Shakespeare...help me please!!!!!

[Gardeaux08]

I am semi-serious here!! I hate Shakespeare and it is a required course for me to graduate this December. I am certain I am going to flunk it. I am getting to the point where I am willing to pay for a paper with an annotated bib...and I'm one of the most honest people I know. I'm just getting desperate!!!! TALK ME DOWN, PEOPLE!!!! PLEASE!?!?!?!?!

[BoX o BooX]

1. What's your major?

Why are you taking this class?

[Gardeaux08]

3. English!!!! Why did I do this!?!?!

[BoX o BooX]

4. You're an English major who hates Shakespeare?

Holy moly. There are so many things wrong here, I don't know where to start.

[Gardeaux08]

11. I looooove Chaucer.

But Shakespeare is required!

[BoX o BooX]

14. As well he should be.

His stuff still holds up. Chaucer was no slouch either, but Shakespeare is definitely the ultimate; I'm just amazed that an English major has such an antipathy for the greatest English-language dramatist in history.

[Gardeaux08]

23. Maybe hate is a strong word...

More accurately, I am hating this class!

[Hatalles]

44. There are MANY of us.

I'm beginning Ph.D. work next year and I really don't like Shakespeare.

[Scairp]

50. I agree

That's the dumbest thing I've heard today. How can anyone be an English major and hate Shakespeare? A better question would be, why would you want to be an English major if you hate Shakespeare? I say change majors, that's much easier. And anyway, how could anyone, love him or hate him, be an English major and not know anything about his work?:think:

[PSU84]

2. Get a grip.

You have all the resources of the internet available - not for stealing a paper, for research - and you are thinking of BUYING a term paper. Shame on you. Shame. Do your homework.

You know where you are headed, don't you? Down that slippery slope that leads people to believe that the ends justify the means. In other words you are in danger of becoming a REPUBLICAN. Now get to work!

[Gardeaux08]

6. Oh, no!!

No internet sources allowed!! Honestly, what has me so frazzled is I just have no clue what even write about. It find nothing inspiring in The Bard at all...other than his sonnets and this paper has to be on a play.

I know, I know...I have to do the work.

[PSU84]

16. Watch some Shakespeare movies on DVD

Henry V - Kenneth Branagh

Much Ado About Nothing - Kenneth Branagh

Richard III - Ian McKellan

Hamlet - Kenneth Branagh

Othello - Laurence Fishburne, Irène Jacob

[timtom]

42. I had a class at Berkeley in Textual Rhetorical Analysis

of Shakespeare and the 17th Century. It was great!

Do a google search on "textual rhetorical analysis shakespeare" and you will find a rich panoply of resources that might take you on the path less traveled and that might make all the difference.

[tjdee]

5. Holy moly I love Shakespeare.

What are you having a problem with?

I'd rather do your homework than mine LOL (any marketing people want to do my grad homework??)!!

I'm sure some of us DUers who like Billy Shakes can help.

[DrZeeLit]

7. Okay, okay... let's just take it one play at a time. I'm hanging out my..

..shingle, okay?

I am open to tutoring. Free. I understand your plight.
Just let me know what you need.

Yes, I not only play a professor on t.v. but..HEY!...I am an English professor in the real world, too.

DO NOT BUY A PAPER.
We always know. In fact, many schools or Eng dept. subscribe to services that scan and detect frauds.

So, don't do it. Just ask. We shall help. Or point you to more help.

And..no more maligning Shakespeare. The play's the thing.
Think of * as Richard III and all's well that ends well.

Let me know if you need help, really.

[Gardeaux08]

15. THANK GODDESS!!!!

I PM'd you!!

[pantouflard]

8. Some information please...

What is the subject of said paper? What has been the focus of the class? Take a deep breath, and tell us exactly what you need. Someone will know what to suggest. It will all be okay...

[Gardeaux08]

19. Alright...

I have decided to do my paper on inheritance/primogeniture in King Lear. I'm having a heart attack because, after doing tons of research for the annotated bib, I'm not sure I can write ten pages on this. The whole reason I picked this topic is because the whole "love test" just pisses me off!! If Lear's daughters were sons, the eldest would get everything and it would be over. But because they are women, they have to stroke his ego to get anything. And then when Cordelia is so sensible and tells him she can love him no more or no less than any daughter could love her father, the bastard cut her off!!! I become outraged every time I think about it!! But is outrage enough to write a paper!?! I am so frazzled that I can't get past my outrage to even begin formulating a coherent thesis.

