Shylock and the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Textual Analysis, Phase 1

      I am very interested in the Christian themes in many of Shakespeare's works.  I talked before about themes of Christianity and its relation to war in Henry V.  In The Merchant of Venice, we see Christianity not as it relates to war, but as it relates to people's place in society.  Obviously, there is a huge conflict between Shylock and Antonio that gets blown way out of proportion, so much so that eventually we see Shylock salivating madly over his promised "pound of flesh."
      It was a simple issue, one that could have been worked out easily had the two men decided to just get along. Shylock could have made any number of better choices in this situation:  forgive Antonio, since he lost his ships; pocket Portia's offering of double the amount Antonio owed him; worked out a new time frame in which Antonio could have paid him; and so on.  What he did was exactly the worst possible choice (we know this because he ends up losing pretty much everything and is forced to convert to another faith).  He was so intent on getting his revenge on Antonio (and possibly all Christians indirectly) that he was completely blinded to reason.
      So, what led to Shylock's loss of good judgment?  He blames it all on the way the Christians treat him and his people; I am inclined to agree with him, up to a certain point.  At the time the play was written, Christians were often intolerant of all people of other faiths, not just Jews.  Because of this, we can see that this is not just a problem with a specific group of people; it is an issue of Christians versus everyone else, an intolerance of anyone who is different.
      This intolerance makes Christians appear hypocritical in The Merchant of Venice.  Shylock's argument in his monologue in Act III is that both Christians and Jews are both simply human beings. They are hurt with the same things, are made the same way, die the same ways, bleed, laugh, etc. They are all people, and Shylock does not understand why they are not treated equally. The Christians hold a double standard: if a Jew wrongs a Christian, revenge is just--however, if a Christian wrongs a Jew, the Jew would be considered a vile and evil person if he or she decided to take revenge. Shylock claims that he is merely following the Christian example by insisting on taking the pound of flesh from Antonio. (He lays waste to the pretensions of the Christian characters to value mercy, charity, and love above self-interest.)
      Shylock is the victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  He says to Antonio, "Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause. / But since I am a dog, beware my fangs."  Antonio judged him before he even knew him purely based on the fact that he was a Jew, or an infidel.  Thus, Shylock decides that he will act the way he is perceived, since the Christians probably won't change their preconceived notions anyway.

      These are just a few examples of Christian themes I've found in the text.  It kind of makes the Christians look bad, but then again, they weren't members of the true church... They'll see the light eventually!

Antisemitism in The Merchant of Venice

      The Merchant of Venice clearly presents the conflict between believers (the Christians) and the infidels (Jews and other non-believers).  On the surface, Shylock appears as a miserly, bitter, and vengeful Jew who victimizes the Christians, who represent goodness, mercy, and selflessness.  But when we dig deeper, we discover that, at least partially, Shylock has become so bitter when it comes to Christians because of their attitudes towards Jews and members of other religions.
     I am considering researching deeper into this issue for my research paper.  What started this deep, ingrained hatred of those who are not Christians?  Where did this idea originate?  Why are they considered inferior?  These are just a few questions that I think will get my research off the ground.  I'll probably look at the history of antisemitism and other religious prejudices, and then see how those ideas appear in one or more of Shakespeare's texts, including The Merchant of Venice.
     Does anyone have any idea of where I can look to find a good historical source to find reliable background information?  This is a topic that really interests me and I am looking forward to seeing how these prejudices began.

South Africa Loves Shakespeare!

      Just a fun fact I learned from my friend from South Africa:

      The "assegai" is a short javelin or spear originally used by the Zulu and other Nguni tribes.  It is made of wood, tipped with a wide metal point, and is used for close-quarter combat.  Basically, one would stab one's opponent in the abdomen up through the rib cage, and when the spear is pulled out, it would essentially disembowel the person.  (Sorry, that might be too much information...).  Anyway, people used this weapon (or one similar to it) in wars fought in the middle ages, and was apparently also used by soldiers around Shakespeare's time.

      So, when referring to William Shakespeare, people in South Africa have created their own special name for the Bard that is both historically accurate and poetic.  It has three parts:  Willy (William), Wobbly (Shake), and Assegai (Spear).

      Willy Wobbly Assegai.

      I think I've found the perfect name for my firstborn son.

