Isaac's Advice on Studying Shakespeare

Dear younger sibling (who I am going to name Sir Albatross),

I got really excited the other day when you mentioned that you wanted to take Shakespeare next semester. Mom told me that you started to have some second thoughts though. Can I ask what it is you're hesitant about?

One of the biggest things to remember is that it's okay if Shakespeare seems like a different language at the beginning. You have really good resources, including Sparknotes and other websites, your peers, and your professor, that will help you to understand and enjoy his writings. Take advantage of these; they're not bad. In fact, learning the synopsis through online summaries can be really helpful, especially since when you don't have to focus too much on plot, you can focus more on how Shakespeare actually wrote the play. Another thing is to make sure you're highlighting things that stand out to you. He's so good with connecting with different people. Take what stands out to you and then run with it. That really helped me to enjoy some of his work that I hadn't read before this class, like Henry V or King Lear.

When you find something that really speaks to you, that's when you know you have something to write about. And you have to trust that it'll come. Believe me, if you know the synopsis beforehand, and you look for how Shakespeare wrote, and if you keep up in discussions with friends and the professor, you will always have some interesting topic that you can research and write about. I was able to write a paper about psychological analysis, and another one about teaching. Both of these came just from things that I noticed that I thought were cool and from things that I feel like I'm really interested in.

One thing I learned just barely is the importance of talking about these things with people from all over the place. Don't be afraid to bring up your ideas with your classmates, your friends, and even other professors. I was able to find a professor in Iowa who researched similar topics to my final paper, and I sent her an email. I realized how easy it is to reach out and see if people are interested in discussing Shakespeare, which a lot of people are. I think I could have reached out earlier and to more people online, either professors or enthusiasts, because it really isn't hard once you actually do it.

I want to tell you about one last experience to hopefully sell you on the whole Shakespeare idea. I remember you reading Hamlet in high school. Although you may or may not have enjoyed it, we watched a production of Hamlet for this class after reading it, with Benedict Cumerbatch as the leading role! What was more impressive, however, was not the play itself but everyone's interpretations that they saw in the production that we discussed afterwards. Trust me, Shakespeare becomes a lot better in college when people are more equipped to pick out interesting points. You really see the beauty in his rhetoric and in his plot. You're a smart kid. I think you'd get a lot out of it.

Anyway, good luck with your decision. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask me. I'm a hot mess, but I can at least tell you what I know from my experiences.

Love ya Sir,

Isaac

P.S. Shakespeare is rad, yo!

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Isaac's Annotated Bibliography (2)

Here is the continuation of my sources.

Performance Sources:

"MACBETH English Class Project 2013," Santos, Jodee, Kyonna Walford, Anna Waisman, and Lynn Bui. Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxd5H38Uqjw.

This is a performance of the first scene of MacBeth performed for an English Class. It is performed in a church and has a soundtrack to it, which adds without distracting from the lines. Most of the lines are memorized, although they try to hide a laptop that has some lines for one of the students. This would be an interesting scene to analyze because I could see how students are able to perform. I wonder if I would be able to reach out to them now and see if they feel like it helped their comprehension.

"Shakespeare Class Project," John Lundeen. Youtube,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3ch5UOMl7E.

This is also a performance of MacBeth, although it is not the same scene. It would be nice to find two performances of the same scene so that I could show how students interpret things differently. This particular performance is important because it is done "in the style of star wars," with light sabers instead of swords. This is interesting to note because it allows students the freedom to put the play in whatever form is most understandable to them, while still keeping the integrity of Shakespeare's words and form. This could help as an example of students producing and performing a scene while having it on social media. Neither of these scenes has comments on it, which is too bad.

Social Sources:

[Homie] Daniel Robertson
This is my brother. He graduated with a degree in English and Classical Studies (I think), and has read every one of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. He introduced me to the "Actors of the London Stage" performance group, which tours playing Shakespeare's plays. I want to talk to him about what helped or what could have helped his Shakespeare learning in high school, and if social media would have had any effect (he's not the most social online).

