Reflecting On Our Class Event
Reflection.. Reflection....
I have a hard time summing up events like Friday's. I just can't seem to get what I think into the right words. Yet, here goes nothing. Our Engaging Shakespeare event was easily the most fun I have ever had with a class project, and I feel like I have gained so much from the event itself and everything leading up to it. I was also really impressed with the projects from the other groups. I guess I can talk about each of those for a bit.
First off, I thought the event planning group did a fantastic job of getting everything organized and promoting our event and our class. They found a perfect room (I loved our stage!) and I was really impressed with the website that was put together and how smoothly J.J. and Austin ran everything that night. I am anxious for all the final products to be online!
The art group did a great job with their display, everything was organized really well and I could see that people enjoyed looking at their artwork. I was impressed by the number of pieces of art they were able to create in such a short time, and they were all really good quality! Their idea of each making lesson plans and then swapping and doing each others' was neat, too, because it's more authentic making sure someone else can understand and interpret where your lesson plan is trying to lead them.
I really enjoyed the sound effects and different voices that the audio group used in their rendition of Hamlet. The "(Character Name) Dies" parts are comical to read in the scripts, but it's even more entertaining in audio form. Although I think some groaning and dying noises would have been fun. I didn't get a chance to ask them at the show, but I'm curious about how they decided what lines to cut and what to keep. I'm interested to maybe listen to the whole thing and find out how much the theme or tone of the play has changed compared to other productions just based on what lines they kept and cut out.
I was impressed with the number of plays that the music video group was able to incorporate into their project and how seamlessly all of those plays fit together. I completely agreed with the point that Kara made about how Shakespeare is so much more than love stories, and the things he talks about are real and still apply to us today.
Now I might be a little bit biased, but the documentary was amazing! It was so well done. There's really not much else to say besides that they did a great job. Although if they had stuck around our rehearsals a bit more they would have caught a ton more hilarious things on film. But maybe it's good that things worked out the way they did... Anyway, what I payed attention to of the documentary as I was trying to forget how nervous I was about going up on stage, was fabulous.
And now, for my project! Lover's of Shakespeare! I am so glad that I chose the group that I did. We put so much hard work into our mini-play, and it was all worth it. It's so neat for me to be able to look back at how all the pieces fell together and we ended up with our final product. I never realized just how much effort and creative energy goes into doing something like that. Every single person in our group had so much to contribute. And it made me so happy every time the audience laughed at some little joke or line that was my idea, even if I wasn't the one delivering it. Even though I was the youngest in our group and probably had the least experience, I learned just how much I had to give when Romeo died by 5 Hour Energy Drink, Hamlet got his hat thrown at him, Ophelia exited with a splash, and I entered via boat. Unfortunately Juliet objected to death by lightsaber.. I guess what I'm saying is that I have always somewhat undervalued myself. But in this it was very easy for me to see just how much I did contribute along the way, and it was really wonderful to have a group who took my ideas seriously. I feel like I have grown a lot, as a Shakespeare student and as a person, through just doing things the way Shakespeare wanted and putting on a show.

