The Intimidation Factor

This semester we have been talking about intimidation and all of the feelings that go along with that. I know that for my own self I am intimidated by a lot of things in my life. and being in a class full of philosophical literature majors I knew this class would be nothing but up and down with the intimidation factor.

I recently gave a presentation in a class, that well lets be honest here I did not work that hard and prepare hard for it, but I did it no less, and it all went off without a hitch. A group member told me that I made it look easy. And that I stand in front of people with ease. I told her that I have to be comfortable with it, because as a teaching major I will be doing it often. This got me thinking, that maybe no matter how comfortable one is with one’s self, there is always going to be the intimidation factor. Of course I have been in the intimidation boat for this class often. But this is when you just have to grab the bull by the horns and run with it. how will one ever know how one reacts to a challenge if you don’t just go for it.

I feel that intimidation in an inner drive within one’s self. No matter how confortable we might be, we still get intimidated with those around us. its that drive to do better, to be like others, to do our best, and push ourselves. Intimidation has nothing to do with the person you are against, it has to do with the final product that you want to produce. You want them to say wow I am intimidated by her! I have been told that I am an intimidating person, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I feel that I have slid through a lot of work, and given my full drive in other works. I want others to feel comfortable around me, and not feel like they have to compete with me. But it’s the teacher in me that wants to push others to do their best, and be all they can be.

For each person intimidation is a different feeling. We all process it differently and have an inner drive that will allow us to produce something great. No matter what it is.

Here is my final paper for those of you who were in class on Thursday... and for those who weren't.. But its whatevs ;)

Love and Hate

Shakespeare has written many different plays in his life time. Thirty seven plays to be exact. They all are put into the different categories. Comedies, tragedies, and histories. Within these categories Antony and Cleopatra and Romeo and Juliet are in the tragic category. After reading most of the popular plays two similar plays stand out, and are both in the same category. Romeo and Juliet is a very similar play to Antony and Cleopatra. The two plays are interchangeable, have the same plot line and themes. The two plays and characters are essentially the same, interchangeable, so one can get the same feel from one to the other.

Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare most famous play. It out rules his better written plays. Both Romeo and Juliet and Antony and Cleopatra have themes of love, war, forbidden love, and only love can conquer the war, even if both players die. Romeo and Juliet are from two different families. Families who are fighting and want nothing to do with each other. Yet there is a spark in the young lovers to want to be together. They will be together forever, even if it means taking their lives. These two “star crossed lovers” want to be with each other to the death that they do not care who they run into, and hurt along the way. The biggest theme in both plays is the idea of love and politics. Romeo and Juliet were forbidden to be together, because they belonged to two different families. The only people who know that they are together are their close friends. The nurse and Mercutio.

Both characters of the nurse and Mercutio are two very similar characters in the sense that they are the darker side of the lovers. These two characters stand by their sides and get nothing in return. They deserve to be happy and to have love, but they love their friend so much that they are willing to take this stab in the heart and be alone. But the irony of that, is that at the end of the play everyone is alone.
“There are mature loves in Shakespeare, notably Antony and Cleopatra, who cheerfully sell each other out for reasons of state, yet return to each other in their suicides. Both Romeo and Antony kill themselves because they falsely think their beloveds are dead (Bloom 88).” Where Juliet lacks her personality and self confidence Cleopatra takes the stage for that. She consistently wants to be the star of the play, the main theme. When Juliet was to grow up, this is the person she would have grown into. Cleopatra has such a strong sense of power and personality that she takes the stage for most of the play. Antony is just strung along and there for connivances. Yes she loves him, but she loves him in a way that it is for show. Whereas Romeo and Juliet are young, and they love each other for each other. These two sets of couples are different in the fact that it is a different time and place, and age. But they are the same in the sense that they love each other. When Romeo and Juliet grow up they will be just like Antony and Cleopatra.

In Antony and Cleopatra, Cleopatra is so selfish. She wants everything to be her way or no way, and her people will work their way around her. If she does not find her perfect man, she will mold a man to fit her style, wit, personality, and who will take care of her. Which she does all this with Antony. Antony does not have a single say in the play at all. He does what Cleopatra tells him. He seems just fine with being the one who is bossed around. Not once does he stand up for himself. He never says one thing to make Cleopatra think otherwise. He wants to make her happy yes, but does he know any different?