War Is Holy...Or Is It?

      I found this article on the Luminarium website entitled "Holy War in Henry Fifth," which discusses the connection between religion and politics.  This connection between the law of God and the laws of the world has several times led to the start of what we call "holy wars."  What was interesting about this article is how the author compared the holy war narratives contained in the Bible to Shakespeare's descriptions of holy wars (specifically Henry V) in his plays.  He points out that in his prays, Henry refers to the Lord as "God of Battles," suggesting that there is a built-in connection between religion and war.
      Now in my opinion, people today, especially Mormons, do not see the relationship between religion and war in the same way as Christians during Shakespeare's time.  In the past, wars could be and were fought in the name of God and religion.  Think of the Crusades.  One of the reasons that leaders of the cause (including the Pople himself) were able to persuade people to become soldiers and fight to reclaim the Holy Land was because it gave Christians a way to receive a remission of their sins.  The war in Henry V was similarly a kind of holy war because he claimed that his authority came from God, who supported the war.
     Of course, starting a war for religious reasons would never fly today, at least in America.  Our country very clearly separates church from state, and war fits neatly into issues of state, not religion.  If, for example, our very capable and intelligent President Obama (WARNING: sarcasm detected) decided that he wanted to start a war against people belonging to a certain religion, he would get laughed right out of office.  We just don't have that idea of religion being connected to actual, physical war anymore.  Christians tend to think of this connection in a metaphorical sense:  the battle between good and evil.  We don't actually fight people we think are evil with guns and tanks (because we would probably get arrested).  Instead, we try to remove evil from our own and others' lives by replacing it with the goodness of religion.
      It is interesting to think about how differently we view the the world today compared to how people viewed it four hundred years ago.  In modern times, King Henry would not have been able to use God as an excuse to start a war.  This puts this play into a very specific time period.  It would be hard to make a believable modern adaptation of this play if you still wanted to retain all of the religious motivations behind the war.  But, it is still worthwhile to think how much things have changed in the world since Shakespeare's time.

The Greatness That Is Luminarium

      To all of you who posted about the Luminarium website, I really appreciate the tip.  It's hard for me to resist looking for background information in places like Wikipedia and Sparknotes, even though I know they are not the most reliable places I could go for information.  I don't know about anyone else, but I don't ever know where else to look, so I go to less-than-high-quality places because they are easily accessible and easy to use (except for this week, apparently--why in the world did they think blacking out Wikipedia was a good idea??!). So, I am very grateful to those who have posted about other, more trustworthy sites to visit.
      For those who haven't explored Luminarium much or at all, there is one feature that I would like to share.  There is a place where you can click on a play and it will bring up a few critical essays written about that particular play.  I think this is really helpful for several reasons.  It's always interesting to see the perspectives of other people reading Shakespeare, especially people who are highly educated (and therefore know what they are talking about).  They bring up interesting issues, considering things I would never have thought of myself.  These articles may be able to provide an issue or angle that would be interesting to study deeper for our research paper or simply just to learn more about Shakespeare.
      To get to these articles, go to the section for 16th century Renaissance literature.  Under the list of authors, click on William Shakespeare.  On the left of the next page, you can see several options to click on, one of which is "Criticism--General--Plays/Works."  Clicking on this brings up a list of all his plays (http://shakespeare.palomar.edu/playcriticism.html), and by selecting a certain play you can find different articles about it.
      This is all just for your information.  I thought it could be helpful for those, like me, who have trouble finding any legitimate information about Shakespeare!  I would also appreciate it if anyone wanted to share any more helpful sites they know about.

"All men idle, all"

      Reading The Tempest, I was struck, yet again, by the passage in Act 2 Scene 1, of the sailors talking to each other.  Last time, I only considered the humor in the dialogue; however, when I reexamined it, I found that there was something much deeper happening there.
      Gonzalo starts talking about how in HIS kingdom, everything would be different.  The would be no class distinctions, everyone would be equal, all possessing the same, educated the same, etc.  No one would have to work; he says:

". . . All men idle, all.
And women too, but innocent and pure."

