Much Ado About Nothing.........Scene One

Thought's....

There's are some stereotypes within Shakespearian plays. There is also some Jealousy with status(Don John to Don Pedro).
Don John is not entitled to the same status or the spoils of the family that Don Pedro.

• As a Character who is he? Outcast of the play.( The black sheep) fulfilling the role (Power Play)
• Conspiracy
• Each Role emotions Don JOhn is miserable where everybody is happy as war is over.
• Important Structurally as it creates the mood in which it could be predicted during the coarse of the play.
• Conrade - Don John's right hand man knows Don John giving his feelings significance

In prose everything is concise, whereas in poetry it's trippedy for instance Don Pedro describing how one should love to claudio professing his love for Hero.
Don John arrogant, self centered, selfish, he would rather die before he remains under his brother's shadow.
He is a character that is given less significance in terms of status but more in terms of being the evil within the play, his character is given less dominance over people compared to his brother. it's only in regards to the controll an loyalty he gets from having his henchmen.

Scene 1
References to the war
Paradox - The war is over but it is just the beginning(mainly between Beatrice and Benedict)
How Benedict and Beatrice are at war and how Don John is at war with Don Pedro(Unknown to him)
Hierarchy, Dominance, Status, Way of life.
How Don John is malicious and Spiteful towards Don Pedro
How Benedict loves Beatrice and vice versa- Shakespeare's use of forshadowing the fact that they both have feelings for each other.
Don John's act is malicious
Whereas when Benedick insults Beatrice in jest
Dramatic significance in pace, where alot of movement when alot characters are involved but with Don John's part its slow paced, making him stand out as the villain in the plot.
In the ballroom he doesn't wear masks seems to be making a statement (Evil).
Beatrice and Benedict have history, seems heart broken 'Never a true word said in jest' saying something lightly but meaning it- this seems to have an underlying meaning.
When Benedict and Beatrice's characters start to change in feelings that's when we have the two sides to them(Alias).

Much Ado About Nothing.........JOURNAL..........

Questions- Thought's on the aspects of what makes the play.

• How is the comedy constructed?
• What are the more seriou elements that emerge within the play?
• How are the characters dramatically depicted throught the play?
• what makes the play a comedy/tragedy?
• Why is Don John so Evil, Spiteful??!

The thing I don't get though is the fact that when you actually watch the characters within the play you get the realise how Don John's evil side is clearly portary by the way he states his words,meaning that each time he speaks, there is somewhat of an evil tone to his voice, his facial features towards the people he talks to/his reactions change depending on whom he talks to. - Emphasis on dramatisim

Also the fact that Pathetic Fallacy is used, in retropect it seems that the use of atmosphere as well as setting has much importance within this play, i.e Setting- Italy, in a Mansion, with a courtyard surrounded by trees, hills etc.

Much Ado About Nothing............

Thoughts :- The first time I heard about the play...I thought that as it's very new to me, I would find it hard understanding Shakespear's narrative, through his use of language in this story. And that I did!
I am though slowly grasping a bit, with the way he uses words, as some are reletively easy to figure out in terms of what each character says, yet in the same way what i'm finding harder is to understand the combination of all the characters (which are too many) and the fact that combining Shakespearian english with the different scenes, character and series of events is SO confusing!.....as well as the use of very emotive powerful verses in the scenes where the whole thing picks up...

Pied Piper of Hamlin

A narrative theme that Browning seems to use throughout most of his poetry is one of Time.
In that creating a specific location described as 'Hamlin Town's in Brunswick.By famous Hanover City', creates a vivid glimpse, a picture if you will, of how one should picture the the story being told as a first person.
In comparison to the Pied Piper- 'The Patritot', seems to have some similarity in showing Time and or a description of how time displaces itself from being something relating to the present time. Rather, it describes something in the past, something of memory, a recollection, which is another significant trait acknowledged within his poetry as stated in the Patriot 'A year ago to this very day', showing how Browning in comparison to a quote in the Pied Piper of Hamlin, shows how he starts of the foundation of his stories through poetry, 'But, When begins my ditty, Almost five hundread years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so, From vermin was a pity'.
Another signaficant factor of how Browning tells his story through poetry, is through the Structure, how he lays out his Poetry.
Comparing the 'The Last Duchess' and 'Fra Lippo Lippi',to 'The Pied Piper' and 'The Patriot' Poems  the structure is very Important, showing a very distinctive technique Browning has used. Which is the fact that in the poems that are more descriptive in memory, there written in a linear style narrative, whereas the 'Pied Piper' in particular is written in a more poetic style, each sectioned and numbered,but also being concise creating levels of layers in which the story seems to unfold, also by the use of Iambic tetrametre, which is another of Browning's techniques.
This in terms of effectiveness creates room for questioning that whether by chapterising each stanza, time and the pace of reading the poem changes the whole view of the story, and indeed it does.
Instead of thinking or relating the meaning behind the story of the 'Pied Piper' with the reality the use of the rhyhm i.e Iambic Tetrametre, with the use of coinciding rhymes creating a 3 verse rhyming stanza making it seem innocent and just a poem described as 'A Child's Story.
So in conclusion, also pointing out the fact that at the start, the use of In Media Res, makes it tricky to realise that in fact that this is indeed story, told from memory, told to a child and as a third person who is being talked to at the end of the poem - 'So Willy, let me and you be wipers, Of scores out with all men - Especially Pipers', a story which ends in a moral being told.
Saying that's it's 'A Child's Story' does not make it so, Again meaning the poem has a much deeper underlying point to be made, which is yet again another method of Browning's.
The use of enjambment, making the poem seem always flowing into each verse, always having that trippy feeling to it, also in creating stressed verses and emphasising on each one, with words that seem to stand out exaggerated by use of exclammation points,to highlight significance of the verse, I.e in Stanza 10,the use of the word 'Rats!' Highlighting the key factor of which the story is about.