[Peer] Katherine Moulton
This is a fellow BYU English Teaching major (I think she just declared). Her mom is an English teacher and her dad used to teach at BYU. She has always been a Shakespeare enthusiast, knowing more about Shakespeare than most of the people I know. She would be helpful to bounce ideas off of about pedagogy and her plans on how to teach Shakespeare.

[Enthusiast] Alyssa Dunn
Alyssa Dunn created a slideshow presentation about incorporating technology into education, specifically about MacBeth. This shows her enthusiasm about teaching, technology, and Shakespeare. I would like to hear her thoughts about how this has helped her to teach and her students to learn, and what she would suggest to other teachers in her field.

[Expert] Dr. Pat Enciso
Dr. Enciso is a professor at Ohio State University, who presented a paper entitled, "Surprised into Awareness: Learning to read Shakespeare through Rehearsal Room and Dramatic Inquiry Practices" at a "Teaching Shakespeare for a Change" conference. This would be a good person to reach out to to learn about teaching Shakespeare in general and specifically about performance and social media in learning. I could ask about any research she might have done or interactions with teachers during conferences like these that have opened her eyes to better ways of teaching Shakespeare.

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Isaac's Performance Analysis (now in technicolor)

This is now my favorite performance of Hamlet. If I ever end up teaching high school, this is definitely the adaptation that I will show to my students. It captures the feeling and the nuance of Hamlet, while including humor, emotion, and extraordinary stage choices. I will remark on what I saw as the most significant of these choices.

The first choice that stood out to me was the connection between the first and last scenes. In the first scene, everyone is clothed in white, with white hides draping the table and white flowers hanging from the ceiling. These white elements could symbolize life (in flowers) and death (in hides and antlers on the table). However, Hamlet, placed in the center of the table, is clothed all in black. He is the "angsty teenager" in this scene, brooding over his father's death and his mother's marriage. By contrast, in the last scene (shown above), everyone is clothed in black, except for Hamlet, who is clothed in radiant white. I could see this choice being read in two ways: 1) The white in the first scene is an ironic reading, showing how everyone thinks they're innocent but are really complicit in the murder of King Hamlet, except for Prince Hamlet himself, who is starting to see the corruption. This reading would suggest that in the end, Hamlet is the guilty one (of causing so much death and destruction), thinking he is innocent. This would also mean that everyone else is innocent, at least of the slaughter that has happened since Hamlet sees the ghost of his father. 2) The other way to read this would be to say that Hamlet is in mourning and trapped in inability, signified by the black, until the last scene, when he changes his character and decides that he will no longer sit in the den of indecision, but will fight. Either way, it is telling of how Hamlet changes during the play in relation to the rest of the cast.

Another choice (that has been touched on in others' posts) is in regards to time. Time is played with in many different ways during this production. Time slows down when Hamlet gives his soliloquies, showing how his thoughts race in real time while being surrounded by others. Time speeds up many times in between scenes (accompanied by a large musical bass element that gives a melancholy, intimidating feeling). These variations of time lend the most meaning to the play itself when Hamlet claims that his parents have been married for two hours. When questioned on this, he says that he has lost all concept of time. The choices of this production to use variations of time could be read as Hamlet's own experiences with time, that it slows down and speeds up as he experiences his grief. It could show how overwhelmed he is and how mad he is actually becoming.

Other things to remark on:

• Some productions portray Ophelia's madness as simply madness--numbness to reality--complete disjunction with what is happening in life. This production shows how she is mad but how that grows out of her grief for her father. I appreciated this connection to life and how she's not a completely different person. It becomes more sorrowful for me.

• The shadow on the wall of Hamlet considering murdering Claudius as he prays. It showed the actual dark powerful potential of Hamlet, although he never actually acts on that potential. 

• I thought it was interesting that they skipped the first scene. I didn't know what to make of that choice. 

