American production, do Germans innately understand something about Hamlet that we do not?

Theatre in Nazi Germany

I was looking in the library the other day and I came across a shelf that had books all about theatre in Germany.  So, I pulled a few off of the shelf and started flipping through them, using the index to find all references to Shakespeare and specific Shakespearean plays.  Here is what I learned from two of those books:

From the book Theatre Under the Nazis, by John London (2000):
There was a section where they he summarized the number of legal productions of Shakespeare by play during the Nazi era.  The results are fascinating.  Now keep in mind these are productions across all of Germany, not individual performances.   Shakespeare was apparently extremely popular.


Twelfth Night -135
Taming of the Shrew - 101
Hamlet - 94
Midsummer Night's Dream - 76
Much Ado About Nothing - 57
Comedy of Errors - 48
As You Like It - 47

A Close Reading of King Lear

• Prof. Burton has mentioned in class a couple of times that he would like to see more close reading and textual analysis.  Here is my attempt with one of my favorite scenes from King Lear.  This is the end scene, one of the most tragic, but also most powerful, in my opinion.

• Enter Lear, with Cordelia [dead] in his arms, [Edgar, Captain, and others following].
• Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
  Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
  That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!
  I know when one is dead, and when one lives.
  She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass.
  If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
  Why, then she lives.

What is my point: In which I try to come up with a thesis

I have written a lot about Shakespeare and  Germany, and I have been focusing mostly on Hamlet, and how Hamlet has been treated in Germany.  This has been extremely fascinating for me, researching and discovering the depth of the scholarship, particularly in Germany on the subject of Shakespeare and Hamlet.

But where am I going with this?   I want to take a step back and look at what I already know, what research I have already done in order to see if I can come up with some sort of working thesis.

1. Deutschland ist Hamlet -- I posted about Freiligrath's famous poem along with a translation and interpretation.  There has been scholarship in Germany since the mid 1800s about Germany's relationship with Hamlet, including the debate whether Germany is Hamlet or not.

2. Shakespeare in Nazi Germany -- I have also found several books dealing with theatre and Shakespeare and how these plays were seen and produced in Germany under the Nazi regime of the 1930s and 40s.   There were some productions that were very pro-Nazi and anti-Semitic, especially a production of The Merchant of Venice, and some productions that were blatantly critical of the Nazis, like Fehling's Richard III or Gründgen's Hamlet.

3.  König Lear -- I have an edition of King Lear in English and German, and I have done some comparative analysis of the two languages, and I have at least one more post in draft status which looks at the footnotes of my German translation, which helps explain some things from the English text. I would like to do more close readings and analyses of King Lear using both of these texts.

So, what thesis should I be following?  What should I spend my time focusing a little more in depth on?  For this week, I will do one more post on each of these three points as I continue to develop a thesis, but for now, I think I am leaning more toward a study of Shakespeare in Nazi Germany.  I would like to do a Reader Response analysis and look at how Shakespeare can be interpreted in any way to prove whatever point the director or audience chooses.

Much Ado meets South Pacific: A fun evening of theatre

Friday night I was able to go see the Experimental Theatre Club's Much Ado about Nothing, and for what it was, I really enjoyed it.  I have always been a fan of amateur theatre, experimental theatre.
I thought they did well with the space they had, I've always enjoyed the Margett's theatre with it's black box feel, if the show is done right: minimal set and costuming, with more emphasis on character and the language of the play, and this production did that very well.

As an adaptation of Much Ado about Nothing, it was interesting to see it transposed to a post-WWII setting, especially since the only thing they seemed to have changed in order to make this adaptation was the costuming.  I only have two complaints about this production, 1. movement and 2. Don Jon.

