A very Shakespeare Themed day

Yesterday was a very Shakespeare themed day. Which isn't surprising, considering I started my Shakespeare class this semester and so far it rocks. We're reading Shakespeare's later plays, beginning with Twelfth Night (which is my favorite Shakespearean Comedy ever) and yesterday I decided I wanted to watch the movie. Not knowing if there was one, I looked on YouTube first...and found the whole version of the 1996 version with Toby Smith as Duke Orsino, Helen Bonham Carter as Countess Olivia, Imogen Stubbs as Viola/Cesario, ben Kingsley as Feste and Imelda Staunton as Maria. Let me tell you, Shakespeare is awesome on his own, but put together a bunch of actors who really know how to do what they do, set the play in this Victorian-esque background, and then let what you will happen, it becomes a beautiful, beautiful thing.

After I finished my movie, I went to dinner, then read a book on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and how it could be considered a colonial extension of Europe (this was an interesting direction for me to read in because I have Post-Colonial Lit this semester too) and after that went to go find the posse and watch a movie. We ended up watching Shakespeare in Love (another excellent film) which, as many learned men know, has in it a lot of references to Twelfth Night and, again, a lot of actors who know very well what they are about.

After that we watched Twilight, which, after following so much Shakespeare, fell farther and flatter on its face than it probably would have done if we had watched something a little less awesome beforehand. We talked through the whole movie and related why it was terrible and what was wrong with the characters (We have a theory now that Edward should be called nothing but Eddy C for the sake of his mind-altering coolness, and all were agreed that Bella is a Mary Sue.) and it was fun.

But I was still thinking alot about Shakespeare when I went to bed, including one of the discussion questions our professor is having us ruminate on, the idea of whether Cesario is a real person or not. If you haven't read Twelfth Night, here's a little summary for you: A pair of twins, brother and sister, are separated during a storm. One of them, Viola, washes up on a beach in a foriegn country. She dresses like a man to keep her options open and her safety in check, goes to serve the local duke, and ends up trying to woo the woman he's in love with for him. She falls in love with Viola/Cesario instead. Meanwhile, her brother, Sebastian, has also come ashore, and is looking for the Duke to also go into service with him. Sebastian is confused for Viola, vice-versa, and then it all seems to work out at the end. (If you want a more detailed plot summary, try CliffNotes.)

So Olivia falls in love with Cesario. Orsino finds a bosom buddy in Cesario. Sir Andrew and Sir Toby have a bone to pick with Cesario. But Cesario isn't really a person -- he's a constructed identity. I realized after class on Thursday that Cesario sounds a lot like Caesarion (as in Caesarion birth or C-section) and his role in the play bears a lot on that. His birth or creation is forced, just like a c-section is, and it is done out of necessity, when all the other options are given up on.

And it occured to me (because I am self centered, and the chain of events lent itself to it) that Cesario and Audemande have something in common. Neither one of them becomes who they are, essentially, until they are removed to this far, foriegn place. Cesario offers himself to the duke as a performer because he doesn't have any other talents. Audemande culitvates her skill at telling stories so she becomes useful to Baldwin and Sybilla. If Viola had stayed in Messaline, she never would have married Orsino. If Aude had stayed in Poitou, she never would have met and befriended all the people that she does. Both women occupy traditionally male places, as public members of a ruling party's retinue, and both are very close to their soveriegns. Is Audemande a constructed identity, too, then? I say no, because she remains who she is throughout the story. She adapts her manners and her skills to her situation, but she doesn't usurp who she is for the sake of the people who control her life.

That's about where the comparisions end (Spoiler for the end of Song of a Peacebringer -- Aude and Baldwin do NOT get hitched.) but it was still really interesting to me. Here's a play I really enjoy watching and a story I really enjoy writing, and they're remarkably similiar.

So that was my very shakespeare themed day. I hope everyone else's Friday was just as fun and exciting.