wordwhacker

Was it just me, or was this play a surprisingly quick read? Either way, I'm finding that as the course goes on I am definitely getting better at reading this material. Seeing a couple of the plays (or excerpts, anyway) was a huge help. The characters are starting to "pop" (as much as they're going to, anyway) and I'm starting to get a better feel for the social mores of this period. I'm looking forward to breezing through some of the earlier plays we studied over March Break.

Having said that, this play was still something of a hard read - not technically, this time, but emotionally and intellectually. Comedies seem to be easier to swallow in a lot of ways, because even though they eventually iron everything out with marriages, they spend an awful lot of time riffing on the institutions of the day. I can dig that. I watch "This Hour has 22 Minutes".

But the main focus of this "she-tragedy" is the (literal) horror, death, and destruction that is caused when woman has extramarital sex. It's not fun and games any more. No more cute scenes where Palamede and Doralice almost have sex. Nope. Calista gone and done it, and all hell has broken loose. Of course they flirt with the idea that she can be forgiven, but it's just for the titillation factor - like Palamede and Rhodophil contemplating a wife-swap for 2.5 seconds. She has to die.

She raises some interesting questions, too. Whose fault is it, anyway? She says to Lothario: "I come to charge thee with a long account / Of all the sorrows I have known already / And all I have to come: thou hast undone me." (IV.i 33-35) She rejects the idea that her virtue was only her responsibility. And yet she doesn't take lightly to Horatio meddling in it: "I am myself the guardian of my honor / And wonnot bear so insolent a monitor." (III.i 186-187) More than once she questions her father's authority over her, even when she's just about ready to throw in the towel: "Is this, is this the mercy of a father? / I only beg to die, and he denies me." (IV.i 201-202)

And then she dies, conveniently, so Rowe doesn't have to answer any of them. Of course. This could be read in a number of ways: asking the questions = death, doing the act = death - spiritually, as evidenced by her repeated rejections of Christian ideals: "Yet Heav'n [...] / Makes not too strict enquiry for offences / But is atoned by penitence and pray'r. / Cheap recompense!" (iV. 157-161)

It's interesting that contemporary folks complained that Calista wasn't penitent enough. They were probably taking a strictly religious definition of "penitence", which would be refuted by comments like the one I quoted above. But in terms of "sorrow for sins and faults," she has plenty:

Now think thou, curst Calista, now behold
The desolation, horror, blood, and ruin
Thy crimes and fatal folly spread around [...]
Nothing but blood can make the expiation
And cleanse the soul from inbred, deep pollution. (V.i 153-163)

Geeze! She's sorry already! Would someone forgive her or kill her, or both, or whatever it is she wants?

When I re-read the introduction for this play in the text, I had to giggle a little about Calista being "the play's central focus" (p. 637). I mean, okay, in terms of her as an object that instigates death and destruction en masse, things certainly turn around her. She is definitely a Bad Girl and that's made pretty clear. But the real story here, the real source of pathos, is the love story.

What? No, not the one with Calista. I'm talkin' about Altamont and Horatio. Seriously, if I ever meet someone doesn't believe in the privileging of homo-social relationships, I'll get them to read this play. Lavina exists only as a beard for Horatio and a mediator for the boys' deep, fulfilling, loving relationship. When they "break up" in Act III her entire existence revolves around getting them to make up. And who broke them up? Calista! Apart from disappointing her patriarchal overlord father, this is one of her worst sins (to which we're directly privy, at any rate.)

I'm sure a modern take on this play could have a lot of fun playing up Altamont and Horatio's (supposedly) platonic love affair. Man, now I almost want to write fanfiction about it... A niche audience I'd have, that's for sure.


Number of plays read: 7
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (I weep.)

For this, I weep.

We were warned that things would get less saucy, but even with the lack of blatant sexual innuendo this was a fun play to read. I will agree wholeheartedly with the preface - the most difficult part of reading this play, BY FAR, was keeping straight who loves who used to love who hates who. Seriously, even if you've read the play, the Synopsis on Wikipedia and the Dramatis Personae will make your head spin. I was also continually forgetting that "Fainall" meant MISTER Fainall, not Mrs Fainall, and I kept thinking that Mirabell was Millamant and vice versa.

