Book 135: Othello by William Shakespeare (Shakespeare Reading Month).

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving."

Othello is the last of the "great" Shakespearean tragedies that I've read (those tragedies include Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet). I knew I wanted to end my reading of the tragedies with this one because I knew I would love it. It is a play that is often talked about, and I have been lucky not to have it spoiled for me.

Like The Merchant of Venice, I read it without doing research beforehand. I think the fact that I understood it and knew what was going on speaks to how reading so many plays has helped my knowledge of Shakespeare's sentence structure. It also kept up a bit of mystery as I read, as I didn't know what would happen.

I am glad that I saved it, and that I finally read it since it is a play that is part of the curriculum for the district I have been working in. It was about time that I read it!

Anyway, the play is about Othello, a Moor from Africa who has become one of the greatest generals in Venice. By the end of the play, he has a huge downfall. At the beginning of the play, everything seems to be going wonderfully for Othello. Beyond his military accomplishments, he recently married Desdemona. There is a bit of hoopla about the marriage because of the difference in their races, but Othello and Desdemona seem happy at the beginning.

Of course, it all spirals down from there. Othello has to choose a new lieutenant and selects his friend Cassio over Iago. This pisses of Iago, who determines to bring Othello down from his lofty perch. Iago is really the mastermind behind all of the tragedy in the play, as he is determined to seek revenge on both Othello and Cassio.

All of these little details wind together-the race issue especially. Since Othello is black, he subjected to a lot of racism, especially given Desdemona's own color. There are many comments throughout the play that focus on the color of Othello's skin and his relationship with Desdemona. Some of these are incredibly sexual and conniving (and most are said by Iago).

Where it all falls apart is when Iago convinces Othello that Desdemona and Cassio are sleeping together. Othello turns into a madman, agonizing over what he thinks is happening. What really struck me about this change was that Othello took Iago's word over anything Desdemona had to say. It seemed as if he didn't care to learn the truth from Cassio or Desdemona before condemning them for their transgressions.

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!"

In the end, it all ends in murder and suicide (Shakespeare was a fan of suicides it appears).

This play? Fantastic. I was blown away by the power and evilness of Iago. He might be the best Shakespearean villain. Every move was calculated and he truly used the circumstances of Othello's life and appearance to his advantage. He knew every weakness, the racism, and the insecurity against Othello to bring him down from his lofty heights.

Now I see why this play is the perfect choice for high schoolers. As I was reading, I continually thought of ways to discuss the major issues here: prejudice, the importance of reputations, and learning the full story before acting on information. And while I still think there are better Shakespearean tragedies, this really is a great choice for high school students. There is so much here to discuss.

A bit of me is sad that this is the last of the big tragedies-those most well-known and read-but I am excited to get to the smaller ones in the future and see what other kinds of torture Shakespeare wants to inflict on his characters.

“I hold my peace, sir? no;
No, I will speak as liberal as the north;
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.”
 
What did you think of this one? Love it? Hate it?

Weekly Wrap-up for February 5, 2012: On Singing, Babies, Books, Shakespeare, and More.

I am tired this morning, but I did force myself out of bed to get some things accomplished this morning. I guess I have myself to blame.

Last night we went to a karaoke bar. Now, anyone who has been in a car with me, to a concert, or by me while I think I am alone knows that I cannot sing to save my life. My husband says I can't really call it "tone-deaf" since I can tune myself when I am playing my trumpet, but I cannot carry a tune (Yes, I play the trumpet. Matt and I play in a community band once a week. And yes, I am better than him. ;) Don't tell him that).

So last night was a little tortuous for me, since the friends we went with have not been graced by the beauty that is my singing voice. Needless to say, even with all their peer pressure tactics, I didn't get up on stage and sing. I stayed at our table and listened. Our friend Jay was a little scared of the stage as well, so we just pretended that we were way too awesome to let others hear our golden voices. ;)

It was a good time, and I am glad Matt forced me to go. I was ready to snuggle in bed with a book, as is befitting for a hermit like myself, but I had fun with everyone.

I also went to a baby shower yesterday for one of my oldest and best friends. I met Jenny in the first grade and we have been friends ever since (over 20 years?). She lives down in Knoxville now, but her parents live out in Ann Arbor (about an hour from me). It was great to see her and some other old friends. She doesn't know what she's having yet, so I am excited to see come April.

It seems like a lot of people I know are pregnant or just had a baby! There is baby fever everywhere! I was at one of the schools I worked in on Thursday, subbing, and discovered that three of their English teachers are pregnant! They are all due near the end of July/early August. They were cracking jokes at lunch about something being in the water over there.

Today I don't have too many plans besides recuperating from a busy day yesterday and selling back some books to my local bookstore. They only buy back used books once every couple of months, and the last time I was there, their used section was a little on the empty side (their new sections were also a little bare, which confused me). I still have all those books I culled in November (I missed the weekend buy-back by a week), and since this is the first weekend to sell back since then, I am ready to get these books out of here. 140+ books take up a lot of space when they are just sitting there. Hopefully they'll take most of them. The rest I am going to donate to one of the schools in the area. And, hopefully, I'll get some store credit to buy a few things I've been eying.