Shakespeare and Little Women

Let's take a quick step away from Germany and from Hamlet and look at something different for a while.  In my other English class this semester we are currently reading Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, a novel, I will admit, I had not read before.  Maybe it's the title or the fact that the author is a woman writing about a family of sisters, but it seems whenever this novel is mentioned it is discussed as a breakthrough work of feminism and of women's studies.
Because the protagonist, Jo, is such an independent woman through much of the novel, doing things that are not traditionally acceptable for women, such as writing and being at times the sole breadwinner for the family, this novel is often hailed as a progressive novel challenging traditional women's roles in society.  Yet, as I read the novel I found an interesting similarity between the female characters in Little Women and the female characters in Shakespeare:  they all end up either married or dead.

Specifically, I will compare two characters from Little Women, Jo and Beth, with two characters from Shakespeare, Katherine from Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia from King Lear.

Hamlet in Nazi Germany

Today I had some free time so I went to the library and picked up a book that I mentioned earlier, The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare, by Rodney Symington, published in 2005.

I sat down and started reading it, but soon found myself flipping to the section that actually talked about the plays and how they were treated and dealt with, and to my surprise the very first play discussed in this book was Hamlet, specifically the Gründgens performance of 1936, that I also mentioned earlier.

Gustaf Gründgens as Hamlet 1936

What I found interesting was the description of the performance that Gründgens gave as Hamlet.  They cut lines and scenes that indicated Hamlet's reluctance to act.  The Shakespeare Jahrbuch, a publication of the German Shakespeare Society wrote in 1936 that Hamlet was not portrayed as "a weakling or nervous artistic personage, but as a brilliant young man whose world is overturned by incredible spiritual burdens" (qtd. in Symington).  A critic of the time, Richard Biedrzynski described Gründgen's Hamlet as, “more active, more single minded, more dangerous, more alert, more ready to strike” (qtd. in Symington).

Deutschland ist Hamlet, follow up

As a follow up to my last post, more especially the comment that Janelle left, let me do a little more explanation of Freiligrath's poem.

Janelle asked a great question, If Germany is Hamlet, then who are the other characters in the play?

In the poem Freiligrath only mentions three other characters in his poem:  The Ghost of Hamlet's father, Polonius, and Laertes.  Let's look at each of these characters and what they would symbolize or represents in Germany's history.

1. The Ghost of Hamlet's father --  In Hamlet, who was Hamlet's father in relation to him -- well, obviously his father.  A person that Hamlet respected, looked up to, was incited to revenge.  I already mentioned Otto von Bismarck, and what he did for the German empire.  This was seen as the Second German Empire, the first being the Holy Roman Empire founded in 962 by Otto I, and the Third Reich we are all familiar with, being Hitler's pipedream of a Germany that ruled the world.

So, I would say that the Ghost of Hamlet's father would be Germany's rich history, including the Holy Roman Empire.  Freiligrath wants Germany to rise up and take action and be as great as it once was, so he writes this poem, drawing on the parallel of Hamlet being asked to avenge his father's legacy.

2.  Polonius -- Freiligrath actually tells us who he wants us to interpret as Polonius, August Kotzebue.  Kotzebue was a poet and author who wrote against the student uprisings and rebellions of the time.   These student organizations were very involved with nationalism and conservative values.  After reading what Kotzebue wrote, one student, Karl Ludwig Sand, killed him.
It seems, then, that like Polonius, who was trying to stop Hamlet from what he was supposed to be doing, and conspiring with Hamlet's enemy, Claudius, Kotzebue was working against the cause of German nationalism, and was killed for it.  But making this connection with Polonius, Freiligrath says that Kotzebue was the wrong man to kill.  The poem even says that he received the blow instead of the proper one.    Who, then, does Freiligrath consider the Claudius, the actual person who was standing in the way of German nationalism?


3.  Laertes -- In the poem, Freiligrath does mention, in connection with Laertes, a "French rapier".  It seems, then, that Freiligrath feared some treachery from France.  I might have to do some more research into German history of this time period, to see if there was a threat from France.  I just don't know.

Deutschland ist Hamlet

Here is the poem by Ferdinand Freiligrath from 1844 (source), that I mentioned before.  I have done my best in translating it into English for you, so that you can see what he is writing about.

