I Melt With You

I found Shakespeare's The Tempest quite enjoyable on the whole, though I breathed a sigh of relief as I concluded its final acts, because my brain can only handle so much. 
I about died laughing when in act 4.1, line 15 on, Prospero basically warns Ferdinand in typical, protective, fatherly fashion to WAIT TIL MARRIAGE OR ELSE, in his own magical, somewhat threatening, words. 
I found the appearance of the spirits, Iris, Ceres, Juno, etc. lovely, especially as a person with an affinity for the myths, gods, and goddesses of the classical era. Classical references like this were common in the Renaissance, and in this case was used by Shakespeare to reinforce the beauty of the marriage-celebration scene. It was nice and sparkly, and the inclusion of those classical references only heightened the loveliness it evoked. 

Juno and Iris appear in the above picture. ~fancy~

In act 4, scene 1, lines 163-175, Prospero gives a wonderful speech:

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,

As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air.

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself—

Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep. 

As I read this passage, I am overcome with thoughts of actors and the world of theater. Since this play was apparently Shakespeare's last, I wonder if this speech is not just Prospero's voice, but Will's too, acknowledging the conclusion of a play as Prospero acknowledges the end of his magical charms. At the beginning of the speech, when Prospero speaks to Ferdinand, telling him to cheer up after the abrupt end to the masque, I felt that I could resonate with Ferdinand's feelings; for instance, sometimes when I am deep in thought, perhaps listening to music, playing a videogame, or deep in a book, and am suddenly yanked out of my glorious fantasy world, I feel some disillusionment and dismay. I feel similarly when I see a play or movie, and walk back out into the harsh glare of the real world. The fantasies that are evoked within that experience are then "melted into thin air... and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind." When the play ends, the actors pack up their props and go home. The sets are deconstructed and put away. The audience returns to the tedium of daily life. Prospero's spirits "dissolved" just as every experience in visual/sensory media does after we SAVE and QUIT, or turn OFF. This speech, as I read it, also caused me to have an existential crisis - I sat in front of my book wide-eyed, frozen at the thought that we all eventually "melt into thin air," "dissolve," and leave nothing behind.

Same.

Crises aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the play. I really appreciate how much I was actually able to understand it, allowing it to make me laugh, or cower in fear as I contemplated my eventual "dissolving."

How cool is this though?

Hooray! Done with Kors and Peters!!

This was my first time reading Shakespeare on my own and I have to say it was a bit difficult to understand. The first scene was confusing, but it made some more sense once I read the second scene. There are a lot of characters in this play that all come up in the beginning, which made it difficult for me to remember who each one was. There were a few specific things that I didn’t understand in this act. I wondered how Miranda and Prospero were able to survive on this island only with their two servants. It wasn’t clear to me if Prospero’s magic was what was keeping them alive or not. I also didn’t understand why Prospero put Miranda to sleep when he started telling his story. And the last thing I was unsure about was why Prospero made a storm around the ship, but I’ve gathered that this probably going to explained later in the play and it’s an important part of the plot. If anybody can provide some clarification for me about the play, that would be awesome.

   This week we were also supposed to read the last chapter by Kors and Peters and I think it ended in the best way possible. I think it was great how we moved through all the different texts and ideas about witchcraft to the explanation of how the craze came to an end. I thought it was interesting that one of the main ideas that discounted those who believed in witchcraft was that they didn’t really understand God and the world he made. I would have thought this chapter would have been made up of educated men telling everybody that witchcraft was impossible. Instead it they attributed the belief in witchcraft to confusion and fear. Even though I thought disbelief and skepticism of witchcraft would have stemmed from logic, I found this chapter to very satisfying.  

Lets Give 'em Something to Talk About

I hate to admit that I closed Kors and Peters with a satisfied smirk on my face and breathed a very deep sigh of relief. The fact that this chapter was called "Belief, Skepticism, Doubt, Disbelief" was really exciting because these were all aspects of the scare that was witchcraft, but it was also the order of the chaos throughout the years. The belief came first and spread like wildfire, with wild accusations and fingerpointing until everyone thought everyone else was a witch. The skeptics came as the knowledge grew, like people who were supposed to be trusted, like church officials, knowing a suspicious amount about witchcraft. Should we have been skeptical of witchcraft existing or should we have been skeptical about who was fighting it? Doubt came following soon after due to the sources of facts being unreliable and too convenient at times and the finally, disbelief came into play. Disbelief meaning that the belief in witchcraft was gone for the most part, but also the shock and disbelief that this had gotten so largely blown out of proportion. It went from a spark of an idea to a forest fire to nothing. But I don't understand how something like this just disappears.

I could understand if new evidence came forward that called off all inklings of witchcraft, but there never was that one end everything epiphany. It just spiraled and spiraled until a few people said, hey, that's enough. In the end, witch trials are deemed useless, and while I agree that they were and that "witches" were tried unfairly, why did nobody try to explore the issue further? Maybe they weren't witches, but something was happening or had to have happened to get these rumors started in the first place? How can a whole part of the world go from being so hellbent on murdering witches to just not caring at all? I feel like this closing should have brought about a new search or a new replacement craze. All of these leaders were on a mission to stop at nothing until they could rid the world of witches and then they just gave up? Why the loss of power and energy? There has to be something more. This chapter said that this time stood by the belief that those who deny Christ are denying God. This would make it clear that anyone who worshipped someone or something other than God was a sinner. So maybe they weren't witches, but what were they? Who or what were they following?

The craze ends with everyone quitting and shoving the issue under the rug. Let people believe what they believe and pretend to be anything they want and they'll be punished in the end. That crazy desire to end all wrongs just vanishes and I can't wrap my head around it. This isn't the conclusion that we have been waiting for. People literally burned at the stake for the craze and now it's just over. So if something could just drop and end this quickly, then why did it even last for so long? Why end now? Was this just a time waster? Now there are new issues and people disobeying God is simply a thing of the past? Was there a new craze or trend that was about to spread?

I'm glad that these trials and the craze itself came to an end, and I wasn't expecting someone to come outside and announce "all witchcraft is a lie. Go back to your lives" or anything, but I also can't fathom how something so big just disappears. Maybe everyone was just so tired of the lies stacking up and the ridiculous time it all consumed that it was deemed a waste of time, but this all seems a little suspicious to me. Like some sort of witchcraft.