We're Always Proving Who We Are...

Day #29: Your Favorite Sonnet
Y'know, I was composing a whole long post about how I like 18 ("Shall I compare thee...") and 23 ("As an unperfect actor on the stage...") and 14 ("Not from the stars...") and 38 ("How can my Muse want...") and the language and all, before coming around to my actual favourite, 121. And then a combination of the Edo fiasco and deep frustration at this season of Eureka kind of took away my interest in the delicate sonnets for the moment and leaves me with this.

'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
When not to be, receives reproach of being,
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed,
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing.
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses, reckon up their own,
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.

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Day #27: Your favorite couplet
Honestly, my favourite couplet is from the end of Sonnet 121.
Unless this general evil they maintain
All men are bad and in their badness reign

I have no excuse.

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Continuing on!

( Saturday Night )

( Sunday, All Shakespeare, All the Time )

( Throne of Blood )

( Sunday Afternoon )

I am returned from Ashland. Several hundred dollars poorer, with a dozen and a half new books and a fabulous satin skirt and six flavours of Moose Munch. I am exhausted. I will (probably) recap the weekend tomorrow, whenever I drag my sorry butt out of bed. Meantime, I am making sure I have all the tv I missed, drinking cider, and preparing to pass out. If you're dying for Ashland news, lornelover has posts about parts of it.

Day #23: A Role You've Never Played But Would Love to Play
There are three big ones. Beatrice - Much Ado About Nothing (which is never gonna happen, because fat girls don't get Shakespeare leads), Paulina - Winter's Tale (could happen. The snarky wise woman is sometimes an option), and the Chorus - Henry V. I would be ecstatic to play the Chorus. It's a smallish part, or at least not a huge part, but so many gorgeous words... *sigh*

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Day #21: An Overrated Play
It's hard for me to say that any Shakespeare play is overrated. From an educational standpoint, I think Lear taught in high school is taught too early. I find it very odd that Merchant of Venice and Othello are among the most taught plays, they're such issue plays. But that's just me.

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Day #19: Your Favorite Movie Version of a Play
If you haven't already guessed this, you haven't been paying attention. Yes, Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing. (Followed by Branagh's Henry V and Branagh's Love's Labour's Lost, which I know no one likes, but I like it. It's frothy and decadent and silly and I love the way he set it and yes, I think he cast it fairly badly, but there's still a lot to love. Like Nathan Lane! Who doesn't love Nathan Lane? Anyway... Yes. I like the way Branagh directs a Shakespeare on film. I even liked his full four hour Hamlet.)
So yes. Returning to the actual favourite movie. It's gorgeous. The setting is stunning. Ken and Emma are delicious as Beatrice and Benedick and it makes me so ANGRY that he left her for freakin' Helena Bonham Carter what kind of an idiot does that?! Kate Beckinsale is adorable and shy and precious as Hero. Robert Sean Leonard... Can I just say that I loved him before he was House's boyfriend? I fell for him SO HARD in this movie. (Yes, I know now that Claudio is kind of a big old jerkface, but RSL is so lovely, especially in the young awkward lovers bits) Brian Blessed is brilliant and blustery. Derek Jacobi's boyfriend whose name escapes me at the moment (Richard Clifford) is perfectly sneery as Conrad. Michael Keaton is utterly fantastically ridiculous as Dogberry (This was my first experience with Michael Keaton and it warped me completely. I can't watch him as Batman without going "Dogberry as Batman? What?") Denzel Washington is so regal and lovely, even if he too is a bit of an ass. Richard Briers is so beautifully dignified and then totally undignified as Leonato. And I even almost don't care that Keanu is Keanu. Oh! And Emma's mum is wildly wonderful as Ursula and tiny adorable Imelda Staunton as Margaret! Who knew she would grow up to be Dolores Umbridge? Seriously, this movie is on my list of things that everyone ever should see. Also Patrick Doyle's score is fantastic, it has these soaring peaks of joy and then the dark somber trauma that just... I love Patrick Doyle scores. I'm delighted he got tangled up with Ken and Emma's pictures. (Though Gosford Park is actually my all time favourite Doyle score.) Hey nonny nonny!

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Day #17: Your favorite speech

Damn, and I thought the early questions were hard. There are so many choices...

The first act chorus from Henry V? "His mother was a votaress of my order" from Midsummer? The epilogue or "Our revels are now ended" from Tempest? "What studied torments tyrant hast for me" from Winter's Tale? "I have of late but wherefore I know not lost all my mirth" from Hamlet? The Queen Mab speech from R&J? "Now is the winter of our discontent" from Richard III? "Go not to these wars" from Henry IV 2?

All speeches I love. (Yes, several are VERY well known. Turns out, there's a reason some Shakespeare is very well known) But ultimately it comes down to a tie between two speeches.
( Which are under the cut )

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I've written two out of three full research proposals to send off to my supervisor tomorrow, to let her choose. For the third, about cross-gendered casting, I'm all amuddle about which character would make for the most interesting paper. (I think they'd all be fascinating. What do y'all think?

[Poll #1600403]


::Edit::
For my further thoughts on each character's benefit in genderswap, see this comment

Day #13: Your Favorite Romantic Scene
Much Ado, 5.2. "Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably." It's a meeting of equals in a way that most Shakespearean "love scenes" aren't. She makes her own choices. He makes his own choices. They respect each other, they know each other well enough to be able to tease and joke and still convey the fact that they care deeply about each other. It's a great scene.

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