Powerful Men with Short Tempers

Shakespeare seems to like setting up his characters with outrageous and fatefull stubbornness. I noticed strong parallels between King Lear and Leontes (from The Winter's Tale)

LEONTES is convinced that his faithful wife is cheating on him with his best friend. He rashly accuses her, puts her in prison, banishes their child, and nothing anyone says can sway him otherwise. He gets caught up in pride, and the idea of being decieved and played a fool, makes him so mad, that he in fact becomes the fool.

Leontes and his bewildered accused Queen Hermione

"Go, play, boy, play: thy mother plays, and I
Play too, but so disgraced a part, whose issue
Will hiss me to my grave: contempt and clamour
Will be my knell. Go, play, boy, play.
There have been,
Or I am much deceived, cuckolds ere now"

KING LEAR is suddenly convinced that his most virtuous daughter does not love him, because she was honest in the amount of love (unlike her two scheming sisters, who in fact did NOT love him as much, but could flatter). Lear disinherits her, and not even his faithful, long-serving companion could sway him otherwise.

Two mean daughters, and the nice one

"Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbour'd, pitied, and relieved,
As thou my sometime daughter."

I'll bet we'll see a similar downfall as we did with Leontes. But maybe without as forgiving an ending...

Petrarch's Opinion

In my European Studies class we have been talking about the effects of poetry/love in the development of society. Mostly western, but also just human.

We read an article in class called "The Erotic Phenomenon" written by Jean-Luc Marion, and it was all about how unspoken but essentially important Love is to us, "As far as telling it, thinking about it, or celebrating it: silence in the ranks. A silence saturated with pain, which pierced through the political, economic, and medical chitchat that smothers it in an attempt to reassure us" (p. 3)

Petrarch's love Laura

We've also read a lot of poetry by Francesco Petrarca, more commonly known to us as Petrarch. He was conflicted in his love for a woman, because it went against St. Augustine's teachings to love God first and foremost. But Petrarch in the end didn't really care. He loved this woman and basically did not care that he was going against God, because it was such a powerful feeling.

There is a strong human necessity for love. There are incredibly powerful feelings that associate with being in love, we're both fascinated and terrified by.

Shakespeare often adds this element to his plays, because it's such a driving force of human life. In "The Tempest" The love between Miranda and Ferdinand is entertaining in a way that the other story cannot be. We, as audience members are so captivated with the sense of Love. 

Shakespeare knew what he was doing.

Jean-Luc Marion, Selections from Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 

creepy fascination

 The Tempest starts out with a BANG! You've got everything: crazy storms, magicians, spirits, potential love stories, familial grudges, sounds like a FANTASTICAL story we are about to dive into!



If Music be the Food of Love

If music be the food of love...Speak on. 

Love's Labour's Lost, moreso than any other Shakespeare play I have read, is to me undeniably musical.

His words are so specifically chosen that it creates a sort of cadence that goes beyond a simple rhyming pattern, but into the world of melody.