Shake & Tumble

Greeting, travelers!

No time for a real post today... but I hope some of these gems from tumblr will make up for it.  I swear, tumblr is the weirdest, bestest place.

Nazi Shakespeare: Fun For All Ages

Guten tag!

I hope this lovely late October day is treating you well.  Let's talk about Nazis.  Every good blog has to come around to the subject eventually, right?  Something to do with Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies I guess.

So let's talk about that awkward time when Hitler designed a production of a Shakespeare play.

Yeah. THAT happened.

But let me first say that one of the cornerstones of my deep-seeded love of Shakespeare is that he is universal.  He has been translated into every major language and has interpretations across the spectrum - anything from Mozart wanting to write an opera based on The Tempest, to a plethora of Bollywood movies, to Japanese director, Yukio Ninagawa's stunning rendition of Titus Andronicus below:

Manaka Hitomi as Lavinia, with string in lieu blood.

I just really wanted to share that.

Anyway, the point is that I love Shakespeare's malleability.  And while I'd love to think that the Bard would cringe at the thought of Nazi propaganda, we cannot pretend that Jews, or other minorities, weren't scorned in his day.

But let's talk about all of it anyway!

In one of Hitler’s sketchbooks from 1926, there is a design for the staging of Julius Caesar. It

Nuremburg Rally

portrays the Forum with the same sort of “severe deco” neoclassical architecture which would later characterize the Nazi rallies at Nuremberg.  The really interesting part for me is that Shakespeare, and even Elizabethan England, were considered exceptions to those in the Nazi party who wanted to ban all foreign influences - in fact, he was a major German icon.  They just spun the plays to their liking - which is what all the people do all the time with all the things.

Julius Caesar's Forum

 And sidebar: the Merchant of Venice was not received all that well; even though Shylock (the villain) is a Jew, the play was considered too ambiguous for Nazi taste.  So Hmm Hmm!

As for this Julius Caesar sketch, it's not much of a secret that Adolf Hitler admired the Romans.  After all, he wanted Germany to become the Third Reich, and he considered Rome the first.  I'm sure the grandiosity of it all called to him.  It has called to me on my trips to Rome too.  So yeah, Hitler saw greatness in putting on a performance of Julius Caesar. I get it.

Oh Gawd, Khaki you've gone and compared yourself to Hitler in your blog!  What are you doing that for?!

Remember, boys and girls: Adolf wasn't a monster, he was a person...  And isn't that scarier?


For more on this super interesting subject, check out The Nazi Appropriation of Shakespeare: Cultural Politics in the Third Reich by Rodney Symington.

Next Time Think it Through, Romeo

I've shared this delightful image before, on my Facebook, but I think it will find itself more at home on this blog.

Ha! Literary put-down! Buuurn.

The great thing about Romeo and Juliet is that our culture is saturated with it - and I am all for that.  But if you ask me (and no one did), calling someone your Romeo is a bit like calling them your wishy-washy, whiny lover.  As they say, he is one that loves not wisely, but too well.  Wait, that's Othello.  Whatevs, my point still stands.

But Khaki!!  Star-crossed lovers!  That's so romantic!  Absolutely it is.  Just remember that star-crossed means thwarted by the stars, rather than destined to be together because of them. You will spend your entire relationship dodging pianos that are falling from the sky, and trying not to get hit by city buses in crosswalks.  Probably.  Point is, doom will follow you. DOOM, people!

Ah, but the course of true love never did run smooth.  Wait, that's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I'm not saying it doesn't have it's upside.  Who wouldn't want to hear their lover say things like, "I would not wish any companion in the world but you.” Man... that's hella romantic.  Wait, that's from The Tempest.  Wow, all these love quotes from better love stories!  It's like Khaki is trying to push other plays on the romantically-inclined or something!  Well, except Othello... that was... well, let's just not talk about that right now.

So, in summation: I'd take white-bread romance over a guy who murdered my cousin any day. Maybe that's boring, but I just so happen to be close to my cousins.  And I don't see how I could ever invite my boyfriend to the family picnic after that.

Alas, Poor Yorick! This shirt is the best, Horatio.

Happy Friday, dudes.

Look what I got!  By far the best shirt I own.  It's about to be out of print, so if you want one, better jump on it!  She also has other great shirts for sale that are very funny in nature, albeit non-Shakespearean.  But if you are into Shakespeare shirts like me, you can also check out some of the other awesome designs below.

Come Hither!

 Fierce!

Homeboy

Dramatically Correct

The Origin of Ye, as in Ye Olde

Good day, dudes!

Today I'm going to write about something that I found super cool about the Early Modern English alphabet (if you must fall asleep, please do try not to snore).  Welcome to a segment I am self-awaredly calling:

Actually...

So let's begin!

I'm sure you're all familiar with the way our society uses the article "ye" instead of "the" anachronistically nowadays to try and make things seems older than they are (as in Ye Olde English Pubbe).  Which is cool, whatever.  But these people pronounce it the way it's spelled: Ye.

Okay here it comes:

Actually... people never said "ye" for "the."  

Whaaat?  I know.

In Early Modern English, "the" could be written as  "þe" with the Old English letter thorn, "þ," pronounced "th."  During the Tudor period (them sexy, fancy people we learned about from Showtime), the shorthand for "þe" was   - a combination of the þ and the e.  Similar to the way we use "&" for "and."

But what does this mean?!

Well, it means that since "þ" and "y" look practically identical in medieval English, the two have more recently been mistaken for each other. But despite the way it looked, it was never pronounced with a "Y" sound.  Never. Ever... Ever ever ever.

So basically, people have been saying it incorrectly while trying to be kitschy for a whole dang century.  But it's okay, because you know better now, and you are properly equipped with the facts so as to scorn and mock all of your friends when they say it wrong.

You're welcome.

Now please.... someone come along and tell me how I used kitchsy wrong.

Welcome to Shuffling this Mortal Coil!

This is the very first post in my new Shakespeare blog.  Let's get introduced!

Hello,

My name is Khaki and I am a graduate student working on a Masters in English with a focus on everyone's favorite bard.  Why? Mostly because I just plain wanted to.  Isn't that a great reason?  I do it for love of the craft - which is almost as good as getting paid!  Which I don't.  Not for this. Definitely not for this.

"But Khaki, what does 'Shuffling this Mortal Coil' even mean?"  I'll tell you, dear reader.

In Hamlet's famous "To be, or not to be" monologue, there is a segment that goes,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come 

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, 

Must give us pause.

(III.i.74-6)

He's talking about dying, and the fear of not knowing what come after we kick it.  Shuffling off your mortal coil means shedding this husk of of chaos we call a body - e.g. to die.  Serious stuff, folks.  But someone misquoted it to me once and said "shuffling this mortal coil," which would pretty much mean to dance. I laughed and laughed... aaand I was the only one.

Anyway, this expensive hobby has been a joy for me, and I have come across so many great Shakespeare related things on these here internets; now I have a place to share them!

So I hope you enjoy.  And if you don't, well that's okay; I'll just have to enjoy it enough for the both of us.

So for now,

"Adieu, adieu, adieu. Remember me" (Hamlet I.v.91)

Khaki

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