Once Upon a Tudorista: The Story of Lizy's Paper

Portrait of Henry VIII and his family. 

 

It all began what feels like a very long time ago. Even I don't remember exactly how it started. I do know that I was beginning to see connections between the tragic events in the lives of the Tudor monarchs and similar events in Shakespeare's plays. I'd spent my life growing up reading about the Tudors, so why not write about them? 

With this topic in mind I began putting my ideas together. I started officially by searching for relevant scholarly articles. The best result I had was the paper "Shakespeare's King Richard III and the Problematics of Tudor Bastardy", which was an in-depth look at the connections between Richard's accusations of his relatives' bastardy and the tainted legitimacy of the Tudors. When I started drafting the paper I decided to narrow down the topic to just legitimacy. I still struggled, however, with my verbose writing and also my lack of sufficient scholarly sources. I was not very successful with social networks, but I tried posting my developing thesis statements on Facebook.

My grandfather passed away on the weekend of March 23rd, and the funeral was to be on the 30th. Deciding to head down to Arizona for the funeral, I finished my first draft by Wednesday the 27th and drove down on the 28th. It was here I was able to talk to my cousin Gloria, who commented on my ideas and gave me some more perspective (and by the way, she recently announced that she is expecting a baby). I returned just after midnight on April 1 and within twenty-four hours had found several more scholarly papers to add muscle to my argument, and I also checked out a couple of books from the library. I re-wrote the paper using substantial chunks from the first draft plus quotes from my new sources. For lack of writing time and paper space, my paper ended up being about why legitimacy was such an important issue in the sixteenth century rather than about how Shakespeare and the Tudors were connected, but I felt like the thematic issue was important to address (for personal reasons I will refrain from discussing).  I finished editing on Friday and called it good. 

Most of what I learned from the experience was that if I am writing an academic paper about something I am passionate about, I am more likely to put effort into it. Writing this paper gave me a chance to become more familiar with the Tudors and the history of their reign. From others' positive feedback and from my own personal feelings about the paper, this is one of the best term papers I have ever written.

Bailey Gleason: "A New Reality: Appreciating Reality TV Through Shakespeare"

"A New Reality: Appreciating Reality TV Through Shakespeare"

Reality TV is a genre that slowly taking over the networks. The American audience has been enthralled with the new found ability to peering into the lives of seemingly normal, everyday people placed in fantastic and unusual circumstances. Today the genre has grown to include various subcategories of reality TV that bring in upwards of 20 million viewers a night. However, despite this undeniable attraction America seems to have with reality television, critics and viewers alike have managed to find great fault within the genre referring to it as "trash", arguing that it brings no "intellectualism" or "stimulating" material to our culture and creating environment in which those who actually enjoy the genre are seen as lacking "intellectualism" themselves. By focusing so greatly on these negative aspects, critics are missing the amount of effort that goes into producing and editing the story behind reality TV. If we change up the lens in which we examine the process behind reality TV, comparing it to the world’s greatest storyteller, Shakespeare, we are able to pull back the curtain and appreciate reality TV for what it really is: story telling. 

From the Classroom to Germany

Hi there fellow Shakespearean Enthusiasts!

So, I am no longer in Dr. Burton's class, but he asked me if I would write a quick post about a really cool opportunity that has come my way as a result of the paper I wrote for his class last semester.

Case of the Mondays

The top commenter would not agree with my thesis.
I find this response from a lot of commenters on reality TV articles.
Luckily the guy blow has my back.
(I took this screen schot)

Monday I managed to sit down and spend the class time figuring out which moves I wanted to make in paper. My main question is if the order in which I will discuss my topic makes logical sense. Should I rearrange anything, add in explanations, take out unnecessary ones, etc.? I have a hard time telling whether or not my logic makes sense to others, so it's really helpful when I have a few people read over a short outline of my paper before I begin (and English majors/Shakespearian scholars (that's you!) usually give better feedback than my mother).  

Thinking about Audiences and Paper Venues

I was up late last night talking to one of my roommates, and she says she and our other roommate know a bit about the Tudors, mostly from the recent HBO show (which I've heard is very lewd). However, she did comment, "Whenever (the other roommate) says, 'You'll never guess what happened on the show!', I'm like, 'How did I not learn this in History class?'" So I'm starting to think maybe I could talk to my roommates about my paper--although they're not home much, and when we are at home we don't talk much. So we'll see.

