Chapter 6; ‘When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…’

1. Chapter 6; ‘When in Doubt, It’s from Shakespeare…’ By: Emily Stinnett Period 6 9-28-11

2. Overview • My chapter is exactly what it sounds like and you couldn’t possibly get it wrong. That’s right, it’s about Shakespeare. And more importantly why and how all different kinds of writers use his works, characters, and themes. • I'm just here to break it down real plain and simple why we should come to realize how influential Shakespeare is. He’s written over 30 different comedies and tragedies. • Also reading chapter 6 of How to Read Literature like of a Professor is cool too if you are real intent on getting a detailed beginning of Shakespeare.

3. No, I’m serious when I say there’s plenty of modern day references • Not all references have to be word for word, keep in mind, because if they were then they’d not only be more obvious with their thou’s and thy’s, but writers wouldn't use them. Foster says they can be “moved in time and space, adapted, altered, updated, set to music, reimagined in myriad ways” (38). • I can’t says which of his works they’re from, but we all have to admit we’ve heard of them, such as • All the world’s a stage / And all the men and women merely players • By the pricking of my thumbs, / Something wicked this way comes • To be, or not to be, that is the question

4. More about him and his references • Also if you look at any literary work in the 18-21st century range, it probably has some reference to Shakespeare in it. He’s everywhere and honestly if you stand back and think about it, its quite crazy how we still recognize and learn from him today. Funnily enough many people are still skeptical on whether or not he wrote everything he said he did. • And simply because our literature is just stocked full with Shakespeare’s ideas we may wonder why. Well, we just adore the things he writes. Like in Romeo and Juliet there’s a scene where the dude Mercutio says a witty and clever response after getting stabbed. Like how cool is that? It’s so great, and Shakespeare wrote it, so it’s classical as we would say. • Lastly Foster says it all by challenging the objectors to “Name another writer to whom high schoolers are subjected in each of four years” (42). Not to mention in the pioneer days the only two books a general family would own were the Bible and Shakespeare. When you sit on the shelf next to the Bible you know you mean something big.

5. So references are made, but why? • Lets just start with the 1st person stuff first, if you were writing a book, and you wanted to add footnotes or little side references, would you rather write ‘I got this from Shakespeare's well written play Othello’ or ‘I decided to use what Spongebob said in episode 23 about friendship’. Realistically, I'm hoping you choose the first one. You’ve got to love Spongebob but what do you think of those who say the first one versus the ones who choose the second one…something along the line of…more educated, intelligent, serious…any of those would suffice. And it’s not just what people think, (although it partly is) Shakespeare just has so much more to offer compared to Spongebob. Sure he's popular, but almost anyone you’ll ever talk to will have some idea of who Shakespeare. “Yeah that really old genius popular play writer guy”. Even an answer like that technically counts. He’s written so much and impacted our culture and literature just as much even without everyone's awares. Quote them word for word or just recognize them, people know.

6. More on WHY • We use Shakespeare because we feel we KNOW him. We get his points or beautifully written storylines so we remake them. And lets be real, I’ve used some of his terms without reading the plays they come from, and I’ve no doubt ya’ll have done the same thing. There's nothing wrong with reading Shakespeare, it probably will make you more intelligent, but we haven’t (for the most part) read too many of his works. • Foster puts it as a “source of texts against which other texts can bounce ideas” (43). Trace back anything far enough and you’re almost guaranteed to hit Shakespeare somewhere on the way back.

7. Why Shakespeare though? Weren’t there any other good authors? • Sure, but I suppose one reason everyone knows Shakespeare, and he's ‘the one’, is that tons of people can interpret him tons of ways. • In this chapter Foster gives a good example of how author Athol Fugard based some big ideas of his play “Master Harold” … and the boys on Henry IV, Part II. The story goes on to be how the main character must soon bear adult responsibility. But in the unworthy enterprise he’s in, the author poses the question of whether or not he can be a worthy successor in the family business. Shakespeare comes in during the thought process of how the reader notices the similarities of privilege, power, taboo and adulthood. (Morally right and wrong). Seems like a good story so I’d read but it all comes back to the versatility of his works. Anyone can take what they think his works mean and make something of it.

8. Connecting with Great Expectations • A time when Shakespeare appeared in Great Expectations was in Chapter 26. Pip has just come to Jagger’s house and when seeing the housekeeper he says “I know that I had been to see Macbeth at the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out of the Witches caldron” (Dickens 166). • Macbeth was a play about a man and his wife who go through a journey of very nasty deceitful things. Everything about it is dark and evil and if you compare this to a woman's face as soon as you meet her, then you know something’s not quite right. It’s depressing that Pip compares her face to something like this, but it just shows how Dickens obviously thought that the reader would understand it simply because everyone has heard of Macbeth.

9. And this relates…how? • Well to start off, (I’ve got to say this first and foremost) I honestly can say I didn’t think anyone would recognize the second example I used in slide 3, and I put it there for another reason. The reason being I didn’t realize it was from him (so a personal ah-ha moment). The two places I had heard of it was the book ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ by Ray Bradbury and even though I'm not done with it I still intend to finish reading it. The second realization was in the 3rd Harry Potter movie; its raining, they’re coming to Hogwarts for the start of their school year in their carriages, the choir and their toads are in the great hall singing this creepy song, and the last line they sing is “Something wicked this way comes”. The only thing I have to say about that is besides, yes I did read the books, is although I have heard about J. K. Rowling writing with other references, I wonder how the screen writers for the movie came up with adding it in… pretty well known guy… 

10. Works Cited • Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. New York: Dover Publishers, Inc., 2001 Print. • Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: Harper-Collins Publishers, Inc., 2003. Print.