The semester in summary: self-evaluation

As part of my Shakespeare course this semester, I'll be evaluating this blog by the same standards that I used last week for my peer evaluation. This includes posts, research, personal and social identity, and design.

Posts

Quantity: This post will round up my blog to 40 total posts. My hub post shows that I have devoted many of these to developing my main focus, women's influence on Shakespeare. 

Content: I believe I have a good variety of posts. I often am casual in my posting like when I ask for ideas, but I also have more formal posts dedicated to my research. I usually try to include some kind of image or other media to appeal to my readers, generally contributing to the theme of my blog, along with pictures from my own life, video clips, and trailers. I analyzed the primary text in my examination of Shakespeare's female characters, as well as media analysis when I posted about Fanfiction and Twitter. 

Format: I gave my posts relevant titles, particularly when they pertained specifically to my research topic. I tried to use jump break when my posts were particularly long, but I found it somewhat easier to simply scroll down than open a new page, so I generally just tried to keep my posts to a manageable length. Also, I tagged my posts with each learning outcome (Analyze Shakespeare Critically, Engage Shakespeare Creatively, Gain Shakespeare Literacy, and Share Shakespeare Meaningfully), which I think was more appealing to the reader than perhaps writing LO#3.a. I did this at the beginning of the semester, but after even I couldn't remember which one was which, I switched to this simpler method of tagging. 

Research

Thematic Focus: I think my hub post does a good job in stating my focus, along with supporting posts.

Thesis and Cohesion: My hub post clearly states my thesis: "Shakespeare, because of his female audience, patrons, and familial relationships, was influenced financially and personally to write spirited female characters." This post also links to over ten other posts that support this thesis.

Sources: My blog has a source page, where all of the links are clearly cited and linked to which posts I used them for. Since most of my sources were scholarly and only available through the BYU library, I made sure to include a works cited section for every post where I quoted any source.

Personal and Social

Author Identity: My blog includes both a picture and an About Me section. I feel I really show a personal connection to my blog, especially where I share photos from my own life, as well as my creative writing. I also think the overall design reflects my personality (books = English major?)

Documentation of Process: I think it's pretty clear where my blog started and where it ended up. Just comparing my first attempt at a hub post and my later more successful one shows my process of learning.

Interactions: Like I mentioned before, I took part in AskShakespeare on Twitter as well as putting my creative work on Fanfiction. I also try to respond to the comments on my posts either directly or in following posts. 

Design

I think the design of my blog really shows my personality, as well as not being too loud or colorful to distract from my research focus. The widgets that I have are helpful in navigating my blog, as well as giving the reader a good idea of what my blog is all about. 

Fanfiction follow-up

After posting my short story to Fanfiction, I wanted to share what my experience was. It's always a scary thing to share my writing, but Fanfiction's anonymity is something that really encouraged me. Besides Natashya's comment on my story (which I appreciated), I also received one review on my story on Fanfiction:

not dragon
2011-04-10 . chapter 1

very nice. Games to be played, not a shrew tamed. Thought provoking indeed.

Although the comment is really short, it was just nice to know that someone had read my work and taken the time to tell me their thoughts about it. It was a really fun way to creatively share what I'd been learning this semester with people outside the class. This, along with my Twitter experiment earlier in the semester, has helped reach outside of my comfort zone, something I've really appreciated about this class. If anyone has done a creative project, I definitely recommend sharing it in some way, whether it be writing, making a cake, or putting together a production.

Shakespeare literary imitation

So I took a shot at creatively engaging Shakespeare this weekend by writing a short story about Kate from The Tempest. I wanted at first to actually imitate Shakespeare's language, but that proved very difficult, so I ended up just writing part of the last scene from Kate's point of view. It turned out to be really fun to try and delve into the character's mind. It may not be the best writing, but I enjoyed getting to know this play better.

Here ya go! Constructive criticism is more than welcome!

Peer Evaluation: Lindsay Brock

For my peer review, I'll be evaluating Lindsay Brock's blog, Speare Shaking. 

Posts

Quantity: Lindsay has a good overall number of posts for her blog. There are six links on her hub post, which seems sufficient, but I feel her hub post could have done more to explain her process of learning and her conclusions.

Content: Lindsay has a good variety of posts. She uses media very well, as almost every single post has some image or video to entice readers. Also, she does a lot of analysis, both of the primary text and of the media.

Format: I think Lindsay does a great job of both creating relevant blog titles and making them sound interesting. She also uses jump break on her longer posts. I don't think she's tagged her posts yet, but it would be a good idea to help sort out her posts.

Research

Thematic Focus: Lindsay's focus is very clearly set out in her hub post

Thesis and Cohesion: Lindsay's focus is to argue against traditional views that Shakespeare was against racism and colonization, and instead claim "he was supporting racist views and colonization." She links to several well-developed posts.

Sources: The blog has a source page, where all of the links are clearly cited and linked to which posts she used them for. 

Personal and Social

Author Identity: Lindsay includes both a picture and an About Me section. She shows a personal connection to her blog by sharing learning from her other classes, as well as her experiences inside and outside the classroom. 

Documentation of Process: I can easily see where she's made progress, especially when she changes her focus to better suit the blog.

Interactions: There are several posts where Lindsay includes how she responded to other's suggestions.

Design

Lindsay has a very colorful, bright design, which seems to reflect her personality :) She doesn't include any distracting widgets to take away from her blog.

The final conclusion: The female influence on Shakespeare's writing

Throughout the semester, I have been developing the topic of women and Shakespeare, and I feel that I have researched, analyzed, and written a variety of posts that support my argument. My original ideas have evolved from my previous post to this much more developed and thought out....drum roll please...