In other good, bookish news, I was accepted to be a giver for World Book Night! I don't know which book of my 3 choices I'll be handing out, but I am really excited. I am going to go in and give half the books to some old students (as long at the two teachers I worked for are okay with it), and the rest I am passing out in the area. I am going to hit up one of our local malls. It should be a great experience and I am so excited that I get to do this.

In regards to the blog, Shakespeare Month is wrapping up on the 10th (I extended it) and to be honest, I'm kind of excited to get it finished. I feel a little drained with all the posting, reading, and writing about Shakespeare. Don't get me wrong, I love Shakespeare, but I am burned out. I read 11 plays, so I'm allowed. I still need to go read all the posts everyone wrote as participants, so that will be my main goal this week.

I am also planning a Victorian themed event for June and July. I have a lot of Victorian books to read on my list, so it is a good excuse. I've already started thinking about some prizes (you're going to love them), as well as 1 or 2 challenges to offer something different to the challenge. I'm planning on hammering out all the details in the next two months and announcing it in April. If you have some Victorians on your TBR, save them for June and July! :)

Well, that's all I have for this week. I am planning on catching up on some reading. I am in the middle of Roots by Alex Haley for the readalong, so I want to get to our goal for Wednesday before diving into something else. I'm having a hard time deciding if I should read David Copperfield, Nicholas Nickleby, or one of the two biographies on Dickens. I was thinking of saving the bios (one is the Bicentenary book I showed earlier this week, the other is the Tomalin) for later, but now I am second-guessing myself...Any suggestions?

Happy Reading!!

Book 134: The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare (Shakespeare Reading Month).

“All that glitters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life has sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold
Had you been as wise as bold,
Your in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been in'scroll'd
Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!”
The Merchant of Venice is yet another Shakespearean play that I was unfamiliar with. Unlike some of the others that I read for the first time, I really knew nothing about the play before I started. I was surprised to get into the play and see what it was about.

The play focuses on the "merchant" only slightly, which is what confused me. For being the title character in the play, the merchant, Antonio, does not appear to be the central focus on the play.

Basically, the play starts with a young man, Bassanio, asking Antonio for money. Antonio agrees to sign for a loan from Shylock, a wealthy Jew, to help Bassanio have the opportunity to go and woo his love Portia. Shylock has it out for Antonio, so part of the terms of this loan is that if Antonio fails to pay it back, Shylock can take a pound of flesh from the merchant.

After the loan is in place, Bassanio travels to Portia to win her. There are, of course, some other suitors, who all fail miserably at the test put in place to "win" dear Portia. I was a little amused at the test and found it interesting that her future husband would be determined by his ability to figure out a riddle. If my own father left that kind of a trap for my future suitors, I would have had a fit. It all seems to work out, as Bassanio manages to figure out and he wins dear Portia.

Meanwhile, poor Antonio is in a bit of a bind back home. His ships haven't returned, and lo and behold! No money to pay back Shylock!

This is where the play gets really interesting. I had to reread the last couple of Acts a few times because I was pretty enthralled with events and how Shylock was portrayed. As a Jewish character, Shylock was shown as a dark and mischievous fellow-only concerned with his money and revenge. And Shakespeare really portrays him as being that way. I'm aware that a lot of Jewish characters in literature are portrayed that way. In fact, I was reminded of Fagin from Dickens' Oliver Twist. In both Shakespeare and Dickens' work, the Jewish characters were portrayed in this slimy, disgusting way. Obviously in today's day and age, that kind of..antisemitism is inappropriate and offensive. But, you can't help but be a pit in awe of how these characters appear. I was particularly struck by these lines by Shylock...

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge."

Interesting, right? I also have to point out that this speech is in prose, which Shakespeare usually leaves to those of the lower classes in his plays. I had to think a lot about what Shakespeare was really trying to say here. On one hand, you have a character being portrayed in a dark light-he is obsessed with revenge, is shown as being a lower class, and is constantly being called out for being a Jew. On the other hand, he says things like this. He appears to be a sympathetic character. This side makes sense to my 21st century mind, but what kind of impact did his speech have on those who first saw the play performed? Did they question the right for a Jewish character to speak this way? Did it hit home for any of them? I wonder.

I also love that Portia seemed to hold a lot of power in the end of the play. Again, there was a bit of cross-dressing and Portia winds up at the trial to determine the fate of poor Antonio and Shylock. This scene was by far the most interesting-to see how words were twisted to get a desirable result. This whole scene helped show how the play really focuses on the power of language. One bit of intent left out of speech and everything can come crashing down.

I particularly fell in love with Portia's "mercy" speech...

“The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.”

Lovely, isn't it? No wonder it is one of the most famous bits from the play.

I could go on, but I feel I would talk in circles. This is definitely one I am going to return to sooner rather than later. There is so much to explore and question. :)

Books 132 & 133: Henry IV Parts I and II by William Shakespeare (Shakespeare Reading Month).

“I know you all, and will awhile uphold
The unyoked humour of your idleness."