Cleopatra is the way she is because as a young teenage as Juliet she was sheltered by her parents who wanted to keep her on the right side of town. As a teenager Juliet wanted to do her own thing, and explore her own world, but her parents would not let her. So thus, Cleopatra is as dramatic as she is, because as an adult she can finally get out of her shell, and do what she pleases. She claims she “loves” Antony, and he claims to love her too, but in all reality they love the idea of each other. They certainly do not bore each other, but rather they bore the audience. These two players go around and around fighting, then making up. Then it starts all over again.
Romeo and Juliet had young love. They were young, and forbidden to be in love, which is why it made the play and the excitement a little more exciting, because it was forbidden.“Juliet and Romeo indeed are in love with each other, but they are very young, and she is astonishingly good natured, with a generosity of spirit unmatched in all of Shakespeare (549).” Romeo and Juliet were in it for themselves, and to be in love together forever. But as they grow up in to Antony and Cleopatra they become in it for the show. They were more focused on the role they play within the play.

The two plays are similar in the sense that they are hard to keep up with. In Romeo and Juliet the audience has to keep up with them sneaking out, they are young, and thinking that they can make the east vs. west hate goes away with simply love. For Antony and Cleopatra it is exhausting keeping up with all the dramatics of Cleopatra. It is very clear that she wants to be the center of the play. That she wants all of the audience’s attention and reactions. Two very similar ideas, is where Romeo and Juliet spend a majority of the play together on stage alone. Whereas Antony and Cleopatra do not, they never spend one moment on stage alone together. That is why Cleopatra is so dramatic is because she had all her time being with her love when she was a teenager. She spent all her young life with the one she loved, and she never got the chance to go out and be her! Be the woman she wanted to be. So this is why she is always being dramatic, she is craving the audience attention that she never got as a teenager.

The two plays are similar because they are the same story, but they are different because they are opposite of each other. Romeo and Juliet love each other, Antony and Cleopatra love the idea of each other. Romeo and Juliet are young and in love and finding out their personalities. Antony and Cleopatra are older and know who they are, and Cleopatra spent her teenage years finding that out, so she was going to be everything and anything rolled into one. Growing up where they could not be together has the notion to them now in Antony and Cleopatra, because they are never on stage alone together. So what one play lacks the other makes up for it.

These plays were written in different places, with different ideas in mind, yet they are the same play. What one play has the other does not and vice versa. Cleopatra is how Juliet turned out 40 years later. And Romeo is Antony as a teenager. In the end both characters in the plays kill themselves because they think their significant other has killed themselves. If they cannot be with the person they love, then they will not be at all. “There are mature loves in Shakespeare, most notably Antony and Cleopatra, who cheerfully sell each other out for reasons of state, yet return to each other in their suicides. Both Romeo and Antony kill themselves because they falsely think their beloveds are dead (88).” In fact these two plays are different in their own ways, but he similarities of the two plays out weight the differences.

Feelers and Personality

Shakespeare: the invention of the Human
Yes this is the title of Harold Blooms book, and this is where the idea has sparked from. Because I have been reading it lately… and loving it.

Does he really invent the human? Who can he? He was here ages ago, and yes he was brilliant, but did he really invent the ideology of the human?
This question has been in my mind for quite some time. I have been thinking about it, and how I was going to go about answering that.

So this is what I have come to. Shakespeare did in fact invent the human. His characters in his plays possess so much personality and feelers. Every character he writes has a strong sense of personality and posses just the right feelers for the play. All of his characters are so hard to keep up with because they contain so much personality. The feelers that they posses are incredibly overbearing and exhausting. There is so much personality in everyone. even the players behind the scenes he does not leave anyone out.

Every player is so different in every way. not one of them possess the same characteristics in the same play. Shakespeare made it ok for people (Characters) to have feelers, and to go on that emotion. He invented this ideology that it was good to have such a personality in everyone of his characters. He basically put every feeling that one could feel into the characters of his plays.
In order to be human one has to have these emotions and feelers. That’s what makes us human. And let me tell you, I am a very emotional person with a ton of personality. And I am human, because of it.

So I believe that he make it acceptable for society to have all of these feelers and emotions. So thus he is indeed the Invention of the Human.