However, it does demonstrate that a lot of people are familiar with the Tudors. Numerous books, movies, and TV programs have been written about them, and people consume these eagerly. So I think it would be a good idea to direct my paper to an audience familiar with the Tudors and the events that I am discussing in my paper.
It goes without saying that I would also like to direct my paper to Shakespeare enthusiasts. From a scholarly standpoint, my paper is relevant because the Tudor regime had such a huge impact on Shakespeare's writing and that is what I am trying to evaluate. However, a lot of people don't automatically connect Shakespeare with the Tudors, so for people with fewer scholarly inclinations this might offer a new perspective.

From the suggestions of my classmates, I already have a few ideas about venues for my paper. I already promised myself that I would submit to the BYU English symposium before I graduate, and I will especially want to submit this paper if it does turn out to be the best scholarly paper I've ever written, which I hope for. I am also thrilled by the idea that the Utah Shakespeare Festival accepts scholarly articles. That might actually be a very relevant venue because a lot of Shakespeare enthusiasts flock there annually, and they might be interested in what I have to say about certain Shakespeare plays. Some of them, for instance, might remember the most recent production of Richard III back in 2011 that I also went and saw for my 291 class. That production doesn't have any particular bearing on my actual paper, but I do think about it a lot because it was SO AMAZING!

Anyway, just a few thots.

Thesis! Thesis!

I think I've found a better thesis. Or a better way to express my thesis and supporting ideas. 

Thesis

The concern with ambition, legitimacy, and family relationships gone wrong in Shakespeare's plays are stemmed in how these issues affected the Tudor dynasty and shaped the world of sixteenth and early seventeenth-century England. 

Supporting arguments:

• Ambition in Shakespeare's characters is a corrupting and self-destructive characteristic because it was often the same case for the ambitious power-seekers who lived in the Tudor court.
• The legitimacy of characters in Shakespeare is fixed by birth but is subject to legal changes by those with authority as was often the case in the Tudor period.
• Family relationships in both the Tudor dynasty and in Shakespeare's plays arise from personal betrayal or merely the fear of betrayal, but in both cases this leads to a betrayal of familial responsibilities. 
  
  
  I feel better now that I've sort of crystalized what I want to talk about. The finer details of the points may change depending on further research. 

My list of things I've done

THESIS-IN-PROGRESS: 

The suspension of disbelief in both Shakespeare and Reality TV.  For Shakespeare he tends to break the fourth wall, frame plays in outside stories, etc. to remind the audience that they're watching the play. Reality TV likes to remind its viewers that they're watching "real" events and emotions. Shakespeare's process makes the plays seem more real, while Reality TV saying "this is real" makes it seem fake. How would Reality TV maybe showing sets/camera people/behind the scenes maybe change the way we view it?

SOCIAL GRAPH: 

Natalie McChesney, also known as my roommate, is a fellow English major and great at pillow talk. She's incredibly intelligent and hates the Bachelor, so I think it will be interesting to pit my research topic against her when developing my argument. It will keep me level headed.

Jeremiah Quinn, also known as that-one-guy-I'm-dating, is going on here since everyone seems to have a husband or wife that supports them in their thesis. We spend much of our time together, so we've talked about the paper quite a few times and he's really interested in seeing where it goes.

Corey Wozniak, also known as my intelligent friend, helped encourage me to chase the idea of Shakespeare and Reality TV. Being that he is partly responsible for when I am now, I feel that I will continue to discuss the topic with him and see how it develops. He was really excite about it when we first started talking about it!

Britton Parish, also known as fellow classmate, is also doing something a little pop culture related, and he passed the idea of video games being art by me about two months ago, so I've been following him with his thesis, and in return, he's agreed to help me with mine. It's nice to have someone in the class to discuss this with :)

Claire Shumway, also known as my best homie, graduated in philosophy and is incredibly intelligent. I think that her background will help contribute to maybe the more theological/philosophical aspects of the suspension of disbelief or what reality really "is".

NEW MEDIA:

I haven't had a chance to explore this topic, but I feel like not many people sit around comparing Shakespeare to "trash TV". I don't know if the actual show The Bachelor would count as this, or if it would count as a... primary text?  I DON'T KNOW! Overall, this category makes me feel a little overwhelmed.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Twitter: Holy cow did I hit a gold mine here! I figured I could maybe try and contact some past Bachelor/ette contestants to get their take on the "realness" of the show, and I even attempted to chase down Arie from Emily Maynard's season since he was in Provo, but Branbury required that I renew my nonexistent contract with them in order to even be in the same room as him (and while I am so excited about this paper, I don't have that kind of $$$ to drop right now). Thus far no responses from the few contestants I've tried to reach, but I'll keep at it. I also found some Shakespeare related Twitter pages I'll contact as well.

