I memorized the first verse of "Arthur, où t'as mis le corps" (Arthur, Where'd You Put The Corpse?) by Boris Vian. About nine more to go, plus I have to have the whole song in my head before I'm done.
I translated “Le vieux rocker” (The Old Rocker) by Serge Gainsbourg. Tomorrow I'll start to memorized it.
I weighed 90.3 kilos before breakfast.
I turned the heat back on.
Before 9:00 I logged onto Zoom for my Shakespeare lecture.
We would cover the rest of The Winter's Tale today and on Wednesday have a discussion about genre.
Next week All's Well That Ends Well and then a break, after which our essays will be due.
All's Well That Ends Well is easier than the other plays we've read so far. It has a silly plot that's weird and interesting. Have it finished by next week.
In The Winter's Tale Antigonus drops the baby on Bohemia's shore then runs from a bear. Perdita is rescued by a shepherd while Antigonus is eaten and his ship sinks.
3.3 is a turning point. A shift in location. Antigonus mistakes the meaning of his dream about Apollo. The bear eats him and not the baby. His last words are “gone forever” and they are the truest words in the play. It is a fitting end of the tragic life of Antigonus, the weak-willed, good-intentioned, put upon, cowardly middle man cursed by an oath. Antigonus is the servant of Loentes and the husband of Paulina, two strong people. Antigonus has to do what Leontes says. He misinterprets his dream but that is understandable. He can't see a way out even though he is far away from court and no one could possibly know.
The baby is alone on stage. It is unlikely a real baby in the theatre but a bundle. Antigonus leaves it and this is its second time left alone on stage. Each time to be endangered by monsters, first Leontes and the bear. How long does it sit in silence? What is the bear's relation to this? What happened in Shakespeare's time? Was it a real bear or a man in costume? There were bears around for entertainment but it was probably not a real bear. It is a surprise in any case.
This is a tonal and generic turning point. The relationship between the bear and the baby. A silent human and non-human spectacle are only interpreted visually to project meaning. The bear ignores the baby. The potential danger of the play pivots in tone. Maybe the bear is realistic and scary or maybe it looks comic.
The old shepherd enters and believes what Antigonus did about infidelity but with no moral panic. He knows there is premarital sex. He is complaining about teenagers when he enters and it is all part of life. He takes it for granted there is moral expediency in the world. He takes the baby in pity rather than expose her to maybe dying.
The play shifts here in class and tone. The claustrophobic aristocratic world with its rules about sex gives way to the free and easy outdoor lower-class world. It also happens that there is a quick and complete tonal shift over the death of Antigonus, which becomes not a tragedy but a comic story. The shepherd's son Clown, which means “comic performer” but also “rustic character” is comic because he is lower class. Death becomes a spectacle and entertainment. Look what happened! Look, the bear is tearing the arm from his shoulder! The distancing from Antigonus becomes an objective comic meditation. The shepherd's last words in the scene are the inverse of those of Antigonus. “It is a lucky day. We'll do good deeds.”
Shakespeare is careful about construct the scene almost exact in two halves. Antigonus begins in line 56 and ends in line 131, 75 lines later. The two parts of the scene are the same length. “Gone” versus “Lucky.”
We meet Time. He says we are skipping ahead sixteen years. His speech is 32 lines and at line 16 he says “I turn the glass”, exactly halfway. We move from the past to the future. Shakespeare builds this change into the physical matter of play with this architecture transition. The main thing is that tragedy turns to comedy. The fulcrum is in this scene. Time has some of the character of the bear in that he is an unexpected theatrical presence, only slightly less ostentatious than a man in a bear suit.
We are catapulted to Bohemia in summer when all is growing when it was winter before.
In Sicily, the unpredictable figure of Leontes moves from friend to enemy and then to mourner. A whole life of experience takes place in three acts. In Bohemia the unpredictable figure of Autolycus, seller of ballads that tell wild improbable tales, serves as the principle of disorder. He is a symbol of potential loss because he is a thief. He separates people from their money but presents no danger. He picks Clown's pocket as he shops for the feast but the feast happens anyway. Autolycus's unpredictability is benign in contrast to that of Leontes.