Ferdinand Freilgrath

Hamlet
Ferdinand Freiligrath

Deutschland ist Hamlet! Ernst und stumm           Germany is Hamlet! Serious and Silent
In seinen Toren jede Nacht                                 Buried Freedom wanders about his gates 
Geht die begrabne Freiheit um                            Every night and waves at the men of the Watch.
Und winkt den Männern auf der Wacht.               There stands the High One, openly armed
Dasteht die Hohe, blank bewehrt,                        And says to the procrastinator, who still doubts,
Und sagt dem zaudrer, der noch zweifelt:            "Be for me a Revenger, Draw your sword!
"Sei mir ein Rächer, zieh dein Schwert!               They have trickled poison into my ear!"
Man hat mir Gift ins Ohr geträufelt!"

Das Wintermärchen

After rereading Hermione's trial scene from The Winter's Tale, I tried to apply my focus (Germanic) to it.  It was hard.  I read that scene in German, and didn't learn anything new (that applied to the play, I did notice some very interesting things about the text of the play, but that is more historical linguistics, and probably uninteresting to anyone but myself)

Then I started researching the history of this play in Germany.  In addition to finding the following clip, of a fun student version of the play from the Universität Bielefeld,


Angriff des Bären aus Shakespeares Wintermärchen

Compagnie Charivari | Myspace Video

A Blog review -- 365 Shakespeare

I found a very interesting blog, that I would like to highlight -- 365 days of shakespeare.
Despite her apparent aversion to capital letters, the author of this blog has taken upon herself the challenge of reading the entire works of Shakespeare in 365 days.  She started on January 1, 2011, so she just two months into her project, but has already read:

Comedy of Errors
Venus and Adonis
Henry VI, part 1
Rape of Lucrece
Henry VI, part 2
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Henry VI, part 3
A Lover's Complaint
Richard III


That's pretty impressive.  Since January I have read Hamlet, Richard II, King Lear, Taming of the Shrew, and The Winter's Tale.  Not nearly as impressive.

But the interesting thing about this blog is the way in which she rewrites the scenes in modern language, putting her interpretation on it as well.  For example, here she takes the scene from Richard III where Richard meets and woos Lady Anne.

I will definitely be following this blog, reading her thoughts and experiences as she takes on this ambitious project.  It will also be interesting to see her reactions to plays that I have read and enjoyed.

Hamlet and Germany

In 1848 the German poet Ferdinand Freiligrath wrote a poem in which he wrote that "Germany is Hamlet", referring to the famous Shakespearean play, which toured Germany within five years of Shakespeare's death.  It seems that play never left.  
Ever since his famous poem, scholars have debated back and forth, looking for and finding or not finding themselves within the text.  Freiligrath's original poem describes Hamlet as being serious, and overly thoughtful, yet inactive.  He thinks too much and does too little, which Freiligrath saw in Germany of the 19th century, though he later wrote, "To the German Shakespeare Society of Weimar, Representative of a People  Whose Recent history has proved Once for all that "Germany is Not Hamlet."  (Look for a future post where I take a look more closely at that poem)

Digital Shakespeare

After hearing Gideon talk about digital mediations, I did some quick Google searching about Digital Shakespeare to see what I could find. 

1.  The Shakespeare Standard has a post about Digital Shakespeare, where they highlight a few new things that are happening.  One that interested me is Yoza Cell Phone Stories in South Africa.  It looks like they make texts available on mobile phones, and then allow people to text their comments to be posted on the webpage.  My favorite comment was:

"26 Aug. 2010
7. fluffy!! says

King lear may b a shaksperien buk bt its actually quite a gud buk, think 0f a m0dern day thriller with l0ads 0f family feuds nd a killer ending"

(Translation: "King Lear may be a Shakespearean book but it's actually quite a good book, think of a modern day thriller with loads of family feuds and a killer ending" )

2.  Open Source Shakespeare  --  Full text of the plays online.  But what I think is really fascinating is that you can choose a play and then choose a character and see all of their lines in the play at a glance. This was interesting as it shows you which characters are in which scenes, who dies early, who survives at the end, etc.
 It also has a concordance, where you can look up individual words and see how often and in which plays they occur.  (For fun I looked up Germany, which occurs six times in five lines in five different plays, including King Lear.)  What a cool resource, that is simple to put together once the texts of the plays are digitized, but would be tedious if it had to be put together by hand.  

