Collins Unbound

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Perspectives on Sonnet 55
By Chelsea Bruen

Not marble nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone, besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
‘Gainst death and all oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers’ eyes.

-William Shakespeare

“Sonnet 55,” by William Shakespeare, is hard to pin down. Some say it’s a love sonnet, because what sonnet wouldn’t be about love? Some look a little closer and think it’s about time. Some, such as myself, try to connect it to history.

Philip McGuire looked a little closer and found the theme of time. In McGuire’s article “Shakespeare’s Non-Shakespearean Sonnets” he speaks to the poem’s theme of time, referencing the unusual rhyme pattern as a way that this poem, “will endure, keeping his beloved alive, until, with final judgement, time itself ceases to be” (McGuire 312).  I don’t disagree that Shakespeare deviates from the typical sonnet rhyme pattern, but I think the theme of time runs a bit deeper than rhyme. Overall, I see a questioning of when time will run out and what will remain. Taking phrases such as “outlive”, “sluttish time”, and “living record” together provide an overall experience of moving through time till eventually it runs out (on judgement day), leaving behind only the record (this sonnet) of what occurred.

Helen Vendler also sees the deeper meaning of time. In The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Vendler describes the frequent use of the word “live” in sonnet 55, and uses it to draw out a central question from the poem, “Does the person [you] remain alive in the contents, or does only a record [of your memory] remain?” (Vendler 268). Vendler’s idea that Shakespeare is questioning which side is the truth is very intriguing; are we alive without a record or only remembered within it? I’m not sure the poem gives an answer to the question she raises, perhaps Shakespeare was struggling with it himself.

The theme of time is in the poem, and it doesn’t include romance. Time is about record and memory and history, not infatuation. Time is something these authors and I agree on, but we do not agree on who Shakespeare is writing about. Vendler and McGuire interpret this person to be a young man, I think it is quite the opposite.

I believe this sonnet is about Queen Elizabeth I. Throughout the poem there are subtle hints that the person he speaks of is someone of great importance, saying that “Not marble nor the gilded monuments / Of princes shall outlive this pow’rful rhyme” (1-2). It can be taken that he means great statues / monuments of royalty will not outlive this rhyme, and also not outlive the memory of who he speaks of, meaning that they are important enough to not be easily forgotten. Elizabeth was a very important person in Shakespeare’s time, you know being Queen and all, but that is not solid evidence that this is about her. These lines are better evidence, “Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn / The living record of your memory. / ‘Gainst death and all oblivious enmity” (7-9). Mary, Queen of Scots, was associated with Mars god of war (you can see her next to Mars in the painting below). Mary was rumored to be succeeding Elizabeth, and also may have been plotting against Elizabeth. That information fits very well into the lines. I read them to say: Mary can’t destroy your (Elizabeth’s) memory, nor can war, you will live on past this hostility. Bringing it back to the first two lines, Shakespeare may be saying here that Elizabeth’s memory will live on, or Elizabeth herself will.

Figure 1. Family of Henry VIII, an Allegory of the Tudor Succession (Wikimedia).

Elizabeth did live on, well beyond the life expectancy of the times, bringing it back to the theme of time. I think this sonnet is questioning when Elizabeth’s time will run out, and how she will be remembered through history.

Unfortunately, we will never know exactly what this sonnet meant from Shakespeare’s perspective. Looking at the historical references I found in the sonnet anyone could make a case that it’s about Elizabeth, but there are other valid arguments, except love. I see many things in this sonnet, but romance is not one of them.

Bibliography

McGuire, Philip C. “Shakespeare’s Non-Shakespearean Sonnets.” Shakespeare Quarterly 38.3 (1987): 304-319. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. Print.

Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Print.

Wagner, John A. and Susan Walter Schmid. “Mary, Queen of Scots.” Encyclopedia of Tudor England. 2011. Web.

“Family of Henry VIII, an Allegory of the Tudor Succession.” Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia, 15 Jan. 2016. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Transcendent Feminism: Women’s Shifting Perception in Shakespeare and Chicks Flicks
By Kaelie Coleman

Uncountable stories have been written throughout human history, most of which have not passed the test of time. Shakespeare’s stories have not only been remembered, they also continue to spawn new interpretations that remain pertinent throughout generations. Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew would seem to many too far from modern sensibilities to be marketable, yet in 1999 10 Things I Hate About You, a film adaption of the play, opened to enormous success. It wasn’t simply Heath Ledger’s rugged face that made the film an icon; viewers in the late 20th century could identify with the cultural commentary on women’s issues introduced by Shakespeare.