The events of three weeks in Sicily happen fast but in Bohemia events are sprawling at a leisurely pace, with songs, dances, jokes, stories, and comic side plots. Two women are rivals for Clown's affections. There are a lot of different conversations, and speech is aimlessly not plotty in Act 4. It gets plotty again as we move back to Sicily.
4.4 may be Shakespeare's longest scene in any play. The realistic presentation of a country festival presents an extended tonal contrast. Other vocabulary and relationships are meant to serve as foil to the violent first three acts. In the festivity of Act 4, we don't know where we are going. We are immersed. Is Perdita's afterlife a country paradise? It coalesces into a plot with the generic markers of comedy.
Florizel is to get on the ship with Perdita. He switches clothes with Autolycus, following the comic convention of disguise descending in class. He attempts to thwart his dad. These are all conventions of comic machinery. The tone is treating everything with a light touch and there is an unfolding rather than a movement to catastrophe. We are sent back to Sicily by the machine of comedy with revelations on the horizon. All the comic energy carries us to Sicily.
In 5.2 three gentlemen talk of the reunion that is not shown. How improbable it all is they say. You can't believe how the princess was rescued. You can't believe the reunion. Antigonus's death is like an old tale with a crazy story about a bear but there is proof.
Autolycus sells improbable stories in Act 4, resonating with the interest in winter's tales. This is funnelled into Act 5 as a way of seeing a resolution of the play from the perspective of the pastoral world. Everything is improbably enabled by the comedy machine. Also in comedy we get social elevation, in this case of the shepherd and clown as a reward. Comedy allows Florizel to be with that lower-class woman he loves who turns out to be of his class.
At this point, my connection failed and I missed a few minutes of the lecture while trying to reconnect.
Naked aggression and domestic tragedy is an exaggeration of all too real human violence. Shakespeare converts these violent feelings to fantasy in human terms. Leontes comes face to face with the passage of time to reckon with age and healing. The theatre as a purveyor of fantasy communicates this. The art of theatre is necessary to allow us to confront these feelings.
So far it is pretty redemptive by most explicit cues. Metamorphosis and tone shift of a real movement from tragedy to comedy is the powerful experience of this play. This is a great play to see live. There is lots of colour and flowers in Act 4 and then a mix in Act 5. The festival has melted the ice of Acts 1-3. It is summer in Sicily and Bohemia.
But it would not be Shakespeare if it was that simple. There is not merely a transition from one to the other. There has got to be density and complexity. There has got to be undertow and pull back against what seems to be true.
There are echoes in Act 4 of the old violent world of Acts 1-3. The nature of progression in 4.2 shows Polixenes and Camello. It has been 15 years since Camello saw home and the reformed Leontes has sent for him. Camillo wanting to leave while Polixenes doesn't want him to is similar to 1.2 when Polixenes wanted to go but Leontes did not want him to. The situations are not identical but they are echoes. The sentiment that it would be the worst thing in the world for you to leave is the same in both parts. This is characteristic of Shakespeare. A new world with a new mood but the same situation.
In 4.4.54-77 the Shepherd takes Perdita to task for not taking on her role as host at the feast. He points out that she is not like his late wife. It is a strong little blip. A moment of tension in a peaceful world over womanly duties of hospitality parallel to 1.2 when Leontes interrogates Hermione for her hosting style. It is the same problem in different registers.
We are moving away from the black hole but circling the edge with still the gravitational pull of Acts 1-3 bending the material that is trying to escape from it. Shakespeare is then explicit that there are still some kind feelings in Act 4. Acts 1-3 are still present. The festival may look like an Elizabethan version of “Hee Haw”.
When Florizel says he wants to marry the shepherdess the disguised father asks “What about your dad?” Florizel says he won't tell him. That prompts Polixenes to reveal himself.
At this point my Open Office froze for a few minutes, so I had to write in my notebook.
There is a violent speech from Polixenes. He threatens to deface Perdita in response to this potential destruction of the royal line. If his son marries Perdita he would be without a royal heir. The collateral damage is that the shepherd fears he will hang.