Overall, it was a masterful performance by the actors, by the director, and by the stage manager. I'm glad that I was able to be exposed to this performance.

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Isaac's Annotated Bibliography (1)

     I am writing about synthesizing ideas of teaching Shakespeare, namely combining elements of performance with elements of film and social media. My ideal contribution would be for students to produce performances of their own acting in scenes, film them, and publish them in a social media-type format, allowing other students to comment and analyze each scene together. It would be beneficial to have different groups perform the same scene, so that interpretations would be different, and more discussion could occur. My working thesis: Although there are many approaches to studying Shakespeare, students would most likely benefit from synthesizing these different techniques; specifically, students would benefit from filming their own performances of a Shakespearean scene, and publishing the filmed version on a social media platform, where other students could contribute to the discussion in both literary and performance critical perspectives.

Informal Online Sources:

Dunn, Alyssa. “Teaching Shakespeare's Macbeth.” Teaching Shakespeare's Macbeth, Alyssa Dunn, 14 Feb. 2014, www.slideshare.net/alyssadunn543/teaching-shakespeares-macbeth?qid=9420a867-cd9f-4d72-a60b-222f1e8736a0&v=&b=&from_search=2.

     This is a slide-show presentation about teaching Shakespeare (specifically, MacBeth) through integrating technological platforms. These platforms include podcasts, blogs, Facebook, online resources, Shakespeare apps, and Youtube. This slideshow would be beneficial in providing examples of teachers who are already integrating technology, and find it useful enough to share it with others. I wonder if I could contact this teacher and find out if she has found some platforms to be more beneficial than others.

Sheehy, Mr. “How to Teach Shakespeare to High School Students: A Few Basics from One Who Does It.” A Teachers Writes, A Teacher's Writes, 29 Nov. 2012, ateacherswrites.wordpress.com/2009/03/04/how-to-teach-shakespeare-to-high-school-students-a-few-basics-from-one-who-does-it/.

     This online blog presents different tips to teaching Shakespeare. These tips include reading the play out loud (which would be covered in my idea of performance), paraphrasing difficult passages, focusing on key lines, not hiding any part from the students, and emphasizing the importance of Shakespeare. This resource could help me in explaining how diverse teaching techniques are and how many of these ideas would be encompassed in a synthesized study of Shakespeare. 

Traditional Scholarly Sources

Rodes, David. “Teaching Shakespeare with Examples from Film.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 33, no. 2, 1998, p. 112. JSTOR [JSTOR], doi:10.2307/1316841.

     This resource suggests that using film is an important and invaluable resource for teachers in our age of luxury. We have so many different options to choose from in exposing our students to Shakespeare. This is an important resource to use when talking about embracing emerging technology (including social media platforms), but he also mentions including many different interpretations, and the importance of doing so. This would help bolster my argument of having multiple students perform (and thereby interpret) the same scene differently. 

Beehler, Sharon A. “To ‘Eche out Our Performance with Your Mind’: Making Performance Pedagogy Intellectually Sound.” Journal of the Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, vol. 18, 1997, pp. 201–209. ProQuest, humanities.byu.edu.erl.lib.byu.edu/rmmra/pdfs/18.pdf.

     This is an amazing resource for my paper. It lays out deficiencies that teachers have, and has sufficient backing to make those claims. For instance, it claims that teachers focus too much on audio/visual resources (in contrast with the above article about Shakespeare and Film), and have forgotten about performance. It supports the idea of reading in seeing and acting. It also promotes the idea of becoming both a literary critic, as it relates to Shakespeare, and a performance critic. I could use many different ideas that are presented here, either to nuance my argument, or to support the more synthetic idea behind my argument.

Heller, William. Teaching Shakespeare in the Inner -City Fifth -Grade Classroom using Drama -in -Education, Theatrical Production, and Technology Integration: An Action Research -Based Case Study, New York University, Ann Arbor, 2005. ProQuest, http://search.proquest.com.erl.lib.byu.edu/docview/305466187?accountid=4488.

