Don Quixote - Part I: Prologue, Ch 1-6, 8-14, 52

The Quixote is 100 times easier to read than Hamlet.  Cervantes writes with a fun style and the enchantment of Quixote's character is captivating.  I love and hate the obvious (and most often humorous) contradictions that Cervantes litters the story with.  For Example, Part 1 Prologue:


(pg 12)   I'd have liked to give it to you plain and naked, undercoated by any prologue or the endless succession of sonnets, epigrams and eulogies that are usually put at the beginnings of books.


Cervantes then immediately includes 8 full pages of exactly what he said that he would hate to include!  And not just in the prologue - Cervantes uses sonnets, ballads and Latin throughout the the entire text that I've read so far!  I do, however, love how these elements add a feel for how a chivalrous man would have spoken back in the 'good ol days.  Quixote explains to Poncho in Chapter 8, (pg 145) that "Knights errant have always known and still must know about everything... ... for there were knights errant in centuries past who would stop to preach a sermon or deliver a speech in the middle of a fair..."

To help illustrate the state of mind that Quixote is in, the part in Chapter 8 where he mistakes the windmills for the giants that stole his books does well.

(pg 66)  ...they spent that night under some trees, and from one of them Don Quixote tore a dead branch that might almost serve as a lance, and fastened on to it the iron head that he'd taken off the broken one.

Quixote tells this story to Poncho about a knight who'd lost his sword in battle and replaced it with the trunk of an oak tree.  To follow suit, Quixote finds a dead branch, one likely to break at its first chance, to replace the lance that he had broken while attacking windmills.  A dead branch from some unknown tree that won't withstand a single blow will perfectly suit Quixote - and continue to paint the picture of his delightful lunacy to the reader.

Class Notes

Baroque - Action, motion, more realistic (focus drawn to good, bad, ugly).  Presence based, all about emotion and feeling.  Involves new techniques.  Even in Arcadia, death exists!  Crappy stuff happens, and sometimes you just can't explain it!  Digs deeper into feelings and the asking of tough questions.  Paintings were often crowded with people - feels like a movement.

Renaissance - Uplifting ideas, ideal looks and atmosphere.  Meaning based culture - find knowledge and solve problems, perfect triangles, etc trying to reach perfection through meaning --> utopia.

Renaissance - Perfect clothing, perfect bodies.  Baroque - gritty, torn clothing, dirty faces.

The moist detached person is the artist, so that they can create art. - Ortega.

Self Portraits - Knowing yourself, seeing yourself in different situations.

Quixote, "Know thyself, which is the hardest kind of knowledge that may be imagined."

Hinckley, "Find a quiet place and look into yourself."

Suffering - 

Latter-day Saints have a complicated relationship with suffering... We have hope that everything is going to work out, however, we have the need to feel pain...  What are your views of optimism?  Has God prepared a perfect package of suffering for you?

Hamlet IV, V

Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting,

That would not let me sleep: methought I lay

Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly,

And prais'd be rashness for it, let us know,

Our indiscretion sometime serves us well

When our deep plots do pall, and that should learn us

There's a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew them how we will. (V.ii.4-11) I liked this phrase because it helped me understand Hamlet's views on destiny a little bit better and make sense of his behavior.  A large portion of Hamlet's action really was in-action.  He didn't come out and tell other's about his father's murder because the informant was a ghost...  He loves Ophelia but doesn't really put any effort into her...  He didn't kill Claudius when he had the chance to because he was praying and didn't want to risk sending him to heaven...   Hamlet kind of just lets things happen around him - and I think that in part it's because he believes that everyone has a destiny and so (partly) it doesn't matter what he does because these people are going to get what's coming to them no matter what... I did some reading on Shakespeare and what he was happening in his life around the time that he wrote Hamlet to maybe see if there was any insight as to Hamlet's state of mind.  It turns out that Shakespeare had lost a son right around the time that he was writing Hamlet.  I had previously thought that Hamlet was a mastermind because he was brilliant and was a very good actor.  Now, after having watched Kenneth Branagh's version and learning that Shakespeare was going through his own tragedy, I think that Hamlet swerves back and forth between insanity and genius.

Class Notes

• Renaissance - Venice is wealthy and can afford to get into art.  Trade booms allow tomato and potatoes to be shipped from the 'new world.'
• Judging Art - Instead of simply saying that you like a piece of art, say, "it speaks to me."  AKA, I get it, I get what DaVinchi is telling me...  What does this mean?  How does it make you feel?  What's the purpose?
• Change in time period often reflects and correlates with a shift in the Meaning/Presence Pendulum.
• Brunalesky designs dome for church - kicks off the renaissance.  Also discovers linear perspective (road disappearing into the horizon).
• Gothic cathedrals are ginormous and give the feeling that the you are so small in comparison to everything...
• Raffael - Triangles, Pyramid schemes in his paintings, human elements.
• School of Athens - Looking into Rafael's golden age.  Famous artist, scientists, philosophers... all that had died by the time of the painting.  Rafael chose people he'd like to meet/hang out with. 
• Doc Mack - "...set aside the pieces of a culture that you don't understand or agree with and find the things of good report/praiseworthy."
• Hamlet - Hamlet's problem is that he doesn't act!  He sits on his decision fort so long that as a result, a lot of people die!

Hamlet I-III

Act II, Scene II

QUEEN GERTRUDE
"More matter, with less art.'

Or in other words - stop mucking about and just tell me!  Lord Polonius is explaining to the king and queen that their son Hamlet is mad and takes about 4 pages to do so.  After one particularly poetic and fluffy paragraph the queen tries to refocus Polonius by telling him to get to the meat of the story.  The part that drew my attention was how she addressed Polonius' fluff - she called it art.  She knew that oration was an art form, a skill, a talent!  Just like Moses in ancient times knew that public speaking was a huge asset when he called Aaron to be his speaker.  Today we call it Rhetoric, AKA the Art of Persuasion, because we scientifically know that there is value to the manipulation of language.

A second thought that I had about Polonius is that he was probably known for having a sly tongue.  The queen didn't wait long before calling quits to his lengthy explanation.  I remember a few friends from high school that could talk their ways out of anything.  You couldn't beat them in an argument, they could often convince teachers of reducing their work load, and they could rally people together like no other.  These kids were gifted with the ability of language.


Act II, Scene I

HAMLET

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:"

I can't help but think of Bradley Whitford in Billy Madison whenever I hear the beginning Hamlet's 3 page monologue...  Eric Gordon (Whitford) has to compete against Billy in order to prevent Billy from inheriting his father's hotel company.  One of the final activities that the two compete in is acting out Hamlet's monologue.  The connection comes here: I didn't know enough about the play (until recently) to realize that the monologue is a contemplation over suicide...  So! The guinnesses that wrote Billy Madison timed it perfect when Eric Gordon chooses to do "to be, or not to be" for his monologue because the tides have started to turn against him in the competition.