Final Paper

It's safe to say, I'm sad to see this class end. But considering the depths reached and connections made in everyone's final presentations, I guess it is time. I feel like I've made some pretty big leaps this semester, major leaps, actually, considering I didn't even know the plot of King Lear before I took this class. Shameful, I know. But shameful no more.

Shakespeare, you're no longer a big ol' fancy-speaking meanie. I know your tricks. I'm on to you. And we will meet again. Mark my words. There's still a lot of unfinished business between us.

On another note, here's my final paper:

                                                  Shakespeare and the Sublime

The beauty, complexity, and mimetic capability of Shakespeare’s language and associations lend to what it is we find so fascinating and unending in his work. We may measure the worth of a text, and indeed all of art, through its ability to elevate our senses and to signify universal truths. Though all of Shakespeare’s work exemplifies the aesthetic, it is in his final plays where he creates the greatest sensation of the sublime and elevation of the intellect. This is achieved through his juxtaposition of the aesthetically dignified to that which we find displeasing, painful, and even grotesque. As we are experiencing this sublimity we are simultaneously engaging our negative capabilities and accepting the beauty created in the space of our own imaginations.

In his chapter regarding Cymbeline in The Invention of the Human, Bloom speaks of aesthetic dignity “as the only consolation we should seek or find in Shakespeare” (631). He is absolutely right. If we take nothing else away from Shakespeare, let it be an appreciation for his command of language and the space it creates for his readers to imagine and invent ourselves. Aesthetic dignity is indicative of the space exists between a readily comprehensible and available reality, and that of higher truth and greater existence (which we sense but cannot grasp through any means other than the aesthetic). As I see it, aesthetic dignity very much depends upon the mimetic capabilities of an author, to produce in his readers those visceral recognitions that speak to universal nature and human experience.

Beauty is what we would typically associate with something regarded as exceptionally aesthetic or aesthetically pleasing. In his theory of negative capability, Keats suggests “that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration”. Many of us are content reciting and appreciating Shakespeare’s exceptionally poetic verse, but he wishes to provide us not only a with glimpse of beauty, but to experience it for ourselves—in the realm of the sublime.  

We might not view these somewhat incongruous final plays as aesthetically pleasing in their entirety, but they all contain aesthetically dignified elements and do entice our sensibilities and ultimately conjure the sublime. Drawing from Eighteenth century British philosophy, it is important to view the sublime as an aesthetic quality not separate from or indifferent to beauty, but as an extension of beauty into a higher realm. The sublime is not solely constituted in awe-inspiring, sensual entities, but also mingles with horror, fear, and vastness. The sublime is not only born, in part, out of greatness and abyss, but propagates it.

We find the sublime in the juxtaposition between the elevated aesthetic and the absurd, the beautiful and the grotesque. In Pericles this opposition is embodied in Imogen who, according to Bloom, “ought to be in a play worthier of her aesthetic dignity”. She alone represents the inwardness that exemplified Shakespeare’s strengths, in a play that is muddled with a tiresomely complex plot and unredeemable characters. In contrast, Caliban is a highly grotesque character acting within a succinct plot, whose speech in ACT III.2 perhaps constitutes the pinnacle of sublimity in the whole play. Not only is this speech “Be not afeared: the isle is full of noises” exceptionally aesthetic in itself, but is compounded by the fact it is spoken from the most base, detestable character in all of Shakespeare.  

From the union of these dual qualities of repulsion and attraction, the sublime is achieved. The process of reaching the sublime is incalculable and evades imitation, and therefore our understanding of it constitutes an abyss between the reality of the sublime and the language that is invoked to create it. It would appear that Shakespeare mimics this abyss in the confusion and disbelief he generates with the sudden introduction of recognition scenes and outlandish resurrections in the four late romances we studied. The reader is forced to confront the absence of reason in those instances and inject faith in the mysterious and unknowable.