     This is a dissertation about the study of drama in fifth-grade classrooms. It integrates both ideas of performance, and also technology, in teaching fifth-graders about Shakespeare. This is a good resource all around. It will be interesting to connect this to high school teaching since there would obviously be a difference. It also mentions how performance is creative (I would like to find another source connecting this to creativity in learning), how it would be collaborative, and therefore more beneficial to learning, how technology lends itself to better performance, and how social media opens up the possibility of a global community audience. There are many good ideas in this article that I plan to utilize. 

Shamburg, Christopher, and Cari Craighead. “Shakespeare, Our Digital Native.” The English Journal, vol. 99, no. 1, Sept. 2009, pp. 74–77. JSTOR [JSTOR], www.jstor.org/stable/40503332.

     This is perhaps the most fitting article that I could have found, since it seems to synthesize the same ideas that I am trying to synthesize. He presents a similar argument to my own, although a little different. I haven't decided how to use this source, either to disagree slightly (to suggest a slight difference be made), or to use it as an example of work that is already happening in this field. This would also be a good source to link to videos that I want to use as support from media/performance. 

     All of these sources tend to agree with my proposition in one way or another. The reason behind this is because there are few, if any, articles that recommend no performance or technology in reading Shakespeare. If scholars do not recommend these techniques, they tend to be silent in denouncing them. I would like to find nuance within these sources, however. I think that I have done that in suggesting a synthesis of ideas, but I would like to do more research to see if there are scholars that I can disagree with. Altogether, I am excited to continue working on this paper. 

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Social Media Performance in the Teaching of Shakespeare

Social Media popular platforms have already taken over
the standardization of Shakespeare in current culture

Education is very important to me. Whether I choose to simply pursue a teaching degree, or whether I decide to go to teach in colleges, I want to spend my life teaching (hopefully English). This becomes more complex when Shakespeare is brought into the mix. What is the best way to teach Shakespeare? (This obviously takes for granted that Shakespeare should be taught; however, with the size of his fingerprint on our culture and especially on literature, I feel like it is understood how important it really is). What methods can be used to help students to understand, apply, and gain meaning from Shakespeare, while acquiring important reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills?

This topic has been brought up for hundreds of years. Shakespeare used to be banned in the early Puritan days of America. It slowly worked its way in, and then teachers started debating it. When I first started researching, I wanted to find information about how performance influenced the learning of Shakespeare. I should have known that everyone has thought about it (here is a bibliography of popular articles that talk directly about it). Other articles, in a different angle, have discussed the role of media or social media in the teaching of Shakespeare. One referenced Youtube in productions, both professionally made and made by students, in helping students to understand and also to comment and network with different productions. This slideshow discusses how different technology can aid in the teaching of Shakespeare. Obviously, Dr. Burton has discussed this with us at length. In my "straw poll" on slack, some students performed in class without social sources, and very few had connections with social sources before this class. Personally, I never performed in an English class and had not done any online interaction in an English class about anything, including Shakespeare.

I would like to write about the crossroads of these two ideas. We should incorporate both performance and social and media sources into our Shakespeare teaching in public schools. Students would be able to create a performance, video it however they would like to (either in person or through a different medium, comics, puppets, etc.), and upload that video onto a forum of discussion with other students. This approach would cover many learning outcomes, including close reading and understanding of the text, interpretation, speaking/oratory skills, creativity, social networking, discussion, and proper internet citizenship.

I would love to hear ideas about what to watch out for or be aware of, or insights into these ideas. If there are specific plays that you would suggest that I could use to do a close reading of or use as a case study, let me know.

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Isaac and his Friend, Sonnet 69

The finished product:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CAvxKaUyf0

Here is a link to the original sonnet. Like Sam, I may include a later blooper reel of all my captured mistakes (there were many).

Enjoy!

