Version 7.0ish. Digital Humanities. Running. Pedagogy. Linux.

For a class last fall I had to take part in a group library presentation. We decided to do it on various media adaptations of literature. I argued for, and was given, a separate section on Shakespeare. While going through my pictures today I created a quick web page to document the project. I still think we should have done Shakespeare exclusively. He’s only sort of important and stuff. Also-see if you can spot the Daria reference!

We put up our project for Readers, Writers, and Books today. Our project is on books which have been adapted to films. Here is my piece of the project. I argued for a seperate section on Shakespeare alone and was granted it. I decided on Akira Kurosawa’s Ran & Roman Polanski’s Macbeth. The skull was there from the previous exhibit but we used it to hold up the cases (the DVD especially was sliding all over the place)..and hey there is a skull in Hamlet after all right?

Here is what my blurb says:

The Bard on Screen

The works of William Shakespeare help to define our culture and world. Like Homer before him, the writing of Shakespeare encompasses all that we do. Jorge Luis Borges wrote that after death we shall gather all of our memories and combine them: “God, our friends, and Shakespeare will collaborate with us” (Maurois XI). To read Shakespeare well is to become Shakespeare. His influence runs deep in our culture, especially in literature, cinema, and even advertising.

Shakespeare plays have been made into scores of movies, many of them very good. Narrowing the selection to the two presented here was difficult. Roman Polanski’s Macbeth and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, based on King Lear, demonstrate the encompassing power of Shakespeare. Polanski turns Macbeth into a cathartic masterpiece, painting the darkness of the human condition. Legendary Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa reinvents King Lear as he transfers the play to feudal Japan.

The movie covers of Ran and Macbeth show heavy use. Excellent adaptations of Shakespeare are very popular and Stockton’s copies are no exception.

Has anyone read A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 yet? NPR recently had a piece on it during Talk Of The Nation. Author James Shapiro is interviewed.

This weekend I watched the first disk of the Gargoyles season one DVD set. I used to watch Gargoyles the summer after I finished high school. At 8am I would wake up and watch Transformers, which I had recently, upon getting on the internet, gotten back into with a fury. At 8:30, I switched channels and watched Sailor Moon while checking my email and eating breakfast. At that point, for a while, I would turn off the TV (I remember my next TV choices being mostly syndicated sitcoms and Lost In Space) and start my day. Near the end of the summer I started tuning into what came on next, a show called Gargoyles.

After watching a few episodes, I started to realize this was a neat show. For a show aimed at small children, it is rather complex and intelligent. Many episodes deal with deeper and bigger social issues like guns, death, revenge, and morality. There is right and wrong, but there are shades of gray also. While many of the episodes are serialized and episodic in nature, little pieces of continuity in each add to the bigger arc. The story arcs are vast and continuity is fruitful; which is the key to other shows I love too.

Oh yeah, and do not forget that other selling point-a couple familiar voice actors.

Watching the show again this weekend I see all of the things that I loved about it in the first place coming back to me again. Especially poignant is the episode Deadly Force, which deals with gun violence. There are so many references to Shakespeare it is unbelievable. Primarily, these references are directly, and indirectly, to Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Hamlet. There are also many references to Arthurian legend. The vast amount of voice actors from the Star Trek universe is neat too and brings a smile to my face whenever I recognize someone.

Johnson, Samuel. Johnson on Shakespeare. London: Oxford UP, 1929. 189-196.

Interesting essay which breaks down various speeches by Hamlet and explains them. This is nearly one hundred years old but I found the discussions to be very interesting and informative. Could be useful for a paper.

This can also be found archived online

Copies of twenty one of Shakespeare’s plays which predate the first folio are being put online by The British Library.

There is also a new biography on Shakespeare here.