Shakespeare - Blog Posts
first post idk how tf to work this but here's some christian borle doodles yay !! poops
time capsule from 2003. 9 years later, I'm still not good enough to understand Shakespeare world.
Third Classroom...
My third classroom…
I taught Shakespeare.
I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen-years-old.
My classroom was chaotic and stunk of school lunches.
Once again, the ‘weird’ kid was the center of attention.
Seriously though, how hard is it to read the footnotes?
They hold the keys to the wonders of the world!
If Shakespeare were alive today, he would live in constant fear of high-schoolers
A Day in the Park
We sing the song of a much simpler life
The one we wish to take back
But the line to that is slashed by a knife
Yet hopeless, we try to attack
•
To retrieve all the chances not taken
To relive memories that cannot be bought
Of made-up play houses and sizzling bacon
Of lessons learned and some that were not
•
We have grown and matured with little restriction
Forgetting to hold most things that are dear
We chase after big dreams and goals with conviction
Neglecting our friends, family and home with fear
•
So take time to respect the good old days
When you yearn to spend time in your childish ways
I debated posting this on here because this sounds SO MUCH like a Tumblr fake story from 2012 that I don't think anyone will believe me but I promise you, before we get into this, that it did happen and not a single person clapped.
One of my origin stories as the person I currently am is going to appeal my results for a English language competition in like 10th grade (of Ukrainian school, so ~15 yo) because most of the marks I was deducted was because of my handwriting (hi undiagnosed dysgraphia) and them being unable to decipher what I wrote. So I come, the examiner and I sit at a desk and go through all my "mistakes", and she goes:
"See? You said "we don't know of it". It should be "about"."
And I swear to you, I went:
"Actually, Shakespeare used "of" in "Hamlet". "And makes us rather bear those ills we have than fly to others that we know not of"."
And then I pulled up the poetry foundation with To Be or Not To Be, showed it to her and she gave me the fucking point, too stunned to speak.
I had learned TBONTB by heart by reading it out loud to myself in the dark in my room at night multiple times in a row because I have always been sane and was never autistic actually.
It's such a loss that I wasn't on Tumblr as a teenager. I was grown in a lab to have a Tumblr blog that I will regret when I'm older.
i make fun of horatio for finding the most dramatic person he could and just enabling his behavior
and then i look in the mirror like "huh shakespeare in the park is looking a lil different this year"
hamlet: makes everything infinitely more complicated than need be, spends half his time wallowing and procrastinating
me:
can someone please explain to me the trend in the 90s of doing films of Shakespeare but setting them with a vaguely Victorian/Edwardian aesthetic? Like, Midsummer '99, Hamlet '96, and Twelfth Night '96.
i just really want one of Shakespeare's comedies directed by Wes Anderson
i know theres a "gay best friend" trope but i feel like we need to formally acknowledge the "due to unfortunate circumstances i am gay for an absolute bastard" trope
now this is, of course, just another excuse for me to point out how gay nick carraway and horatio are
benvolio, mercutio, horatio, and ophelia all have a group chat called "bastard-free zone." sometimes they go out to brunch just to get away from romeo and hamlet's bullshit
i identify with hamlet because i, too, am a bisexual disasterpiece.
You know how I know that AI will never be able to create like a human? Whether that be painting or writing or film-making?
Because no computer, no algorithm, no matter how good, can tell a story like a human can.
Shakespeare wrote his most famous tragedies from the mire of grief from losing his son to the plague. Oscar Wilde's "A Picture of Dorian Gray" had such overtly homosexual themes that the book was literally used against him when he was on trial. The shock and horror of 9/11 inspired My Chemical Romance to come together and capture the sense of disillusionment of young people at the time. Hozier today writes his songs expressing what it means to be an increasingly fascist world while still holding an enduring love of humanity. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" using the witch hunts as a thinly veiled allegory to criticize McCarthyism in the 50s, a play that did, in fact have him persecuted for "contempt of congress". An entire period of Picasso's art was noticeably influenced by the suicide of his friend, but he also had other works that were inspired by his various love affairs.
If you still think AI could eventually create like that, you're missing the point. You think it's about skill, you think it's just about craft. We're aware that AI can learn any skill, excel at craft. But a story isn't the words you use, or the events that happened; a story is the person that tells it and the beauty they felt that they share with you when you experience the art. Because art itself isnt about the perfection of its presentation, its the messiness of the human experience. Your AI has no life, it has no story, it can make as many esthetically pleasing works as you want, but it cannot make art.
Am I the only one who just figured out that Disney's Lion King is basically a kiddie version of Shakespeare's Hamlet? How late am I to the party?
“To be poor but content is actually to be quite rich. But you can have endless riches and still be as poor as anyone if you are always afraid of losing your riches.”
Othello, William Shakespeare
Original quote: "Poor and content is rich, and rich enough, / But riches fineless is as poor as winter / To him that ever fears he shall be poor."
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”
Othello, William Shakespeare
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
- William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
"We know what we are, but not what we may be."
- Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 5
It’s here!
In this video, I discuss The Tempest and it’s storied, weird history, whilst takin a close look at Julie Taymor’s 2010 adaptation of the play. In the video, I talk about the problem with adapting Shakespeare in general, and how film is by definition a transformative medium.