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Paulina's Personal Prerogative (The Winter's Tale)

Paulina guarding the statue of Hermione, while an extremely
handsome Leontes (right) pleads with her to let him approach.

I have spent the past few days continually contemplating what I would want to talk about, were I to write a paper on The Winter's Tale. I considered writing on the self-referentiality of the play, friendship (especially as founded on shared-meter lines in the play), and themes of power and control. However, through discussion on Slack, I became more and more interested in the person of Paulina. Preliminary research before beginning the play illuminated the discussion about whether Paulina orchestrated the "resurrection" of Hermione through covert means, or whether it was actually magic. I've come to the conclusion that through an analysis of Paulina's rhetoric in specifically significant scenes, Paulina appears to be more in control of the situation than Leontes. This lends validity to the idea of her orchestrating the disappearance and "resurrection" of Hermione in non-magical ways. This claim could include a feminist critique of female and male power struggles within the play.

In making this claim, I would need to analyze the rhetoric that Paulina uses in the scenes she is a significant part of. One scene that lends itself very highly to this idea is act two, scene three. Here, within fifteen lines, she uses several rhetorical devices. These include antanaclasis: "Commit me for committing honor" (59); ethical appeal through parallel structure: "your loyal servant, your physician, / Your most obedient counselor" (66-67); and alliteration involving voiced and voiceless plosives: "Good queen, my lord, good queen, I say "good queen"(72). Each of these has its individual use, but together, they form a picture of one who is skilled at oratory, who is collected enough to express herself eloquently. Compare this to King Leontes, who, although using some rhetorical devices himself, is overall more flustered and out of control. This rhetorically-based Paulina is one who is self-assured, who doesn't need her husband to tell her what to say, or whether to say it (despite Leontes' objections otherwise). This kind of control is the kind that Leontes lacks, and the kind that shows that Paulina is actually the one who is in control.

It would be fun to write about this because I have never explicitly written a feminist critique of the play. It would be good practice to see how Paulina's power, compared to Leontes' or Antigonus', is more valid and overall more effective. I would be able to do research into other feminist readings of the play (I imagine there would be some). I could find if anyone else has analyzed her speeches and dialogue. I could look for critiques of power struggle within the play, and see if any scholars have talked about ideas of control (either as it relates to Paulina or to other ideas such as fate and chance).

Paulina's power gives validity to the idea that she took it upon herself to control elements in the play, culminating in the spectacular resurrection scene in the closing of the play.

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Isaac's Lear Pre-Writing: I'm Going On An Adventure!

This illustrates how I annotated this ebook.
Form is marked in blue. Themes/content
is marked in yellow. These are some themes
that I have looked into for my paper.

My Analyzing and Annotating
Reading summaries before the text has helped to focus more on how the play is written rather than trying to figure out what is going on at the same time. I was able to use different colors to point out analysis of form, content, and just things that I liked (as shown on right). That will be helpful moving forward because it will allow me to easily find literary support for a strong claim, something that I felt was lacking from my sonnet analysis. I was even able to put in some notes connecting to sources that I and other people found and posted on slack.

Peer and Source Influences
The slack conversations have been enlightening. Through conversations, my own analyses have been questioned, tempered, or validated through others' opinions or through research. I was able to find and interact with good sources, such as this scholarly article dealing with Edmund's Redemption, found and posted by Brett, or this video portraying an extremely supportive Fool, both of which opened a new perspective on characters and themes.

My Working Claims

[Policy Claim] Although many have read King Lear as a critique and handbook on political policy, the play should actually be read as a critique and handbook on filial relationships, not only through Lear's relationships but also (and especially) through the Gloucester family.

[Definition Claim] Although it may seem that Cordelia is a righteous daughter, in actuality, she is just as selfish as Goneril or Regan, disrespecting her father and inheriting a fortune larger than that of her sisters.

[Comparison Claim] While both Kent and Edgar disguise themselves as different characters, Kent's disguise functions as a more selfless and helpful mechanism for the King, while Edgar's disguise is ultimately selfish and futile.