Much Ado Powerpointless

Here is the link to our Powerpointless!
:)

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0AYShb9P7EBKXZGc0NzQ4amhfMGh0dmZ6c3h6&hl=en

Much Ado about Nothing Project Document

Much Ado About Nothing Lit 473 Presentation


Joe:
So, I thought that the way the word “nothing” was used was really interesting. There is, of course, the concept of Nothing being a pun on “noting”, which was the pronunciation of Shakespeare’s day, but there is also, I think, a deeper meaning.

The basic miracle occurs when something comes from nothing. Creation, transubstatiation and most myths surround this question. How did something unexplainable come to be, or how, out of nothing, could the world, our lives, our experiences come to be? Shakespeare’s answers, as with many myths, hinge on imagination. The human imaginative ability allows something (such as Shakespeare’s plays) to come from nothing on a daily basis. Similarly, in this play, human imagination, or the miracle of nothing, plays a tangible part in the entire narrative.


Lisette --So as I am reading my secondary text by Harold Bloom, a lot of good questions and points are arising. “They make much ado about nothing because they know that nothing will come of nothing, an so they speak again” (Bloom 193). We all know that Beatrice is a drama queen and will do what ever it takes to be noticed. The way Beatrice is the way she is, Bloom says is because she as a character craves the audiences attention and response to what is happening. “Her wildness is her freedom, and that sense of liberty, more even than her wit, captures her audience” (Bloom 199).
Then this is a love story right. A love play. Romantic comedy to narrow it down even more. Bloom raises the question of LOVE. What is it about love? Why love? Well love is nothing and it is everything in the same. Can this one feeling be both and nothing at the same time? “Love is much ado about nothing” (200). There is a nice piece of advice that Shakespeare gives “Get married and expect to be cuckolded” (201).
Although love is a major theme of the play, he players spend their time running around the idea of love. They never come out and say that they are in love, nor do they admit to not being in love. Even if love seem to be a simple topic it isn’t. It can open a can of worms is the wrong idea is said, and if someone one finds out from a secondary source.

Benedick:
Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I m loved of all ladies, only you excepted; and i would i could find n my heart that i had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.
Beatrice:
A dear happiness to women! They would else have been trouble with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. i had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. (1.1124)

The true definition of Much Ado about Nothing is: A great deal of fuss over nothing of importance. *Fun fact! Noting which means nothing in a sense is the Elizabethan slang word for vagina or any other sexual organ*
Why don’t we all play this love triangle game beat around a bush that pretends to not be there, and get over it. And in in the end, something came out of nothing- a merryful wedding.

Nathan---Since everyone in the group seemed to want to hit on themes, understanding, and contextualizing the events of the play, I thought I would fill in with what I like most, structure and style characteristics. I turned to The Arden Shakespeare edited by Claire McEachern, which does an amazing job of parsing out how Much Ado isn’t the model of the preceding Shakespearean comedies. Hopefully I’m not stepping on anyone’s toes with what I want to talk about, but if I am, let me know. Sorry for grammatical and syntax errors, I’ve not edited this yet.

Structure and Style:


Much Ado About Nothing when viewed through the lens of structure and style is not at all characteristic of the comedies preceding it. Characteristically, it is important to note the mixed tones, sadness – happiness, which occur simultaneously throughout the play. These mixed tones provide moments when the comic and the tragic are indistinguishable, leaving the readers (audience) unsure as to whether laughter or tears are the appropriate response (51).

Significant to viewing this play is the amount of comedy vs. tragedy working through the plot providing a play that is a bit confused in its forms. What is necessary for the comedy is to begin with problems and disorder, and then work through the play to a happy solution. Inversely, the characteristic of a tragedy is the fall from felicity to misfortune, or happiness to problems (death). McEachern uses Frye when explaining how Much Ado uses many tragic forms, specifically, “In New Comedy the dramatist tries to bring his action as close to a tragic overthrow of the hero as he can get it, then reverse this movement as suddenly as possible”(52). The issue with Much Ado is that it begins entirely without a problem, and every character seems quite content, rather the play begins without a problem of the conventional sort, such as the disgruntled father. The problem is Much Ado is that there is no problem, although we anticipate one as readers and viewers. The walk-on bad guy, Don John the Bastard, injects the problem in this play later in the play. Characteristic of comedies after the late 1590s are the more untraceable obstacles, and Don Johns malevolence is in some ways more threatening because he is almost entirely unexplained, and introduced without background (56).

