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/

Shakespeare’s Influences and Influencers
By Keely Coxwell

On the four hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death we celebrate not only his life but what he created as well. In fifty-eight years William Shakespeare wrote thirty seven plays and one hundred and fifty four sonnets. According to Marvin Spevack’s concordances, that is 884,647 words and 118,406 lines and 1,224 characters (“Shakespeare FAQ.”). Not only are these numbers mind boggling but they attest to Shakespeare’s ability and creativity. That is 1,224 characters with different personalities and thirty seven unique stories. When I saw those numbers I questioned how one man could possibly come up with all of those stories but, of course, Shakespeare didn’t just pull some of these ideas out of thin air. Thorough out his plays, scenarios and characters were influenced by things such as the political climate, events, and other people.

Elizabeth I, the Plimpton Sieve Portrait. ca. 1540–1596. Folger. Folger Shakespeare Library

The connection to Queen Elizabeth and Julius Caesar would have been fairly obvious to contemporary Elizabethans at the time. During the time Julius Caesar was written Elizabeth was criticized as being weak and feeble Shakespeare then made his Julius Caesar to be as week and feeble, like Elizabeth (Shapiro, 151-152). If this didn’t aspect of Julius Caesar didn’t bring Elizabeth to mind the fact that she often compared her self to Julius Caesar would. Also, Julius Caesar was very much a warning tale. There had been multiple attempts on Elizabeth’s life and Julius Caesar depicted the chaos that follows an assassination.(Shapiro, 144-145). Not only did Elizabeth influence characters but she might have been the reason why Merry Wives of Windsor was written. It’s rumored that Shakespeare wrote Merry Wives of Windsor because after seeing Henry IV, Part Two Queen Elizabeth wanted to see more of Falstaff; specifically, Falstaff in love (Herman).        

It wasn’t just political figures who influenced Shakespeare’s writing, one of the main reasons Shakespeare wrote such strong female characters in As You Like It was because two good boy actors had recently joined his company (Shapiro, 114). Elizabeth wasn’t the only person who shaped a character in one of Shakespeare’s plays. The Earl of Essex greatly influenced the character Henry V in the play of the same name. The Earl of Essex was for the war with Ireland, he even used what Henry V did (in real life and in the play) to justify his reasonings. Similarly to Julius Caesar the people watching the play would have recognized this connection.

Shakespeare started Hamlet with jittery soldiers guarding Denmark which referenced the soldiers that were in London in response of the threat of the Spanish Armada invading in 1599 (Shapiro, 187). Similarly Henry V, was heavily influenced by England’s war with Ireland. The debate over the merits of and simply whether or not to go to war in Henry V would have felt almost too real for the contemporary Elizabethans watching the play (Shapiro, 79-82).

We might not have a story about Julius Caesar if Elizabeth I wasn’t the queen she was and the debate in Henry V might have felt every different if it were not for the war with Ireland.

Bibliography

Elizabeth I, the Plimpton Sieve Portrait. ca. 1540–1596. Folger. Folger Shakespeare Library. Web. 1 Mar. 2016. <http://www.folger.edu/works-of-art>.

Herman, Jan. “A Not-So-Merry ‘Wives of Windsor’.” Los Angeles Times 22 June . Web. 1 Mar. 2016.

“Shakespeare FAQ.” Folger Shakespeare Library . N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2016. <http://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-faq>.

Shapiro, James. A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare 1599. New York: Harper Perennial, 2005. 79-187. Print.

