Hamlet and King Henry IV pt 1

Though I wrote about it for my paper I still feel compelled to blog about it. I was not able to ignore the vast similarities between these two plays. Both Hamlet and Henry are faced with the same "birth role" issue of not knowing of they are living up to what they are supposed to be or what the were destined to be from birth. They both have father issues and are struggling with protecting their kingdoms from military attacks. Similarities even go as far as the most famous line from Hamlet "To be or not to be," when Henry says "To be or not to be king". The reason why I mention this is because it confuses me why someone with the amount of intellect that Shakespeare has, why would he feel the need to make two plays of such similarity. Was it an intentional method that William was using to test his reader?

Response to Group Presentations

All in all I really enjoyed the group presentations. The ones that I found especially interesting were the ones that chose to put their own comic spin on the plays. For example I would like to give major props to the entire Othello crew. You guys took what is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and put a very unique spin on it and the song "Ring of Fire" was very effective in its use. I would also like to give more props to Craig West for being in black face during the play.

10 Things I Hate About Explanations

That's right! Say what you will but with special thanks to youtube, I took upon myself to throw the whole movie, "10 Things I Hate About You" up on the blog. Whether or not you watch the whole thing is up to you but I feel that it is important to see film adaptations of Shakespeare plays with popular contemporary actors (RIP Heath). In this adaptation of "The Taming of the Shrew" Hollywood blends a very comedic cast to ad impressive humor to this play. I strongly encourage watching it so you can see the comparisons yourself.

Bloom Response

For this post I would like to place my effort in a response to Harold Bloom's  The Western Canon. In the second chapter of this book he places Shakespeare and Dante and the center of all the canonical writers. I was introduced to this theory exactly one year ago in Dr. Lansverk's Critical Theory class and I was immediately in disagreement. Bloom states, "Shakespeare and Dante are the Center of the Canon because they excel other Western writiers in cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention" (Bloom 43). But just like I said in my paper, how is Shakespeare at the center, along with Dante, when according to Bloom, Shakespeare was influenced by Dante. It seems like it would be impossible to centralize Shakespeare, when speaking of canonical writers, when he does not excel beyond his influences.

Thesis

Brian Quattrocchi

Literature 473

Dr. Sexson

26 April 2011

Mything the Point

            All the works of Shakespeare show this. Every work that features any type of standard plot be it comedy, drama, or tragedy. They all seems to share the very same mythical phenomenon (for lack of a better term), and that is that all of his plays, characters especially, share striking similarities. The plot is the most obvious to spot in its similarities, but what is most interesting is how, in all of this, Shakespeare still manages to excel in his writing without evening making it seem like he is attempting to cover it up.

            The first and most obvious comparison came with the play Hamlet and Henry IV. The plot is almost identical in the fact that the protagonist is struggling with the dilemma of figuring out what his birth role is and if he is living up it or not. Both of the protagonists are also faced with other very similar issues like military threats to their kingdom as well as “daddy issues.” Most importantly and most obvious is the famous line that comes from Hamlet “To be or not to be,” This quote is mirrored in Henry IV with Henry quote of “To be or not to be king” (Shakespeare Hamlet, Henry IV Pt I). It almost seems like Shakespeare made two versions of the exact same play. To break away from any type of formality in this essay, I would like to mention some personal issues with this. I have never understood why many, mostly Harold Bloom, have placed Shakespeare at the center of the Western Canon. Bloom states that Shakespeare and Dante are the center of the Western Canon because “they excel all other Western writers in cognitive acuity, linguistic energy, and power of invention (Bloom Western Canon 43). It is in this that I completely disagree. If Shakespeare virtually makes all of his plays as a version of one another then how is he able to acclaim so much of this success. Also, if Shakespeare is so influenced by Dante, like Bloom says he is, then why is he the center of the Canon for excelling over all other writers (Bloom)? I back to the personal side; I have never understood the success of Shakespeare’s works, aside from the writing style. I was also never able to understand how no one else has seen that.