Probably because I'm a whiney nobody brat.

Goodreads: Like Nyssa, I've considered joining that one group everybody's joining, but I figure they'll most likely kick me out for the blasphemy that is my research paper (or I'll just get a lot of mean responses since that's mostly what I get from hoity-toity English lovers ;)

I'm still looking around for places to contribute, but there really isn't a lot of great stuff going on concerning the reality of reality TV. I WON'T GIVE UP THOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SCHOLARLY THINGS:

Bertolt Brecht: He use to write plays where in the middle of them, someone would trapse arose the stage carrying a sign reading "YOU ARE WATCHING A PLAY" (he was the original Captain Obvious). I've found some of his old publications and I'm starting to read through them to maybe get an idea of why he does this during his plays.

Reality TV: remaking television culture: AWESOME book I found in the HBLL. It has a bunch of critical articles regarding reality TV. I'm SO excited about readin through more, as I've already read a few of them. 

I'm going to look for some more articles on the suspension of disbelief in Shakespeare's plays, but I haven't had the chance to yet because I've been trying to actually figure out my thesis. 

King John: Crazy Women Will You Please Shut Up?

One scholarly article I found was about how King John was Shakespeare's way of addressing the succession crisis towards the end of Elizabeth I's reign and how it would possibly be resolved. In King John, King John has succeeded his deceased brother Richard I by the right of Richard's will (the same way Elizabeth succeeded according to a will HenryVIII had written), but the more "legitimate" candidate to rule is his nephew Arthur, who is the son of his deceased elder brother Geoffrey. They meet on a battlefield in France along with their supporters: John with his mother Queen Elinor and Arthur with his mother Constance and King Phillip of France. During their initial exchange, Elinor and Constance interrupt the men and exchange insulting barbs to the point that both the kings ask for them to stop arguing, and frankly I couldn't agree better. More than once Arthur is called a bastard and John a usurper.  The women invoke their blood ties in order to take control of Arthur, but on Elinor's part it goes south:

QUEEN ELINOR Come to thy grandam, child.
CONSTANCE Do, child, go to it grandam, child: Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig: There's a good grandam.

Shakespeare, William (2011-09-07). The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Kindle Locations 63220-63224). Latus ePublishing. Kindle Edition.

Constance is essentially echoing Elinor's command in baby-talk to tell Arthur that his other relations are going to treat him like a baby.
Think about your own family ties. It is as natural for our own grandparents to give us love and respect as it is for sixteenth-century grandmas to give their young grandsons "a plum, a cherry, and a fig." And yet Constance is urging her son to turn away from these natural ties and expectations in order to win a throne. Mary I hardly treated her sister Elizabeth like family, imprisioning and exiling her in order to keep the Protestants from being able to support her "bastard" half-sister. Elizabeth I and her rival, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, were cousins, and yet they were expected by their supporters to be enemies and prevent the other from taking or keeping what was rightfully theirs and to invoke their own blood ties to claim a throne.

What's wrong with this picture? I can't begin to say, except that while these people are from different backgrounds and life histories the lack of familial affection is frightening to consider. What is Shakespeare observing? The monarchs of Europe are playing a game in order to win the largest dominions through blood legitimacy and ties of inheritance, and the only rule is, "I will insult the other person as much as possible so I can get what I want and they don't." And that approach does not work.

After the Final Rose (My happily ever after?)

I did it. I found my connection, my Shakespeare research paper soul mate, and we're in love. Hopefully this love lasts longer than any Bachelor contestant's love, because I'm not here to play games. I'm here to find my thesis.

Ok, enough with the lame Bachelor jokes (they relate, I promise). This past week or so I've been struggling to find a topic for my paper that really resonated within me. My play I chose to read was Twelfth Night, and while I absolutely loved the play, I felt as though it didn't give me something to latch on to. It did, however, give me a dive board from which I feel into the genre of researching love and romance. I took to Facebook immediately, figuring the masses would definitely have something to say on the subject. That was my first mistake. I received no response. I figured it was because I either

a. was too general in my questions, or

b. asked way too many in one status update

(probably both)

So I switched tactics. After reading Amelia's comment here, I had an idea: 

I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I love the Bachelor/ette reality TV show. I'm addicted to it, like millions of other men and women (8.6 million, to be exact), so why not explore it's connection to Shakespeare? I thought I'd see what Facebook had to say about this. 

Somebody actually posted this in response to my questions.