Maybe this is just me, but there was a pervasive feeling of "sameness" lurking about most of the women and most of the men characters. I'd be lying if I said every single character in every play we've read so far has popped out as a distinctive snowflake or anything. But it was difficult for me, until the play was quite far along, to "feel" the difference between, for instance, Marwood and Mrs Fainall, or Mr. Fainall and Mirabell. In this sense I'm sure that the costuming (along with the interpretations of the actors, of course) would probably have been quite helpful. A lot of the characters' true colours don't really come out until late in the play, so a visual aid (involving colour, of course!) early on would help to appreciate the different characters.

A theme that arises late (Act V) is "prudence", particularly of the type a woman should subscribe when she enters married life. Lady Wishfort apparently took some significant pains to preserve Mrs. Fainall's innocence:

... I promise you, her education has been
unexceptionable. I may say it, for I chiefly made
it my own care to initiate her very infancy in the
rudiments of virtue and to impress upon her
tender years a young odium and aversion to the
very sight of men. Aye, friend, she would ha'
shrieked if she had but seen a man till she was in
her teens. (V, 191-198)

[...] And can I think after all
this that my daughter can be naught? (V, 214-215)

Of course, Wishfort is continually shown to be something of a bumbling, short-sighted, not particularly prudent old bat. She falls for the "Sir Rowland" hoax hook, line, and sinker. Previously, she fell for Mirabell's false advances. Not much of a poster child for her own method of rearing her daughter, eh? In the end, "prudence" takes on a whole different meaning when Mrs. Fainall is able to keep her money thanks to a clever legal trick. Even though Wishfort tries to lay claim to teaching her the way of the world, "Oh daughter, daughter, 'tis plain thou hast inherited thy mother's prudence." (V, 588-589), it's obvious that there has been a shift in values from one generation to the next.

And the mastermind behind this trick? Mirabell, the reformed rake, who took such nice care of his former lover. And now he's made up with Wishfort and has her blessings so he can both marry Millamant AND get the cash. Actually, it's through his reformation that he's set up to marry and be happy in the end - if he hadn't had the "Mrs. Fainall's fortune" card to play, he would have been out. And because he DID play this card, EVERYBODY wins (except Mr Fainall and Marwood, who pay for their falsehoods - while Mirabell's are completely forgiven, notice?)

There is definitely a sanctioning of the reformation of rake-like characters (and by extension, actual people) here - and in a way, also a sanctioning of the rake-like behaviour to begin with. Just settle down, own-up and marry eventually, and everything will be a-okay for eeeeeverybody.


Number of plays read: 5
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (No breeches roles in this one! For this I weep as well!)

So once again, we find ourselves in the midst of a split-plot tragicomedy - at least, for Southerne's stage version. It's a shame the novel wasn't written similarly, I think a Benny Hill-style sub-plot with some slapstick would have livened up Behn's novella significantly. For the sake of chronology and comparison, I'll talk about the novella first.

After I finish this glass of wine. And maybe another.

Apparently, I am not a fan of Behn's prose. Where is the scintillating dialogue that I enjoyed so much in The Rover? Why am I instead drowning in paragraphs that must have been at least eight pages long? I realize that this was the style of the day, that novels and novellas were really just starting to come to the fore. That's great. Let's just say that my very favourite part of Southerne's adaptation was the fact that he (by necessity) skipped the whole first half of the novella, relegating that backstory to exactly as much time as it warranted: 40 or so lines, ending with "I'll trouble you no farther" (II.iii). Oroonoko, baby, you have no idea how much I appreciate that.

Slavery doesn't really seem to the the focus of this novel. Behn is much more interested in setting Oroonoko up as a natural king - and as white a king as possible. He speaks French and English and is generally very well-mannered. He even looks white: "His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat. His mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turned lips which are so natural to the rest of the negroes."

After sanctioning him in this way, it's interesting that she portends to set him up as an example of a non-Christian who is still a legitimate ruler. Even people who think "that all fine wit is confined to the white men, especially to those of Christendom'" would "have confessed that Oroonoko was as capable even of reigning well..." Well, of course he is. He's about as white-upperclass as a black man can be, right? He even has and deals with his own slaves, and in a break from his grandfather (who has a big ol' harem) he falls into a monogamous one-true love.