He says that his plan would be worth the idleness of the people since all would keep their innocence.  To Gonzalo, all of the things created and used by civilized people--money, jobs, leadership positions, etc.--appear to corrupt man's nature, leading to war, poverty, crime, and general suffering.
      This sparks the old nature versus nurture debate.  Gonzalo believes that, left to themselves, humans are naturally innocent, pure, and good.  But, when influenced by civilization (the nurture aspect) all kinds of terrible things happen, turning men evil and corrupt.  Gonzalo claims that he was just joking about his views on his hypothetical kingdom (and in turn his views on humanity), but was he?  What did Shakespeare himself believe about this subject?  The nature versus nurture debate was not really considered seriously until centuries after Shakespeare wrote; nevertheless, we see the beginnings of it in his writing, which shows that Shakespeare was, at least in this way, ahead of his time.
      I might look into other Shakespeare plays to see if this idea appears in any other works of his.  This might be something worthy of a research paper.

Revelations

     Apparently Ariel is male.  Just in case you read three acts of the play before realizing he isn't a girl.

On the Next Episode of Tempest Chat. . .

      It's Act 2 of The Tempest, and I am liking it.  Those crazy sailors crack me up!  I love how all the sailors are teasing Adrian and Gonzalo for talking so much.  Who hasn't had the pleasure of knowing some pompous old man who thinks he knows the solution to everything, and also thinks that everyone wants to hear him expound upon everything under the sun?  I'm sure Shakespeare knew just such a man, and modeled Adrian and Gonzalo after him.  And, if Shakespeare based these characters on people he knew, I would assume that Shakespeare himself would have been one of the men mocking them, like Antonio and Sebastian.

      I have always loved dialogue, be it in books, plays, TV shows, or movies.  Good dialogue, in my opinion, can either infinitely improve a work or ruin it entirely.  The dialogue between Adrian, Gonzalo, Antonio, and Sebastian is fast-paced, witty on several levels, and downright hilarious.  I watched a YouTube video of this scene and let me tell you, listening to the sailors bantering is much funnier than just reading it.  I laughed so loudly that it scared my roommate (I don't think she was impressed).  

      This kind of snappy dialogue is something that we see today in many of our favorite TV shows.  We have this scene from Act 2 of The Tempest:

ADRIAN:  It must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance. 
ANTONIO:  Temperance was a delicate wench. 
SEBASTIAN:  Ay, and a subtle, as he most learnedly delivered. 
ADRIAN:  The air breathes upon us here most sweetly. 
SEBASTIAN:  As if it had lungs, and rotten ones. 
ANTONIO:  Or as ’twere perfumed by a fen. 
GONZALO:  Here is everything advantageous to life. 
ANTONIO:  True. Save means to live. 
SEBASTIAN:  Of that there’s none, or little. 
GONZALO:  How lush and lusty the grass looks! How green! 
ANTONIO:  The ground indeed is tawny. 
SEBASTIAN:  With an eye of green in ’t. 
ANTONIO:  He misses not much. 

      And then we have this scene from my favorite TV show, Modern Family:

Cam: Why so much tape Jay?
Jay: Why are you wearing a sweater when it's 95 degrees out?
Cam: It's my Christmas sweater!
Jay: Based on those stains, you are the Christmas sweater.
Claire: Oh, thank goodness, here comes Phil and the butterball.

Manny: I have a name.

      Classic. 

      I don't have much experience with writers from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  Do a lot of their works have laugh-out-loud humor like many of Shakespeare's works do, or was Shakespeare one of the pioneers of this kind of comedic interplay?  Whatever the case, humor appears to be universal--I think both of these quotes, written centuries apart from each other, have a very similar type of humor.  This leads me to believe we can rest assured that what is funny in one era has a good chance of drawing a laugh a few centuries down the road. 