Meeting the Learning Outcomes
I'm almost positive that our final project fits into all of the learning outcomes, but I'll try to include some other examples as well.
Since writing the midterm post, my Shakespeare literacy has continued to increase. We read King Lear, which was another first time read for me this semester. I watched the 2010 movie version of The Tempest (which I didn't much care for, so decided against posting about) and also re watched the Kenneth Branaugh adaptation of Hamlet on my own. Seeing Hamlet after reading it again and being in the middle of my project group's different interpretation of it was a neat experience.
I have also gained depth in my Shakespeare literacy through Analyzing Shakespeare Critically. Woo! I had a lot of analytical posts before the midterm interview and continued that by finding motifs and imagery in King Lear. I also took what I have learned through analyzing Shakespeare productions and applied it to a different genre when I posted about the Savior of the World production I went to over Thanksgiving break.
Engaging Shakespeare Creatively took up a large majority of my time dedicated to this class. Which is great! Before this semester I never would have thought that I could pull from, condense, and add to one of Shakespeare's plays to make a 5 minute script that still made sense. Before this semester I had never memorized a single line of Shakespeare, now I have my part of a 15 minute play memorized, and I ended up accidentally memorizing most of Gabe's lines, too! I got to act Shakespeare on stage and on camera(through the documentary). It has been such a good experience for me and I have grown so much closer to Shakespeare's works through my personal interaction with them.
I also got to Share Shakespeare Meaningfully because I engaged it creatively. Just as it happened with the Grassroots Shakespeare Company version of Macbeth, my excitement and enthusiasm for what I was involved in got the people around me interested in what I was doing. Except this time it was even more meaningful to me because I wasn't getting my roommate excited about a production of Macbeth someone else did, but I was sharing with my friends my excitement for something I was personally involved in creating. I would regularly come home from play rehearsals and tell my roommates about some crazy new gag we came up with, or rant to my best friend about how much fun I was having. So it was that much more meaningful when each of my friends who came to the event told me how much they liked our play (or at least, that's what they said!). I am sure that this will event will become a bond between those who experiences it, and I am so glad to have been able to associate Shakespeare with a fun and entertainment, as well as give it meaning, and hopefully I have impacted the people around me's opinion of Shakespeare for the better.

As a last note, in the midterm interview the two things that I needed to work on were self directed learning and some more concise posting. Excluding this post of course, I did make an effort to keep some of my thoughts more concise and organized. I also tried to self-direct my learning by revisiting old topics and focusing on things that interested me throughout multiple plays. One of those was animal imagery, which I first posted about with The Merchant of Venice, and later revisited with the monster motif and predator comparisons in King Lear. I also followed up on a post I had done with Winter's Tale about Greek Mythology (specifically Oedipus) when I drew comparisons between King Lear and the same topic.

So there you have it. The end of another semester. Brother Burton, I would just like you to know that this has been by far my favorite class this semester. I have truly enjoyed it. Thank you for pushing us to learn on our own terms and helping me take my Shakespearean education into my own control. I'll miss this class.

And now, to end this blog the only acceptable way it could be done,
Hakuna Mutata. It means no worries.
-Martina

So, as a Production Group, we had our first read through of a very premature script on Friday. Can I just say? It was a blast! I'm so excited for this group! Though not quite as excited as Averill always seems to be.:) Here's a look at Eric reading some of Hamlet's lines. Quite dramatically. Sorry for the terrible quality, as it was done with a phone. And make sure to turn the sound all the way up!

I'm also going to try to get this up on our group blog, so check it out!

That's my question. We spend all this time worrying about the nut jobs in Hamlet and what their particular brand of insanity might mean, but no one seems to care about the one character who's got it all down. Horatio knows who he is. He's Hamlet's best friend, and the only good, stable person in this play. While everyone else runs around like chicken's with their heads cut off, Horatio is the voice of reason and sanity. And yet, he never once tries to stop Hamlet from what he has to do. He is Hamlet's "Damon dear". (Damon and his freind Pythias were the classical model of perfect friendship. Perhaps Horatio serves as a foil, of who Hamlet would have been if his father were still alive. Horatio's character is strong and unwavering, and Hamlet longs for the peace of mind that being so must bring:

Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice,
And could of men distinguish her election,
Hath seal'd thee for herself, for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgement are so well commedled
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As i do thee. (III.ii.65-70)


Horatio bears stress and burden much better than Hamlet, and he is not a slave to his passions. So why does he stick around while Hamlet goes cucko for coco puffs? Because he's just that good of a friend. Maybe one day when I have a royal friend go insane and seek revenge I can be as supporting and loyal as Horatio. Just maybe do a bit better at steering him away from murder and revenge...


And, in honor of our To Be or Not To Be film montage in class yesterday, here's one of my favorite scenes in Hamlet. Notice how Horatio acts through this scene. Supportive, and yet a voice of reason.

And the best line: "This is I, HAMLET THE DANE!"
Goodbye Hamlet. I hope your dreams turned out to be good ones after all.

