|
There are 31 blog entries within the category of School Work
British Literature I English 2322 T-TH
April 12th, 2001
The Reality of Shakespeare's World
Extra Credit Paper
Shakespeare in Love
I found that Shakespeare in Love was a fantastic interpretation of sixteenth century London as we have studied in class. In addition to the movie representing the time period quite well, I feel that the script and especially the actors did a wonderful job of telling the story of Mr. Shakespeare.
In order to analyze this movie, I think it must be stated that the movie touches on more subjects than just Shakespeare's life and playwriting career. It depicts very emotionally the idea that women were not part of the theatre, and were certainly not to dress up as men as Viola does (played by Gwyneth Paltrow). Of course, I say that this is emotional because it depicts how a person, especially of this time, could be so fascinated with the idea of acting that they could risk not only embarrassment to themselves but even punishment. As we progress into the movie, we learn that Viola is to marry a Lord under the blessing of the Queen of England, Queen Elizabeth. As we discussed in class, regarding Anne of the Thousand Days, when you are to be married under consent of the King or Queen, you are married. It is not necessarily a topic up for discussion. It is in this regard that movie strongly depicts how powerful love can be, and perhaps should be. While Viola is already engaged in breaking the law acting under the name of Thomas Kent, she has an affair with Shakespeare which despite a previous ruler, Henry VIII, was not a pleasantly looked upon event at this time, especially regarding the woman. They did an exquisite job depicting the severity of these actions in the play and make the thoughts of the consequences between the characters seem very real.
I reviewed parts of the movie on the DVD and also with some friends of mine who had seen the movie before to try and find errors in it. Not so much errors of speech, but rather anachronisms, something that I always try to look for in movies not set in this time period. In a two-hour movie I was only able to find two of these with the help of my girlfriend. I have studied Shakespeare before in my day both independently to an extent, and more so in classes. As trivial as it may seem, I have been told that Shakespeare did not write his plays with regards to scenes and much less acts yet in the movie this is used. I checked up on this and it seems to be a solid fact. After doing some research, I also discovered that another anachranous part of this movie was the discussion of tobacco plantations, which did not get going until the early to mid 1600s. Fortunately enough this information coincided with my History class and since the movie takes place in the very late sixteenth century, I find it difficult to believe that tobacco plantations in the new land would have been a discussion.
|
British Literature I English 2322 T-TH
February 27th, 2001
My Newly Lost (Iambic Pentameter)
Short Assignment #3
I hope you've been well for the last few days
I do not want you to feel you should cry,
So here I will write nothing more to you
Just short of a hello and a goodbye;
I want you to know that I'd love write more
I would spend hours and hours on end,
But not to have my own heart's meaning lost
And wind up as an old forgotten friend;
These words I write for your beautiful blues
And for your mind I will write them to dream,
I hope them the same dreams I have for you
I dream only of my dreams to be seen.
|
Luther Elmore
History 1301
Assignment #2
The American Crisis
As I read through the article Paine wrote two hundred and twenty-five years ago, I found that imagining myself in that time period is impossible. When I read the way that Paine described other countries (mainly England), and the way that he and certainly others felt about groups of people, a sense that we have it really easy came over me.
As Paine gets not halfway into the article, he begins describing his feelings towards the Tories with very expressive adjectives. The simplest of all these adjectives is that they are cowards – plain and simple. One might not be overly offended these days when called a coward, however, I imagine that in 1776 when courage and love were the only two things a man really owned, taking one away from him meant a lot. Paine goes on to describe Toryism as nothing but ‘servile, slavish, and interested fear’. I feel it is safe to say that he was not fond of the Tories.
