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.

Taming of the Shrew and Shakespeare's Comedies

In class we discussed the traditional elements of Shakespearean comedies.  As we talked about these I tried to associate each one with Taming of the Shrew.  I found that most of them fit, but I had a hard time finding a few of these elements in the play.  Let's go through each one, shall we?

Standard elements of Shakespearean comedies:

The Authorship question, thanks to Twitter

There was a fun thing going on yesterday on Twitter, the hashtag #askshakespeare being sponsored by Blogging Shakespeare.  Some prominent Shakespeare scholars were answering questions about Shakespeare.  This is fun, and I got involved as well, asking a few questions that I have been thinking about, and I got some great responses.

One of the biggest things that I have always had a problem with when people discuss Shakespeare is the Authorship question.  For me, it doesn't really matter.  I am very much of the school of thought that "the author is dead."  Once an author has written the text, and released it to the public, his involvement with it is over.  At that point, all meaning that can be found in the text must be found in the text.  If an author makes a statement about anything, I usually ignore it, unless it can be found in the text.  For example, J.K. Rowling has said that Dumbledore was gay.  I'm sorry, but I find no textual evidence for that, so I do not believe it.  If Ms. Rowling wanted Dumbledore to be gay, then she should have put something in the text that would lead to that.

So, with all of this in mind, and seeing that several people had asked about who really wrote Shakespeare, I asked, "#askshakespeare Does it really matter who wrote the text, if we can find deep themes and enjoyment in the plays themselves?"

Wilhelm Shakespeare -- Shakespeare in Germany

William Shakespeare is loved the world over, but nowhere near as much as in Germany.  From some simple Google searches on Shakespeare and Germany, I have learned that the oldest Shakespeare Society in the world is German: Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, founded in 1864, English acting troops brought the Bard to Germany in the early 1700s with performances translated into German, and there have been so many translations of Shakespeare's plays into German that most Germans actually believe that Wilhelm Shakespeare was a German!

As a student of German, who has loved this language and this culture for over a decade now,  I find this fascinating.  I have found several translations of these plays online and they have evolved as the modern German language has evolved.  Shakespeare is very much alive in German, because he is allowed to be translated and retranslated, where in English there are always those purists who frown on anything but the actual, authentic, original text.  But Shakespeare has been allowed to thrive in Germany precisely because he is a foreigner.  And yet, he is very much a German.  A poem from the German Shakespeare Society reads,

Seht, heut' gesellt, im heil'gen Bund der Dritte,
Zu Deutschlands Dioskuren sich der Brite,
Auch er ist unser...

(See, today in the holy bond joins as the third, to Germany's dioscuri (referring to Schiller and Goethe), the Brit.  He, too, is ours.)

Learning Outcomes

One of the main reasons I am starting this blog is because I am in a Shakespeare class at BYU. As part of this class we have been asked to start a research blog about Shakespeare, to help us achieve the learning outcomes of the course.

1. Gain "Shakespeare Literacy" - Gain a breadth and depth of Shakespeare's works by reading plays that I haven't before as well as studying one play more in depth. Plays that I want to read: Richard III, King Lear, Twelfth Night (which I haven't read yet), the Henriad. I also want to watch some vintage movie productions of Shakespeare, some Olivier, some Branagh, some other classics as well.

2. Analyze Shakespeare Critically - That's where this blog comes in. I will write as I read and analyze these plays and movies. I have a background in theatre as a technical director, so I will mostly focus on the technical elements, looking at how I would stage these plays if I were given the opportunity as well as analyzing the movies with these elements in mind.

3. Engage Shakespeare Creatively - I have a few ideas about how I will be creative with Shakespeare's works, including a monologue that I am working on based off of Richard III's opening speech, as well as some Shakespearean sonnets that I have written based on Shakespeare's plays. I will post anything I write here, of course.

4. Share Shakespeare Meaningfully - And that is again where this blog comes in. I will write and share my thoughts, discoveries, research as I read and study these plays and I invite commentary and discussion. I am a big fan of collective knowledge and learning through the communal conversation.

I am excited for this course, for this opportunity to explore and engage with Shakespeare and to join the scholarly and academic community. This should be fun. Let's see what happens!

Blogging about Shakespeare

People have been writing about Shakespeare for almost 400 years now. His works have been analyzed and re-analyzed using all of the latest literary and psychological and sociological theories. His works have been translated and transposed into countless languages and settings. There is truly a universality to the works of William Shakespeare, and the advent of internet technologies and Web 2.0 are no exception.

What does it mean to study Shakespeare in the Digital Age? How does one make the collected works of William Shakespeare accessible to an audience that is growing more global and more technologically savvy? How does a four hundred year old play stand up against the latest 3-D movie or video game?

These are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves as scholars of Shakespeare in the 21st century. These plays have so much humanity in them that they have continued to be relevant and insightful throughout history and across cultures. People enjoy reading Shakespeare and watching it performed, they enjoy taking the stories and characters of Shakespeare and using them and adapting them to whatever situation or circumstance they can. These plays still have meaning and purpose, but we need to start discussing how we can continue to use these plays in the world of Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. Just doing a quick search for "Shakespeare" on YouTube returned 93,500 results. People are talking about Shakespeare, discussing Shakespeare, performing Shakespeare, reinterpreting Shakespeare on the Internet almost daily.