Shakespeare VS Time

Shakespeare’s sonnets that we have read all have a similar theme of love and time passing, introduced by metaphors that he creates by personifying the feeling of love and the perception of time. In some sonnets, Shakespeare even goes as far as to capitalize the word “Time” to give it an importance over the rest of the words. The language he uses when speaking of time also shows his attitude towards time, even more so than his metaphors.
Beginning with Sonnet 12 and looking at time, the poem is an entire metaphor for the passing of time with Shakespeare mentioning the seasons passing and people turning old, while at the end of the poem he writes, “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s scythe can make defense” (13). This use of language shows time as death, carrying his scythe and the fact that no one can stop it. The capitalization of time personifies it in the poem as a person or death, which causes a tonal change near the end of the poem. In Sonnet 19, time turns from death to something the Shakespeare is trying to defeat. He wants his love to last forever and therefore has time killed and mauled by animals. “Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion’s paws.” (1). And although Time may take away his love wrongfully, “My love shall in my verse ever live young.” (14). Shakespeare is trying to defeat time; therefore he personifies it as a person so that it is something physical he can overcome. In Sonnet 60, another reference to time as death is made, as he capitalizes time as well as mentioning the scythe:
And Time that gave doth now his gift confound.
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stand but for his scythe to mow.
And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,
Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. (8-14)
Shakespeare’s use of the capitalization of the word time demonstrates that he feels as though time is not something you can escape physically, but it is something his poems and feelings can surpass. As in the final two lines, he states that time can take beauty and life but not his verses, which his transcripts show as a true testament. This statement is shown again in Sonnet 65:
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
. . . Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
. . . O none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright. (8-14)
Without the capitalization and personification of time, Shakespeare’s hatred and fear of it may have been lost in his sonnets.

David Bowie's "Let's Dance"

The album I chose is by one of my favorite men of all time, David Bowie. Bowie's career was an incredible journey, and although he was at times thought to be insane, his fans will always stick by his side. The album that I have chosen isn't all in first person, but all of the songs are about the feeling of love or about a person he is in love with. The songs tones and lyrics are almost melancholy, he has a sense of calm feelings of love, or of a lost love. In "Without You," Bowie is singing about how he wouldn't be able to live without them, and they give him a purpose. The musical tone gives the song a melancholy feelings. The song "Ricochet," if analysed in a certain light, can be seen as what the world is like without love, and how love is sometimes not enough to shield someone from the cruelties of the world. "Criminal World," is written in the third person, but it is a great example of betrayed love. The narrator finds out that he doesn't really know who the person he is in love with is. He one line that "the girls are like baby-faced boys" shows that women can be just as cruel as men, and just as deceiving.

This album represents different types of love and how love can be cruel or doesn't always give you what you want.

A Lover's Quarell: Comparing Wyatt and Surrey

Thomas Wyatt and Henry Howard (referred to in the reading and in the blog as Surrey) were two very similar writers. They were close friends and lived working under the infamous Henry VIII. Both were imprisoned multiple times by Henry and in some cases got each other out. When looking at their writing, there is a similar style, maybe because they wrote in the same climate and in the same time period. But if your focus is put on one specific poem by each, you can see that there must be something more going on than just writing in the same time and place.

When looking at Wyatt’s poem “The long love that in my thought doth harbor,” and comparing it to Surrey’s “Love, that doth reign and live within my thought,” you notice right away the similarities in the titles. If the poems are taken line by line, only a few differences remain to be seen. Beginning with Wyatt’s and Surrey’s first four lines, line one begins by speaking of the love that lies within each narrators thoughts. In line two both narrators are speaking of the simple thought of love, which is personified into “he,” and moving from a thought to a feeling in the narrators heart. Where, in the third and fourth line in both poems, “he” is clad in armor and is holding a banner. At this point the love as been symbolized to knight or warrior, and the “banner” is representing of the now thoughts of constant love the narrator’s heart is showing him.

Moving on to lines five to eight in both poems, Wyatt and Surrey both speak of how “she” teaches the narrator how to both love and suffer. “She that learneth me to love and suffer” (Wyatt, 5). Compared to Surreys, “But she that taught me love and suffer pain” (5). Line six in both speaks of the narrator’s carless and doubtful love and lust, moving onto line seven, speaking of modest looks towards “her.” Here, there is the slightest difference in lines, as Surrey’s poem takes a turn for the brighter in line eight: “Her smiling grace convereteth straight to ire.” While in Wyatt’s poem his line eight speaks “his hardiness taketh displeasure.” These difference in lines shows that these two narrators and beginning to have different views on the situation, Wyatt’s poem taking a darker side.

The poems sync up again beginning in line nine, where the narrators are speaking of fleeing cowardly to the heart, followed by line ten which continues the running and hiding, but a slight variance changes the mood yet again. Wyatt’s poem speaks of “pain and cry,” when fleeing to hide, while Surrey’s narrator merely “plain(s)” or complains. Yet both narrators end up losing their way by line eleven. In the last few lines, the narrators of both poems speak of leaving their “lord” and “master.” Wyatt uses master while Surrey uses the word lord, both speaking in lines twelve to fourteen of leaving this person. Surrey’s use of lord may be a religious reference, being backed by the fact that his poem is the lighter of the two, and Wyatt’s poem seems to be coming from a darker side.

Test Post!