It's Shakespeare, Y'all: My Experience With Genius

      I probably do not have as much experience with Shakespeare as I should, being an English major.  Usually, one would expect a person in my field of education to be someone who eats, sleeps, and breathes such a distinguished literary figure as The Man himself.  After all, his work has influenced countless people, authors, and works for centuries.  However, that has not been my experience.  I will be the first to admit that the works of Shakespeare are not my favorite, although the fact that I am taking this class proves that I am willing to give the man a chance to impress me now that I'm a little (a very little) more mature than I was in high school.
      My high school in general was, shall we say, less than high quality, so anything remotely culturally enriching was pretty much taboo to anyone who didn't want to get shoved into a locker.  We despised literature--works like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Odyssey, Tom Sawyer, and of course the entire works of Shakespeare--purely on principle (we didn't know what exactly that principle was, but we respected it like nothing else).  I may sound like I'm exaggerating the extent to which I and my fellow high-schoolers hated great literature.  I can assure you that I am not.  This is what I had to deal with.  The only things "Shakespeare" I liked were the movies based on his plays, like 10 Things I Hate About You and  Romeo and Juliet.  
      Considering the awful literary poverty I grew up in, it's a wonder that my love of literature was able to flourish in my senior year without being mercilessly squashed by my peers.  The first time I had even any idea that I could like Shakespeare was when my band teacher volunteered me to play in the pit orchestra for A Midsummer Night's Eve.  Naturally, I was not pleased that I would be forced to endure several rehearsals and performances of a play that my close friends deemed "lame."  To my great surprise, however, once I understood what the characters were talking about (which took several days of listening to the same lines over and over again), I was hit by an sudden realization:  Shakespeare could be funny!  Who would have thought?  (Yes, I was so ignorant about his works that this was a huge surprise to me).  Despite having to see the play more than a dozen times, I enjoyed being involved in the production.  After graduating high school, I watched one of my friends perform in a community college version of Much Ado About Nothing, which I found was also very entertaining.  This led me to consider something I had previously believed to be an impossibility--that maybe Shakespeare, maybe even all literature, was actually enjoyable.
      I discovered in college that I was not terrible at English, that in fact I liked it a lot, and so I chose to major in it.  I was, and still am, a little less experienced than my peers where literature was concerned, but I worked hard to catch up.  This Shakespeare class is the next step I'm taking to learn about and appreciate literature in all its forms.
      To discover the joys of Shakespeare will be an awfully big adventure.

First Impressions of The Tempest

      Let's be honest.  Shakespeare is not for everyone.  The plays are good, the sonnets can be romantic and/or funny, but the language kind of kills you.  My main problem when reading Shakespeare is that I have no clue what the characters are saying! I may be exaggerating a little.  It's not that I can't understand Shakespeare--it might actually be that I don't enjoy deciphering the language and so I want to give up a page into the play. I just don't want to try.  That's probably closer to the truth.
      So, imagine my utter joy when I discovered a place where I could read both an original and a modernized version of the play side by side.  Truly a miraculous find.

      So, The Tempest.  I have never read this play before now.  I'm only through Act 1, but I can see that the play is so far very typical from what I have seen of other Shakespeare works.  The first scene is intriguing, beginning the story with a bang and creating a certain amount of suspense that absorbs the reader into the rest of the play. Shakespeare also often uses elements of magic in his works, as in Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I enjoy the character Ariel, Prospero's magical slave, who was responsible for the havoc wreaked on the ship.  Clearly Prospero has some dastardly plan in mind for Ferdinand and company, and I'm excited to see what other magical mischief Prospero and Ariel will create.
      I do have somewhat of a problem with the romance between Miranda and Ferdinand.  Let's all just admit that this whole" love at first sight" thing is completely ridiculous.  What man with half a brain would take one look at a woman and resolve to make her the queen of Naples?  The characters appear to be very narrow-minded in their judgments of others, as when Miranda focuses solely on Ferdinand's appearance to determine his character, saying: "There's nothing ill can dwell in such a temple. / If the ill spirit have so fair a house, / Good things will strive to dwell with 't."  Basically, "He's too attractive to be a bad person."  After knowing him for exactly one minute, she is willing to guarantee his goodness, which she bases entirely on his looks.  Ariel enchanted Ferdinand in some way, from what I understand, but I don't think she did it to Miranda.  So, I don't know how Miranda managed to contrive such a deliciously outlandish fallacy in her logic, but I am impressed with her ability to think so shallowly.  That takes talent.  But of course, this type of thing is again a common occurrence in Shakespeare's plays, so I gather that people had much different ideas of love back then than we do now.  I accept that.  I suppose actually developing the romance would leave less time for the development of the rest of the more interesting events in the story, so I'm willing to let this "romance" slide.  Just this once.
      That's all for now on my first impressions. More to come.  Over and out.  Amen.