Keats suggests that a great poet (and I would like to extend this to a great reader as well) accepts that not everything can be resolved. Ironically, this idea combats the abundance of recognition and resolution that formulates at the end of all Shakespeare’s late romances. Perhaps, though, that resolve is not so literal as we may initially read it. He leads us through ridiculous plots wrought with tragedy and loss, simply so we experience the ‘negative pain’ as Edmund Burke terms it, or the delight we experience at the removal of pain. It is almost as if we experience kenosis and plerosis all in one play. At the end of King Lear there is no ‘filling’ that occurs, because everyone is dead (or overwhelmed by it)! All we are left with is the redemption, and that’s a tough consolation for tragedy. However, in The Winter’s Tale when Leontes snaps back into reality and realizes what he’s lost, the deux ex machina timely descends and alleviates his pain; flooding the play with delight. Shakespeare consciously mixes the absurd with the plerosis of emotion creating a rational disconnect and in turn a space for us to exercise our negative capability.

To experience the sublime we must accept the mingling of the tragic with the suddenly comedic and romantic. It is difficult for the unwashed masses to admire the later of Shakespeare’s plays, because they are not conventional or familiar, so therefore ambiguous and difficult to digest. But if we can suspend our impulse to seek pleasure in cohesion and familiarity and accept the unknown as an intentional convention, we may thrive in its darkness and ambiguity. Though there is resolve at the end, all of the forces are not explained, and therefore lies the ambiguity that we must embrace.

The sublime in Shakespeare is not merely achieved through the aesthetics of his verse, but by his manipulation of our sensibilities and intellect through juxtapositions of the aesthetically dignified with the grotesque or problematic. People say that Shakespeare tired of form and convention, which is evident, but not to the degree that he sacrificed his masterful aesthetics. Rather, he transformed them to create even more complex sensations, for nowhere else is the potential for our imaginations to conjure truths and challenge our notions of the aesthetic more accessible than in his final plays. Riddled with ambiguities, Shakespeare does not challenge his readers to search for resolve or finite answers, but to revel in the infinite capacity of their own intellect and human emotions.

Thanks everyone for a great semester!

Mis-mything Shakespeare

I really identified with what Jaime spoke in her presentation about yesterday: that it is difficult to get the 'inside jokes' and fully understand Shakespeare if you are not familiar with mythology. I wouldn't consider myself completely unfamiliar with mythology, I've read Ovid (though it was a few years ago), am familiar with the general temperaments and roles of the gods in Greek/Roman life and literature, and comprehend the significance of myths like 'Demeter and Persephone' or 'Venus and Adonis'. But I would still consider myself unprepared to understand even 25% of the mythic allusions in Shakespeare.

I attribute this feeling to a couple of things. First of all, at this point in the semester I had expected myself to have the ability to read through one of Shakespeare's plays and spot most of the mythic elements. Clearly, I still cannot do this. I also thought that rereading some Ovid would maybe help, but this was not the case either. The whole thing is a little frustrating, because I constantly feel like I'm missing something. We've said it before in this class, you can't understand Shakespeare unless you understand his Ovidian and Mythological roots.

This is part of the reason I appreciate Ashley's blog so much, and why she is doing an exceptional job. She takes a concept like the 'Gnostic myth of Sophia' or as she explores in her paper that 'Cordelia is the vessel meant to hold the sacred alphabet of poetry', and expands on it by integrating fantastic quotes and discussing it in context of the plays we've read. More than anything, she reveals her own thought process in a very accessible yet eloquent way. It is clear that much of her inspiration comes from Ted Hughes (as is the purpose of our secondary texts), but the thought processes and connections she incorporates in the blogs are very much her own.

Through reading not only Ashley's blog, but many others, I've realized how unrealistic it is to expect ourselves to uncover all of Shakespeare's subtle and even obvious mythic allusions. In truth, the simple fact that we are aware of the prevalence of mythology within Shakespeare probably catapults us past many people who 'think' they are familiar with Shakespeare.

I've decided it's reasonable to satisfy myself with the few mythic elements I've become aware of in "Mything Shakespeare". After all, we've got to start somewhere. And at this point, for me at least, it is definitely necessary to have Dr. Sexson and the secondary texts outline them. For myth in Shakespeare consists not only of direct mention of gods and goddesses (Hymen, Diana, Venus, Poseidon) and mythological rapes, but of subtle echoes (like the cowslip or cinque-spotted mole).

Ultimately, I believe I have difficulty in picking out pieces of mythology in Shakespeare, because Shakespeare IS mythology. I was 'missing Shakespeare" by thinking too narrowly about "Mything Shakespeare". But I think I've begun to grasp it now.