As I got more and more into Paine’s article, I especially enjoyed his style of rhetoric in regards to encouraging the Americans of the time. In a nutshell, I felt that he wrote a very good English paper (as school would have lead me to believe). Paine describes advances that the militia has taken and will take upon the land and tells the Americans that losses are possible, no doubt about it. Upon doing so, he also assures them that hope should not be lost with these losses. He tells them as the British do one thing and furthermore succeed, they have the following options, and he then proceeds to list them. As an example, he describes that Howe may advance to Philadelphia, and upon doing so may take it over. He tells his readers that if he does not take it over, then they have been victorious and he is ‘ruined’. On the other hand, if he is successful the American armies can split into two and join forces – making it impossible for them both to be conquered (at the same time at least). In my mind, it is of course understood that his predictions and solutions were completely hypothetical. We must remind ourselves, however, that while they may have been hypothetical, they were still predictions and solutions to those predictions – and people in general rely on such things to remain happy and hopeful.
In a completely honest opinion of this text, I found it somewhat difficult to read. As mentioned above, I found impossible or near impossible at least to put myself in the shoes of someone reading this article in December of 1776. Nonetheless, I still found the article to be incredibly insightful to the time period, and very interesting reading because it has such historical content. I found the even more historical value in it through several paragraphs referencing Amboy. As it is, I spent the first seven years of my life in New Jersey and my father was born and raised in what is today South Amboy, thus making me very aware of the described area (200 years progressed of course). On a final note, I did bookmark the site of philosopher’s texts and would like to go back and read over some of Paine’s other articles. I often find myself scribing small philosophies of my own, and am rarely dissatisfied reading the philosophies of others, regardless of their opinions.
|
Luther Elmore
History 1301
Assignment #1
The Conquest of Columbus
"A journal worth exploring"
As noted in the first journal entries Columbus kept of their voyage, he kept two separate accounts of the distances that had been traveled. Looking back in history, this obviously proved favorable to him on the voyage, but one must ask – why? Similar to the time period that we are living in today, there were definite classes of people, whether we choose to acknowledge that today or not. Sailors of the time were certainly of the class of people we would know as ‘blue-collar’ workers, if not a shade below. It was only the admirals of the fleet (and a few select others chosen of the King and Queen) that possessed the intelligence to understand the latitude of this journey. Morals were certainly of importance on this voyage and what better way to keep the projected distance to the ‘Indies’ close to track then to throw out white lies to the crew. As most any modern text, book, or production will parody, our government certainly does not tell us everything that goes on throughout our continued exploration of space for example. They give us projected figures and this is all that we concern ourselves with, because it is what we are told. It gives us the clichéd parental expression that ‘we’re almost there’. Furthermore, it usually keeps us happy and anxiously waiting. I speculate that Columbus was using the same psychology on his crew. Curiously enough, I find it surprising that such information ever went past the King and Queen of Spain and that it is such a tale we can read about today.
Another interesting factor of this story was the way that Columbus described everything that he encountered, and even better, how he had an explanation for most all of it. It was most apparent as they sailed on the voyage and encountered mostly birds, but also crabs, whales, and even drift. Similar to a more modern explorer we know a great deal of, it seems that Columbus was almost acting like Darwin someday would in his classifications. He seemed to have an explanation for every creature that was seen whether it was one known to the Spaniards or not. Humorously enough, every creature that was encountered was believed to be only encountered x-leagues away from land, thus land must have always been nearby. These statements may have been a bit pretentious of Columbus to declare, especially to a man who would challenge a theory as bizarre as say: ‘The Earth if flat’. Nonetheless, it was another tactic to keep the moral of the men up (and most likely of Columbus himself). While Columbus was probably more willing to trade fairly with the natives then his men were, I think it is evident that he was happy to better-deal them. Still, one could argue that the natives, who had been accustomed to such commodities, found it favorable to possess a piece of glass, or a stain colored flag. Unfortunately like most, if not all other conquistadors of the time (if Columbus meets that status), the only thing that the natives lacked was Christian status. I think its safe to say that if we look back in time, problem after problem could have been avoided (especially with native tribes) had the explorers simply left religion alone.
