January 7, 2019 at 12:31:37 PM
Results for: Free Association: Enter the first word or phrase that comes into your head when you see or hear the word "Shakespeare."
Response
Cool
Tragic
Sexy
tragic
Dreary
boring
The globe theater
love
Old
Old
Brilliant
Theatre
A play writer
Death
Tragedy
Confusing
Hamlet
Old
Love and death
Love and Death
Old dude
Poetry
"God I hate Shakespeare"
Boring
Apathetic
Brutus
Thou
Love
Old
Dead
Death
Commentary on the Poll Results:
---"Old"
---"Tragedy . . . Hamlet . . . Love and Death"
-- "Confusing . . . Thou"
--"boring . . .'God I hate Shakespeare'"
Go To the Movie
Stop Here (Elapsed Time--35:52)
THE GENERAL THEORY OF COMEDY: RELEASE FROM PSYCHOLOGICAL THREAT Remember, I'm the one who introduced myself by telling a story aboutmy grandson,
Death
and three kitties, two Dead
and the other Alive
Sigmund Freud,
author of
Jokes and
Their Relation
to the
Unconscious
--psychological threat
--release from psychological threatThe Psychological Threat in the Story I Told:
The Release from the Psychological Threat:
In Comedy, it looks like we're going to have weep and feel depressed, but then we are surprised into laughter.
--Question: If you liked the movie so far, what was your favorite part?
--I'm going to try to relate your answers to the pattern described above.
THE SET-UP (THE SITUATION OF THIS SITUATION COMEDY) The Cute Couple: Hero and Claudio
The Quarreling Couple: Benedick and Beatrice
A Villain: Don John, the Bastard:
And the issue is marriage. Hero and Claudio want to be married; Benedick and Beatrice, don't. And Don John wants to get revenge by ruining the marriage of Hero and Claudio.
BECAUSE THE ISSUE IS MARRIAGE, IT'S A ROMANTIC COMEDY In these shows we see:
Which has certain common features:
--Shakespeare's (he invented it) Romantic Comedy is the great-grandmother of sitcoms such as these two:
The pitfalls of love:
We won't measure up:
We will be left on the outside, looking in:
Or, things could get even worse -- We could lose our love forever.
These issues are a very big deal, and occupy a great deal of our attention.
--Question to the men in the audience
--Question to women in the audience (Lacee)
It was an even bigger deal in Shakespeare's time, especially for women:
--no single moms
--spinsters
Also, there is a fundamental psychological threat that is expressed by both Benedick and Beatrice:
--Benedick's opinion of Claudio being in love:
"Go to, i' faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke, wear the print of it, and sigh away Sundays."
--Beatrice's opinion of the nature of marriage
Leonato says, "Well, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband."
Beatrice replies: Not till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
BUT,
But those threats are always defeated and the Story of romantic comedy is the story of the release from a threat.