            Most importantly of all the similarities are those of the characters from the plays Othello, the Tempest, and Much Ado about Nothing. The characters that draw the similarities are Iago, Caliban, and Don John (the bastard). All three of these characters are the villains of their respected plays. Iago is Othello’s senior officer that feels betrayed by Othello when he is not given the promotion he feels he disserves. Caliban draw the closest to Iago in that he is the first of Prospero’s servants who believes that Prospero stole the island from him and that it rightfully belongs to him. But what draws these two characters together are their infamous speeches and asides that they give. The passionate and dark speech by Caliban in scene 2, Act I of The Tempest compare greatly to the haunting asides given by Iago throughout the play Othello. Don John still holds similarities to the other characters however his are more specific. In Much Ado about Nothing many of the characters play tricks on one another with the end result usually being good. But when Don John shows up, he makes a completely unprecedented decision to play games on people just to mess everything up. Although John the bastard did this for no reason, Iago still played a trick on Desdemona by using Roderigo as his pawn. This eventually leads to the tragic end of Desdemona and Othello (Shakespeare The Tempest, Othello, Much Ado About Nothing).

            For the last page, as well as for my presentation I chose to write a version of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” called “Shakespeare’s Mythical Restaurant.” The lyrics are kind of tongue-in-cheek and it involves a lot of the characters from multiple plays and how they all interact with each other.

You can get anything you want, at the mythical restaurant (2x) walk right in it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want at the mythical restaurant.                                                                               

This song is called Shakespeare’s mythical restaurant it’s about Shakespeare and myth

And it really has nothing to do about restaurant, that’s just the name of the song.

Now this all started with a rather large assembly of sorts… a gathering as you might say. Now this is not the typical type of gathering that friends have because well, they’re not really friends.

First to arrive were Hamlet and Henry then Lysander and then Othello Romeo Juliet and Desdemona came all resurrected from the grave, then after that they all just seemed to file in.

Things were a mess as personalities crashed Iago and Caliban collided and after a lot of word words and more words, they realized they had a lot in common and a lot to enjoy when wishing for destruction.

Hero came with a fantastic potato salad which pretty much made this the closest to an actual restaurant that it could be and everyone was so happy we singing and cheering just glad to have company then Don John threw the utensils on the ground and stuck his hands in the potato salad…bastard.

So with tears in our eyes we parted ways and that was the closes we were able to get to having all of us characters there together.

You can get anything you want and the mythical restaurant, before the bastard, you can get anything you want at the mythical restaurant. Just walk right in it’s around the back, just a half a mile from the railroad track. You can get anything you want at the mythical restaurant (Arlo Guthrie).

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold. The Western Canon. New York: Riverhead Books, 1994.

Guthrie, Arlo. Alice’s Restaurant.

Orgel, Stephen. Shakespeare: The Complete Pelican. New York: Penguin Books, 2002.

Thesis Options

Though I wasn't really sure what I was going to do for my thesis I finally fell on the idea of just writing about how I usually feel about Shakespeare, and that is that all of his plays are related to one another on many different levels. In my paper I mention the strong similarities between the plays Hamlet and King Henry IV. I also mention the strong connection between the character Iago from Othello and the character Caliban from The Tempest. What I was originally going to do for the presentation part was that I wrote a version of "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie called "Shakespeare's Mythical Restaurant" involving some characters from many of the different plays and how they interact with each other. I was going to perform this song on my guitar but thanks to circumstances that involved me not being able to return home to grab my guitar I won't be able to play it, but I might still read it for the presentation.

Turnrer Response

"The microcosm can not only reflect, but control, the macrocosm. With correct mnemonic technology, the whole universe can be stored in one man's memory: here the levers are the commonplaces, the topoi of the memory theater system of recall. Modern science tells us that the information storage capacity of the human brain is many orders of magnitude greater than the amount of information in the physical universe, so the idea is in principle quite sound." Turner, School of Night, 59-60.

For my first blog I would like to formulate a response to this quote by Turner. As I remember from the first few days of class is that many people disagree with this statement which is not to my surprise. Many people doubt the power of the human mind and that is why we are so unaware of its power and capabilities. I completely believe that the entire universe can be stored in the depths of one's mind. To draw a more controversial card, if people understood how powerful their minds truly are, then there would be know need for religion because everyone would finally realize that they are the reason for all the events in their life. Everyone would essentially be atheist because they would understand that it is their minds that they should believe and not get caught up in constantly looking toward something else for guidance. This concept applies greatly to the Law of Attraction in the sense that everything that comes your way was brought upon by you, not some mythical or hypothetical divine being. It is an absolutely true statement to say that the capacity of the brain is much bigger than that of the physical universe, the harder thing is getting everyone else to believe it as well.