Posts in Review - Midterm Blogging Assignment

While reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, and Othello, I have enjoyed contributing to our class blog with three posts. The first post of A Midsummer Night’s Dream dealt with the dichotomous views in regards to feelings of love with respect to a man and with respect to a woman, in which women are depicted as being driven by irrational, fleeting fancies, and foolish whims, while men are driven by logic, sense, and reason. The second post, for Much Ado About Nothing, discussed Shakespeare’s use of foils, where two characters who are the antithesis of the other, in order to emphasize each character’s attributes. The most recent post for Othello, disussed Iago’s implementation of Aristotle’s basic methods of persuasion, ethos, logos, and pathos, to manipulate the thoughts, emotions, and actions of characters like Roderigo, Cassio, and Othello.

The three posts, therefore, individually deal with the depiction of men versus women based on societal roles, the use of literary devices or elements, and the importance of language, rhetoric, and persuasive elements. However, in reading through each post for this blog, I noticed that despite the fact that each post discusses different aspects of the play that interest me, there is one glaring similarity in that they all focus on characteristics of Shakespeare’s writings and how they allow a character to develop.

In re-reading my posts I find it surprising that despite the inherent differences in each post, they all illustrate my attempts at studying aspects of different characters’ behavior and speech in order to acquire a deeper understanding of the character’s and what motivates or drives them. I particularly enjoyed the posts for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Much Ado about Nothing, and would willingly revisit their ideas. In terms of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I wrote my post “Love?” because I have always been particularly interested in the way women are portrayed in literature. The evolution of literary female characters over the years is both a telling and inspiring glimpse at the transformation of female societal roles throughout history. There is not one play by Shakespeare that would not warrant a discussion of women’s roles as reflected in the female characters. My blog post, “Opposites Attract” discusses Shakespeare’s use of literary devices, and is another topic I would revisit. So much of today’s vocabulary, figures of speech, even curses, have stemmed from Shakespeare’s ability to make words dance, and any study of his literary devices or elements would provide me with a chance to understand English as it is known today.

There are several aspects of our weekly blog posts that I enjoy. Blogging, as a writing medium, has the perfect mix of formality and informality that allows you to infuse your knowledge of the play as well as your own opinion and personality. I like being able to explore an aspect of the story that interests me, and developing a theory or idea while being able to include what I know, in the form of quotes and explications, and what I don’t know, in the form of closing questions. Another feature of blogging that I enjoy is reading fellow students’ blogs, and reading and writing comments. By having everyone share their unique perspectives of Shakespeare timeless plays, I am able to garner an incredibly in-depth and multifaceted understanding of his works that do not stem from my perspective alone, but also that of my gifted peers as well.