I've had this blog set up for a while so I hope no one is in shock by all of my other posts. My teachers have been using this site a lot. Hope to talk to you all soon!

Plays

Today in class, I think I was very surprised. Everyone had very different and unique plays. I was thinking that everyone was gonna have a similar play style or topic. I was also pleasantly surprised how funny a lot of them were. I was thinking that everyone was going to do something serious. It was also cool how everyone sort of picked a certain type of play and used it to make their own. Some of the topics were pretty random, but still really funny. Like, Jen’s play. I was NOT expecting to hear a play about mammoths. Or as Dexter was saying mam-moths. It was an awesome change up. I also thought Michaels play was cool. It reminded me of Law and Order (bum bum).

Performing the plays was also a lot of fun. I think that Michaels was the coolest to perform. I got to be an attorney, which was pretty sweet. I also thought it was strange how funny everyone, well at least Dexter, thought mine was. Cuz it was supposed to be serious. But I think we had fun performing stuff anyway so it doesn’t really matter. It was also cool how everyones play had little twists in them, it seemed like we all used some sort of twist to make our story different from others.

Lastly, I would like to say this was my favorite writing assignment. Everyone got to write about whatever they wanted and make stuff up. Which is pretty easy to do. Also, my little brother, who is 9, loved helping me with this. He picked out the names for me, and also, while I was writing my play, it inspired him to write his own story. Which was amazing, because he hates reading. But I thought it was cute how he felt inspired to write a story like I was. I really enjoyed this class, because I love theatre, and getting a chance to write and share my play was awesome. And I loved listening to others plays, it lets you get an idea of what everyone is really like. Although I hope everyone doesn’t think I do drugs and sleep with lots of women because of my play. Cuz I don’t.

Pygmalion

First off, I have to say, the entire time I was reading this play, all I could imagine and hear in my head was the movie/musical My Fair Lady. If you haven’t seen it, it’s pretty much the Pygmalion story in a musical form, with a slightly different story line, and I highly recommend it if you had problems with Eliza’s accent. At any rate, I had all of the songs from My Fair Lady stuck in my head for the past 3 days. But, as annoying as it was, knowing the storyline in advance did help me to understand what was happening in the play, especially with Eliza’s accent. The vocal link Mrs. Pierce gave us to listen too was also helpful in understanding some of the strong dialect.

Before class today I didn’t realize how the play Pygmalion was connected to the ancient Greek and Roman myth. The likeness of the two stories is not as strong as in other adaption’s, but it is still there. Most modern adaptions would probably keep Galatea as a statue and Pygmalion as a sculptor; with maybe some name variation and change of venue and language. But the way Shaw uses the ancient story to adapt it to modern day is amazing. Thinking that Higgins was just using Eliza to sculpt a perfect member of society by his standards was pretty twisted. When comparing the play to My Fair Lady it’s interesting to see the difference in characters but the almost complete similarity in storyline. When watching My Fair Lady, you do not really get a sense of Higgins being a creepy old guy out to use Eliza for his own entertainment. While in the play, Pygmalion that is how I read his character.

Over the past few classes when we’ve focused on comparing the play with its film adaption, I’ve become more in tune with spotting the small differences between the two. So when I read Shaw’s play, I saw able to quickly compare our modern day musical adaption in my head and see how the directors of both may have changed some things around to use to their advantage. The moral story that each of the adaption’s tell, I think, is still similar. In each, once Higgins turns Eliza into a “sophisticated lady,” there is nowhere for her to go, physically and socially. She’s stuck between two classes that are both not going to easily except her.

Dr. Faustus

Dr. Faustus was another hard read. This Medieval stuff is really hard for me to read, and I’m not sure why. I love Shakespeare and it is not far from it in some of its style and conventions. Though I must say that this story was more interesting than some of our previous stories, so it was a lot easier to get through. I thought that Dr. Faustus was an interesting man. He gives up his soul to the devil as to gain magical powers, and uses these magical powers to impress people. You would think if you got magical powers you would use it to make yourself invincible, or make it so that you can fly, or that you’re the richest person in the world. But it seemed to me like Dr. Faustus just wanted everyone to find him interesting and to be liked by his colleagues and the upper class. I found this pretty different. Nowadays if someone received magical powers, they would most certainly use them more destructively; whether it is self destructive or dangerous to others. A modern day tale would more likely be Dr. Faustus wishing to be the richest person in the world, or to have superpowers. Another thing about Dr. Faustus that I found interesting, and I didn’t necessarily like, was his indecisiveness. He kept changing his mind about whether he should be doing what he was doing. I mean, his indecisiveness before selling his soul makes sense, but afterwards, there’s really nothing you can do. He keeps thinking that he should pray to God and hope that he can be saved, when instead he should be enjoying his powers. You’ve already sold your soul Faustus, stop whining! Although I do feel sorry for him because Mephistopheles does push him towards selling his soul, and he didn’t really get a good chance to make a decision on his own.

Also, I found the play that Mrs. Pierce had us watch pretty amazing. The fact that when the director read this play, he imagined that in his head, that’s pretty incredible, especially seeing the his final image come to life on stage. When most people think of plays they don’t imagine things like that. I certainly didn’t and neither did anyone else in the class. Seeing this play, in any form and produced by anyone, seems as though it would be much easier to follow that when simply reading it.