Romeo and Juliet : Homework Help

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(The conversation’s been a bit on the deep end lately so I thought I’d throw one in for the occasional student who comes by looking for homework help.)   If you need help remembering the plot of Romeo and Juliet, study Friar Laurence’s confession in the final scene.  He pretty much tells you the entire play:

Romeo and Juliet got married in secret, but then Romeo ends up getting banished when Tybalt is murdered.  Juliet’s parents think she’s upset about Tybalt when really she’s upset about Romeo, and they arrange this hasty marriage to Paris.  She comes to me saying that she’ll kill herself if I don’t do something, so I come up with a plan.  I’ll give her a sleeping potion that makes everyone think she’s dead.  Then I’ll write to Romeo, informing him that she’s not dead, and that he should come to the family tomb when she wakes up and take her away.  But I discover that Romeo never received the letter!  So I raced over to the tomb to rescue her myself, figuring that I’ll come up with a new plan once I can straighten everything out.  But then I see Romeo and Paris both dead.  I try to get Juliet to leave with me but she won’t go.  I heard a noise that I went to explore, and when I came back, she’d killed herself.  If you don’t believe me ask her nurse, she knew all about their wedding.  It’s all my fault, I accept that, and throw myself on the mercy of the the law.

Between that speech and the opening prologue (“Two households…Verona….ancient grudge…..young lovers take their life….”) you’ve got the idea.  Now, I’m not a big fan of saying “There you go, just study that and you’re all set.”  If you do, you will have missed all the poetry (not to mention the sex and violence) in the middle.  Think of this speech more as a set of pegs on which to hang the rest of the details of the play more easily for yourself.  Who did Romeo kill?  Tybalt.  Who gave Juliet the sleeping potion?  Friar Laurence.  Why did Romeo think Juliet was dead?  He never got Friar Laurence’s letter.  And so on… Hope it helps!

The Nest

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Hey, who linked me from TheNest.com?  I can see you in my logs but I can’t get in to their boards to see the actual post!  That drive me nuts :).  I’m familiar with The Nest, it’s a huge favorite of our company president, he’s pretty much patterned our company on what they do. However you got here, welcome!

King Lear F Bombs

~ duane ~ 2 Comments

http://beyond-school.org/2007/09/22/to-curse-or-not-to-curse-on-teaching-the-f-bomb-and-other-colorful-words/ I find this unit interesting its discussion of cursing in Shakespeare, most notably since he doesn’t go for the obvious Taming of the Shrew or Romeo and Juliet, but rather King Lear!  First he presents some Lear style “cursing” (whoreson, knave, etc…) and then gets into his students’ own “street” rewriting.  It’s personally not to my taste, I don’t think you have to sprinkle liberally with swears to get your point across, but who knows, maybe that’s exactly how his kids talk in their regular life?  There’s discussion at the end, too.  For instance in one Cordelia rewrite she drops an f-bomb while talking to her dad, and people question whether that’s realistic for her character.   Warning, if it wasn’t obvious – dirty words abound.

Chasing The Bard

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

http://www.chasingthebard.com I may have mentioned this podcast/podiobook in passing when I first tripped over it. Let me now get back to it. I love it. I love it love it love it, I think it might well be my favorite podiobook yet (and that’s saying something, as I’ve gone through several dozen of them). Imagine a fantasy story that opens with the birth of one William Shakespeare. The event is attended by none other than Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck) himself, who witnesses it as a magical event of great significance. Thus begins this crossover story between the world of the “Fey” (the fairies), and the human world in which Shakespeare, gifted with “bardic” fairy powers, lives. If that’s not enough to hook you, I’ll say more. It’s not just good because it’s got Shakespeare in it (sounds like a Monty Python skit, “It’s all got Shakespeare in it!”) It’s good because it’s well written and well produced, too. There’s the appropriate amount of sound effects and music. The voice acting is appropriate. The narrator/author, with her New Zealand accent, is just exotic enough. She writes very well. The characters are excellent. She writes Elizabethan London well. She writes the fairies well. She even writes the battle scenes well. Perhaps the best thing of all, as far as I can tell, is that she hasn’t rewritten any of Shakespeare’s bio yet. She’s actually working inside the missing pieces. She still has him raised in Stratford, married to Anne Hathaway, and then heading off to London leaving behind her and the kids. She’s showing respect for the source material, she’s not just borrowing it where it suits her. Why are you still reading? Go get it, right now, so we can discuss it. Disclaimer! She’s up to chapter 14. It is a serialized work, so you cannot get the whole story yet (although I believe you can buy the completed print book if you like). Also note that there’s a sex scene in Chapter 13, which comes with a great deal of warning ahead of time, in case you like/loathe that sort of thing.

No I Will Not Name My Son Fleance

~ duane ~ 4 Comments

More from this morning’s conversation:  (it helps to know that my daughters are Katherine, 6, and Elizabeth, soon to be 4.  Elizabeth is doing the questioning.) “The star of that one (AYLI) is a girl named Rosalind.  I hear it’s very good.”

“Daddy, did Shakespeare write any more stories with girls?”

“Oh, sure, lots and lots, Shakespeare wrote some very good stories with girls.  There’s Juliet, and Miranda, and Cordelia…

“I like Cordelia!”

“I know you do!  There’s also a couple of Katherines!” 

(Elizabeth looks very impressed.)

“I’m afraid Shakespeare didn’t write any Elizabeth stories, though.” 

(Bummer.) 

“But there’s a reason for that.  You want to know why?”

“Why?”

“Because back when Shakespeare was writing all these stories?  Elizabeth was actually the *queen*.” 

(I swear, my daughter sat up straighter in her chair at that, it was the funniest thing.  Oh, well, I’m the queen?  Well then, that’s ok!)  

“He couldn’t really make up any stories with Elizabeth in them, you see, because if the Queen didn’t like it?  Bam, right in the dungeon.” 

(Elizabeth contemplates this and seems to decide that yes, that would be the appropriate thing for a queen to do.  If you don’t like the story, then the teller of the story goes to the dungeon.)  “And who is the queen now?”

“Actually, it’s kinda funny that you ask, but believe it or not it’s still Elizabeth!” I didn’t bother explaining that it’s a different Elizabeth, because she wouldn’t have gotten it or cared.  She’s still got the sense of time where “last week” means a long time ago, and “tomorrow” means “soon.”