Although Shakespeare has often been credited with writing strong, independent, and intelligent female characters (which has inspired much lively feminist debate), this issue has generally been analyzed only from a textual point of view. With this blog, I chose to research contextual and historical evidence as well.

Thesis

Shakespeare, because of his female audience, patrons, and familial relationships, was influenced financially and personally to write spirited female characters.

Evidence

1. Audience: I've looked at several important aspects of Shakespeare's female audience. First, that women made up a large percentage of a playhouse's audience, that there were women from all class distinctions, and that women often had power over their husband's opinions. Second, many playhouses had female patrons, such as Queen Elizabeth, Queen Anne, and Queen Henrietta. These facts help to prove that the female audience was substantial and had significant financial and societal power.

2. Education: Here I show that Elizabethan women were not as illiterate and ignorant as many Shakespeare scholars might assume. It was often necessary for middle-class women to read in order to run their households, as well as educate their own children. Also, many male writers were advocating for female education during Shakespeare's life, showing that there was some acknowledgment of women's intelligence. 

3. Relationships: I examined several of Shakespeare's personal female relationships, including his mother, his extended family and wife, and Queen Elizabeth, in order to show the influence they would have had on his writing. 

4. Character Analysis: I analyzed several of Shakespeare's female characters to show their independence and intelligence, traits he would have seen first hand from the women in his life. These include main characters such as Kate, Hermione, Lady Macbeth, and Portia, as well as minor characters like Paulina and Miranda. 

Conclusion

Shakespeare was above all a playwright, influenced by financial gain. Therefore, he could not afford to ignore the educated and opinionated women that made up much of his audience. However, it may not have been financial gain alone that fueled his writing. Because he grew up in a predominantly female world (his mother, aunts, cousins, wife, and Queen Elizabeth), it is probable that his childhood and female relationships inspired him to give his female characters qualities that made them independent, witty, powerful, and above all, appealing to the female world. 

The women's part: Shakespeare's feminist leanings

I'm going to start with some disclaimers about my thesis. My basic argument is that because of the influence of his female audience, patrons, and personal relationships with women, Shakespeare wrote female characters that were independent, intelligent, and strong. I will even go so far as to suggest he was a proto-feminist, since he recognized the worth of the female mind. I know there are some objections to this idea, which I will address here.


As brought up by Chris Welcker in a comment to one of my previous posts, Shakespeare wasn't always respectful to women. This can be seen in the case of his wife, Anne Hathaway. Anne (although not a complete pushover, as I discussed here) was apparently not an overly critical part of Shakespeare's life. There are few remaining records of her activity in Stratford, and none at all to suggest she had anything to do with her husband's business dealings at the theater. Phyllis Rackin thinks part of this may have to with Shakespeare's lack of trust and confidence in his wife. She states: "A possibility is that William did not trust Anne to manage the family property. Her absence from the legal records of all William's financial affairs might mean that Anne had an exceptionally passive role in the economic affairs of the Shakespeare family" (39). 


So although I admit that there is evidence for the idea that Shakespeare wasn't respectful to all women, there is also substantial proof that despite this, he was still influenced by the many women in his life. Whether he truly admired them or simply wrote the female characters for financial gain is something that cannot be known for sure.


Now that I've shared some opposing views to my thesis, I can approach my topic from a textual standpoint by analyzing the female characters in Shakespeare's plays. I've previously discussed Portia and Paulina, along with Miranda, as good examples of intelligent female characters. For this post, I've chosen two main characters from different plays to help prove my thesis.

Shakespeare's female influences: Queen Elizabeth

Because the timetable for this class was a little more accelerated than I thought, I'm only going to spend a moment examining Queen Elizabeth as an influence on William Shakespeare. I've already discussed Shakespeare's mother, Mary Shakespeare, and his other female relatives (including his wife) to prove that throughout his life the Bard was surrounded by strong and capable women.

Queen Elizabeth was one of England's longest ruling monarchs, and was to reign for most of Shakespeare's adult life. This fact alone displays the simple truth that Elizabeth was a remarkable woman. Her long reign was due to her extreme popularity with her people, as described by Phyllis Rackin:

"Queen Elizabeth brought exceptional political skills to her office, and during the years when Shakespeare was growing up, she was consolidating her remarkable and unprecedented popularity among the vast majority of her subjects.... Queen Elizabeth actively courted her subjects with annual royal progresses through the countryside, so the people who lined the roads could see and speak directly with their monarch during these slow processions." (30)

Besides her popularity, Elizabeth was a very capable politician, especially in regards to religion. After the tug-of-war between the Catholic church and the Protestants (instigated by Elizabeth's father Henry VIII and continued by her sister and predecessor Mary I), Elizabeth created was is called the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, a bill passed by Parliament that reaffirmed the Church of England's separation from Rome as well as allowing aspects from both Protestantism and Catholicism. Of all western European rulers during this time, she was the only one to solve this religious conflict. Says historian Richard Dunn, "This achievement alone is a good enough reason for nominating Elizabeth the ablest politician of her time" (Rackin 32).

Although this is a very brief look at Queen Elizabeth, even the barest of examinations show that she was undoubtedly a huge part of the culture and society of England during Shakespeare's life. Elizabeth was a patron of the arts (discussed briefly here), and Shakespeare would almost certainly have been influenced by her presence in the theaters of London, thus resulting in writing female characters that would have appealed to his queen.

For a more complete summary of Queen Elizabeth's life, visit the Wikipedia page.

Works Cited

Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. Print.