When the slaves he was leading in the revolt chicken out on him, his place as an outsider from the race of slaves is cemented again. He regrets and is ashamed of "endeavoring to make those free who were by nature slaves, poor wretched rogues, fit to be used as Christian's tolls; dogs, treacherous and cowardly, fit for such masters, and they wanted only but to be whipped into the knowledge of the Christian gods, to be the vilest of all creeping things; to learn to worship such deities as had not power to make them just, brave..." (Southerne translates this passage nearly word-for-word for the stage.)

Basically, Behn's tragedy isn't slavery - it's the ill-treatment of a natural born king. The Oroonoko Wikipedia article has this to say:

... however tepid her feelings about slavery, there is no doubt about her feelings on the subject of natural kingship. The final words of the novel are a slight expiation of the narrator's guilt, but it is for the individual man she mourns and for the individual that she writes a tribute, and she lodges no protest over slavery itself. A natural king could not be enslaved, and, as in the play Behn wrote while in Surinam, The Young King, no land could prosper without a king. Her fictional Surinam is a headless body. Without a true and natural leader, a king, the feeble and corrupt men of position abuse their power. What was missing was Lord Willoughby, or the narrator's father: a true lord. In the absence of such leadership, a true king, Oroonoko, is misjudged, mistreated, and killed.

As for Southerne's adaptation, some of these assumptions remain strongly intact (his decision to replicate the quote I mentioned above nearly word-for-word is telling.) Other things change - strangely, Imoinda seems to be a much stronger character for Southerne than she was for Behn, which is kind of strange. (Goodbye, Hellena - hello, weepy Imoinda!) She even has a hand in her own death in the play, when ol' Oro couldn't get up the guts (like, after five tries.) Whether there was a reason to change Imoinda from black to white apart from making her accessible to the Lt Governor as an object of lust, I have no idea. Apparently it was acceptable for a black man to want to be with a white woman, but too risqué for a white man to want a black woman.

While I found Oro (I feel that after a novella and a play, I know the guy well enough to shorten his name) to be generally weepy and annoying in the novel, Southerne gives him a voice that seems to suit his supposedly-noble character. While the motivations and emotions in the novella felt kind of muddy and subdued to me, the stage version really made them "pop" - whether this is Southerne in particular or just a necessity of the shift from one medium to another, I'm not sure.

The interweaving of the two plots felt a little strained to me, but I was happy for the presence of some lighter fare (and pretty gutsy ladies) to mellow out the tragic, tragic, tra-diddly-agic romance/heroic plot. Charlotte was a hoot, but I think the Widow pretty much stole every scene she was in. That would be a terribly fun part to play. As fun as it was, I can understand why it would have been cut from later adaptations.


I have a question about how these plays would have been billed. For something like this or "Marriage à la Mode", would it have actually been called a "split-plot tragicomedy", or just a "tragicomedy", or what? (Or maybe a tra-diddly-agicomedy?)

Until next time - same blog time, same blog channel!


Number of plays read: 4
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 5 (Thanks to Marriage à la Mode we have a buffer, in case one play should omit this all-too-necessary component!)

A short post for now - just to get me started thinking. More will come on Saturday, which is the day I do my blog reading.

So I am definitely starting to enjoy these plays more than I did at first, and I think a lot of that has to do with what Dr. Jones mentioned in class about "learning how to read" the plays. Despite my occasionally having to go back and figure out who was in love with who was betrothed to who hated who, I was able to follow the plot and enjoy the characters (some more than others - I had a hard time figuring Angellica out. I think it's the "poetry" in her first scene with Willmore, in particular. I was able to surmise what had happened in reading the rest of the play, but during the scene? Gone. No clue. Just the boy kneeling and begging, and the damsel "turning away" in pride or love or, I dunno, an untimely bout of gas.)

I want especially to look at this play in terms of its authorship. I hope we address this in class, because (being unfamiliar with this period) I'm not really sure how common a woman playwright was. What particular constraints would she have had to deal with?