A potentially bleak end of everything if he marries a shepherdess it will mean the end of Polixenes's line. Polixenes is misogynistically violent in his speech to Perdita. The same forces are at play as in Acts 1-3. Simply because we are in a comical part does not mean it is not real. This is the generic genius of Shakespeare. Keeping comedy but keeping conflict within it. There is a strong sense of continuity between Acts 3 and 4. Things can be resolved but there is still violent emotion.
Professor Lopez says “This is cool.” The gravitational pull of Acts 1-3 on Act 4. When Polixenes blows up the work of comedy is undone. In 4.4. Camillo wants to go home but he's going to help Florizel leave for Sicily and to ask for Leontes. In 4.4.546 he says you can solve everything if go to Sicily. Camillo was not right the last time he made a decision like this. He says nothing else can be done but obviously other things can be done because there are other choices. In the play Camillo's plan has no guarantee of working but it fits the logic of comedy. Then afterwards sneaky Camillo rats on Florizel to get Polixenes to chase him and use Polixenes as a vehicle to get to Sicily. No one knows what will happen. Camillo bets on the generic comic machinery to satisfy his desires. This is similar to how he acted before. The play says it is moving you out but looks at characters in the same terms.
We took a break.
I noticed there were 92 students in class. That seems quite a drop from the first class, but this is essay season and so a lot of students are probably skipping class to work on assignments.
Presenting as negative possibility the persistence of of the dynamics of Acts 1-3 to 4-5. The idea that as much as the play tries to be a comedy and about festivity and renewal, it also represents the persistence of problems and undermines the comedy. But also there is a positive look at transformation. The sophisticated comic idea of that resolution has all the more meaning because the violence is not erased but rather acknowledges it and bears its marks.
In 5.3 Paulina shows the statue of Hermione. In line 27. Leontes says the statue is wrinkled. Here is a potential resolution as he gets the love-honoured image of his wife back. But the idea that Hermione is an art object does not make it ideal for Leontes to dream of the past. She registers the passage of time and so he must look at his violence measured in years as they can be reckoned on the body.
This play is unbelievable. From pregnant body to aging body. Comedy is only meaningful if it acknowledges time. Maybe it is revising the earlier idea of comedy but maybe not.
The lacunae at the end of The Comedy of Errors showing the inability to comprehend the magnitude and how to talk about it. The Winter's Tale shows a way to talk about it and that one can have consequences and resolution. Leontes gets his daughter back but not his son, thus making the comic resolution more meaningful. Bringing Mamillius back would be too much. That would be mere theatre. One must acknowledge death even in comedy. That is the positive reading of persistence. The Winter's Tale is a meditation on what dramatic art can accomplish in representing the complexity of experience over time while meeting formal demands of generic comedy that dictate that everyone needs to be together at the end. The aging statue allows this.
The negative idea of incomplete transformation and making positive now will make us think it is positive and negative at the same time. Paulina's resolution. How to think of the end from our point and theirs. At the ends of his plays characters get what they want and more.
When the professor first read this as an undergrad he had no idea what was happening and he was confused. He thought this statue came to life but then learned it is not a statue because Hermione is pretending. In 5.2 the third gentleman says it is a statue but he also says Paulina privately and regularly visited the house where the statue was. That is because Hermione was hiding there. Paulina said if you don't believe she's dead come and look, but she fakes Hermione's death. This does not make any more sense than her coming back to life by magic. You have a choice between two unbelievables: magic or hiding for 16 years. Magic is important for us because we are in Leontes's position. It is more bearable to think the statue comes to life after 16 years of getting old in a bubble life similar to our life in the pandemic.
Why do we want Leontes rewarded? It's because of me says Polixenes, let me bear some of Leontes's grief. We are together. The image could be of healing. Art is too powerful says Paulina. Leontes thinks it is so real that it is alive. Shakespeare is playing games with the audience like when we don't know if Falstaff is dead or alive. A live body is a source of evidence. Pain and pleasure. We are mocked with art as it is tricking us. Paulina is stoking his desire, teasing, making him demand satisfaction. Leontes is focused on the positive feeling of the play, preserving, reflecting the whole experience of desire before he destroyed it.
