Still I Rise

I was surprised to start this Act off with a grave -digging! Why did they spend so much time on this? And was it supposed to be humorous when the grave digger was so literal? Shakespeare is so interesting to try and figure out. Hamlet got very deep with all of the talk about death and the bodies and rank and all of that. I love when Shakespeare does that – he takes a character who seems to be crazy or something and lets them deliver this great insight on a heavy issue. 

And Hamlet never ceases to amaze! He knew about his own planned killing and retaliated with a plan to kill R and G! He has covered all the bases and even went to the extreme to kill off his two friends. Not that they were really his friends when they sided with the King to take out Hamlet. 

This Act was when the expected, predictable, tragedy by Shakespeare happened – DEATH. Claudius killed Gertrude and Laertes by accident with poison intended for Hamlet and then Hamlet gives Claudius a taste of his own medicine – literally – by pouring the poison into his mouth. 

And then … our tragic hero dies! I feel bad for Hamlet – he was misunderstood and he just wanted to set things right, even if he didn’t go about it in the best way. He was driven by grief and a need for justice, and didn’t want to live to see the better future.  

Well, Act four had many events that seemed to pass to quickly without notice for their seeming importance. The problem at the beginning was finding something to do with Polonius’ dead body. Hamlet took and hid it, but at this point I was confused as to what happened. He gave riddles it seemed like saying things like the body was with the king, but the king was not with the body. I am not even clear as to whether they found it or not. 

There was also the unveiling of Claudius’ plan to send Hamlet to England and have him killed. Hamlet seemed willing to go – was this part of Hamlet’s plan? It’s hard to tell when Hamlet is planning revenge and when he is simply insane. Speaking of insane – Ophelia too?? It seems that grief showing itself as insanity is a theme in this play, as Laertes too went to the extreme of attempting to overthrow a government when he heard of his father’s death. Claudius was clever to so quickly set him up with a chance to kill Hamlet when his own life was threatened. Then he wouldn’t have to take care of killing Hamlet and he wouldn’t have to fear for his life – two birds with one stone. However, Hamlet’s letters were very confusing – again, I question whether this is part of his plan, or is this actually happening? 

I was very disappointed to read that Ophelia dies. I feel like she and Hamlet have more to go through together! I need some closure on that relationship!

Act three really started to involve Claudius in Hamlet’s madness. After Polonius got him involved with spying on the interaction between Ophelia and Hamlet, Claudius has been occupied with Hamlet’s madness and has realized that it is because of his father’s death and Claudius’ role in it. After Hamlet’s play, where he had the actors reenact his father’s murder, Claudius was very fearful of being discovered or harmed by Hamlet and started to take precautionary measures by sending Hamlet to England with his friends. The play, I thought, was very clever of Hamlet. It was a genius way of exposing Claudius’ emotions and guilt around his brother’s death and a good way to hint that he was not safe from the consequences of what he did. 

I really liked the part before Claudius was about to pray when he raised the concept of forgiveness and the “conditions” surrounding it. Most religions deal with the subject of forgiveness and it was interesting to see Shakespeare raising these questions in his play. Everyone struggles with guilt, sin, and the need to be forgiven and parts like those really draw the reader or audience member into the play as it relates to their own life. 

I was shocked when Hamlet killed Polonius! I had been wondering the whole time why Polonius was so intrigued and upset over Hamlet’s madness. Was it because of his involvement with Ophelia? Does he have some other motive? Is he just an odd character? How will his death affect the relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia? 

So many questions to be answered! … 

why polonius caring so much?

hamlet kills polonius

The looming question throughout this Act was whether Hamlet is really insane or if it is all part of a plan. He seems to be completely distracted from normal life and is all over the place mentally. Sometimes his actions are more extreme than others, but he is consistently “off.” The story that Ophelia told about Hamlet seemed very creepy – why would he do that to her if he loves her? This makes me think he is actually mad because I don’t think he would have done that to her if he wasn’t completely out of his mind. Or, maybe he doesn’t really love her? Maybe Ophelia just thinks he does?

I am little confused as to why Gertrude and Claudius brought in old friends of Hamlet’s to discover if he was really crazy. Is it because they would be able to get something out of him? Because from what I gathered it seemed that they had not been in the picture for a while, so they wouldn’t have known very much about the situation. 

This line,

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t.”

Is this where the saying “a method to his madness” came from? I am finding lots of common sayings throughout Hamlet!

The second scene got very confusing because of the play within a play! Or at least the actors and the line -reading … it was very hard to follow. Hopefully when they put on the actual play it won’t be too confusing!

I’m not sure how I feel about Hamlet so far…

Shakespeare is always a challenge for me. Most of the time the complicated language clouds the plot and ideas that are being conveyed, but I am finding the movie to be helpful in setting up a picture for me to be able to focus more in detail on the language and still maintain a basic understanding of the play. 

In this Act we met the characters, were introduced to Hamlet’s new family situation following his father’s death, interacted with a royal ghost, caught a glimpse of a possible relationship between Ophelia and Hamlet, and saw what could have been the beginning of a mental breakdown. I couldn’t believe Gertrude remarried so quickly, and to her husband’s brother! That seems suspicious to me … how could you lose your husband and then turn around a month later and be a happily remarried woman, to your brother -in- law? Hamlet’s mother and uncle criticized him for dressing in black and continuing to mourn, but it seems to me that they were the ones who were off base here. Hamlet was grieving normally, unlike everyone else. 

