A. Introduction: Welcome to Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born around 1564 and died April 1616. He was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. (Greenblatt) His surviving works consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.  "He gave England a new sense of identity and characters that everyone has loved ever sense (and hated). He is one of the most famous writers of all time yet a lot of mystery shrouds his life". (Woods) The mix of popularity and mystery has caused a hailstorm of writings about the Bard that can cause more misunderstanding than education and edification. Michael Blair, the educational Director for the Shakespearean festival explains why the hailstorm of writing causes a problem in the example below.

Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare: Speculation of the Facts

This blog is a continuation of my research into how the bard put himself into his work and how we identify it using what little information we have about him. 

In Search of Shakespeare

Over the weekend I had my wisdom teeth removed so I didn't do much of anything. I did watched the PBS documentary "In Search Of Shakespeare". This blog post is my thoughts and review of the documentary.

Final thesis outline & a BIG favor to ask from y'all

The majority of my time this week has been spent working on my final argument. Because of new research and understanding I have had to revamp my outline from the original. My new outline is listed below starting just after the page brake but before I start I have a favor to ask of y'all.

the BIG favor
While researching I have had some questions that I NEED help with from readers because I cant seem to figure them out on my own, so please comment. The class has been very helpful thus far and I just need one more little help and I should be perfect.

Questions for the Class
1. Sonnets?
-Where do I look to find when they were written? and help with understand what they are about?
-If you know anything about the sonnets please tell me because I am TOTALLY at a loss with them.


2. Those of you that know Shakespeare biography: can you offer any more insights into identifying Shakespeare's personality/motives through his plays; preferably from the plays I am reviewing but I welcome any good insight?
-The plays I am reviewing are Henry VI part 1-3 and Hamlet, the Tempest, and A Winters Tale. 

3. Idea's for memorizing?
- I am having a hard time memorizing the Saint Crispins day monologue in Henry V so I was wondering if anyone has any idea's on how to memorize speeches such as that or should I just cut it down?

Works cited page and What I learned from it

Just as we were told to do in class I created I works cited page. I did it grudgingly because I feel that I need to spend every ounce of time on my final thesis and performance. The works cited page actually helped my end thesis in a small way.

The works cited page compilation helped my end thesis by helping me identify that I need more scholarly articles. While I was going through my blog I found that I had used information that wasn't scholarly. I did use information that was legitimate that I could be proven but it wasnt highly acclaimed. I am now looking for articles that back the articles that I have that are more highly acclaimed. If I would have not done the works cited page I would have never understood I need more scholarly information to create a stranger argument and thesis.

A personal reminder for class needs
(TO DO LIST)

1. Engage Shakespeare Meaningfully

-Last week in Feb. I plan to act out a scene I have read or maybe film it and put it on my Blog.
-In March I will randomly recite Shakespeare in a public setting to determine if his writing is appealing or identifiable to people on the street

                              or

-See blog I did on this for other idea

2. Digital Meditations
- a few more blogs on this

3. Do final thesis

I Heard Back!: Some Good Response from a Scholar

Recently I sent a few emails to Shakespeare scholars asking for idea's for research. The first email that I sent took the person I sent it to a while to email me back and was worthless. He referred me to a book that suggested that the name Shakespeare was an alias for another person. Dr. Burton said that sort of research was "a black hole" and not to go that route. However I sent another email to Michael Bahr the Education Director for the Shakespeare Festival. What he emailed me back was helpful and inspiring for me and could be for others .. check it out!    

Update:Focused Study

I am a little sad to report that the majority of research is finished for my final thesis. What I am writting in my

My final thesis is on what kind of person Shakespeare was/is and how we can see more of his personality and character in his later writings than his earlier ones. The first part of my final thesis paper is on how Shakespeare originally wrote his play's for the money. The first part of my focus correlates with Max O's so I have been stealing some of his ideas. However, reading the text book has also given me some great ideas that I listed below.

Performance/Digital Mediation/ :(

Recently I have been on a role with my Shakespeare study. So excitedly I decided this 

 weekend that I was going to do my performance for class. I had the idea to do a comical reenactment of Shakespeare’s famous speech by king Henry in the play King Henry V before the final battle against the French where the English are out numbered 5 to 1, it’s called The Saint Crispin’s Day speech. This would count as a performance/ my exploration into digital mediation. I was really excited however the speech turns out to be a lot longer and a TON harder to memorize than I had expected. I spent an hour Friday and much more time Saturday but the old English and LONG quotation is making it very difficult. I think I’m going to give it a little bit of attention each day tell I have it memorized but it’s taking a lot of time out of the time I should be doing research.  I am open for any ideas if anyone knows a good way to memorize a long speech or maybe I’ll just cut the speech down. I thought it would be just like memorizing information for school but it is definitely different

                                           The speech done below is the one I want to memorize.

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism (cont):Many Examples From Dr. Burton's Class!?

I started a blog campaign to get others to comment on my blog in regards to my subject topic which is, Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: Showing just what kind of person Shakespeare is and how we can see more of his personality and character in his later writings than his earlier ones. This blog is a continuation of that campaign to encourage fellow bloggers to contribute the new found knowledge from this semester on this topic. I have had some GREAT response so keep it coming!

What is the purpose of Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism?

Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism: What kind of person are you and how do you perceive the world of books and the world around you?

For easy skimming of this blog post please see the index and the descriptions that is located directly below the introductory paragraph labeled INDEX.

The questions I would like blog readers to possibly answer is what blog post they have done and seen that can help with my Psychoanalytic research of Shakespeare to discover what kind of man he is and how we can identify his personality from his writings because we have very little primary documents from or about him.  Some specific questions I plan to address are

Why Shakespeare wrote Henry v, Hamlet, and A Winters Tale?
How people have responded to Henry v, Hamlet, and A Winters Tale?
How the later plays reflect more of Shakespeare's personality?
Why do people read Shakespeare?
What kind of man was Shakespeare?
Why did Shakespeare write what he did?
Why this information is important? 

For those of you that don't know too much about Psychoanalytic Literary criticism this blog post is to educate and build your confidence to comment and contribute a part of the classes extensive new found Shakespeare knowledge, with regards to my topic or to understand what questions about your topics that I could help with. The information in this blog was taken from Wikipedia.com under Psychoanalysis Literary Criticism and the article Psychoanalysis in Literature by Norman N. Holland.

For easy skimming please see the index of the three subject headings in this blog and description of the sections that is located directly below this sentence.

Subject Topic: Psychoanalysis of Shakespeare

After FINALLY being able to meet with Dr. Burton I have locked down what it is that I plan to do for my final subject topic. I plan on doing a Psychoanalysis of Shakespeare by using my own research and what little primary research that is out there on him to show how as he got older he put more of his personality in his plays and was less interested in entertaining. For those of you who think that they could mutually benefit with me from each others research PLEASE comment on this post! even if its simply just one word.

To Whatever End ... Devloping Purpose

A Frustrated Researcher
 
My emphasis for my Shakespearean research has been to find primary sources on Shakespeare so we can learn about who He was and what His desires for His plays might have been. This information could be used as part of a foundation for future Shakespearean play adaptation research so actors and producers can understand even more how they might have been preformed and what the authors moral of the story was. But just as I mentioned before in my blog, we have very little documentation about Shakespeare.

A New Hope
In an effort to really get to know the Bard I have decided to look at the sources for his play's and see what he added to them to try and understand the mysterious man.