On that note, I find it interesting that the introduction to the play that's in the text we're using for the class focuses so much on the "forgiving" that happens at the end of this story. Just to draw a brief contrast, look at Willmore as compared to Horner from The Country Wife. Willmore is at least as much of a womanizer as Horner, maybe more (I mean, seriously. Get this guy a leash.) Either way, both characters sleep with about as many dames as they can lay their paws on. Neither is the tiniest bit remorseful about it. They both lie and cheat their way into ladies' beds.

Both plays "forgive" this behaviour in one way or another. Wycherley has Horner's girls (that sounds so dirty) sanction his libertinism (yes, I looked it up - it's a real word!) when they find out that he's secretly sleeping with all of them. Behn has Angellica somewhat lamely decide not to kill Willmore (I knew he wasn't gonna die, but man, I was cheering her on). Neither Horner nor Willmore have to "own up" to their various nefarious deeds (including attempted rape on Willmore's part.)

However, Horner gets away almost 100% scott-free - in fact, the revelation at the end of the play informs Pinchwife about his "malady" so that he's actually safer than he was at the beginning! In contrast, Behn seems to have more going on - I will be more specific on this point later, but I feel that she did do more to address (if not outright condemn) Willmore's wandering tendencies. I mean, a woman pulls a pistol on him - rather a phallic image, don't you think? He winds up with Hellena, calling himself "constant" while she (dressed in men's clothes at the time, note) calls herself "inconstant".

It'd be fun to compare and contrast the Breeches roles in The Rover and The Country Wife. Hellena and Margery have some interesting similarities ("innocence" along with a heightened sexual desire) and differences (Hellena has some wits about her, while Margery... is smarter than she looks, but still a few bats shy).

I think there is a lot going on in The Rover, and I'm looking forward to investigating it further. (No, really this time.) For now, I have to go watch Blade Runner for my other English class.



Number of plays read: 3
Ladies-dressed-as-boys: 4

Man, some of the blog entries about Marriage a la Mode are downright intimidating in their scope/depth/general awesomeness. Thank you for a great read, folks. I hope I can contribute adequately to the discussions that these posts have drawn out.

I'm allergic to stepping on peoples' toes, so I'm trying to think of a line of thought to pursue that hasn't been trampled on too much yet. So in that light:

Class (and, somewhat adjoinedly, fate)

(Note: I'm writing at work. I have a bad back, so I left the (GIANT) book at home. At a later date I'll pepper this thing with quotes and citations. Feel free to jump in at will, I haven't fully coagulated this line of thought yet. Also, forgive my spelling, it too suffers.)

Though both the comic and tragic plot deal with characters in a high sphere of influence, Dryden leaves no doubt about the place that heredity has in defining one's "place" in the world. Though Leonidas and Palmyra were raised poor (but noble!) their whole world revolves around who-begat-who. This is reinforced by the easy acceptance everybody (read: Polydamas) seems to have of these (one would think) shocking revelations. (And for a usurper, he sure does bow down to the "rightful king" quick and easy-like, don't you think?) Once someone's birthright has been declared there is a magical bowing-down that is utterly unchallenged. Having both Leonidas and Palmyra be of noble birth is also a convenient "out" for Dryden - he doesn't have to deal with how to cross social barriers to get the lovers together. Nobody gets upset, everybody is in their "rightful" place.

(The above situation reminds me of that in Joseph Andrews (1742) by Henry Fielding, wherein his characters start as peasants but are artificially (and by "surprise" revelations in their "true" lineage) raised to a higher status in the end. The novel is a scathing attack of the class structure, without actually threatening the validity of that structure. Instead, he champions the "virtuous" life across all classes.)

The comedy couples embody a desire to move upward in rank, but it's a more precarious position. Particularly Palamede and Melantha showcase this, the former in his fear of losing his inheritance, the latter in the constant "courting" of the court. They both settle into place (read: are put in their place) at the end of the play. It seems that Melantha gains a bit of status in being recognized at the court, but her station does't really rise because of it - she's just sanctioned by the rest of the hangers-on to royalty. Palamede manages to keep his status by doing what daddy wants. Nothing earth-shattering happens to these characters in the realm of class.

