Washburn Shakespeare (Spring 2019)

As we know, Shakespeare did write various historical dramas including every number of Henry you could possibly think of, along with John and a couple Richards. How accurate the was historical information provided though? We don’t really know and we will most likely never actually know due to the 400 years that have passed since these plays were written. Even though these specific works are known as histories, I believe that some of the other tragedies as well as comedies also provided a perspective for how certain things were portrayed during this time. After reading The Merchant of Venice, we learn about how the Jewish community was treated and what role they had in society. While he might not have been completely spot on about certain things like where they lived, I believe the overall treatment was accurate for that time period. Shakespeare lived in a time period where all Jews were expelled from England, so naturally, there was discrimination towards this community. History...

This blog post is in response to the Wumester event I attended today, and the discussion in class today and what transpired over the weekend at WU.  The event I went to today was all about how the Phelps family uses Free Speech and tort law to secure their right to protest funerals and other events.  What I learned at this event is that the current make up of the US Supreme Court tends to rule in favor of a majoirty of free speech cases.  The Phelps family uses many court cases as legal precedent to help them stay within the legal bounds of the speech and signs they have at protests.  The landmark cases for speech is New York Times vs. Sullivan.  Sullivan was a public safety commissioner for an Alabama city.  The NYT took out an ad to solicit funds to defend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  The police commisioner thought the Times was defaming his deputies.  The court ruled in favor of the Times because these men were public figures and the court ...

What were Shakespeare’s intentions? Honestly, this play sucks. There is not a single character in this play that we can actually like wholeheartedly throughout the play. This play has some major elements of the discrimination of race as well as religion, something that not only makes the plot hard to read at times but also controversial in many different occurrences. While the play may try to have a happy ending, the only people who are genuinely “happy” are the Christians and Shylock ultimately gets screwed over. But why would Shakespeare write a play like this? When writing this play, was Shakespeare trying to promote his opinion and stereotypes of the Jewish community? In England, Jews were expelled in the 1290s but were then accepted back into society in the 17 th century. This play, though, was written in about 1597. Therefore, Shakespeare lived in a Christianity-dominated period where Jews were never truly accepted in society and were outcasts. During this time period,...

On February 4th, I got to attend a WUmester lecture by Dr. Watson over how to create a “culturally responsive classroom.” A culturally responsive classroom uses students’ diverse cultures and experiences to help them learn and achieve within the classroom. This can range from implementing multiple cultural perspectives within lessons, to connecting with students about their home lives and backgrounds. Within Dr. Watson’s lecture, she listed two specific areas that teachers can intentionally improve upon to make their classrooms more adaptive to the variety of cultures that are present in their schools. These areas include stance and content instruction. Within these two areas, there are opportunities for teachers to use Shakespeare’s writing to teach culturally responsive lessons. Stance is a teacher’s mindset around race, culture, teaching, and learning. Dr. Watson explained that a teacher must be aware of his or her own personal “stance” to be able to foster a culturally responsi...

As much as I really just wanted to use this title, I do have some actual things so say about our girl Portia. I am a big fan, and James seems to be, too, in his Princess Portia analogy. (Nice work James). **disclaimer: she was totally racist towards the Prince of Morocco and that is not being excused or justified, that's just not what I am going to talk about here** This girl is so smart. Shakespeare's portrayal of her is a super typical, modern "pro-women" representation where the woman isn't immediately acknowledged for her brains, just her looks. Then, phenomenally, the woman shows her fantastic intellect in a time of need and just blows everyone away. That's fine, I'm used to it, and it's probably super progressive of Shakespeare, so I should thank him for working with this idea, (I just wish we could develop a LITTLE bit further than the late 16th century portrayals, that's all). Anyway, once we get to see past Portia's beauty, we get t...

Portia embodies qualities of many fictional, fairy-tale princesses… Belle: Unlike Belle, Portia is an “unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed” (3.2:159) princess. Unlike Belle, Portia has enormous wealth. But, like Belle, Portia is bound to a mate based on the actions of her father; and, like Belle, Portia and her true love join in union only after an imposing male presence (Shylock / Gaston) is disposed. Ariel: Ariel has a fraught relationship with her father, Triton, who seeks to limit her ambitions. Portia’s adoption of an alternate male identity in her most influential moment is reminiscent of Ariel’s adoption of legs as an effort to meet Eric. What proceeds is sort of a trick; will Eric choose to marry the iron casket, the core of the girl, the voiceless Ariel, or will he choose Ursula, the holder of Ariel’s voice: the golden casket? Jasmine: Portia is unimpressed by wealth; she has all she needs, thanks to her father. The Prince of Morocco is a lot like Prince A...

In Act 2 Scene 7 of Merchant of Venice, we see the Prince of Morocco choosing between caskets to see if he will be able to marry Portia. If he does not choose the casket that has her image, then he will not be allowed to marry again in his life. While reading this scene I pictured it almost like a game show. If you've ever seen the show Let's Make a Deal with Wayne Brady, you have seen where he offers people more money to choose if they want to see what is behind a curtain. This made me think of the idea of Portia's father having these caskets. They get to choose based on the sayings of the caskets (which we will get to later) and what the caskets are made of. It is no surprise that the Prince of Morocco would choose the gold casket because it is the most expensive one. That relates to Wayne Brady giving people money to try to get them not to choose what is behind the curtain. In the Prince of Morocco's case, he was Zonked, and did not get any prize meaning he will sp...