Ziegler, Georgianna. Elizabeth I: Then and Now. N.p.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 2003. N. pag. Web. 1 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/

Shakespeare and the Supernatural
By Jake Gritzmacher

“He could write realistically in the style of a dispassionate and often amused observer of contemporary life: he could dramatize biographies and historical chronicles; he could invent fairy stories and visionary fantasies; he could create (often out of the most unpromising raw material) huge tragic allegories of good and evil, in which almost superhuman figures live their lives and die their often sickening deaths. He could mingle sublimity with pathos, bitterness with joy and peace and love, intellectual subtlety with delirium and the cryptic utterances of inspired wisdom.” (Aldous Huxley, Shakespeare and Religion)

Present in one form or another in literally every one of Shakespeare’s literary masterpieces is a sense of the supernatural; that is, the consciousness that there is more to life which lies beyond the known world and scientifically-proven aspects of the universe. I, personally, am enthralled with the concept of the mystic, and how in today’s rationalized world of science and technology, humans can still never be sure of how existence began, how or when it will end, and even what on Earth mankind is doing here. I resonate with the manor in which Shakespeare presents supernatural elements in his works, and especially how the way with which he implements them affects his audience’s perception, as well as the overall meaning they derive from the play. This feature of Shakespeare’s work is part of what enticed me into reading and studying his plays in the first place, and is also the facet that incessantly leads me back. Though a majority of the imagery which I am highlighting in this post hails from the Christian faith, it is very important to grasp that the superhuman aspects of Shakespeare’s work are not limited to what is written in the the Judah-Christian bible. There is a broad spectrum of divine power emanating from various dwellings in Shakespeare’s plays. Be it religion, dark magic, or fantasy, Shakespeare covered a great deal of ground with relation to depicting and describing otherworldly phenomenon; this is what I wish to convey when I say, “supernatural”.

Hamlet and His Father’s Ghost
William Blake, 1806

The most interesting and enlightening source I came across in my research on the subject happens to be the last essay written by the great Aldous Huxley, on his deathbed in November of 1963. Simply entitled “Shakespeare and Religion,” the brief but through essay analyzes varying examples of supernatural and religious experiences in various plays in different lights, then comments on the effect that the experiences had on the meaning of the work, as well as on Shakespeare’s overall views regarding the metaphysical.

In his essay, Huxley articulates that, “Unlike Milton or Dante, Shakespeare had no ambition to be a systematic theologian or philosopher. He was not concerned to “justify the ways of God to Man” in terms of a set of metaphysical postulates and a network of logical ideas.” Huxley goes on to describe how Shakespeare instead preferred to “hold the mirror up to nature … What he gives us is not a religious system; it is more like an anthology, a collection of different points of view, an assortment of commentaries on the human predicament offered by persons of dissimilar temperament and upbringing.” (Huxley, Shakespeare and Religion)

I believe that Shakespeare offers a plethora of religious, existential insight within his plays, especially his later works, and does so mostly by simply comparing and contrasting dissimilar views. I find it intriguing to note that though many aspects of his personal life remain obscured due to his lack of memoirs, the overall scholarly consensus articulates that Shakespeare’s faith had a basis in Christianity, and some even speculate that he was a papist. What I really find interesting about this consensus, if it is true, is how Shakespeare was able to write from so many religious and superstitious points of view; he even often wrote plays which contained doubt and expressed beliefs competing with Christianity in a time in which that was a very risky act to partake in. Shakespeare explored the deep, ubiquitous, universal questions of existence in an age where the religious institutions reigned sovereign and life’s enduring questions were to be answered for the populous by a holy man clad in robes.

Shakespeare, being the gifted playwright he was, had the ability in his works to comment on nearly all aspects of religion and the mystical and convey to his audience powerful notions regarding the unknown in such a manner that he himself remained, in a way, aloof and detached from the subject-object dualism of the matter. “Shakespeare is always able, as a playwright, to balance and challenge many differing perspectives, one against another. But I think, in the end, he is able to express an openness to the mystery of our existence, an openness to what ‘God’ might mean, and an openness especially to the natural world and how that might relate spiritually to the doctrine of the divine-incarnate.” (Dr. Paul Edmondson, Shakespeare and Religion video)

