Greenblatt blows!!!

In the two essays written by George Will and Stephen Greenblatt, the main focal point of the arguments centers on whether or not modern literature professors and analyzers are reading to much in to classical literature such as William Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Will argues that “…by ‘deconstructing’ or politically decoding, or otherwise attacking the meaning of other literary works, critics strip literature of its authority. Criticism displaces literature and critics displace authors as bestowers of meaning”. This fine point is refuted by Greenblatt who states in his argument that “… Literary scholars investigate and encourage their students to consider, and [he] would think that the columnists who currently profess an ardent interest in our cultural heritage would approve”. Such an argument seems to be complete poppycock from my point of view. The way I see it is that Shakespeare was an artist; a man with a need to please a crowd and develop something on the stage that would change a person’s life for ever. Greenblatt on the other hand is an overworked blowhard who finds joy in connecting completely separate events and occasions by finding the smallest coincidences in life and exploiting them to their fullest potential. Through Greenblatt’s reasoning one might find that Obama is related to Christ, or Mr. Dominguez is intimately involved with Ms. Lederach. Such reasoning and justification is absurd when one truly thinks about it. Just because a person has a small occurrence with something in their life, does not mean that they will forever be changed by it. Even if Shakespeare had read Montaigne’s “Of Cannibal” as Greenblatt so adamantly points out, who are we to say 300 years later that he was writing about the views expressed in that book? I believe that Shakespeare and other great classical literature was written purely for the enjoyment of the people in that time and ours, anything else is just under gratified college professors trying to sound smarter than they truly are.

jiggley

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there is a clear allusion to the concept of colonization of native peoples in his character, Caliban. Caliban is seen as a lesser being that is biologically inferior to Prospero and his daughter Miranda, yet is used by the two to help tame the island and make it inhabitable. For example, Caliban is described by Prospero as being a “horrible slave, with a wicked hag for a mother and the devil himself for a father”, yet Prospero cannot effectively live on the island without his help. Even though Caliban was on the island first, Prospero took control and forced Caliban into an inferior position. If it were not for Prospero’s superior magic, none of this could have been possible; however, it was because Prospero had a huge power advantage over Caliban that he was able to take control and achieve power over the island.  This relates almost perfectly with what was written in Charles Bressler's Literacy Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice. In this document, it is written that “Great Britain, the chief imperialist power of the nineteenth century, dominated her colonies…forced labor of the colonized became the rule of the day… these sub-humans or savages quickly became the inferior and equally ‘evil’ others”. So, what was believed by Prospero about Caliban was noticeably similar to what was believed by the European colonists about “heathen” natives. Prospero used his “chief” power to “dominate” Caliban into a sort of “forced labor” on the island, putting Caliban into a lesser or “sub-human” state in the hierarchy of the island. The similarities of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and the Colonization of Great Britain colonies are to obvious to miss, and they additionally make for some good arguments.

The Tempest Act 1

The character of Prospero comes off as a very manipulative, selfish being who has a set plan to dictate how his life will be ran. He controls all the outside variables around him to create a perfect ending to his plans, and he is persistent in making things happen to meet his expectations. Prospero doesn’t care who stands in his way, or who gets hurt, as long as in the end he can avenge himself and fulfill his selfish ambitions.

One such Use of manipulation comes from the words and rhetoric straight from Prospero’s mouth. Prospero displays a masterful understanding of how one can control the other without them really knowing what is even happening. For example, When Prospero is in need of Ariel’s assistance, he reminds Ariel of what his previous conditions used to be compared to what they are now by bringing up that he was “her servant at the time, as [he admitted himself]. You were too delicate to carry out her horrible orders, and you refused. In a fit of rage she locked you up in a hollow pine tree, with the help of her powerful assistants, and left you there for twelve years”. Prospero knew the trauma that this had caused Ariel, and he knew that bringing it up again would make Ariel feel in debt to Prospero, that is why he said this. Prospero needed Ariel’s help to gain what he wanted, so he decided to manipulate the feelings that Ariel felt through his rhetoric. This, in the end, proved very helpful to Prospero as it helped his plan go smoothly.

This Idea of manipulation goes hand in hand with what we have been studying in 1984. In 1984, the government, like Prospero, used it words and written material to manipulate the minds and thoughts of its citizens. Through this manipulation, Big Brother was able to construct a society that believed everything they heard and would die for the party at any given chance. The use of words and stories is a very powerful tool that has been used since the dawn of time, and its power is what I believe we will be studying for the rest of this school year.

First Blog

This week in class we participated in a discussion using the Socratic Circle. The discussion was centered around the new educational curriculum that Texas State Officials have adopted for their schools featuring a one-sided representation of history backed by the conservative Republican Party. Such an influence on children in schools has been argued to be unconstitutional, as if only teaching one side of history could potentially mold the general societies opinion to a more conservative view, threatening the beliefs and voices of future liberals. During our class’s time in the Socratic Circle environment, we discussed different ways to create a history curriculum that is completely objective and filled with the right kind of information for a student to know to be able to think critically about this country and its past. I believe that our best solution to this problem was to put into the history book only the situations and circumstances that happened in the past. Also, to have a panel of people, all of different beliefs and ideas, and have each person contribute to every section of history involved in the book. Finally, I would allow individual teachers to teach whatever they felt necessary. This might not seem like a great idea to some because it gives the teacher too much freedom to impart whatever their beliefs are on innocent students; however, throughout the course of schooling, a student has as many as 12 different teachers, out of these 12 there are bound to be a good amount of different ideas that the student will be enlightened to, allowing the student to make up their own opinions to carry with them throughout life. As for a history curriculum, or any subject curriculum in general being fair, I don’t believe it is possible to be completely fair or objective. Through the teaching of students, teachers will unconsciously impart their beliefs no matter what they are told. They may not do it intentionally, but it will happen; it may be through the way they act, or the way the talk, or even the way they treat others. There is no controlling the inclusion of opinion into the teaching of students, that is why I believe that the beast bet is to regulate the amount of time a teacher gets to spend teaching. If 12 different teachers are allowed 1 full year to teach what they feel is needed to be taught, then enough opinion will be introduced into the system to allow the student to form opinions of their own. I feel that the state government should just allow the teachers to teach, and keep their hands out of our schools.