In a Winter's Tale, we read of the King of Bohemia, a sea-side, peaceful and relaxed country. Here there are sheep-shearing parties,babies abandoned in deserts, and bears that eat people. The king sails home when fleeing Sicilia. Ladies and gentlemen may I present to you, Bohemia, a land-locked country whose border's are defined by no less than four mountain ranges. Bohemia is now the western two-thirds of the Czech Republic, and there is no way anyone could have ever sailed to it. Also, no deserts. And while I can swallow the idea that there were bears here, a coast and a desert beside each other in a land-locked country just doesn't float my boat.

Another example of Shakespeare not being true to location is in Hamlet. I actually visited Denmark this last summer, and spent some time with a Danish family. So reading through Hamlet recently was a little bit of a different experience. The one thing I noticed the most on my trip, and my Danish friend made sure to point out to me, was the importance of family. Denmark is an extremely peaceful country, and their view on family relationships is pretty cool. Children are respected and looked to for opinions, elders are honored and obeyed. And I'm not just talking ideal, it's actually illegal for parents in Denmark to hit their children. But we can debate the effectiveness of spankings some other day. What startles me most about Hamlet is how such a violent and manipulative royal family is set in such a peaceful and friendly country. The Danes have a word, "hygge", which doesn't exist in any other language, and can't really be defined. Don't try to pronounce it either, you can't. But think of everything that reminds you of home, and warmth, and contentedness. I was on a Danish ranch over the summer, my hair was wet from a recent drizzle, we had just finished a "Danish barbeque", people were singing about the start of summer in a language I didn't need to understand, the sun was setting at 11pm, and I was happier than I had been in a long time. It just felt so right, this community I didn't know was so complete. I told my friend I could just stand staring at the fire and be happy for the rest of my life. She told me, "That's hyyge."

Now think about Hamlet. Chaos, lies, trickery. A man goes insane because his family is corrupted. No, Hamlet is definitely not Danish. He's just an English character Shakespeare implanted into a land that sounded distant and mysterious. I'm not saying nothing could ever be rotten in the state of Denmark (there's way too many fish for that..), but Hamlet is in no way a representation of Danish culture.

So why did Shakespeare do it? Why does he not seem to care that his settings don't match up with reality? Was it just that, that he simply didn't care? Do we, as a collective Shakespeare readership, enforce disregard for truth by letting him get away with it?

Just for fun, Hamlet's castle in LEGO.

As Act 4, Scene 1 opens, Hamlet has just killed Polonius and gone to hide the body. Gertrude, distressed by what she has just witnessed, goes to Claudius. Claudius inquires about Hamlet, and this is what she replies:


"[He is] Mad as the sea and wind when both contend
Which is the mightier. In his lawless fit,
Behind the arras hearing something stir, 
Whips out his rapier, cries, "a rat, a rat!" 
And in this brainish apprehension kills
The unseen good old man."

In order to better understand Gertrude's character, we need to look closer at her choice of words. Firstly, although she has just been told by her son that he is only acting mad, Gertrude claims Hamlet is insane. She says he is like "the sea and wind when both contend which is the mightier." She sees his reason and his madness battling against each other, and is not sure which has won. Gertrude calls his action a "lawless fit" in "brainish apprehension". Both of these phrases seem to say that Hamlet's actions were beyond his control. But did Gertrude really think her son was mad? She had just come from talking with him, where he warns her to "lay not that flattering unction to [her]soul That not [her] trespass but [his] madness speaks." He tells her very explicitly that he is not truly mad, and that if she blames her guilt on this she is lying to herself. So did Getrude listen to her son? Did she believe she was at fault and had done a terrible thing in marrying Claudius? I think so.

It is very possible that in this excerpt Gertrude is portraying Hamlet to be more crazy than necessary to protect him from Claudius. Claudius must have realized from the play that Hamlet was on to him. If Hamlet was himself (ie. not crazy), he could be in immediate danger from Claudius. It is possible that Gertrude thinks the only way to keep her son safe from Claudius is to help give him the excuse of being insane. If so, she is mistaken, because Claudius does not intend on Hamlet leaving England alive. But Gertrude does try  to save her son whenever she can, here, and in the final scene when she drinks the poison meant for Hamlet. Did she know the cup was poisoned? Was drinking that cup one last attempt at keeping her son alive? Did Gertrude believe her son had gone mad? Or did she turn against her husband and proactively work to keep Hamlet safe? We'll never know for sure..