Blog Paper

Ashique S. Berry
Dr. Paul Gleason
English 327: Shakespeare: Tragedies
October 10, 2008
Blog Paper:
Perchance to Dream...
There is definitely something intriguing about tragedy. The honest truth is simply that I have within myself a deeply melancholy soul. Some might call it morbid. It is this melancholy within me, that draws me to Shakespeare's tragic works. Reading plays is a challenge for me. I find myself having to re-read many lines, and really work to imagine the playwrights vision. As far as the stages of reading development are concerned, I have to say that I disagree with the verbiage. I don't see reading, as it is being defined in this theory, as taking place in stages. As a reader in general I would place myself in the Text-World stage, but not necessarily meaning that I have gone through the other two-stages, as far as Shakespeare's work is concerned, to reach this point. It may be due my historical education on the Renaissance movement, that I find myself in the Text-World area of reading as it pertains to Shakespeare's work.
My first experience with shakespeare was when I was in the 6th grade. The students on my then favorite after school television show, Saved By the Bell, were putting on a production of Romeo and Juliet for their drama class. The successive experiences that I had with Shakespeare were similar to that. I had seen so many versions of Hamlet, including in movies like Billy Madison, as well as Romeo and Juliet, also in film, that I felt like I had a pretty good idea of the snooty high art attitude that came along with Shakespeare and performing his work. This best fits the Text-Other Texts reading criteria, except for the fact that I hadn't actually read the text. It wasn't that I was necessarily picking up on evidence from the text, but I was more so seeing a pattern of this certain texts frequency of appearing in television of films. But I suppose reading it in film would technically count. It made sense to me to assume that Shakespeare must have been a pretty important person. But I suppose reading it in film would technically count. My official first reading of Shakespeare took place in high school, although I don't remember what play we read (probably one of the aforemention two). I didn't wrestle with any of the real concepts, and attitudes surrounding Shakespeare, until I got to college. Perhaps it was my education up until this point, or maybe it was just due to my own affinity toward novels and such over plays, which I felt moved more slowly when read silently and were thus boring. What I can say, is that I was excited to read Hamlet in my English 150 class, in the fall of 2005.
I watched the movie Hamlet, by Kenneth Branagh, in my English 102 class, my Sophomore year of college. I don't remember having any extensive classroom discussions about play technique, directing style, or even more basically any possible reasons that Shakespeare may have had for writing the play in the first place. It was one of those “yay, we're not doing anything but watching a movie in class today” forgettable learning experiences. When we read the play in English 150, it seemed so much more interesting. I remember looking at the play from several points of view. We talked about the historical context of when it was written, we discussed possible intended audiences, as well as different director's visions and interpretations of Shakespeare's intentions for the performance of the play. I see this way of reading the play as best fitting the Text-World category.
As I have stated before, I believe myself to be dancing amongst the three stages of reading development. I am an excellent reader. I read very thoroughly, and I make a conscions effort to remember to read for the pleasure that it brings me to do so. I bring this with me when I take a new English course. I have learned to remove my opinions about a certain text, from the importance of the text itself apart from me. I want to always remember to enjoy reading. I believe that if I were to read with sheerly an “I-centered” view, I would miss out on so many other aspects of what reading has to offer. There is no right way to interpret text, and this is also something that I enjoyed exploring while reading Hamelt in the aforementioned English 150 class that I took.
From the very beginning of my education, I realized that there was a right and a wrong answer. This teaching was strongly reinforced by my intensly religious upbringing, that upheld this binary on a much more serious level: right=good, wrong=evil. The approval of the educators in my life became a validation for me as a “good/smart” student. I remember sitting in that English 150 class, with Dr. Paul Gleason, and raising my hand to give my take on the “symbolism” in Hamlet. I was shocked when he didn't make a face, commented with completely flat affect, and just called on the next person. I didn't know how to read this. Had I said something wrong? What did he mean by “symbol hunting”? Isn't that what the reader is supposed to do? Isn't that what I had always been taught to do? It was like a glass of cold water had been splashed onto the REM deep sleep mode of traditional English learning, that I had been so snuggly indulging in up until that point. Art for art's sake. There is no right answer. I was completely stripped. This is when I began my redezvous with a much more complex way of reading, interpreting, and just plain experiencing texts.
The best way that I can think to improve upon my reading, is just to keep doing it. To keep learning and growing; expanding my horizons. Reading is a personal-growth process, once you get past its fundamental rudimentary aspects. I cherish reading for it's aesthetic qualities if nothing else. This course has helped me in this aim. This is my third time reading Hamlet, for instance, and I still feel as though it is my first. The more I revisit the work, the more vivid it becomes, and the more it becomes a part of me.