This is my last semester. I've been working on my BA for 15 years off and on, as I could afford it. When I lost my job in July, I decided to just go for it and try my best to finish up the 15 credits I had left...and now I am just feeling all the pressure.

[starroute]

28. It sounds like you're going at this far too intellectually

Your real theme isn't "inheritance/primogeniture." It's that you think Cordelia got a real deal and you're totally pissed about it.

No, outrage isn't enough to write a paper. But outrage is a hook -- a great starting point. You just have to get beyond your outrage and start asking the question that it raises.

Are women in general treated shabbily in Lear? Are Cordelia's sisters (is it Regan and Goneril??) bent out of shape by the need to suck up to men in a society where they have no real power? Is Cordelia's need to be true to herself ultimately redeeming or is she diminished by it? Does Shakespeare seem to accept this situation as the norm or is he critiquing it?

Are there two different spheres for men and women in Lear, each with its' own rules, and is it the forced intersection of those spheres that destroys both Cordelia and Lear? Or do the women have no sphere of their own at all and exist only as hangers-on to male society?

What about the implicit paganism in Lear? ("Gods" rather than "God," etc.) Is it just there as historical trappings, or does it suggest an order of society different than Shakespeare's own? Does Shakespeare identify fully with Lear and Cordelia, or does he stand back a ways from them and regard them as people who might have reached a more favorable outcome if they had enjoyed a larger sphere of possibility?

Is Cordelia just being stiff-necked when she refuses to suck up, or is she attempting to speak higher truth? Do her stubbornness and her fate have a religious dimension?

The simple question, "Why did Cordelia say what she said?" raises a thousand different possibilities. You just have to pick a good one.

(And, by the way, Kurosawa's Lear-based movie "Ran," set in medieval Japan, turns the daughters into sons but is just as tragic in the outcome. As you say, primogeniture would have averted the need to make those sort of difficult choices -- but the choices are what tragedy is about. Without freedom of action, there's no story.)

[Gardeaux08]

33. You are absolutely right

I am trying to go about it in the wrong direction.

I am beginning to think what has me so angry about how Lear cut Cordelia off is that he demanded her to pledge ALL of her love to only him. She is his only unwed daughter who has several suitors present while this is taking place.

I think she said what she said because she was being honest with him...one simply can't love more than they do. And that's a lame direction to go with it! I am wondering why Lear needs her to pledge all of her love for him? It seems like an Electra complex in reverse.

[coeur_de_lion]

9. If you have to write a paper on a Shakespearean play, it might help

if you chose one that has been made into a movie. That might make it more real and interesting to you. Kenneth Branagh has made several movies based on Shakespeare's plays, and they are very well done. He has a youthful approach that makes the plays fresh and interesting.

Some of the plays he has done are:

Much Ado About Nothing -- probably the easiest one
Hamlet
Henry V
Othello

I didn't get very interested in Shakespeare until I saw Much Ado About Nothing -- then I was hooked. I even read Shakespeare for fun now.

Hope this helps!

[NMDemDist2]

10. go rent the movies and you'll start to enjoy it I bet

one of my favs is...
Much Ado About Nothing (1994) director: Kenneth Branagh
One of Branagh's films has to be in here, and this unashamedly populist adaptation lacks the hubris of Branagh's ill-advised four-hour Hamlet () vanity project and the strained jingoism of his first filmed Shakespeare adaptation, Henry V (1989). Branagh wisely excludes the darker elements of Shakespeare's play in favour of broad humour, Tuscan sunshine and festivity. A meek young Kate Beckinsale and Emma Thompson at her earthy and sarcastic best are perfectly cast as Hero and Beatrice.

Here's a list of some other good ones http://www.eonline.com/Features/Topten/Shakespeare/10.html

here's a handy link too....
http://absoluteshakespeare.com/guides/summaries/shakespeare_summaries.htm

[tjdee]

12. Branagh's MAAN was the first time I FELT that it took place in Italy.

I also loved his blond Hamlet, and his Denmark.

He always sets the plays so beautifully. Hamlet was REALLY REALLY LONG though.