The initial response wasn't great. I got a pretty strong negative reaction at first, but it's always darkest before the dawn. I finally got a positive response from (gasp) another English major! We began discussing the similarities between reality TV today and Shakespeare in the past. We came down to this basic idea:

People throughout the ages seem to have this obsession with unrequited love, finding love, crazy passionate love, puppy love, mismatched love... the list really goes on. From the mismatched love of Midsummer Night's Dream, to the gender confused triangle in Twelfth Night, people love love, and that love has carried over into the modern world (Don't believe me, check it out here. People have DEFINITELY taken from Shakespeare's love plots to create the reality TV we watch today). But, it's not just love that we love, it's love that's seemingly out of our control, love manipulated by someone with greater power than those experiencing the infatuation. And we don't just like it when love is manipulated be someone, but when everything is out of the hands of the hero/ine. Take The Tempest, where really everything lies in the hands of Prospero, or The Bachelor/ette, where everything lies in the hands of the producers (let's be real here, people. we all know this is true). 

So this is where I'm a little stuck. Maybe this whole connection to Shakespeare seems contrived to you, but I really do think there's something there. I mean I just see a lot of connections between reality TV today and the way Shakespeare's characters manipulate and handle love in the plays. What do you think? Hopefully you're in agreement, because I really really don't want to find another topic.  

Royal Pains, Family Pains

I've been doing some reading up on King Lear and its critical interpretations about family and monarchy. The ONE good article I have so far is a transcript of a panel discussion between several fathers who have just watched a stage production of King Lear and are discussing its implications about fatherhood from their own personal experience. They commented a lot about what kind of relationship Lear had with his daughters and what he expected from them, and they noted the absence of the princesses' mother.

This made me think about my idea about the Tudors. What kind of a father was Henry VIII to his children? From the numerous books I have read about the Tudors I have come to several conclusions. The facts are that they were raised away from him for the most part, and the mothers of both of his daughters were estranged from Henry before their untimely deaths, so they probably were not very close. Edward is usually depicted as a somewhat spoiled favorite, partly because he was the male heir Henry had always wanted, and I can imagine that Jane Seymour's good sense to die before Henry could find anything wrong with her helped a lot. I can see Henry being the same kind of father-figure that the men in the panel discussion saw King Lear was to his daughters: imperious and demanding respect. And for much of their lives they lacked the presence of a mother figure.

It is not hard to imagine how this kind of childhood would have affected the rest of their lives. Elizabeth, of course, never married. Mary was married to Phillip II of Spain and was determined to produce an heir, but she was years older than him and he was never very close to her and cheated on her. Mary also hated Elizabeth because their father had dumped her mother Katherine  of Aragon for Elizabeth's mother Anne Boylen. Mary exiled Elizabeth to run-down estates in distant parts of England, perhaps as revenge because Henry had done the same thing to Mary's mother and this ill-treatment resulted in her death.

It kind of makes you think about how difficult it is to be a monarch or a member of a monarch's family. Natural family ties are corrupted as parents and children are divided into different court factions competing for power, and siblings and parents end up hurting and betraying each other, sometimes killing one another. Although Elizabeth and Philip II were rivals and Phillip wanted to invade England, the mind-blowing fact that he was technically her brother-in-law makes you wonder what would drive him to do it. Is there more to family than blood or marriage ties?

Richard II on Demand

Hello from the grave (of the semester? Bad analogy methinks. Oh well)!

I watched Richard II on the BYU Films on Demand site since I've been so interested in the successive history plays that start with this one and ends with the fifth King Henry. I didn't look into the background of this play, but after watching it I wonder very much if it wasn't a special filmed dress rehearsal type thing. The entire flow was done as it would have been if it were a stage play. There was no fading in or out, and the transitions between scenes was obviously done as a play would be.

The acting was good, but there weren't any outstanding ones in my mind. I didn't follow along with the text on hand, but this version of the play was obviously true to Shakespeare's script. This is a good thing because it's good to stick with the original because a feel of integrity or legitimacy usually goes along with it. However, the way many characters did their lines was obviously iambic pentameter. This was a bit distracting and not so attractive to me. The costumes were good, but I would have preferred a little less modern style. There was a cut very very short duel at the beginning, with swords, but later on in the play a minor character (about as important as the prison inmate #2 role that Tobias Funke gets), a guard, had a gun as a prop and I wasn't too keen on that. Yeah, I'm being picky, and I admit I'm biased with a love of medieval style anything, but it seemed out of place to me.

In the end I'm really glad that they seemed to be very true to the text. Honestly the main thing it did was greatly fuel my desire to watch the most recent 2012 version included in the BBC mini-series-type called "The Hollow Crown." Yeah, I've mentioned it about a million times now.