I found the interactions with the ghost to be confusing until I saw them in the movie, but I’m still not sure I understand everything that was going on in the last scene. Hamlet’s brother killed him? And Gertrude was involved … or no? Or don’t we know yet? And it seemed like Hamlet was going mad? As usual I am sure Shakespeare will unveil all the answers (and of course multiple deaths) by the end… 

I went for a walk

     in the Samburu,

the ground was hard like rock

     but the people were true,

          and that’s where I heard you laugh. 

I then went hiking

     in the Bridger Range

The view was striking

     but the wind blew strange,

          that’s where I found your hands.

On to the Mediterranean

     in a worn yacht, 

The waves roared like lions

     but the sun shone hot,

          and that’s how I found your chest.

A party in Milan

     near the Piazza de Duomo

I stayed until dawn

     but the sun was still low,

          that’s where I saw your face. 

I have been seeking

     the whole world to find

Pieces of you leaking

     lost parts still to bind.

Won’t you pull yourself together

For

      Me

ONCE

For this poem, I took the frame of Angelou’s poem Here’s to Adhering, and filled in different places and experiences. I kept the last line of every stanza and kept the very last part, “Won’t you pull yourself together/ For/ Me/ ONCE.” My version keeps the idea, theme, and nature of the poem, but adds different travels.  

I really like this blogging project and the conversational style writing. It was much easier to analyze the poetry just having to worry about the content and the ideas rather than perfecting the language and precise wording. It was nice to be able to provide pictures and video (although I had problems uploading pictures to my blog) to add to my research and explanation of my poetry. It was also nice to be able to link to my sources so that I could support my points without writing a long summary. I did, however, have a lot of trouble finding scholarly research and other blogs about my poet, Maya Angelou. There was very little scholarly analysis of her poetry and I found no blogs about her other than someone posting her poetry on their blog and saying they liked it. It was difficult to find anything to support my own conclusions about her work besides biographical information. Overall, I enjoyed the style and format of the project and found it much more enjoyable than a paper!

Posts

March 25 – For these, I could not find other blogs on Maya Angelou and anything to do with her influences outside of our classes, so I commented on blogs with poets who had the same influences as Angelou or who could have influenced her. 

Comment on Bob Dylan Blog 

Comment on Robert Hayden Blog

March 18 

Comment on Bri’s Langston Hughes Biography 

Comment on Alison’s Rita Dove Biography

Comment on Bob Dylan Blog 

Comment on Robert Hayden Blog

As with older influences, it appears that Maya Angelou did not have many strong influential poets to her throughout her years of writing. Most of Angelou’s influences were not people whose writing affected hers, but instead leaders of her time that inspired, motivated, and focused her writing. Her influences were strong African Americans like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. One woman that could have been an influence to Maya Angelou was Odetta Holmes. Odetta Holmes was a singer, songwriter, actress, and civil rights activist. She was an important part of the American Folk revival, and her songs were important to the Civil RIghts movement. She influenced many other singers and songwriters including Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Mavis Staples, Bruce Springsteen, Carly Simon, and Harry Belafonte. Maya Angelou is quoted as saying,

“If only one could be sure that every fifty years a voice and a soul like Odetta’s would come aliong, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time.”

The topics of her songs were empowerment, the civil rights movement, African American pride, and the strength of women – very similar to Maya Angelou.

Maya Angelou is not openly known to be an influence to anyone’s writings or poetry, however she has been a mentor and influence in the life of Oprah WInfrey. Angelou’s poem “My Life has Turned to Blue” was the influence and inspiration for the song/album “Turned to Blue” by Nancy WIlson.  Most of all, her presence as a strong, proud, and respected African American woman  has been an influence in and of itself.

Biography  (Maya Angelou information)

Biography  (Odetta Holmes information)

Throughout my research, I have not found any strong influences on Maya Angelou or her writing and no poet comes to mind when reading her work. Her poetry is very different from anything else and while reading it you can tell that it is truly just her personality coming out in words, her life and thoughts being described on paper. Poems like Phenomenal Woman, Still I Rise, and Caged Bird are directly about her and her life from what I’ve read. Her style seems to be whatever she was feeling at the time – some of her poems are very upbeat with a fast rhythm while others have a sad tone and the lines are drawn out. However, one thing is consistently and strongly used in her poems: imagery. Because of this key component, Ezra Pound can be seen as an influence on Angelou’s poetry through her use of powerful imagery. Pound believed that imagery was the most important thing in poetry. He believed that specifically delivered images would lead the reader to pictures, ideas, and emotions. Another important element for Pound was using common speech and not dressing up his poems with fancy, large, complex words but instead being accessible to the common reader. Maya Angelou upholds this idea of familiar diction in her poetry and mimics Pound in this way.  In Angelou’s poem Still I Rise, she gives many strong images.

(From Still I Rise)

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise

This not only gives a very clear image of dirt to dust rising, but also connects to the ideas of oppression and slavery in the poem and evokes strong emotion. Later in the same poem Angelou says,

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds 

At the meeting of my thighs? 

This gives us a very clear image, allows us to see Angelou’s embracement of her femininity and sexuality, and conveys a strong feeling of pride and confidence. 

In Pound’s work, he uses imagery in a less personal way and his writing lacks a lot of the personality and gumption that Angelou’s possesses. However, his imagery still gives pictures, ideas, and emotions. 

The Jewel Stairs Grievance

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew, 

It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings, 

And I let down the crystal curtian

And watch the moon through the clear autumn.

There is STRONG imagery in this poem. It is a clear, wet night and we can easily envision the wet stockings. It is almost as if this night scene is sparkling and delicate. We get a picture, the idea of this upper class woman, and a feeling of grievance. 

Ezra Pound’s “rules” and ideas of Imagery are mirrored in Maya Angelou’s writings following the IMAGES -> Pictures, Ideas, and Emotions structure.