[Evaluation Claim] Although many characters try to help King Lear during his descent into madness, the Fool is the best support system to keep the King sane because of his [the Fool's] own insanity and selflessness.

[Causal Claim] Although some would argue that Edmund's evil intentions arise solely from society's stigmatization of illegitimate children, Edmund's real psychological struggle arises from his own negative conceptions of himself in relation to his father, Gloucester.

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Isaac's Sonnet: "Rain, Not Dew"

Rain, Not Dew

A drop of water baptized me today,

as I was walking by some campus trees.

What power did they hold within their leaves

to Christen me and send me on my way?

I felt it drip behind my ear--halfway

to soaking in my collared shirt. Oh please

be sign of some great changing cosmic breeze,

reprieve from self-rejecting hate. And may

I find in me again a peaceful mind,

one willing to forgive and to forget.

Lend me the strength that nature has to break

the longing for a life that's past behind.

My hope is simply champing at the bit.

Trees do not have the power to give and take.

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The Many Faces of the Dark Lady Sonnet

     By creating his sonnet cycle, William Shakespeare entered into, and simultaneously complicated, an age-old tradition of sonnet-writing. This "Petrarchan" tradition demanded certain conventions, such as the inclusion of blazons, the subject of unrequited love, and conceits drawn between the beloved and nature. In response to this tradition, Shakespeare's Sonnet 130 concurrently follows, rejects, and exceeds it. We will consider each of the "faces" of this sonnet separately.

The Sonnet as Rejection of Tradition

     Typically, scholars have read this sonnet as a reversal of traditional Petrarchan modes. For example, Helen Vender, in her book The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets, describes how Shakespeare follows typical forms and vocabulary of Petrarchan sonnets ("(1) comparison by simile, (2) hierarchizing, (3) valuing by a standard, (4) meraphorizing"  (557)), while also subverting them. He uses these forms in a way to say the opposite of what would normally be expected from a Petrarchan poem. Rather than praising the beloved for aesthetically pleasing physical attributes, the speaker of Sonnet 130 describes his beloved's lack of beauty. Form follows this content. Although the general sonnet form is preserved, there are aberrations to the iambic pentameter, such as the word "Coral" on the second line, or "I have seen roses damasked" on the fifth. These aberrations reinforce the reversal of Petrarchan ideals in the sonnet.
     Similarly, Sonnet 69 also rejects the sonnet tradition, albeit in a different way. In Sonnet 69, the speaker praises the beloved’s physical attributes, saying that “The parts of thee that the world’s eye doth view / want nothing." However, the speaker refuses to stop at physical beauty. He adds that upon further inspection, “ To thy fair flower [is added] the rank smell of weeds," because “thou dost common grow." While Sonnet 130 expresses affection regardless of negative aesthetics, Sonnet 69 expresses revulsion regardless of positive aesthetics. Sonnet 69 reacts against the Petrarchan tradition like Sonnet 130, but does so by claiming that actions count just as much (if not more) than physical beauty.

The Sonnet as Continuation of Tradition

     Even though Sonnet 130 reverses some traditional ideas, it is still a tender poem about love and affection. Helen Vendler draws attention to the fact that romantic affection enters the sonnet in the third quatrain (557). This can also be seen in Stephen Fry's interpretative reading of the sonnet. In this reading, rather than disparaging the lady, his tone is full of tenderness. When he reaches the "affective third quatrain," he emphasizes the amount of love that he feels, and he reiterates that love in the final couplet. Although we obviously see the discontinuities between a typical Petrarchan sonnet and the one that Shakespeare offers, we should also consider it as a continuation of a tradition. The speaker still loves the beloved. 