In 1590 when “The Taming of the Shrew” first hit the stage, the unfavorable position of the protagonist Katherine, a harsh shrew who refuses to marry despite her father’s insistence, exemplified difficulties British women faced. This rebellious nature was frowned upon, but instead of “taming” her spirit until she was a deferential wife, Katherine merely learns to use it more effectively. In Katherine’s final speech following her unwilling marriage to Petruchio most audience members are confused by Katherine’s newly demure attitude and utter deference to her husband. Shakespeare ends the play with an attitude switch so confounding that there are still debates today about the true meaning of the finale. Some critics take Katherine’s words at face value, assuming that the cruel treatment Katherine endured broke her. Others, like myself, see the speech as a form of forced evolution. Katherine can’t have the life of a single lady, so instead she is creating a life that is tolerable; a life built on a foundation of mutual trust, a novel concept in Elizabethan England.

The ambiguity in The Taming of the Shrew made 10 Things I Hate About You possible to format to contemporary values, especially those of the changing feminist movement. Unlike in the original story, the commentary arises from the development of the Stratford sisters, Kat and Bianca. Each sister represents a caricature of woman of the time. Kat, the anti-romantic embodies the stereotype of the bra-burning feminists of the seventies. The mild-mannered Bianca, on the other hand, is a classic sweetheart. As events unfold, the girls take on characteristics of the other, Bianca expressing anger towards the school scumbag with her perfectly manicured fists, and Kat embracing her feminine side in front of an entire classroom with a (rather awkwardly) rewritten Shakespearean sonnet. The changed girls mirror the altering perception of feminism in the Nineties. Gone were the unshaven extremists, instead refined strength became the tell of an empowered woman.

There have been many Shakespearean rom-coms produced over the years, probably with many more to come. Each of Shakespeare’s many plays focuses on a theme that is still apparent. A theme that still manages to make audiences crow with triumph, or cry with hopelessness. Taming of the Shrew addressed problems society still struggles with. Until basic underlying issues of our society are dealt with, I doubt that Shakespeare will ever become irrelevant.

Bibliography

10 Things I Hate about You. Dir. Gil Junger. Perf. Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger. Buena Vista Pictures, 1999

Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Taming of the Shrew. New York: Washington Square, 1992. Print.

Promotional poster for 10 Things I Hate About You. Digital image. Wikipedia. |             Touchstone Pictures, n.d. Web. 30 Feb. 2016.

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Why Religion Matters: Shakespeare and the English Reformation
By Maddy McCombs

Figure 1: A Church destroyed during the Reformation

Religion, especially Christianity, is always apparent in Shakespeare’s works. From comedies like As You Like It, to infamous tragedies such as Hamlet, threads of the religious landscape of 16^th century England can be found in the background of the plays that make him famous.

It is still quite a mystery as to what religion William Shakespeare actually identified with, as Protestants and Catholics alike continually find proof that he was one of them. Shakespeare was raised in a largely Protestant England: Queen Elizabeth I determined Protestantism to be the main religion of the nation shortly before the Bard’s birth with the Religious Settlement of 1559 (Trueman). However, Catholicism was always looming over England. After Henry VII first introduced the Protestant faith in England, Queen Mary fiercely reestablished Catholicism as the law of the land before quickly being switched again with Elizabeth I’s reign (Pettegree). When things finally settled again, Catholic churches and its paraphernalia were destroyed or covered in order to remove the corruption associated with the Catholic Church (Shapiro).

There is some evidence that Shakespeare’s father was Catholic because he was cited twice for not attending Protestant church services and there are reports of a will that allegedly served as a profession of his Catholic faith. Also, a Catholic relative on his mother’s side was executed for conspiracy to assassinate Queen Elizabeth (Miola).

Figure 2: The Ditchley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

Despite this information, Shakespeare’s own beliefs are not evident. Though the feud between the Protestant and Catholic faiths for ownership over this influential figure continues today, there is no proof that swings him either way. However, the struggles and questions raised throughout the reformation are very apparent through his plays.