3. Such Tweet Sorrow-  This one I find particularly fascinating.  Based on the article in the New Statesman about this project, it looks like they teamed up with the Royal Shakespeare Company to do a modernized Twitter performance of Romeo and Juliet.   You can see the Twitter feed, which was live last April it looks like.  It is interesting so far.  Fun to see how they have used Twitter to develop characters and plot based around a familiar story.

  

Where do we go from here?

LONow that we are halfway through the semester and we have read through quite a few plays, it is time to slow down a bit and think about where things are going.  Since we are no longer reading a play every week, I will have more time to reread some of the plays and go more in depth with a textual analysis and applying literary criticisms.
I will also start doing more research into Shakespeare and Germany.  I don't really know where I'm going with this, but there are quite a few resources out there, almost as many as there are in English.

Hamlet in English and German

1. Deutsche Shakespeare Gesellschaft -- The German Shakesepeare Society is the oldest Shakespeare society in the world, founded in 1864.  They hold conferences and publish articles.  This could be a great resource not only for Shakespeare within Germany, but for Shakespeare in general.  (Their webpage is also translated into English, for those of you who don't speak German)

Ken Larson

2. Ken Larson --Ken Larson is a professor of German at Wells College in Aurora, NY.  He has written some papers on Shakespeare's reception in Germany.  Once I get a better idea what specifically I want to study about Shakespeare in Germany, I may contact him and ask a few questions, see what he has already researched and what further resources he knows.

Not a pretty cover, but I'll read it

3.There is a book I found that I would like to get my hands on and see if I find it interesting.  The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare: Cultural Politics in the Third Reich.  I know that Hitler and the Nazis used Richard Wagner and Norse mythology to buoy up their ideals of the Aryan Nation and the Teutonic ideal, but I had no clue that they used Shakespeare as well.  I have read several articles written about The Merchant of Venice as it has been performed in Germany, with it's portrayal of Jews.





This is a start.  As I do some more cursory research into the topics of Shakespeare and Germany I will form a more clear idea of what specific topic I would like to pursue.

Any thoughts, suggestions, comments?

Peer Blog Evaluation -- Jessica Vavrinec

1. Peer Blog Evaluation -- Jessica Vavrinec
   
1. Number of Posts
   16
2. Quality of Posts
   There are at least two substantial posts per week, with a few shorter one thrown in.
3. A Strength
   There are a couple of posts (Henry V and Macbeth) where she just writes her thoughts, in bulleted list form, about these plays as she reads them. This is very interesting.  There are also a few great posts with video comparisons of different movie versions of speeches.  (Hamlet and Macbeth).  I also really enjoyed this post about YA literature based on Shakespeare, drawing on her personal interests.  I am looking forward to a follow up post where she explains how she enjoyed those YA novels.
4. Suggested Improvement
   One thing I noticed, just glancing through the history of the posts, is that she could benefit from point 2 of this post, and add jump breaks to her posts.  There could also be a little more in depth analysis of the plays, as most of the posts seem to be more cursory.  It's a good blog, but with some good room for improvement.

Progress Report on Personal Learning

1. Learning Outcomes -- The learning outcome I have accomplished the most is LO 1a, the breadth requirement: I have read a play a week, as well as writing about other plays that I have read prior to this semester.  I have also tried to fulfill LO 1d by making connections, looking into the history of the plays and their modern meanings and interpretations, as well as putting my personal spin on it by talking about German texts of the plays as well as German productions.
2. Reading and Research --I have read Hamlet,Richard II, Taming of the Shrew, King Lear and The Winter's Tale, as well as parts of Richard III and Henry VI.  There have been a few articles that I have read that have lent insight into the plays I have read, the one that I would most like to pursue further is the one I mention in this post about The Winter's Tale that draws a parallel between the play and Anne Boleyn's life and death.    I have also begun, as I mentioned before, a cursory research into the history of Shakespeare in Germany, the translations and performances and why they are so popular even when translated.  