Turning from structure to style, Much Ado can be broken down into three main parts chronologically. Part one, 760 lines through 2.1 and nearly 1/3 of the total, takes up the action of an afternoon and evening, while the second part, 870 lines, represents a week. The third part, the remaining 1000 lines, in which much of the play’s action occurs, occupies a 24 hour period. The first and third parts of the play both represent the events of a day, while the middle section spans an entire week. This middle section creates a type of “time hammock” as McEachern says, in which all is relatively calm between two sections of compact busy chaos. Again, against most comedies that spend the majority of their plots in confusion, Much Ado maintains relative peace for two thirds of its length.

Returning to the comic vs. tragic elements while remaining on structural interests, Shakespeare does a brilliant job of changing tones throughout the play, especially once Hero is denounced, and provides us with real moments of tragedy, although played inside what the audience and readers know to be a comedy. These moments are often explicitly tragic, such as when Benedict and Beatrice profess their love for each other shadowed in what we believe to be Hero’s death. Although the audience and readers know resolution is coming, they witness real suffering.

Lastly, I’m fascinated with prose vs. verse in this play. Much Ado is second only to the Merry Wives of Windsor in the amount of prose it uses, 70% (2485 lines) vs. 90%. Since much of the play’s context is about social rank and confusion, it is fitting that so much prose should be used to further complicate the matter. What is typically Elizabethan is for the aristocratic characters in the play to speak in verse, and the non-nobility to use prose. Shakespeare, not just in this play, uses less of a set distinction between who uses prose and who uses verse, although there are situations when verse is used corresponding with the formality of the situation, not the character. McEachern makes the observation that everyone’s speech comes naturally and beautifully in Much Ado, be it prose or verse. All characters are noble or aspire to be noble, and the setting is one of high social class. The first section of the play leading up to the church scene in 4.1 uses prose, while the more somber latter half moves to verse. All of these distinctions between social ranking and class get mixed up when prose is used more often for social criticisms, and when Shakespeare designates the heavy hitters in other plays, such as Falstaff and Hamlet to using prose.


Lauren:The idea of Deceit
Claudio and Don Pedro are deceived into thinking that Hero has lost her virtue by sleeping with another man. Beatrice and Benedick are tricked, or deceived into thinking that each one loves the other which leads to a real romance within this trickery. There is even deceit in the staged death of Hero after she is shamed at her own wedding for a crime she did not commit. Leonato publishes an announcement that Hero has died in order to answer the question of who wronged her name and virtue.

Also the idea of ‘song’ being important to the drama. Page 381 “The Song”. It even discusses the idea of men being deceivers. This notion of song and dance being important to the plays is echoed throughout many of Shakespeare’s works. In Much Ado, songs are played during pivotal moments during the play:
DON PEDRO

Come, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIO

Yea, my good lord. How still the evening is,
As hush'd on purpose to grace harmony!
Act 2 Scene 3

This music and song comes right before the men talk of Beatrice’s ‘love’ for Benedick. its as though music leads the way for crucial mood changes in the scenes. these songs are entertainment for both the characters as well as the audience. Balthasar also has a song in Act 2.3 in which he talks about the treachery of men, “...the fraud of men was ever so...” (Line 71). Through the art of entertainment the characters are allowed to say as they feel in a cathartic manner that does not lead to repercussions. At the end of the play, after all has been put right, Benedick addresses the group saying, “Come, come we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own hearts and our wives’ heels” Act V.4 Lines 15-17. When all is said and done, song dance, and thus entertainment proves to be an escape from the follies of the world.

Virtue and Virginity: Hero is wrongfully accused of shaming her family by losing her virtue and virginity before her marriage to Claudio, and to a man that is not her fiance. on the day of her wedding, Claudio and Pedro scorn Hero publicly calling her a, “rotten orange” (IV.i.30). At the news of his daughters ‘dishonor’ even Leonato chimes in and says, “the wide sea / Hath . . . / . . . salt too little which may season give / To her foul tainted flesh!” (IV.i.139–142). Family honor and Hero’s virtue is so important that at the news of her disgrace, Leonato threatens to kill his own daughter.