Many aspects of the Reformation are extremely visible in Shakespeare’s work, Julius Caesar being a very potent example of current events mingling with recounts of the past. Just as Rome in Julius Caesar was at the crossroads between being a republic and an empire, 16^th century England was at the crossroads between Catholicism and Protestantism. Also in Julius Caesar, the opening scene in which they celebrate Caesar is actually a holiday, the Feast of Lupercalia. As in Shakespeare’s life, there is confusion as to what should be celebrated: a national holiday or a religious one? Protestant England was moving away from religious holidays in favor of nationalistic ones, such as Accession Day celebrating Elizabeth’s rise to the throne (Shapiro). Elements of “white-washing” of Catholic churches are seen in Julius Caesar when two tribunes of Rome remove the decorations lining the streets for Caesar’s triumphant return from exiling Pompey, another Roman leader of the time.

Though Julius Caesar provides some of the best allusions to the conflict of the Reformation, many other plays do so as well. The ghost of Hamlet’s father can be seen to be the specter of Catholicism haunting the new Protestant way of life. Othello is seen to show the evils of Protestant faith in the villainous Iago countering the Catholicism of Desdemona and Othello himself.

Figure 3: Destruction of Religious Icons

William Shakespeare did not shy away from addressing the conflicts of his time in many of his plays. Though we never get a clear picture as to what side of the Reformation he personally found himself on, we are still to this day able to see the themes of censorship, tyranny, and control that so often presented itself in his lifetime.

For further reading on the role religion in Shakespeare’s plays, I highly suggest Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England, edited by Dennis Taylor and David Beauregard

Bibliography

Miola, Robert S. “Shakespeare’s Religion.” First Things. First Things, May 2008. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Pettegree, Andrew. “The English Reformation.” BBC News. BBC, 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Shapiro, James. “Is This a Holiday?” A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006. 138-70. Print.

Trueman, Chris. “The Religious Settlement of 1559” The History Learning Site, 17 Mar. 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Pictures:

Church destroyed during the English Reformation: http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot.com/2014/09/destruction-and-iconclasm-in-english.html

The Ditchley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger c 1592
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portraiture_of_Elizabeth_I_of_England#/media/File:Queen_Elizabeth_I_(%27The_Ditchley_portrait%27)_by_Marcus_Gheeraerts_the_Younger.jpg

Destruction of religious images in Zurich, 1524
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Destruction_of_icons_in_Zurich_1524.jpg

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Shakespeare in Plague-Ridden London
By Lindsey Rachel Hunt

Source: Wikimedia Commons

William Shakespeare died 400 years ago, in April of 2016. But, thanks to the plague’s many sweeps through London, he could have actually died much, much sooner. While the plague hit London particularly hard in 1665, it actually struck the city fairly hard in 1592-93, 1603, and 1606 (British Medical Journal). The plague was explained with a variety of unusual causes; sinning, foul or sick air, the alignment of the planets, and imbalances of the four humors that were believed at the time to control the physical health and emotional well-being of humans (British Medical Journal). Symptoms of the plague included a high fever, severe joint pain, thirst, delirium, heart failure, and the swelling and then rupturing of lymphs located in the groin, neck, and armpits (Shapiro).

Despite the plague’s high contagiousness and terrifying symptoms, life in Elizabethan England went on. Whenever the plague would ramp up the death count, privy councilors in charge of maintaining quarantines would complain that “too many Londoners were washing off the red crosses painted over the doors of their infected and quarantined households.” (Shapiro) Londoners were also much more likely to break rules and London descended into chaos during bouts of plague; law enforcement had to sit tight, and magistrates and (ironically enough) physicians left the city (British Medical Journal). After 1603 experienced an “outbreak in which more than 30,000 Londoners had died, the privy council decreed that public playing should cease once the number of those who died every week of plague rose ‘above the number of 30’.” (Shapiro) Players frequently disregarded this decree, choosing instead to keep their theaters open even when the death count was nearing 40. When the death toll was as high as it got to in 1603 or 1606, however, the playhouses remained closed. Some historians actually claim that “there is a close correlation between the closure of the playhouses and Shakespeare’s writing habits,” arguing that Shakespeare practically ceased writing altogether whenever the plague took more victims (Shakespeare Quarterly). The idea that outside circumstances heavily influenced Shakespeare’s creative output is not a foreign concept; in the SSI-2 class A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, we frequently compare real-world events in the year 1599 to the plays Shakespeare produced during that time period.