[left is right]

13. Old Bill was a truth-teller

He wrote fictional plays but his characters said things that had enduring truths. His themes still occur in movies today

[Quill Pen]

17. Cliffs Notes, dude

Not that I feel your pain, because I love Shakespeare and actually enjoyed writing my Shakespeare papers. But first try the Cliffs Notes, then go out and rent some of the good Shakespeare adaptations that have come out in the last 15 years:

"Henry V" with Kenneth Branagh
"Much Ado About Nothing," Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington
"Twelfth Night" with Ben Kingsley
"Midsummer Night's Dream" with Calista Flockhart, Rupert Everett
"O" (Othello) with Julia Stiles
"Hamlet" with Kenneth Branagh and Kate Winslet (not the Mel Gibson version, that one stank)
"Romeo + Juliet" with Claire Danes
"Othello" with Laurence Fishburne
"Scotland, PA" comic adaptation of Macbeth
"Titus" Titus Andronicus, with Jessica Lange and Anthony Hopkins
"A Thousand Acres," also with Jessica Lange, adaptation of King Lear

I hope you won't buy a paper. If you're not in college to do your own learning, you might have to ask yourself why you're there in the first place.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Also two oldies from Franco Zefirelli

Not only Romeo and Juliet with Olivia Hussey and Len Whiting but the lesser-known Taming of the Shrew with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

Taming of the Shrew in its own way is as much fun as Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing.

[hlthe2b]

18. You're lucky... So many of Shakespeare's plays are available in film

form--including the much recommended full 3 1/2 hour version of Hamlet from Kenneth Brannagh with an excellent cast. You can follow along from the text of the play and really understand-what was always quite difficult for students facing complex language in text alone... BTW, Hamlet has lots of parallels to what we are all facing and feeling now: deception, murder, disloyalty. You might just like it! Branagh's film version of Henry V is also excellent. Many of us were discussing it Tuesday night because of a very famous and inspiring speech as they go to war, known as the St. Crispin's Day Speech ("We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother").

There are really excellent film versions of so many Shakespeare dramatic plays, but also his comedies. "Much Ado about Nothing" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream' are two worth checking out.

I had no appreciation of Shakespeare until much later in life, as I had an english teacher that was stuck on even more esoteric (and far less enjoyable) works than Shakespeare; but I think I might have, if I'd been able to see these performances, rather than dryly read the plays.

Relax... It won't be so bad.

[Gardeaux08]

21. I've borrowed the play

King Lear from the library. And you are all right, it is MUCH easier to appreciate them when you see them.

[DemoTex]

20. Look at it like a reprieve from differential calculus.

But then you might be a math major. Eh? OK. I hated calculus and loved English Literature. Within a couple of weeks of my first of two years of calculus, I decided to treat it like a puzzle. That got me a six-quarter average (at Georgia Tech) of 4.0 in math. Since I was a fish-out-of-water at an engineering university, a high GPA in math along with a 4.0 in English/Literature balanced out some of those really weird engineering courses like statics and dynamics. And P-Chem. And Public Speaking.

Suck it up. Find a video of Stacy Keatch playing Macbeth. Pop a beer and enjoy a great actor do a great, understandable play.

[fishnfla]

22. I was an English major too

they made me do poetry--BLECH!!

Shakespeare appears daunting at first because of the volume. Just take it one play at a time. they are rich in language, culture,humour,human nature, everything. The sonnets?, suck!

BYW, dont evr tell your professor that you think the REAL shakespeare is Edward de Vere,earl of Oxford you'll fail on the spot.

[starroute]

24. Choose a play with a theme you resonate with

Do you like fantasy? Try Midsummer Night's Dream or The Tempest.

Do you like dark comedy? Try Measure for Measure.

Are you turned on by girls dressed as boys? Try Twelfth Night.

Then grab a hold of just one thing in the play that connects with you. A character you either respect or despise. A difficult moral decision. A disintegrating situation that can't turn out well no matter what. And write about **That One Thing.**

Come up with a theory about it. (Preferably a theory that goes against conventional wisdom -- teachers like that.) Argue that an apparent hero is actually a villain or vice versa. Or that a seemingly minor character is actually the key to the entire play. Or that an ending which appears happy is actually an expression of cynical disillusionment.

Then find a bunch of quotations to support your theory. Arrange your arguments in some sort of logical sequence. And go for it.

Works every time.

[haele]

30. Heh.. I remember for my paper on Hamlet...

I set up Horatio as the villian of the whole peice, the bastard brother of Fortenbras who would end up with a peice of ruling Denmark when "Fortie" went back home.
Think of it - Horatio was always "Johnny on the Spot" and always seemed to have the news that got the players to act. He played very deep, indeed...