If there was one thing that any one man of this time period wanted to possess, it was power and riches. As noted earlier, the blue-collar status of the sailors most likely led them to believe that they would never be powerful rulers, but this also led them to believe that with riches, they could live similar lifestyles. There’s no disputing the cause of most of the conquistadors of this time period – riches. Riches for them, riches for the country, and almost more importantly, riches for the King and Queen of the era. I am sure that in many of the sailor’s hearts, thoughts of gold and silver were the only things keeping them alive across the Atlantic. Gold led to the later conquering of the Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and most every other tribe of Central and South America. From a different perspective, it only made sense for Columbus to seek such wealth as an explorer. If he was to return to the islands, or seek new land in other places, he would have to return wealth. The America’s would have been of no use to the Spaniards had the commodities available not well exceeded the cost and dangers of the trip.
I found this extract to be very interesting in an overall sense. In the middle of the journal I felt that I was reading a monotonous story, but I suppose that my reading of it was nothing compared to the actual monotony of the voyage. Society enjoys asking the question (youths especially) that if you could go back into time, what time period would you like to live in. To this day I have honestly always answered around the 1450’s. I only wish that I could proposition our President to fund me on such an adventurous journey and to discover lands never found by the world as we know it. Fortunately the King and Queen did not take a republican stance upon this request (as I would now receive) and allowed such a wonderful history to be uncovered. I would love to have seen this article published in Spanish so that I could read it pre-translated. I simply feel that the non-translated details I would notice would add to the visualization of the story. Coincidentally, I feel that visualizing history is what makes it interesting to read.
|
Kevin Ludlow
Greg Hemmingway
SPANISH 312-L
COMPOSICIÓN - EL AEROPUERTO
Muchas cosas están pasando en este aeropuerto. Hay muchas personas differentes y hay muchas cosas ver. Por ejemplo, Pepe está muy atrasado al aeropuerto hoy. Está muy atrasado y es menos orginizado que Luis. Ahora mismo, Luis está enojado mientras Martín y Julia están esperando en la sala de espera. Hay una otra chica en este aeropuerto se llama Loli, y ella es más bonita que Julia. Es muy bueno que Loli esté yendo a Mexico porque Mexico es muy bonita tambien. Loli tiene un sombrero grande y a nos gusta el sombrero de Loli. Es muy malo que Julia le olvide su ropa intima pero está bien porque recomendemos que Julia visite el doctor de cosmetica. Porque el vuelo de Martín está lista salir, recomendemos que Martín mire el tiempo. Hay un hombre muy interesante en el aeropuerto se llama Pepe. A Nos gusta el bigote de Pepe pero Pepe está muy atrasado porque antes del aeropuerto, fumaba mota. Este mañana, Luis se emborracho y ahora está demasiado viajar por avíon.
|
Ayer, miré El Mariachi, una peliculá de Robert Rodriquez. Fue una peliculá muy interesante y lo me gusta mucho. Hizo en Mexico cerca de la casa de los padres de Robert Rodriquez en 1992. Robert Rodriquez hizo la peliculá para solo siete mil dolares.
En la peliculá, hay un mariachi (Carlos Gallardo), una chica muy bonita se llama Domino (Consuelo Gómez), y muchos hombres malos. El mariachi es un hombre muy guapo y él toca la guitarra muy bueno. El mariachi es muy similar a un de los hombres malos, Moco, y hay muchos personas que quieren matarse. El mariachi usa muchos armas escaparse de los hombres malos y los especiales efectos de este son muy divertido.
Es verdad que el mariachi es muy guapo, pero Domino es mucho mas bonita que él. Duspues trienta minutos en la peliculá, Domino encanta el mariachi y traiga ayudarlo. Ella trabaja en un bar y le dice que el mariachi puede tocar en el bar.
Recomiendo que todos los personas miren esta peliculá porque es muy bueno y es la prima peliculá de Robert Rodriquez. Es mas bueno si vas a la Universidad de Tejas porque es la escuela de Robert Rodquiez.
|
|