If you enjoy the video, please do like/share/subscribe! I know thats corny, but it really helps this early on.
Let me know what you all think!
She Mumford on my Sons til I Sigh No More
A Love Letter to History
(if you could call it that)
On a cold January morning in 1914, James Joyce published the first part of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In that very part, on a similarly cold morning just after Christmas Break, Stephen Dedalus stood huddled with other Clongowes students and watched the snow moulding itself around their boots, wondering what made Simon Moonan and Tusker Boyle, in all their ordinariness, kiss in the square.
Napoleon Bonaparte was not born Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born Napoleon Buonaparte. Napoleon Buonaparte was not born in France, but he was born French enough. Of course, they’ve forgotten that by now. They often aren’t allowed to remind themselves, either.
There is very little to say about Fahrenheit 451 that it has not already said about itself. Any review of it is only ever a paraphrasing of some chapter or other, intentionally or otherwise. In the past twenty years, it has been banned at least ten times in the US alone. I imagine censoring a book about censorship gave many people the opportunity to pat themselves on the back. Unfortunately, their intentions, however malevolent, are misplaced. In the book, the people are on the side of banning books. There is no oppression, and no need for revolution. The bars caging a mind are not so easy to topple. The guillotine falls over an empty basket, and symbolism overflows from an empty cup. There is nothing to overthrow when the fault lies with time.
History. What a heavy word.
Christopher Marlow was excommunicated by the Church, and so was one of Shakespeare’s daughters. It is claimed that he based Ophelia off of his wife. I wonder why.
Five years after that day in the square, Stephen Dedalus refused to back down from his claim of Byron’s brilliance. Words like 'blasphemous' and 'irreligious' pooled around his feet. He cupped his hands in the water and lapped it up. Everything I write now contains some shred of Stephen’s name. I wonder why.
Why is a muse called a muse? To muse is to think, to think deeply. Is a muse’s job to be a conductor of thought? Must all thought be equivalent to love? Why does the word smell like the thickest honey? Why does it sit so heavily on my tongue?
Icarus never meant to fall. If he raced toward the sun, it was only to prove that he could. And he was never on fire. Oh, he burned, alright — the melting wax made sure of it. Did he grasp at the feathers as they came free from the harness? Did he watch them drifting towards the sea? Did he notice anything happening at all? For a moment, a brief, shining moment, the sun was neither hope nor doom, but triumph.
I never could write anything on either the 31st or the 1st. There is something about endings, and something about beginnings. The sun dawned the same on New Year’s Day, but at the stroke of midnight, my phone sang like I lived my whole life before the first light.
Fifteen years after that day in the square, Stephen Dedalus parted with Cranly, unafraid of being alone,
“— and not have any one person who would more than a friend, more even than the noblest and truest friend a man ever had.”
“Of whom are you speaking?” Stephen asked at length.
Cranly did not answer.
They met again, and sixteen years after Oscar’s death, James Joyce retraced his name in “Wilde’s love that dare not speak its name” in a book I have yet to read.
It’s funny how they ban books written centuries ago. Congratulations, Ronald, a pre-industrialization schoolmaster had a broader mind than yours. A clod of dirt shifts as Shakespeare turns in his grave.
History. What a heavy word. I used to think we owed it something.
still cannot fathom how Oliver said like the most romantic thing ever to Meredith and then went to jail for James 5 minutes later
if we were villains aesthetic
m l rio really said "you can justify anything if you do it poetically enough" and thought it justified making me lose my mind over a bunch of emo theatre kids huh
"DEATH IS THE MOTHER OF BEAUTY"
- literary examples of death as tragic and beautiful in its terror
Ophelia, a beautiful, innocent girl created by Shakespeare, torn by emotions so much that in despair for her lost love, she throws herself into the arms of the river, drowning. This is clearly seen in Millais's painting. Despite her death, a young girl resists the influence of filthy water on the human body. Pale but healthy skin, rosy cheeks and pink lips desperately taking their last breath. A tragic moment captured in such a calm way. Ophelia remains forever beautiful and immortal in the eyes of the viewer.
"Perfume" by Patrick Süskind, a novel about a murderer who tries to capture the most beautiful smell. The smell of death in the form of perfume made from a young body. His victims are again little girls who die in a tragic, sometimes even parodic way, being brutally mercilessly harmed. But in the main character's eyes they still shine like stars in the sky, filling him with pure exhilaration. Especially that one woman who is his eternal inspiration.
Baudelaire creates something similar in the poem "the death of lovers". The couple on its deathbed is not concerned about the coming end. Their love seems to bloom even more, surrounded by fragrant flowers that fill their souls with peace and joy.
Finally, the story of Tristan and Isolde, another lovers, on whose grave a hawthorn grows. A symbol of their eternal love. From their dead bodies, corrupted by decay, something amazing in its beauty is created bearing witness to their everlasting connection.
It reminds me of the words of Edvard Munch: "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity"
Writers, poets, whole literature itself create death in various ways. But showing it as a gateway to beauty is something particularly special. How death can it be glamorous, artistic and pleasing for our eyes. How to find it among tragedy, mourning, rotten skin and that disgusting smell of decay. And why show it this way at all?
"Because the world is so full of death and horror, I try again and again to console my heart and pick the flowers that grow in the midst of hell" - Hermann Hesse