A lot has transpired in the four centuries since Shakespeare’s brilliance graced the Earth; humanity has changed, so has the world, and many of its ways. In Shakespeare’s day, religion was forced upon citizens regardless of whether the people wanted to have faith in it or not. Today, most parts of the world indulge in religious freedom and can hold whatever views desired. Because religion was more engrained in Shakespeare’s society, there was more common belief in the supernatural. As Huxley would agree, “Honest faith in God, angels and saints implied a corresponding faith in the Devil, evil spirits and the witches, sorcerers and magicians who collaborated with them.” Magic seemed to flow freely in the world in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, simply by mankind’s belief in it. It is not even a generalization when I say that everyone was superstitious to some degree in Shakespeare’s day, and Shakespeare played on these superstitions many times in order to raise universal questions of the human condition that today are still as applicable as ever. The profound, unrequited questions that remain, and the sense of mystery which accompanies them, in a way, represent the supernatural aspects of the universe that are still intact four hundred years after Shakespeare faced them, and will likely endure until the end of time. As a closing statement, I would like to evoke the last written words of the great Aldous Huxley, “We are all well on the way to an existential religion of mysticism. How many kinds of religion! How many kinds of Shakespeare!”

Bibliography:

Huxley, Aldous. “Shakespeare and Religion by Aldous Huxley.” Shakespeare and Religion by Aldous Huxley. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

Edmondson, Paul, Dr. “Shakespeare and Religion.” YouTube. Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, 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/

Fact vs. Fiction in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar
By Nate Jacobi

While reading Julius Caesar I found myself thoroughly frustrated by author William Shakespeare’s political neutrality. Considering the play revolves around a philosophical debate about whether an assassination is justified, little, if anything is philosophically determined by the play’s end. Were the conspirators justified in killing of Julius Caesar? Were they wrong to cut short the life of one of Rome’s greatest men? Shakespeare certainly provides no overwhelming evidence to tip the scales in any favor. In order to gain a better understanding of what motivated Shakespeare’s political ambiguity in Julius Caesar I want to compare the historical perception of Caesar with Shakespeare’s portrayal of Roman perspectives. This will reveal whether Caesar was truly such a divisive figure or whether Shakespeare turned him into one for alternate reasons.

According to Shakespeare the primary reason why many Romans were fearful of Caesar is summed up in two lines spoken by Brutus during the first act of Julius Caesar: “I do fear the people / Choose Caesar for their king” (1.2.78-79). Rome at the time was a republic and feared that Caesar was becoming so popular and powerful that he would seize ultimate power over the state. In reality, these fears were justified as Caesar incurred enormous amounts of popularity among the Roman people and also his soldiers due in part to his military successes in Gaul. However, there is evidence to suggest that Shakespeare downplayed the sheer amount of power and popularity that Caesar enjoyed. According to Plutarch, one of Rome’s most prominent Roman historians, Caesar had a personal army that was extremely loyal to him. Plutarch says: “He was so much master of the good-will and hearty service of his soldiers that those who in other expeditions were but ordinary men displayed a courage past defeating or withstanding when they went upon any danger where Caesar’s glory was concerned” (Plutarch). In fact just years earlier Caesar had led his forces across the Rubicon river into Rome which had never before been done by any Roman military leader in history. While Shakespeare mentions Caesar’s military successes in the first act of the play, his decision to leave out Caesar’s military power heavily downplays Caesar’s threat to the republic.

Why then might Shakespeare have chosen a more neutral portrayal of Caesar in his play? Some critics note that Shakespeare’s neutrality may have been the result of simple logistics, as any outright negative portrayal of Caesar could be viewed as an attack on Queen Elizabeth’s right to rule and therefore would have attracted the eye of censors (Shapiro 129). While practicality is a plausible explanation, it would be disingenuous and unfair to Shakespeare’s skill as a playwright to say that the spectre of censorship was the only reason he remained ambiguous on Caesar. As James Shapiro notes in his book A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: “One of the lessons Shakespeare had confirmed by reading Hayward was the dramatic advantage of juxtaposing competing political arguments, balancing them so neatly that it was impossible to tell in favor of which the scales tipped” (Shapiro 129). Shakespeare wanted his audience to feel conflicted just like Brutus who had to decide whether to betray his friend or not. If Shakespeare had boldly portrayed Caesar as either a hero or a villain, the audience would not have identified with Brutus’ struggle. By staying politically ambiguous Shakespeare is able to build tension and deliver a more thought provoking piece.