Presentation magic

I have been so impressed with the presentations that everyone has given these last two class periods. Bravo! Yes, even if they were pulled together at the last minute, which you truly couldn't suspect any group of doing. Maybe that is my suspension of disbelief talking. I don't know. But they were all wonderfully done.

Part of the reason I think I've enjoyed them so much, is because seeing these plays performed manifests an experience that is worlds apart from what one encounters when simply reading a play. Whether a group decided to focus on one scene in Shakespearean language, or summarize the entire play in 'dude language', the effect was the same. We were introduced to new and unique interpretations of Shakespeare. Perhaps the presentations made it easier to understand Shakespeare's humor, or the true purpose of his 'nothing' dialogues, or how it is so easy for the characters of a play to be fooled by a simple disguise or costume.


For me, the chance to watch my peers act out Shakespeare helped me to appreciate the theatrical aspect of his works. The dynamics between characters, their facial expressions, stage directions, and overall enthusiasm brought the plays to life. This whole semester I've focused my attention on the poetic dialogue, the double meaning in words, and efforts to detect any reference to the mythological (which were largely unproductive and somewhat in vain, because as we all know, the mythic is Shakespeare, it is a constant echo that reverberates throughout every speech, every line, and every word. But that is another blog) in the that plays we've read.

But now I'm seeing Shakespeare as something that can be both enjoyed and toiled over. Am I finally starting to resent a little less that monstrous red book that makes me dread hauling my backpack around campus on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Is it appropriate that this whole time I have been equating the magnitude and weight of Shakespeare with the weight of that book? Perhaps.

But of course, as soon as I feel the veil of ignorance lifted from my eyes, the burden of consciousness sets in. And I know I'm successfully nearing the end of a Sexson class, because I feel just as confused and tortured as I did at the beginning. Oh the cycle of Sexson, how wonderful yet unbreakable you are.

Aesthetic Dignity

Harold Bloom constantly uses the phrase "aesthetic dignity" throughout The Invention of the Human and throughout many of his other works. But despite seeing it repeated over and over, I’m not sure I have a grasp on what "aesthetic dignity" fully means. 

From what I gather, it has something to do with the aesthetic worth of a text, which exists in the structures and ambiguities of language. When I was searching the term, I stumbled upon an excerpt in Bloom's F. Scott Fitzgerald that related the aesthetics of Scott Fitzgerald to Keats theory of Negative Capability, and that helped things click for me.

Relating the idea of "aesthetic dignity" to Shakespeare's plays, I can understand how the beauty and complexity of his language and associations lend to what it is we find so fascinating and unending in his work. That is to say, the space in which we find ourselves that exists between a readily comprehensible and available reality, and that of higher truth and greater existence; which we sense but cannot grasp through any means other than the aesthetic. 

In his discussion of Cymbeline, Bloom says that "this poem is a dark comfort, but its extraordinary aesthetic dignity is the only consolation we should seek or find in Shakespeare" (631). This quote helped to realize where the merit lies in these last four plays. They are either muddled with plot or contain no plot at all (which has similar implications), they contain characters that embody less complex personalities or are merely spirits, and extraordinary and absurd events occur at an alarmingly frequent rate. But the ambiguity that underlies it all is exactly what makes them so fantastic.

Shakespeare composed these plays intending to force us to see through and above. These are naked plays; it is easiest to cast of superfluities and transcend the trifles of plot and realistic characterization. What we are left with is purely aesthetic. 

We have to accept uncertainty and ambiguity for their aesthetic power. Keats says “the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration”. Negative capability implies the ability to appreciate or understand that which is not implicitly there, but outlined through speech that creates the space for it to exist in our imaginations; speech and form that is elevated to the highest aesthetic.

Aesthetic dignity.

 In these plays that many perceive as problematic or inferior to his earlier work, we are most able to revel in Shakespeare’s aesthetic quality. This is the genius of Shakespeare that shines through these plays; to transcend reality while simultaneously embodying elements that are more real than anything that could be described in realistic terms. In them we find that he truth cannot be accessed through the scrutiny of plot. The true play is not the play at all, but lies within that which is omitted, in that which we discover through our own transcendence and appreciation of Shakespeare’s aesthetic prowess. 

Perhaps I am looking at a potential paper topic...