While we will never really fully know why Shakespeare chose not to write plays during theater closures, we do know that Shakespeare lived in a part of the city that, for the majority of the outbreaks, remained relatively safe from the plague. Shakespeare lived in the parish of St. Olave’s of Silver Street, which, in the plague-ridden years of 1592, 1593, and 1603, remained relatively unaffected by the rest of the city’s illness and panic. It wasn’t until 1606 that plague seemed to have struck Shakespeare’s community. There’s even a chance that Shakespeare’s landlady was affected, although the vicar, Flint, “listed only the date and the deceased’s name and occupation…Flint sometimes included a stray detail, [but] his entries are brief,” so she could have died from other causes (Shapiro). Even so, the plague was too close to Shakespeare for comfort.

If the plague had touched Shakespeare in 1606, some of his most notable plays, like Winter’s Tale (1610) and The Tempest (1611), would never have existed. In a lecture Dr. Wesley gave during my Orientation the previous semester, I learned that Shakespeare was educated primarily with morality plays. Morality plays had simple characters that represented moral concepts that needed to be reinforced. These morality plays were commonly shown in theaters along with a variety of simple, silly plays; as a result, theater wasn’t taken seriously. An exceptionally hard worker like Shakespeare was needed to change the purpose of going to the theater from simple entertainment to a provocative learning experience. While another playwright could have emerged and taken Shakespeare’s place in the annuls of history, I’m glad Shakespeare survived to write his sonnets and plays. Since you’re reading this, I’m sure you are too.

Bibliography

“The Plague in Shakespeare’s London”. “The Plague in Shakespeare’s London”. The British Medical Journal 1.3187 (1922): 156–156. Web…

Book reviews – politics, plague, and shakespeare’s theater: (1993). Shakespeare Quarterly, 44(1), 100. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.ups.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1811840?accountid=1627

Shapiro, James. How Shakespeare’s great escape from the plague changed theatre The Guardian.com, 24 September, 2015. Web. Accessed 1 March, 2016. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/24/shakespeares-great-escape-plague-1606–james-shapiro

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Shakespeare vs. Controversy
By Annelise Bauer

Dear readers,

As many of you know, Shakespeare is a great playwright whose work is timeless. With every great writer come fame, praise, and controversy. In the Elizabethan time, the royal court was very serious about the kinds of content that was allowed to be in literature. Every piece that Shakespeare wrote had to be screened before it could be preformed. If there was anything that might offend the royal court in the script it had to be taken out. Since Shakespeare enjoyed writing political plays, he had to be extremely careful about what it was that he wrote about. Also, because so many people went to see Shakespeare’s plays, if there was something in them that offended the royal court the common people may think it is okay to say things like that. If anyone, no matter who it was, said something that insulted the queen she would have him or her killed.

Shakespeare was loved at his time but with some of his plays brought controversy. With a few, if they were written by anybody else may have caused problems in society and with the royal court but somehow Shakespeare knew how to get around that. Lawrence Manley states that during the Elizabethan time, “Theatrical performances were ‘liminal’ in nature, capable of accommodating contradictory states of affairs through the resources of mimicry and parodic inversion, and they assumed the license to express and debate matters normally taken for granted” (The Elizabethan World 532). Shakespeare was really good at writing political plays that raised debate within the play about things that were happening during that time without causing issues outside of the play. For instance, Henry V is a debate play. It debates war and the effects of war and brings in ideas from the time of conflicts between England and France.

Not only did Shakespeare have to be careful about the content he wrote about but he also had to be aware of the names of the characters in his plays. James Shapiro wrote in his book “A Year in the Life of Shakespeare,” that when Shakespeare wrote Henry IV he originally had Falstaff’s character named Oldcastle. Shapiro says, “It’s hard from a distance to determine whether the initial slight was intentional on Shakespeare’s part, an attempt to poke fun at a Puritan hero like Oldcastle or a sly dig that aligned Shakespeare with court factions opposed to Cobham and his son” (Shapiro 17). Falstaff’s character is a jokester and not a character that a person such as Oldcastle would want to be associated with. If he had not changed the name there would have been havoc among the commoners and the royal court.

Picture of William Shakespeare (Shakespeare’s Biography)

In conclusion, Theater opened up a new way of discussing controversial ideas without actually bringing up the specific problems at hand. Lawrence Manley says, “where theatre is concerned, the most crucial license was the permission to enact disturbing events and situations – tragic conflicts, failed transitions, political divisions, controversial ideas – too dangerous to contemplate in public view outside the framework of licensed hypothesis” (The Elizabethan World 532). I believe that Shakespeare opened up new room for people to converse and debate issues of their time without having to worry about offending anything.