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/

Who Is Allowed To Be the Custodian of Knowledge?
By Autumn Raw

Two years ago I was assigned Hamlet in my college-level English course, and having been pre-empted by many that Hamlet was a very, very sad snooze fest, I ventured onto the internet to look for means of making Shakespeare a good deal more interesting. At that point I had read several Shakespearean plays, and had enjoyed them, but this was not a point in time where my excitement to read plays written 400 years ago was peaking. Hamlet was “literally going to bore me to death”(I actually wrote that in the reader’s notebook I turned in for a grade).

So, I went online to find a way to make Shakespeare fresh and exciting to me, and creatively typed ‘Shakespeare’ into Youtube. There are a variety of videos to scroll through: filmed productions, conspiracy theories, several fanvids of “Shakespeare In Love”. A little ways down, you’ll run into a video titled: “Hip-Hop & Shakespeare? Akala at TEDxAldeburgh”. This video revolutionized the way I viewed Shakespeare, and it is a required watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSbtkLA3GrY  (The video)

The video is only twenty minutes long, and it opens with Akala issuing a pop quiz to the audience of his talk. The question: Is this quote hip-hop, or Shakespeare? Over the course of the short quiz, the audience was surprised to find that a majority of the lines they assumed to be Shakespeare’s were actually the products of rappers. This segues into the proper speech itself, in which Akala will lay down a beat, and rap a sonnet/lines over it from a variety of Shakespeare’s plays.

(Here’s a quiz that is quite similar to the one Akala gave: http://www.sporcle.com/games/the_hmh_project/shakespeare-or-hip-hop)  (DailyMail)

Hip-hop and Shakespeare are typically never mentioned in the same breath, but the two subjects are more similar than they are dissimilar: musicality is one thing that ties the two subjects together. Hip-hop has a long musical history, “Rap shares its roots with other forms of traditionally African-American music, such as jazz, blues, and soul. Rap may also be closely linked to reggae music, a genre that also developed from the combination of traditional African drumming”(Blanchard). Shakespeare’s lines have a distinct rhythm to them, and this makes it relatively easy to set them to music. The Guardian, writing about a workshop Akala was running in 2009, highlights the similarities between the two:

“ In a Q&A session, only two of them say they’d have come if today hadn’t involved rapping. That begins to change when Akala engages them in a series of exercises that explore the close relationship between the rhythms of modern hip-hop and the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare. He hands out cards printed with a couple of lines. We have to decide whether they’re the work of the playwright or a rapper. It’s harder than you’d think. The kids are adamant that certain words and phrases are those of a rapper, but they’re actually from Shakespeare. And vice versa. It’s a hook, and it’s only half an hour later that they’re translating Sonnet 18 into hip-hop verse” (The Guardian).

This is very exciting, because students who before lacked the motivation to read Shakespeare, and look deeply into the meaning of Shakespeare’s verses, are now able to take it, and rhythmically warp it to become more interesting to them. It’s ingenious, and opens up Shakespeare’s language and makes it more accessible to people who before found it to be dry and taxing to read.

The Hip-Hop Shakespeare site: http://www.hiphopshakespeare.com/

Bibliography

Akala. “Hip-Hop & Shakespeare? Akala at TEDxAldeburgh.” YouTube. YouTube, 7 Dec. 2011. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Blanchard, Becky. “THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RAP & HIP-HOP CULTURE.” THE SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RAP & HIP-HOP CULTURE. Ethics of Development in a Global Environment (EDGE), July-Aug. 1999. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

Emery, Andrew. “Shakespeare: How Do I Compare Thee to Hip-hop?” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 15 Apr. 2009. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

MailOnline, Victoria Woollaston for. “Are Rappers Better Linguists than SHAKESPEARE? Complex Rhymes Are ‘second Nature’ to Hip-hop Artists.” Mail Online. Associated Newspapers, 11 Feb. 2015. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.