Benedick as the fool, or jester of the play: Benedick falls for the ploy that ultimately makes him fall in love with Beatrice. At a masked ball one night, Beatrice is dancing with Benedick unknowingly and speaking of him saying, “...Why, he is the prince’s jester, a very dull fool” Line 131 Act 2.1. At first it appears that Beatrice’s words are of mere wit and slander, but these words prove seemingly true. but, at his defense, Beatrice too falls for the same trickery that her ladies incite upon her, so does that make her a fool as well?

We chose to perform Act 3 Scene 1 because it incorporates comedy, romance, trickery, and multiple characters.

http://youtu.be/2AlFkbElh44



Brian:
The play starts in the Italian town of Messina where Leonato, the governor, lives in house with his daughter Hero, niece Beatrice, and his older brother Antonio. A close friend of Leonato’s, Don Pedro, returns from war to visit with Claudio of Florence, Benedick of Padua and Don John, the bastard brother of Don Pedro. Immediately after they arrive Claudio falls in love with Hero and soon after, they decide to get married. In the meantime, the others trick Beatrice and Benedick to fall in love after all they were doing was arguing. John the Bastard decides to wreck everyones’ happiness by having Borachio make love to Margaret (Hero’s Servant) outside of Hero’s window at night. He then brings Don Pedro and Claudio to watch making Claudio believe the Hero is being unfaithful to him. On the day of their wedding Claudio accuses Hero of committing lechery and abandons her at the alter. After the humiliation, Hero’s family members decide to hide her away and pretend that she is dead until everyone learns the truth. While this is happening, Borachio is overheard bragging about what they did, Borachio and two other of Don John’s followers are arrested which ultimately leads to everyone discovering the truth about Hero, except Claudio who still grieves her death. Claudio is then given the punishment by Leonato of having to confess Hero’s innocence to the whole city as well as well as marry Leonato’s niece, a woman who looks like Hero. At the wedding Claudio is ready to Marry this mysterious masked woman but Hero removes the masked and Claudio is completely overwhelmed. In all of this Benedick asks Beatrice to marry him and, of course, after some arguing they agree. The characters all marry and celebrate to end the play.

Questions.. and I don't want an Answer

When I was at the gym today, dyeing while on a cardio machine I was alone with my test questions and my own thoughts. I tend to think a lot about life while I go to the gym. And most of the time I think of things to blog about. But the only bad thing about that is that when I have a blog idea I don’t have anything to write it down with. But I am lucky this day because I remember what I wanted to blog about!
I was thinking about all these different plays that Shakespeare has written and how different yet the same they are. Maybe Shakespeare has an alter ego. Some sort of place in his mind that he goes to, to write his plays. That he has a special place he goes to where he can escape from the world and write his masterworks. Like when his wifey was making him mad, would he think that this would be a good character idea, or his kids, would he say hold that thought go to his place and finish the play?

Where did Shakespeare go in his mind to write some of the most thought provoking, confusing, and yet brilliant in the same plays. What would he do to go to that place and write such a play. Were the plays written in one sitting or several. Did he have dreams that would bring him these ideas?

I guess my question about this is where he get these ideas! But with every question there is an answer. And maybe I don’t want an answer to this question, but mostly it was just speaking out loud. And putting my ideas out on paper.

Lets All Just Get Married

So as I am reading my secondary text by Harold Bloom, a lot of good questions and points are arising. “They make much ado about nothing because they know that nothing will come of nothing, an so they speak again” (Bloom 193). We all know that Beatrice is a drama queen and will do what ever it takes to be noticed. The way Beatrice is the way she is, Bloom says is because she as a character craves the audiences attention and response to what is happening. “Her wildness is her freedom, and that sense of liberty, more even than her wit, captures her audience” (Bloom 199).

Then this is a love story right. A love play. Romantic comedy to narrow it down even more. Bloom raises the question of LOVE. What is it about love? Why love? Well love is nothing and it is everything in the same. Can this one feeling be both and nothing at the same time? “Love is much ado about nothing” (200). There is a nice piece of advice that Shakespeare gives “Get married and expect to be cuckolded” (201).

Like Joe said, and Doctor Sexton says that something comes out of nothing. Why don’t we all play this love triangle game beat around a bush that pretends to not be there, and get over it. And in in the end, something came out of nothing- a merryful wedding.