The Last Duchess By Browning

I found the poem very surreal at first, in how it starts and then slowly unfolds to become a story of tragedy towards the middle an ending.

In every poem I have read of Browning’s, I find that he has the tendency of making a story of tragedy seem so calm and wonderfully beautiful in the beginning, then bringing the tragic murderous characters, who add that certain type of  sinister feeling towards it, what seems to be a story, being described in the form of the poem. Reading it seems like the character is a man, who describes the way he had so much love for a woman that he murdered near the end of this poem but also talking about how he held ‘My Duchess’ as a possession keeping her beauty away from the staring eyes but his. And that she was somewhat of an intimidating and overshadowing character that to attain his dominance from their relationship wanted to solely possess her. It’s as if she does not feel that anything he says to her is relevant to what she wants ‘In speech – Which I have not – to make your will quite clear to such an one, and say, just this Or that in you disgust me; here you miss or there exceed the mark’ – and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth and made excuse, E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose never to stoop. This just indicates that they seem to get into a lot of arguments which resulted in him succumbing to her authority in a way because he chooses ‘Never to stoop’.

Quoting ‘how such a glance came there; so not the first,

                 Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir ‘twas not

                 Her husband’s presence only called that spot

                 Of joy into the Duchess’ cheek.

Using the quote it does seem that she was not happy in seeing her husband for reasons that he was trying to force affection from her, always thinking that And I quote ‘ She ranked my gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name with anybody’s gift. This to me tells me that he might want her for himself, thinking that, by showering her with the most expensive worldly objects she will be ‘Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er, she looked on, and her looks went everywhere’. To me it seems that though she seems easily impressed it only for the things described in stanza 24 as’ the dropping of daylight in the west, the bough of cherries’, then moving on into stanza 26, where it starts with ‘the white mule she with round the terrace – all each would draw from her alike the approving speech, or blush at least, she thanked men – good! But thanked somehow – I know not how’. Again it seems that he is so controlling that the amount of attention she gets form them men that do admire her beauty, makes him so paranoid that he has to ask himself how she thanked them. Was it a smile or through some other form of appreciation?

 

The Laboratory by Browning - Poetry

The poem 'The Laboratory' by Browning, was very interesting, how the poet narrated the Stanza's, like a person telling a story of how they plan to kill the woman, who snatched the man she loved.

Browning created this woman, showing how evil her mind is and the way she conspires to kill that which is in her way.
It’s as if she's relishing in the fact that this poison is that which is enough to finish off her opponent. As she says 'Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?’ this just tells the readers that the woman has the desire, to choose a poison that is strong enough to finish her in an instant as she also says 'What a drop! She's not little, no minion like me! That's why she ensnared him; this never will free the soul from masculine eyes', she is saying that a droplet won’t be enough to kill such a women of her size, that a much more significant amount would definitely do the deed justice.
The narrator seems to use a lot pauses in between the way she describes her use of rhythmic prose, in describing each verse as if trying to make it known to the reader of her intent, each precautious steps she is taking to make sure that everything goes to plan.
This poem though very gruesome, shows how Browning works, creating a poem that touches on the aspects of morbidity,  as with his poem  ‘The Last Duchess’ It  also touches upon death and the way it comes to pass, through what seems to be a series of events leading to a morbid ending.
In conclusion to all said, I think that the narrator has cleverly used a sort of rhythmic connivance in regards to creating that sort of sinister and dramatised tension and a sort of feeling of making the reader realise that this poem is about revenge, that its about the fact that any minute now that ‘Soft phial, the exquisite blue, sure to taste sweetly’, is the object with which that whole poem is about that ‘Brave tree whence such gold oozing come!’ that should ‘brighten her drink, let her turn it and stir’ then for her to ‘Try it and taste’ that the girl should ‘Let death be felt and proof remain’, this is just the ending that reminds me of that point when Juliet instead of drinking  the elixir to end her life, uses the knife, which is much more brutal, but instead in this poem it’s based on the most civilised of women being the one who kills describing herself as a woman of significance saying ‘where men wait me and dance at the king’s’ not caring for how much the price for her wish to happen comes as she says ‘The delicate droplet, my whole fortune’s fee! If it hurts her’, and to ‘take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill’. The rich and wealthy using powers to influence what she desires to happen.