A Sad Tale's Best for Winter

I have finished the play The Winter's Tale, and I rather enjoyed it.

It seems to me that Shakespeare is continuing themes he addressed in Othello, with jealousy and irrationally reacting to perceived wrongs.  I feel sorry for poor Leontes, but in this play he has no Iago to blame, his jealousy is all his own.  His reaction to what he sees is all his own.

I found an interesting thin on Wikipedia when doing some cursory research.  I will have to look up the source that is cited and follow up on this, but on Wikipedia it says :

Eric Ives, the biographer of Anne Boleyn (1986),^[4] believes that the play is really a parallel of the fall of the queen, who was beheaded on false charges of adultery on the orders of her husband Henry VIII in 1536. There are numerous parallels between the two stories – including the fact that one of Henry's closest friends, Sir Henry Norreys, was beheaded as one of Anne's supposed lovers and he refused to confess in order to save his life – claiming that everyone knew the Queen was innocent. If this theory is followed then Perdita becomes a dramatic presentation of Anne's only daughter, Queen Elizabeth I.

( Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn 2004:421: in spite of other scholars' rejection of any parallels between Henry VIII and Leontes, asserts "the parallels are there", noting his article "Shakespeare and History: divergencies and agreements", in Shakespeare Survey38 (1985:19–35), p 24f.)

Pursued by a Bear

Last year, for New Play Project's Bad Play Project, where playwrights were encouraged to write purposely bad plays, I wrote a play based off of that famous (infamous?) stage direction in The Winter's Tale.   Since I am reading that play again, I thought I'd share that (bad) play with you here:


Pursued by a Bear

Scholar: Good evening and welcome to tonight's scholarly look at The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare.  I'll be your scholar and host, Professor Geoffrey Spencer Hall.  We begin tonight where we left off yesterday, with Act III, Scene 3, the sea coast of Bohemia: a shipwreck.
This scene is possibly one of the more famous of this somewhat less than famous work by the Bard.  Here we met Antigonus, a lord of Sicilia, carrying the infant daughter of King Leontes, who has been banished by the mad king who suspects the child of being the issue and evidence of adultery on the part of his wife and queen.  Antigonus cannot bear to see the young innocent child killed, so he has a plan: he will leave her on the shore in the hopes that someone will find her.  And just as he is abandoning her we have the most famous stage direction ever written:  "Exit, pursued by a bear."

(Enter Antigonus, running, pursued by a bear)

Kill Shakespeare?

I found this blogpost today, that does a review of a new book, a graphic novel called Kill Shakespeare, that apparently pits Shakespeare's heroes against his villains in some strange universe where all of Shakespeare's characters live side by side.

It actually sounds like an interesting concept.  I will definitely have to see if I can get my hands on a copy.

Here's the trailer:

Looks like fun!

German Theatre and Lear

I am certainly not the first, nor will I be the last, to admit that German theatre is strange.  I am a big fan of all things German and all things theatre, but German theatre??  Even I don't understand all of that.

As I was cruising YouTube looking for German versions of King Lear (I just did a search for "König Lear" and found 46 results), I found a few trailers for theatre productions done in various cities in Germany, like Köln, Cottbus, and Hamburg.

From these trailers we get a feel into the staging, costuming, and direction and I repeat : The Germans are Weird.

In two of these productions that I found, Lear was a woman, one had her with three sons, completely reversing the traditional gender roles. An interesting directorial choice, I wonder how that would change the meaning or effect of the play?

Two productions had an Oriental feel to them, with actors running around with wooden kendo swords. ???  Though I was impressed with the rotating, slanted stage that they had, that would certainly be fun to play around with!