"Missing scenes from Season Four" discussion

[Silverbullet]

Dead in here. Guess the weekend isn't over. Monday night it will be.

Auguments. Alelou, I wish you had Trip advise T'Pol to read Shakespere's Sonnets. (A guilty pleasure of mine) She would get a better idea of the majesty of Shakespearean language and the Romance in them. Heck, you could have Trip red them to T'Pol as an introduction to the great language.

One problem I had, and this may have been the same elsewhere, was my introduction to Shakespere was in Tragedy. Macbeth, Lear, Othello, etc. Not the comedies. I had those tragedies forcefed to me and the rest of the class. It wasn't until years later that I read things other than the tragedies. As I say, the Sonnets are a favorite of mine. BTW, I once had to record Shylock's soliquay (sp). I didn't do it any favors.

SB

[Alelou]

I actually agree with you, SilverBullet. I think that feeding high school kids on a pure diet of Shakespeare's tragedies only gives them more reasons to hate Shakespeare. If I had my druthers, I think I'd take them from As You Like It or A Midsummer Night's Dream to Romeo and Juliet (which at least has teen sex going for it), then The Tempest, and finally Hamlet. Though I could see throwing The Taming of the Shrew in there, or Much Ado About Nothing. And I would absolutely ban Julius Caesar from high school. It's too damned dry.

I was wondering how to give Trip any plausible Shakespeare background, but I figured a guy who loves old movies as much as he does, and can talk about "subtext" in comic books, could conceivably have learned to be a fan of the bard. But sonnets? I don't know. I don't assume that he'd think much of poetry at all. But you never know.

[Silverbullet]

Alelou, as I say, they are a guilty pleasure of mine. Trip is educated, regardless of the Abomination, I am fairly sure he stumbled across poetry at one time or another. He is sensitive enough to show he can cry. So I also think that he might like some poetry. Course that could just be me.

Like the way our story is going now that we are out of home.

SB

[panyasan]

I still think very fondly of my English teacher at high school. We had one book with the title "English and American literature" with different writers and pieces from their stories. I remember one story of Poe we had to read. Any way, the teacher and the book really made me enthusiastic about English and American literature. Wish I could find that book somehow, because I would gladly read it again.

[Weeble]

The Bard, rare genius.

The true problem with Shakespeare is that the only way to understand the plays is to see them or perhaps be in them. I am fortunate to have nearly all of them and have seen many both live or on film. Live is the best. As a youngster I was drug off to Stratford Ontario annually where they still put the plays on all summer. You cannot imagine how funny the comedies are unless you are in the audience.

Alelou i like your list, As You Like It is my favorite with A Midsummer's Night Dream next.

Oh ya liked the As the Augments Turn thought....

As an aside, anyone out there like Chaucer...

Weeble

[Silverbullet]

Weebie, there is a town in Oregon which puts on the plays all Summer long. It is quite popular. Rooms are boked up during that time. Many people come back every year to see new plays or old favorites. Not sure how long it will hang on as I have my doubts about the young and Shakespere.

SB

[Alelou]

The young need to be in the audience for a hysterical version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and then they'll figure out what the deal is. We usually have a play from a local Berkshire theater company every spring at my college, and I give extra credit to students who attend it. About half of them are surprised to actually enjoy it, a few already love Shakespeare beforehand, and the rest just shake their heads in disbelief that people voluntarily subject themselves to this stuff. But they haven't done a comedy yet. I wish they would.

What's not to love about Chaucer? But you really have to be an English major to be forced to read that anymore, don't you? I had a professor who had passionately specialized in that period, so I guess I was lucky. He insisted that we learn how to pronounce it the way Chaucer would have... Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote / The droghte of March hath perced to the roote...

(I remember that when I was in the Netherlands, the language sounded a lot like that old Chaucerian English to me -- like something I OUGHT to understand. But I couldn't, of course.)

[Transwarp]

But you really have to be an English major to be forced to read that anymore, don't you? I had a professor who had passionately specialized in that period, so I guess I was lucky. He insisted that we learn how to pronounce it the way Chaucer would have

Obviously no engineering majors in that class. Otherwise the first question would have been: "Uh... how do you KNOW that's how Chaucer pronounced it..?"

[Alelou]

I'm pretty sure he explained that, at length. We eventually got to be careful not to ask too many questions like that....

Anyway, the poetry always scanned better when we read it the way he told us to. All those pronounced e's at the ends of words add an extra syllable AND a rhyme: Pil-grim-maj-eh instead of pilgrimmage...

Reminds me of the year I spent in the UK and my horror at discovering that Don Juan was pronounced "Don Jew-an" -- but really, the poem doesn't scan without it. Then there's the Shakespearean "Jake-wes" for what we and the French would call "Jacques."

[Silverbullet]

Alelou, names in England can sometimes throw a person. For instance in one area Beuchamp is pronounced Beechum. Reading is pronounced redding. Interesting though.

SB

[Cogito]

... and you'll never guess how we pronounce "Marylebone" or "Cholmondeley".

[Silverbullet]

Cogito, bet they are something else.

I used to adore the names of Pubs. some were great. "Hog in the pound" Guienea (sp) in the piggy" things like that.

SB

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

... and you'll never guess how we pronounce "Marylebone" or "Cholmondeley".

Due to a sometimes odd interest in British colonial history I happen to know that the latter is pronounced "Chumly".

[Kotik]

Reminds me of the year I spent in the UK and my horror at discovering that Don Juan was pronounced "Don Jew-an" -- but really, the poem doesn't scan without it. Then there's the Shakespearean "Jake-wes" for what we and the French would call "Jacques."

Well, let me start with "Don Jew-an" being completely and utterly wrong. It's pronounced "Don-Khouan", with a hard fricative Kh, like the russian X or the German Ch in 'Mach' and Jacques is pronouned 'Jukk' with the J as in 'Jelly'.

[Weeble]

Transwarp,

Of course I am an Engineer, Georgia Tech. Two of the english electives were Chaucer 1 and 2. Took 'em both and loved them. The only way to get an "A" was to take a 1 on 1 oral exam with the prof in middle english. Tried it once and needless to say got B's both quarters.

I wouldn't concern myself about Shakespeare fading in this modern world. I mean if you have ever seen "Puck" the character played well and in person you'll get it.

Weeble
aka Steelchaser