The research into that idea and discussing the psychology behind it, motivation, and possible chain of events to prove my theory got me a good fifteen pages and an A for that portion of the course.

Haele

[CBHagman]

25. Well, he wrote my ultimate response re: George W. Bush

It's when Beatrice expresses a desire for revenge in "Much Ado about Nothing":

O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace.

She's talking about Claudio, but I'm thinking of the clod from Crawford...

[signmike]

43. Hate Billy?

Wherefore dost thou?

I remember some years ago seeing a movie in which a guy did a striptease whilst reciting Hamlet's soliloquy. Not that I wanna watch guys taking their clothes off, but damn, it was funny!

[GingerSnaps]

26. Don't buy a paper

I tried that one time and the Professor knew that I had bought it because he said that It was not my style of writing and the words sounded as if someone had written them that was being paid. (Generic)

But, if you do get to the point that you are desperate enough to purchase a term paper then write it over and use your own words and only use it as a guide.

Good Luck!

[Sabriel]

27. Don't get the Mel Gibson Hamlet

He's wingnut beyond compare.

[Gardeaux08]

29. Not just that

but it isn't true to the original. AND my prof discourages Hamlet..lol.

[Sabriel]

35. I'm feeling a little "To be or not to be" right now, myself.

Ol' Will was right on.

[PartyPooper]

31. Move to Ashland, Oregon!

It's a beautiful little city with a univesity in a blue state with a wonderful Shakespeare festival.

:-) :-(

www.osfashland.org

:hi:

[Nikepallas]

32. LOVE THE MAN!!!!! He needs to be heard though

[Columbia]

34. Shakespeare is meant to be watched, not read

I love Shakespeare, but you really need to get accustomed to the voice and diction of the age. Watch a few old plays to get used to it and you'll get it soon enough. Good luck!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. Which play has provoked this outburst?

???

[Gardeaux08]

37. King Lear

That old fart! :)

[Gardeaux08]

39. UPDATE!!!!

I have gotten past my frustration enough to really start asking myself some more questions that are going to lead me to a coherent thesis. I think the direction I need to go with this is less with the technicality of inheritance and more with the emotional relationship between Lear and Cordelia. Where exactly I'm going with it, I don't know. But it's a start. Thank you all for your input...I was really beginning to lose it there!! :)

[JimmyJazz]

40. Shakespeare is actually pretty cool - You just have to move

slowly and do a lot of re-reading - the Taming of the Shrew, for example, is actually the bawdiest of plays! Can you be more specific in the plays you are studying - maybe I can help. I'm a bit rusty, but I do remember some things - oh, short bus president, shut up - I do read sometimes - :)

[Bridget Burke]

41. I had a professor who almost made me hate Shakespeare.

He was one of the reasons I stopped being an English major. A failed poet, he sat reading from his yellowed notes as we proceeded through some of the poems & a few of the plays. He analyzed every work with old fashioned Freudian Oedipal theory, a total lack of humor & no sense of language. Hamlet does indeed have some mother issues, but there's more to him than that. Oh--in the historical plays, England is the mother figure...

It sounds as though you've gotten some good advice to get you through this crisis. But, as an English major, you'll have an ongoing relationship with old Will. I agree with everybody that you need to watch the plays. There are excellent movies out there and the BBC did some fine productions that are available at Amazon & ought to be in libraries. And there are still lots of live productions--after all these years, he's still packing them in.

[Gardeaux08]

46. NOPE!

Thank goddess this is my last semester.

I did get alot of great advice...thank you all!!

[mr blur]

45. Ex-English teacher - Lear's my favourite

Wonderful play.

[billyskank]

47. All I know about Shakespeare

is that Twelfth Night really sucks.

[Shopaholic]

48. I love Twelfth Night!

I saw the play when I was in college. It was hysterical. Most Shakespeare comedies are very funny on stage but don't read especially well.

I have an English degree and I was very fortunate to have had a great teacher for my Shakespeare course. Sometimes the professors you get make all the difference. I don't like poetry very much but ended up loving Victorian Poetry because I had such a great prof for that course.

[billyskank]

49. The reason I hated it was probably

because I was being forced to read it in English class aged 15, just a few scant pages at a time, by a seriously uninspiring teacher, and that's never auspicious for enjoyment of a book.

Not that Shakespeare wrote books, he wrote plays of course - maybe it's more enjoyable if you watch people acting it.

I will try to maintain an open mind.