Thursday, November 1, 2012

An Impassioned Midterm Blog



It was quite revealing and useful to go over my past three blog posts of this term.  I enjoyed rereading and recognizing specific patterns and common themes.  Overall, my posts were written well with proper quote integration from the text.   I closely examine the plays and develop my themes.  I need improvement in my word choices as well as fixing paragraphs that seem choppy and not as clear as I had hoped when I first wrote them.  Writing blogs not only helps students remember the material, but it is a fabulous tool that lets us pick a topic that fascinates and focus on that alone.  The blogs are essential for fully comprehending the text.  It was great rereading the comments fellow students left on my posts.  It is always helpful to read another person’s view and become aware of an idea that one would never have recognized.  The entire process of highlighting and making notes on my printed blogs was not only useful in looking for ways to improve my writing, but assisted in me noticing what themes I am attracted to when I read and write on Shakespeare.
                My first blog, “A Relatable and Dramatic Unrequited Love,” focused on Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I could not help but notice my intense empathic argument in favor of Helena.  I adore this character and, while I may be seen as sentimental with my heart on my sleeve, it was a good example of a character analysis.  Focusing on her obsession with Demetrius and the ardent language Shakespeare utilizes for her was an example of studying one character.  In the comments, a fellow student labeled Helena a “stalker.”  I found this actually upsetting as I have realized people unfairly judge the emotional characters, slapping negative labels on them.  This made me want to write a paper entitled “In Defense of Helena- A Mislabeled Midsummer Maiden.”   This all goes to show how much I enjoy closely studying a single character.
                “Leonato’s Speech: Passion and Repetition,” my second posting, focused primarily on language in Much Ado About Nothing.  The repetition of the words “mine” and “nor” in one scene was my emphasis.  While writing, I noticed other examples of this character repeating words.  Shakespeare wants the readers to pay close attention to a player and alerts the reader by repeating words.  While reading Othello, there were frequent instances of recurring words that I could not help noticing and thinking about.  Seeing this post sparked my interest again in this pattern in Shakespeare and perhaps would be a great research topic. 
                “Othello and Claudio- Abuse in Act Four” was my most recently published blog that focused on the play Othello with comparison to Much Ado.  This posting enabled me to realize how comparing two similar scenes of men scorning unjustly accused women made compelling writing.  This would be a useful template to use in writing about two distinct plays and uniting them.  Even though Othello and Much Ado are vastly different, writing for the blog illustrated how underlying themes are evident in all of Shakespeare’s works.
 Overall, my blogs featured in depth character analysis, specific language study, and comparison.  The common thread in all three posts was highly emotional elements.  The characters that let their hearts be seen are the most compelling.  I understand that these stories are dramatic in nature because they are meant for the theatre, but I naturally gravitated towards where the deepest level of emotion is shown.  Whether Helena is spilling out her heart in desperation, Leonato cursing his daughter, or Othello striking Desdemona, I do not shy away from the dramatic.  Back to the theme of repetition, I had the word “impassioned” show up in all of my posts, sometimes in multiple cases.  This made me laugh as it proves where my attraction lies and that I need to come up with some new vocabulary.  Perhaps a paper dealing with the issue of the most “impassioned” characters and moments in Shakespeare would be good for me to undertake. 

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