notes on last week's Wednesday class

Sarah Bacon

History of Christendom

Week 19

Shakespeare had a small vocabulary, but nevertheless we have gotten many of our phrases and words from him. Within 280 years, we have moved from music by Bach to music by the Black Eye Peas. When we reduce our words and language with our literature and music, we are degrading ourselves. As we ever improve our vocabulary and language we are increasing our godliness and becoming an ever “higher” being. It is sad when we read/listen to things that do not improve our minds but rather dumb us down to become mindless cogs.

There are 3 ways to approach the work of Shakespeare:

Contemporaneous: this is Shakespeare in his time and among the people in his era (what might these plays have meant in his time?).

Traditional: this is how he’s been passed down and how he wrote for his time (how has it come down to us?).

Contemporary: how we view him now and how we can use/study him (is there any use for him today?).

In his characters we see many different types of emotions and personalities, drawing in readers of all sorts. Shakespeare used sonnets, epics, and soliloquies; he shaped words and phrases to be memorable. These can produce a desired emotion. Shakespeare was exposed to different linguistics, great teaching in grammar, as well as Latin and logic. Even his tragedies had a sense of comic humor in them…they are full of grief and sadness because we live in such a fallen world with sin. Actors were always travelling and moving. Female roles were played by men. They would perform at fairs and markets, theatres, and noble courts. Theatre companies would work alongside guilds or make their own. Most of the plays were performed on thrust stages. Actors would often be among the audience to cause an interaction with them and making it more personal.

Shakespeare (1564-1616) was born right about the same time that the plague made its first sweep through. London was known for its birthrate so the death rate of the plague didn’t make such a huge difference. From 1520-1670 the population jumped to 6xs the amount before. There was a good life in London, good chances for employment. Shakespeare was born in the city of Stratford-upon-Avon with many dialects and a good education. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway and had children. In 1587 he began writing more steady and joined London’s theatrical world. He got a vested interest in the success of a group and began to receive a salary. Shakespeare received commercial and critical success, but also received a good deal of money so he “retired” to Stratford and continued his writing.

Works and dates published:

Richard III (1592-3)

The Comedy of Errors (1593)

Sonnets (1593-1609)

Romeo and Juliet (1595-6)

Henry V (1599) Hamlet (1600-1)

Othello (1604)

King Lear (1605)

Macbeth (1606)

The Tempest (1611)

Two Noble Kinsmen (1613)

Books on Shakespeare could fill this room. We don’t need to do anything to rescue Shakespeare – he’s still alive and well in his works – but because so much has accreted and piled up about Shakespeare since his death, it’s sometimes hard to get to the love of his works and to a true appreciation of who he was. So many times he’s put away into fancy English departments. We don’t think we can study him unless we’re either dramatists or we’re going to be English majors, but it’s my hope today that you’ll see that in the bowl of Shakespeare there is a drink for everyone.

Worldview notes:

Marxism

Sociology – With the controlling of contraception’s, abortions, and gay “marriages” it just shows ever more how the state is nothing but a tyrannical and overpowering state trying to be God. They attempt to make all families equal…they succeed in the fact that everyone is equally miserable. We are growing to a point where we cannot live without the state ruling us. One of the ways they do this is by taking away all our rights and possessions. In a Christian state people get where they are because of hard work, not blood or favoritism (if you shall not work you shall not eat).

Philosophy – Everything is matter…there is no mind but rather a brain. From this you get so dumbed down that you reach out to strike God and hit yourself instead. We see this with the self-hatred of suicide. We have strayed from a proper view of God and hence we have a flawed view of ourselves. In an unchristian culture there is always a little “t” truth…truth is subjective. Capital “T” Truth needs a transcendent God to exist. Christ said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Anything else and you always have a continual change of the meaning of truth with no stability. There is not absolute truth for them, its only opinion.