SHAKESPEAREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

I. Love. Shakepeare. Pure and Simple. In class, we read selections from the sonnet and Twelfth Night. LOVE. There is also King Lear in our anthology....which is giving me ideas for a reread...

If you aren't familiar with the basic plot of Twelfth Night (comedy, by the way), it's veryvery simple.

FIRST. Viola and Sebastian (twins) shipwreck off the coast of Illyria and get separated and fervently hope the other isn't dead. Sebastian wanders around for 3 months while Viola (sensible, right?) decides to lay low and turn into a man for a while so she can get a job as a page while she waits for Sebastian to show up. Duke Orsino (her master fellow) is in love with Olivia (fair maid) who's sworn of guys while Sir Toby Belch (her uncle) tries to clear things up by marrying her off to Sir Andrew (fair courter). While she's rejecting Andy, they make fun of Malvolio (the Puritan Steward) with the help of Maria (wily chamber maid) 'cause he's in love with Olivia. Feste (fair clown figure) weaves in, out, and everywhere. Here's the catch: Viola (AKA Cesario) has to wooooo Olivia for Orsino, meanwhile falling in love with Orsino her/himself. While wooing, Olivia flashes eyes at Viola/Cesario and decides that maybe celibacy isn't so awesome. Several yellow, cross-gartered stockings later, Sebastian shows up and starts getting punched. And then wooed. Or was that Viola/Cesario????

Got it?

Good.

While you are figuring that out, read the sonnet I memorized for my midterm:

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have expressed

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they looked but with divining eyes

Had not worth enough your praise to sing,

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

I love Shakespeare. (Oh, and btw, I have fresh defenses against the claim that Shakespeare was gay. So don't even start with me.)

Before sinking into Tolkein oblivion...

I have an announcement to make. WATCHMEN IS LITERATURE. Pass out if you dare. I didn't enjoy Watchmen much while reading, but the end product was surprisingly good and worthy of its esteemed title. Honestly, I kind of want to watch the movie. Alright, let's look at this modern novel an old-fashioned way.

GENRE: Technically, there were two, but the first could be written off as style. First and foremost, it is a graphic-novel, also known as a really long comic book. Secondly - and this one, I am ashamed to say - didn't click in my mind until the last few pages, it is a dystopia. Like many of this genre, portrays an imperfect world (our own) and compares it to what does happen in the last few pages - a real dystopia. Or utopia. Or whatever. Really, the recurring motif of the happy smiley face seen on all the movie posters should have tipped me off. It represents a perfect "utopia" in case you were wondering. All of you should know I have a weak spot for dystopias, and this book is just sitting on the periphery waiting to be let in. In case you don't know, I read more modern novels like this to give my reading a new scope and outlook and so I'm not fully ignorant of some new genre or something.

LITERARY TECHNIQUES: If you are like me, you look at a graphic novel and think techniques? No...there can't be any. But there are!!! I knew that there were certain levels of parallels in the plot beforehand, but my friend who forced me to read the book pointed out that one of the chapters titled "Fearful Symmetry" was very subtly symmetrical from front to back. On every page, either the coloring or the actions or the pictures were symmetrical.

The book was formed with a graphic section followed by a short "primary source" - a fictional newspaper article or some such writing. It broke up the surprisingly long book into shorter segments, which was pretty nice, I'm not gonna lie. All in all, I say not bad, but it's not a book I'll be looking to for rereads.

Such a guy book.