Gabe's Learning Outcomes

LEARNING OUTCOMES
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Gain Shakespeare Literacy

Breadth. Growing up so close to Cedar City's Shakespeare festival gave me many opportunities to become familiar with a good range of Shakespeare's plays, through going on my own or going back in high school. With this background, and the fact that this isn't my first Shakespeare class at BYU, I was curious to see how many new plays I would meet this semester. Several of the plays we read I had already either seen or read them, but it was a great refresher. Shakespeare's works amaze me in their applicability to life. They serve almost as a type of scriptures of the humanities. This semester I enjoyed learning a lot more about what is sometimes referred to as the Henriad, or the history tetralogy from Richard II to Henry V. Before this semester my interest in the historical plays was limited to Julius Caesar and Henry V, and I was happy to add to it.


Depth. The research paper I did about rebellion as found in Henry IV, Part 1 was a major help to the depth of my understanding of that time period in history. Despite my interest in the subject, I haven't ever taken a British history class, so the time I put into looking into Prince Hal's real life helped me put the play in perspective and gain insight on the play. Checking into some of my other classmates' research papers has also helped me learn of conversations concerning plays (Richard III is one example), which has been informational at the least.

Jessica's Learning Outcomes

I believe that sometimes you can only truly measure what you have become and what you have gained by measuring where you have come from.  Before this class I knew a bit about Shakespeare, I knew that he was a famous playwright that wrote amazing plays that have withstood the test of time.  Now I know details of his employment, am familiar with many more plays, and why they have not faded away into obscurity.  I know or am at least familiar with Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar, Caomedy of Errors, Measure for Measure, Taming of the Shrew, Othello, and As You Like it.  I gained a greater depth and understanding of Taming of the Shrew than ever before.  Previously I had only been familiar with the movie however, now I would be comfortable having a scholarly discussion about it because I know where to look in order to obtain the research I would need.  We discussed the legacy of Shakespeare and why he is so permanent.  His permanence results from his ability to describe the universal experience: happiness, sadness, tragedy, comedy and history.  As part of our discussions we talked about various aspects of Shakespeare performances.   Some things like character expressions remain the same regardless of the medium.  Other aspects are specific to the medium like camera angles are specific to film because there are no camera angles on stage.

I knew how to analyze a piece of literature thanks to the many English classes I’ve already taken for my major here at BYU.  However, interpreting a Shakespearean play was somewhat outside my academic reach.  I knew that I could use similar tools that I would use to analyze a poem and so I started with imagery, allusions and the like.  Now I feel comfortable discussing theme, language, the placement of conventions, and other formal devices.  In this class I learned that there are ways to analyze the text by comparing the historical events that occurred around the same time that a play was written.  These events could also lead to comparisons between the Elizabethan culture and modern day culture. By analyzing the text with this context I found little gems of knowledge that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. 

Well we shared a lot about Shakespeare through online writing and social media.  There are groups on Goodreads that didn’t respond until after the paper was due but I think that it will be a fun conversation to continue to pursue over the break.  I found myself discussing my paper with friends in my dinner group, sometimes talking up my paper to roommates, and sharing my knowledge with my parents.  I started out writing this paper as any other, with research in the library and then started organizing the facts only to find that they were so interconnected they basically linked themselves.  After revising with both classmates and others in my social circle I now feel that I have a paper that’s ready for publication.

This was the hardest learning objective for me to fulfill because I am not out there on the social media sites.  I use Facebook to organize face to face parties rather than for communication and Twitter is something that my sister does.  However, I was able to get past this bias and learn how to use Tweets in order to link to people who had performed in a Shakespeare play in the past.  I also engaged in a conversation in Goodreads that I hope will continue and spark more discussion.  And of course by submitting our papers for publication we are able to put our papers out there both on the Team Shakespeare Blog and out in the public eye for others to see, comment and criticize. 

             In this class I learned more than I originally thought possible.  I gained knowledge of how to find information through social networks.  As a class, I think that we bonded more than any other English class.  Sure it could have been that we were few in number or that we always had a few minutes to talk before class but I think that it was more than that.  I think that we were able to share ideas and learn outside the classroom but link that knowledge to the blog.  Some people who I would not have approached (simply because they were on the other side of the room) commented on my paper and gave me great feedback.  Overall it was a great experience and I'll be sorry to say good bye to everyone.  Hopefully we'll see each other around campus and have a brief moment to refer back to this class. . . Remember that time when we had that horribly long paper due in Shakespeare? Yeah, and it was due BEFORE Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays Everyone!