The value of a suffering statue and Perdita, two images of Hermione past, present, and future simultaneously. Art can do this. It makes one feel in command of time and space. We see the relationships between parts and we are in control plus we are exceeded by it. I want to look forever. He wants to kiss the statue. He's an audience member caught up and crossing into art. In this intense experience he's manic in life through art.
Paulina says it is not magic because there is something irreligious about magic. Leontes wants magic. Let me feel art is life. Paulina lets Leontes be convinced for a while longer that this is a moving statue. Paulina is a showman in control. He says if this is magic make it lawful. The magic of art and theatre are redemptive but also more than he wants.
Things change direction. Paulina talks to the statue like it knows her. We move back to society from art. Now one can not just look but also interact. In knowing by Paulina that the oracle gave hope I preserved myself. I am not a statue. I waited for you. She was not waiting to forgive her husband but waiting for Perdita. She says “thy father” but she says nothing to Leontes after hanging on his neck. She characterizes the nature of 16 years. Lets tell the story later.
Paulina is in a hurry here. “You winners.” Everybody got something but me. She is a masterful manipulator. There is more time in the future. Now Leontes must deal with his wife in time. She is back for reasons that have little to do with him. She collaborated with his enemy Paulina. Paulina now has to walk a fine line.
Leontes says Paulina should get a husband in generic sanctimony. But tone is demanded by context. A violent tone. Now I give. He talks about how he suffered, saw Hermione's dead body and went every day to her grave in vain. He wasted his time because she was not dead. He was yelled at by Paulina and made to feel guilty. Fiction that's a work of art. After manipulation by Paulina he now says Camillo will be her husband. They never spoke in the play and so it is an extraordinarily audacious match. Camillo doesn't say he wants to come back to Paulina. They are not a match in the play but it serves the coupling required at the end of a comedy. Leontes is coercing marriage as punishment. He is putting Paulina in his situation. Lets get out of here. The professor imagines him as Jack Nicholson. Leontes introduces Florizel. Conspiracy of women. Leontes's worst nightmare is true, that a child of Polixenes will be the heir to Sicily. What turns out is what he was afraid of. The future extinguishes Leontes's legacy. Polixenes's line will be in control. The happiest ending possible.
I weighed 89 kilos before lunch.
It was raining in the afternoon and so I didn't take a bike ride. Instead I did some exercises while watching the first few scenes from The Winter's Tale played by a theatre company in California.
I weighed 89.7 kilos at 17:00.
I finished editing my lecture notes just before dinner.
I had a potato with gravy and a chicken breast while watching Gomer Pyle.
This story was extremely predictable. It looks like all of the files in this fifth season download has video and audio out of sync. It comes from the same uploader as the other four seasons but those seem to be ripped from perhaps a box set while this last season seems to have been copied from TV Land or some similar cable channel. It didn't go out of sync until two thirds of the way through this time and not as much as last time so I just tolerated it, since I could already tell what was going to happen anyway.
There is apparently a real prize called the Booty Prize that is awarded every six months to the worst platoon on any given Marine base. It consists of a life-size lead boot and Carter's platoon has broken a record by winning it twice in a row. Carter blames Gomer for causing the platoon to come up short and so he makes Gomer shine it. But Gomer is having difficulty shining it and so he decides that if he puts it on his foot it will be easier. But then he can't get it off. At first only Duke knows about it band tries to get it off but then Carter finds out. After several attempts, finally, the whole platoon does a tug of war with Gomer and the boot in between and it comes off. But then Carter wonders why it didn't come off easily since he reasons that if it could get on then it should come off. Carter tries on the boot and it gets stuck. Since Carter doesn't want the platoon to know about it only Gomer and Duke can help him. Finally, they sneak into the refrigerator room at the mess kitchen and Carter sits in the cold room until his foot shrinks enough to get the boot off. But just then they are caught there by Sergeant Hacker. Hacker says he is going to keep the boot to show to the colonel but then he gets curious too. When the colonel finds out both sergeants were dumb enough to put the boot on he declares the Booty Prize award to be a tie this time.
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