"And now for something completely different"

The past few blogs made for this class focus on, frankly, the bizarre or certain inversions in each Shakespeare play we have read. The first one discusses the significance of rings and the women they belong to in The Merchant of Venice. The second studies the blunt proposal of the duke and Isabella as well as their brief history together in Measure for Measure. The last describes the corrupt behavior of Prince Harry in I Henry IV. It’s like I don’t want to discuss a normal topic for this assignment. Then again, the unusual usually provokes more discussion, depending on the audience.

In each blog, I have attempted to use the text to prove I’m not picking random for the sake of getting it done. This is more the case in my second one, where I hardly use any source or knowledge outside of Measure for Measure. The first blog sounds like I wanted to write a research paper on the period by alluding to customs I assumed took place around this time and using Merchant of Venice as an example of what would not typically happen. I don’t make much of an attempt to draw connections to other texts until my last one where I try to compare Prince Harry’s plans to that of the duke.

I’m not sure if it’s a bad thing or not that I don’t look for ways to connect different plays to each other. On the one hand, this is one of the goals of the class, so perhaps I should attempt to do so in the future. On the other, each play is different and it may not be essential to weave every Shakespearean play, sonnet, what have you, together in some 16th century crazy quilt. The only thing I will say is, even though I try to have the text support me, I don’t always sound like I fully understand the text. I see this the most in my third blog. When I write, I only comment on what we should have read up to that Monday that we post, meaning what I post could be proven flat out wrong once we finish the play. Hopefully my posts will be more focused and insightful later on as the semester ends.

Regardless of whether any of these are good, it’s nice to have a portion of the class dedicated to picking out what everyone feels is important about the plays we discuss. I do like to highlight the ‘odd man out’ in any literature class I’m in. Authors put in usual characters, traits, etc. in their works for a variety of reasons, so it’s important to gain some understanding of each, even if it turns out to be a trivial reason such as a whim.