The reason this interests me is that there's a certain amount of parody apparent in the play, particularly in the comedy, that pokes fun at various aspects of the upper classes. Someone blogged about how fashion and the general accoutrements (and use of french words!) was basically ragging on the aristocracy. It's no surprise that it's featured in the comedy - the one where everybody is eventually "put in their place" as I mentioned above. Once again, this reminds me of Fielding - don't rock the boat.

Since I suck at approaching people to join a group face-to-face, I figured a personals ad would do the trick. To that effect:

23-year-old over-achiever with no social life seeks to team up with group of enthusiastic English nerds for ENGL 3203 project extravaganza. Is willing and able to embarass self publicly. Not particularly punctual, but makes up for it in style. Hoping to form an alliance with equal parts silliness, studious intent, and sass.

Interested parties may inquire in the comments, or shoot me an email at cassaclyzm at gmail dot com.


I finished Act II (of John Dryden's "Marriage-à-la-Mode") last night. Ah, rhyming couplets, you smack of Twue Wuuuv. Especially with the finishing each other's rhymes. Tee hee.

I'm in the process of cleaning up and reorganizing my writing on this journal, so rather than having these oooooold stories take up my whole profile, I am tucking them away here.



( Short Stories - over 1,000 words )


Vignettes (Less than 1,000 words)

The Tree's Legacy
- A little girl starts to wonder how permanent her world really is. (600 words, second draft.) (First draft.)

Wet Sand
- What do we remember when we're too young to understand? (250 words, first draft.)

Complications
- When you find out what unconditional love really is. (700 words, first draft.)

Disappointment
- We're all gluttons for punishment. (250 words, first draft.)

Diamonds
- Idealism sometimes has a price. (800 words, first draft.)

Post Haste
- Sometimes nature takes things into her own hands. (650 words, first draft.)

Oh No You Don't
- "You will not spend one cent of your hard earned money on a ring." (200 words, first draft)

Christmas Cookies
- I had been neglecting a Christmas tradition that, surely, had a growing impact on my Naughty or Nice status. (500 words, second draft)


( Longer / Ongoing: )

So have you ever wondered what kind of stuff can happen when you're writing for NaNoWriMo?

I found a great little nugget of truth when preparing Chapter 13 to be edited today. The chapter starts with this sentence:

"It was a little odd, Casey thought, re-doing in reverse what had just happened a few minutes before but with roles reversed."

*facepalm*

I should start a religion revolving around the fervent and repeated stroke of the "delete" key.

An amazing, wonderful thing just happened to me.

It was 1:30, about half an hour before I expected to head to work. I had my lunch packed, everything was ready. "How nice," I said to myself, "I shall have some free time. Whatever shall I do with it?"

And do you know what I decided, Gentle Readers?

I decided to go get my daily editing in.

The scary thing?


I actually DID!



So yeah, something fishy is going on here. I keep actually, like, doing what I say I'm going to do. Man, if this keeps up, unimaginable vistas shall open up before me, like shutters to the wide, wide world of Doing Stuff.

Chapter 12 is about half done now. I'm seriously getting close to having this draft finished. I can taste it, baby.

So, I am freed of school-related obligations. My first writing objective of the month has been met. Now it's time to move on to goal numero dos, being:

Get Mah Novel Edited, Yo!

I cracked open the old Blue Goo manuscript and picked up not-quite halfway through Chapter 9. I think I said something about that, as I was about to embark on it this past summer. Something about it "not needing much rewriting".

Yeah. So I needed to rewrite almost the ENTIRE chapter. I mean, like 98% of it or more. Brutal. The writing is much stronger now, though. Word-count wasn't quite halved - it's still 2,200 words long and needs trimming. I'm not worrying about that now. That's for D3, baby.

I only gave myself an obligation of working for half an hour, but once I got into it I wanted to get it finished so I plugged away for a full hour. See, if I can trick myself into DOING stuff, I might actually, y'know... DO stuff.

There are five or six chapters left. An hour seems to be just about what it takes to whip a chapter into shape, give or take. If I get half an hour in every day from now until school starts (assuming a couple of lost days over Christmas) I will be swimmin'.

I WILL do this. I need to prove that I have the discipline.