A quick thought on Roberto's blog

I was just reading Roberto's blog, and he mentioned a few thoughts on Turner and the capacity of the mind that sparked a thought for me. He talks about the mind as a creative device rather than a storage device, mentioning how perhaps rather than encompassing the entire universe in our minds, the creative universe of our mind actually devises infinite ways to play out the same stories--so in that sense we are not encompassing the seemingly infinite universe, but rather creating it. (I hope I'm interpreting that correctly Roberto)


Deviating slightly from Roberto's point, it struck me that maybe we ARE able to contain the entire universe in our minds, because what appears to us as infinite, is in fact just a few things played out in an interminable number of ways-- which we find mirrored in the evolving and limitless possibilities that exist within Shakespeare's plays. If we can capture those few ideas/situations/plots/whatever they are from which everything else originates, then we have essentially encompassed the universe.


By contemplating seemingly inconclusive questions like "what does one truly need?", we are in fact sloughing off layers of constructed meaning and importance that have accumulated over thousands of years, to uncover the elemental, the origins, the truth. If we begin internalizing questions like this, then we have already embarked on that not-so-hopelessly-impossible task of containing the entire universe in our minds.

Just a bunch of hogwash and hooey

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but whenever I visit an online dictionary site I get ridiculously distracted by all links to 'words of the day' and 'word games' and 'word blogs'. I typically forget what I came to search for in the first place, and wind up taking some stupid quiz or playing with flashcards. I attribute this to both my nerdy and procrastinatory tendencies.  

In any case, I was on the Merriam-Webster website yesterday, and found the link to a list they made of 'Top 10 Rare and Amusing Insults'. Score. They're awesome, and reminiscent of my favorite insult in the exchange between Kent and Oswold..."whoreson cullionly barber-monger". I've listed them below, but I'll also give you the link, because they provide you with definitions, along with context and information about the words. Ahem...

Cockalorum
Lickspittle
Smellfungus
Snollygoster
Ninnyhammer
Mumpsimus
Milksop
Hobbledehoy
Pettifogger
Mooncalf

I think I might pick a fight just so I can try some of these out (though I can imagine it would end quickly with the other person walking away stunned and disgusted, possibly laughing, muttering something about "those weirdo English majors" under their breath).

There are plenty more word lists on the site, and I clicked on one called 'User Submitted Words' and found it to basically be a bunch of neologisms that people have thought up and submitted. It's almost better than the list of insults, including words like 'drizzmal' and 'e-cquaitance'.

(there was also a list of phrases from Shakespeare, but I thought that one was silly, so don't bother yourself with it)

Fellow word nerds, enjoy!

The aftermath

Well. If we can take one thing away from the class quiz today (besides, of course, a relatively disappointing score) it is a realization of the depth of the texts we are dealing with. This isn't too say that we weren't aware from the beginning of their complexity and depth. We were well aware. So aware that many of us probably just did a little skimming, or dare I say didn't read at all, due to their intimidating, greek-word laden, content. In a more likely scenario, I'm sure many people did a fairly thorough reading once through. Just once, maybe going back through to highlight a couple key points or terms. But that should be adequate, right?

 Not so much. Considering that it is hardly the bold terms, famous quotes, or major points that we come to discuss in class, but rather the "passage that nobody ever pays attention to" or that obscure word that means 80 different things, or a mewling and puking infant...it is fruitless to do a quick, single read-through. Or a second. Or maybe even a third.  To suck the marrow from these texts we must constantly revisit them. As this course progresses, so to will the way we interpret the essays of Frye, and the mind-bending meanderings of Turner. I won't say anything about Hughes here because those of you who have chosen to read him are far braver than I. 

We need to live and breath these texts, allowing them to constantly invade our consciousness. We need to not only read Bloom, but to use him as a pillow when we go to sleep at night, hoping that by some grace of the literature god an osmotic process will take place and we will wake up knowing exactly how Shakespeare invented the human.

Perhaps this seems extreme. But the point is, it is not enough to merely READ Shakespeare's plays and all of the secondary works, or to internalize the theories laid out on the page. You have to find things that resonate with you personally, become familiar with the texts, and then expand or grow outside of them. That is how the genius connections are made, and seemingly insignificant passages are transformed into something greater and more symbolic than even the most oft quoted lines in Shakespeare. Of course, those are always important too, but until the day Sexson makes up a test without exceedingly erratic terms and references, I think I'll stick to the unpopular and peripheral stuff.