The Sonnet as Exceeding the Tradition

     Sonnet 130, in addition to continuing and subverting the tradition, also goes beyond it by creating a kind of "metapoetics." In fact, Robert Matz attributes the rise of the popularity of Sonnet 130 to its metapoetical character (501). The sonnet, by both continuing and reversing the tradition, asks questions about the art of poetry itself. Should poetry follow the tradition? What poetical experiments can we create in regards to the tradition? The poem draws attention to itself as a poem and asks to be analyzed as such. Even by addressing the poem to a third party rather than to the beloved, the poem is directing itself toward a reading audience. By directing attention toward itself, the sonnet not only continues and complicates the tradition, but extends it into new territories.

     Sonnet 130, written to the "dark lady," has many faces. In one we see the tradition of Petrarch--a speaker proclaiming his love toward his beloved. In another we see a reversal of that very tradition--a speaker who lists his beloved's physical imperfections rather than her perfections (which is still better than listing their moral imperfections, like in Sonnet 69). And in yet another we see a master poet drawing attention to his own work within the tradition. Although the faces of this sonnet may not be equally beautiful, "I think my love as rare" for each to make them beautiful in my eyes. 

Works Cited

Matz, Robert. "The Scandals of Shakespeare's Sonnets." ELH77.2 (2010): 477-508. Web.

Vendler, Helen. The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard UP, 1997. Print.

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Isaac's Draft Sonnet

A drop of water baptized me today

as I was walking by some campus trees.

What power did they have within their leaves

to Christen me and send me on my way?

I felt it trickle behind my ear--halfway

to soaking in my collared shirt. Oh please

be sign of some great changing cosmic breeze,

reprieve from self-rejecting hate. And may

I find in me again a peaceful mind,

a willing heart, a sensitive spirit.

Give me the power nature has to break

the longing for a life that's past behind.

My hope is simply champing at the bit.

Trees do not have the power to give and take.

This came from an experience I had walking on campus outside of the library in February. I've thought about writing it for a while and this gave me a good opportunity. 

I would like some help with line 10. Sometimes I feel like it works, and other times "spirit" seems awkward in the meter. But maybe I want it to be awkard? What do you think? 

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Isaac's Informal Research for Sonnet 130

[They wouldn't allow me to take a picture while inside of special collections because they had me on lockdown while I was in there, but I snatched a quick picture before I left. What an experience!]

Traditional Scholarly Source: 

The scholarly source I chose comes from the ELH journal, in an issue titled, "The Scandals of Shakespeare's Sonnets." In this article, Robert Matz discusses the rise in the anthologization of Sonnet 130. He mentions how as Shakespeare becomes an increasingly important subject in undergraduate coursework, the idea of "metapoetics" also becomes important and a subject of interest. It would be good to include the idea of "metapoetics" and how Sonnet 130 fulfills this idea in a paper. 

Informal Online Source:

This source from grin.com describes a certain reading of the sonnet line by line. One important interpretation found here includes the fact that the sonnet is written about the dark lady, not to her. Often, sonnets are written to the object of affection, not about them to another audience. It also remarks on how comparing the lady to nature has an effect of bringing her down to earth rather than exalting her. 

http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/194065/analysis-and-interpretation-of-william-shakespeare-s-sonnet-130

Media Source:

I found this video reading of the sonnet by Stephen Fry (one of my favorite British actors). He does an excellent job of expressing admiration for the love object even while rejecting traditional modes of beauty, and downplaying some of the aspects that may be more harsh on modern ears than they were in Shakespeare's time (such as the fact that her breath "reeks"). It's important to remember that the speaker isn't disparaging the dark lady, but finding a different way to praise her. 

https://vimeo.com/44735899

Social Source: 

I spoke with my brother Daniel about the sonnet. He had read a book of Shakespeare's sonnets written by Helen Vendler (the reason I went to special collections in the first place was to find the book and read her interpretation of Sonnet 130). He mentioned how this sonnet fit in context with surrounding sonnets in talking about the "dark lady." It was the first time I had heard the term, and it made me want to read the surrounding sonnets to find context for this one. 

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