I decided, for my own sanity, to discuss both of the Henry IV plays together in one post. Part of that is because they closely relate (as is obvious by the titles), but also because I don't have much to say about the second.

I've read Henry IV Part I  before in college, and it was one of the plays I wrote about for my final. Obviously I enjoyed the play then, and I still do. It had been 5 or 6 years since that Shakespeare class, so I was pumped to jump back into a play that I really loved.

It is easy to see why Henry IV Part I has the reputation it does. It is a fantastic play full of intrigue and really likable characters. Just as before, I really loved the characters of Prince Hal and Falstaff. Hal is a bit of a mischievous lad-not really sure of his role as Prince and what he "should" be doing. Falstaff is an older man who "guides" Hal in all things that are not princely. He is a bit of a scoundrel and plays the "fool" role in this play (almost all of Shakespeare's plays have a fool of some sort-someone to lighten the mood, point things out to the audience, and provide an opportunity for Shakespeare to explain things to his audience). I believe that when I wrote about the play before, I really focused on the relationship between Hal and Falstaff. They're funny and interesting.

This time I was also really struck by Hotspur-now HE was a dynamic and interesting character. :) What I also noticed on this read was how uninterested I was in Henry IV. While he was obviously a very important part of the play (and all the battles and what not), I was more interested in comparing Hal and Hotspur. I liked how Hal seemed to be growing up a bit (unlike Falstaff), and Hotspur was sassy and on fire. The King just paled in comparison.

Considering I loved Part I, I was really excited to read Henry IV Part II, especially since I hadn't read it before. Part I ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (well, the main "problem" was killed off and it ends in the middle of a war...), so I was expecting Part II to kind of...go with it.

I was a bit disappointed. It didn't have the same charm and power as part I, so I finished it being not as impressed as I was with the first part. I was still drawn to Hal and his growing maturity. I definitely think that this second part really showed a coming of age part of Hal as he accepted more responsibility.

That comes from Hal growing apart from Falstaff and striking out on his own. What made me love Part I was the interaction between those two characters...they only interacted a couple of times in Part II. Sad. It also lacked the humor that the first part had, which is something I really enjoyed.

Overall, I felt like Shakespeare was writing a bit of a "filler" play to bridge the gap between Part I and Henry V. This second one lacked everything I loved in the first and just let me down. It didn't seem to have that much of a plot, but just a further continuation of Hap growing up and away from Falstaff. I'm not sure that warranted its own play.

What did you think of these two?

Book Feature: Charles Dickens- The Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012.

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, so this year marks his bicentenary! I am planning on reading a couple of his novels this month in celebration, but this post is about a beautiful book that I NEED to share with you-especially if you are a classics or Dickens lover!

Now, most of you know I have a love/hate relationship with Dickens, but I have to respect him for his long and lasting impact on literature. And since I have loved more novels (A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, Hard Times) than I have hated (Bleak House, Great Expectations), Dickens can't really be my arch-nemesis anymore. Instead, I have come to respect what he has accomplished and I am curious to know more about him!

I first spotted this book, Charles Dickens: The Dickens Bicentenary 1812-2012 back in December. I have been waiting anxiously to show it to you all in hope it will convince you to get your hands on a copy (or spend a long afternoon in the bookstore looking at it).

Anyway, while I still haven't made my way completely through it (I am reading it this month in addition to a few of his novels, so I will review it fully when I finish), I have been flipping through and reading bits and pieces about Dickens as the mood strikes me. This really isn't a book to read straight through, but to savor slowly and when the mood strikes. I've read through some of the biography pieces as well as the pages on the books I have already read.

Okay, enough. Time to show you!

The book has a LOT of material. There is a section for each of his major novels, as well as the issues and events that took place in his lifetime. This picture shows the table of contents and the beginning of the introduction.


It begins with talking about his childhood and early years. Each section is reviewed in the italics before diving into the detail-complete with pictures!


What makes this book are the pages with INSERTS. Below you can see the first of these sections. The page on the right-hand side folds out!


For each of these little packets, there is a table of contents to tell you what is included. This one has copies of some of the manuscripts of his novels (Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist).


And here are the inserts from the first section! You can see the pieces of manuscript (Dickens had horrible penmanship). All of these inserts come from the Dickens museum and were copied from the real thing! I also love that the front one (the orange Oliver Twist booklet) opens and is a replica of the play book!


I love that there is a feature on each of his major novels. The sections give a lot of great background information on when and where and how the novels were written. There are pictures of early editions too!


What makes this book is the emphasis on all aspects of Dickens life. In addition to sections about the social activism in which Dickens partook, there are also sections on other aspects of his life-his book tours, speeches, love interests, and the magazines that propelled him to super stardom in the 1800s.


The overall effect is a book full of wonderful information about the life and legacy of one of the world's greatest authors. Dickens did a lot for literature and this book highlights every aspect of that life!

Happy Birthday Charles!

You can find a copy of this one at any major bookstore! I first spotted it at my local Barnes and Noble. I'm sure that with his birthday celebrations this month there are tons of other Dickens themed books being highlighted in bookstores. Let me know if there is another great Dickens book I need to check out or add to my TBR list!