Reflections on Posting So Far

I have enjoyed writing the blogs for this class, however
the actual posting process causes me great anxiety,
because I am constantly forgetting how to post or comment
and get extremely confused on the website. I think it
would be much easier for the computer-illiterate (like
myself) to hand in a written response to the readings.
Even today, the site was not allowing me to post my blog
and it caused me great frustration. However, I understand
that it is positive in that it is interactive and we can
post comments on each other's blogs; I just have great
difficulty with the actual website.

I enjoy responding to the readings in an informal way such
as blogging. It allows me to express my thoughts in a
creative way, and explore issues that we maybe have not
been able to discuss in class. I have noticed, after
going back and reviewing all my blog posts, that I am very
concerned with Shakespeare's audience at the time and how
they would have reacted to the material in his plays. I
wonder, after considering virginity in one post and
anti-Semitism in another, if Shakespeare's audience would
have necessarily had the same reaction as we would. I am
also considered with hypocritical aspects of religion in
the plays. My favorite of my posts was my first one,
"Inherent Contradictions in Giving Shakespeare the Benefit
of the Doubt." I liked when I said, It wouldn't seem
likely that Shakespeare, who was a businessman as well as
a poet, would choose to alienate his viewers and go
against the stereotype just to enhance the reputation of a
very marginalized group of individuals. I think that the
idea of playing up a stereotype just to show how untrue it
truly is is probably a relatively new concept; comedians
like Sarah Silverman would not have been able to have the
same effect that she has now in Shakespeare's time because
people would just think that she was indeed agreeing with
the racists." I thought that these notions would open up
further discussion on the idea of anti-Semitism at the
time.

All in all, though I get extremely easily frustrated with
technology, it is nice to be able to respond to the
readings in such an open-ended way.