Bibliography

Doran, Susan, and Norman L. Jones. The Elizabethan World. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011. Print.

Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, 1599. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. Print.

“Shakespeare’s Biography.” Shakespeare Resource Center . N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

In honor of William Shakespeare we are celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death on April 23, 2016. What better way to do this, than by highlighting the writing done by first-year students in Associate Professor of English John Wesley’s first-year seminar, A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare? This first-year seminar in scholarly inquiry studies four remarkable plays Shakespeare wrote or saw into production in 1599, the same year he opened the Globe Theatre. In the first half of the course, students were introduced to the myriad ways in which Shakespeare’s 1599 plays are shaped by and give shape to the political and cultural intrigues of that year. In the second half of the course, students turned to a play (and year) of their own choosing, the historicist analysis of which is the basis of an independent research project. As part of this project, students were asked to prepare a blog post that reflected on aspects of Shakespeare’s life, a specific work, or a resource or organization associated with Shakespeare, or to provide a personal interpretation of a play. During the month of April, we’ll feature the posts from students that celebrate all things Shakespeare!

Congratulations to our wonderful first-year writers. For additional online resources about Shakespeare, check out these sites:

• British Library: http://www.bl.uk/
• Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu/
• Globe Theatre: http://www.shakespearesglobe.com
• Internet Shakespeare Editions: http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
• Shakespeare 400:  http://www.shakespeare400.org/

Girl Bosses through the Lens of Shakespeare
By Kendall Aresu

The Roles of a Wife to her Husband

I don’t know about you, but I would hate to be a woman in the 16^th century. All these expectations of what it means to be a woman is enough to fire up the feminist in anyone. One can only imagine the upheaval that was caused by a single female taking the throne. Thankfully, Elizabeth I of England was influential in a multitude of ways. From shedding light on the arts to bringing a new view of what it means to be a monarch, Elizabeth was present in almost all of the accounts of England during this time. William Shakespeare, not unlike many writers at this time, seeped the societal concerns of Elizabeth into his plays.

By creating many different female roles but never making them royalty shows Shakespeare’s and also the Elizabethan people’s view of what it meant to be a woman. The female characters in Shakespeare’s play are mostly used as a symbol of sympathy for the audience. The one character that defies this weak feminine image is Lady Macbeth. She is construed as ambitious which is a very strange quality for a woman to have at this time. However, it is refreshing to see a powerful woman in one of Shakespeare’s plays. Lady Macbeth uses her husband to fulfill her own political agenda which is unnatural and shows an inversion of gender roles (J. Dall). Shakespeare shows the negative view of female power by portraying Lady Macbeth as power-hungry and obsessed with gaining political standing. As the play goes on it is clear that Lady Macbeth’s strength is faltering. This is crucial to how the people of this time were viewing Elizabeth. This play mirrors what the people felt once Lady Macbeth died which was a sense of relief so they could have a male ruler and return to the status quo.

Elizabeth faced many challenges being a female ruler and no matter what she would accomplish as a queen she would still be considered inadequate when compared to a male. The idea of a female ruler associated a vision of vulnerability with Elizabeth. By calling herself the Virgin Queen, she was able to connect her legacy with female honor as well as chastity. Similar to how Lady Macbeth’s strength deteriorates as the play goes on, Elizabeth’s health was deteriorating as she aged leaving the people with a relief that they would once again have a male ruler. One could argue that since Elizabeth was Protestant she was adequate in the people’s eyes (“Elizabeth I”). Religion was a big deal when it comes to the monarchy, the people would be more willing to accept Elizabeth because she was Protestant.

Shakespeare uses the symbol of Lady Macbeth to reflect the dangers of having a female in a position of political power. He shows that women are irrational and that having a woman as a ruler is unnatural. Shakespeare reflects the views of the Elizabethan people at this time which shows how they thought of the image of a woman should be. Thankfully nowadays we are in a society that does not have such tight social and gender constraints.

Bibliography

Trevillian, Thomas. Trevelyon Mischellany of 1608. Digital image. Folger Shakespeare Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2016

Dall, Jane. “The Stage and the State: Shakespeare’s Portrayal of Women and Sovereign Issues in Macbeth and Hamlet.” The Stage and the State: Shakespeare’s Portrayal of Women and Sovereign Issues in Macbeth and Hamlet. Hanover Historical Review 8, Spring 2000. Web. 01 Mar. 2016

“Elizabeth I.” The Official Website of The British Monarchy. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016