Our edition has experienced great progress and incorporated many of the fantastic ideas that our fellow classmates are using in their own editions. We have realized more than anything that our edition must compare itself not to editions in general of As You Like It, but editions specifically targeted at high school students. Whereas we were once trying hard to create an edition with an emphasis on the unique women of the play, we have since decided that it was better to create an overall easily accessible edition. We have since decided to add a section at the start of the edition entitled "Who was William Shakespeare?" for the purpose of introducing the author to the students--a little background can always help illuminate the nature of the work. We have also decided to add a section on themes, so students know what themes exist in the play and what to be looking for while they read. We will include a character list and a timeline/sequence of events for easy reference should the students find themselves confused about the characters or events of the play. As for the play itself, each act will be preceded with a small vocab section of new words students will encounter. The play's annotations have shifted to better assist the readability of the play. They will highlight hard to understand phrases and clarify any potentially confusing situations. We are thinking about adding small "Did you know?" sections alongside the play, just to keep things fun and engaging (but we don't want our edition to be too busy, so we'll see). Each act will be followed with critical thinking questions pertaining to that act, and finally, post-reading questions once the entire play has been completed. Each act will also close with visuals pertaining to important moments or scenes within the act. Many editions competing for our audience have taken care to ensure they are engaging and encourage critical thinking. We want to be positive that we are meeting that standard.
A few things are still being revised, but here is a look at what we have now:
PDF of Edition
Monday, March 31, 2014
Monday, March 17, 2014
Final Point 5
Our group is still compiling resources and additional content to include in our essay, but what we have so far are the following:
The Introduction
Annotations
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Final Point 4
Our group reviewed several articles in order to research for Final Point 4, which was assigned as follows:
"As a group, survey as much secondary scholarship on your play as possible. Write a post that, after giving an overview of the sorts of questions people are asking of the text, discusses how these questions will inform your edition. Include a bibliography of the secondary works you read or consulted."
As we stated previously, our edition will be aimed at high school students and will present the opportunity for students to think critically about feminism and its role in As You Like It. This led us to the following articles and ideas:
1)
In the article "As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular"by Clara Claiborne Park, Park explores the women of Shakespeare's plays. She explains that Rosalind is the best of all of Shakespeare's ladies as she is the one that culminates the best attributes of each of them. This article and a couple of others in this Norton edition give praise to Rosalind and her "spunky" spirit. They do not find fault with her and find her to be the most interesting character.
I wanted to read this article because the title caught my attention as a topic teenagers (mostly teenage girls) would be interested in. It goes along the lines of identity within the play and that warm, fuzzy feeling that teenagers need to feel when they are trying to understand themselves and how they fit within the world around them. Park praises Rosalind overall because she is being complete self without care for social norms, and I feel that's a message that can really resonate with our high school audience.
2)
The main questions that are posed in "A Fair Youth in the Forest of Arden: Reading Gender and Desire in As You Like It and Shakespeare's Sonnets," by Amanda Rudd, are as follows: What role does gender play in the sexual undertones of "As You Like It?" On the flipside, what role do sexual tensions play in the portrayal of gender in "As You Like It?" Is there any relation between these portrayals in "As You Like It" to the portrayals of gender and desire in Shakespeare's famous love sonnets?
The article/essay touches on the sexual undercurrents of the play, (both hetero- and homo- erotic) as well as how such undercurrents may have been viewed by Shakespeare's audience at the time of its release. It also touches on the idea that "female sexuality is seen as threatening, dark, and horrifying" and the occurrence of homoerotic desire being resolved into heterosexual love. Many of these thoughts are related back to similar ideas expressed in a multitude of Shakespeare's sonnets.
Because our edition will be focusing somewhat on a gender-based reading (feminism in "As You Like It," the underlying thoughts and ideas behind all that cross-dressing, etc.) these questions/ideas may be helpful in establishing and encouraging questions about the place of sexuality in the play. Readers would, at the very least, be invited to think and determine for themselves the purpose and then the effectiveness of such portrayals of desire, lust, and love in "As You Like It."
3)
Jessica Tvordi's article, “Female Alliance and the Construction of Homoeroticism in “As You Like It and Twelfth Night” explains that while dramatic literature of early modern England frequently showed female characters forming alliances with one another, these alliances were almost always dissolved to bring about heterosexual pairings. She argues that it is rare for any members of these female alliaces to make an effort to resist heterosexual pairings in favor in maintaining their alliance. As You Like It (and Twelfth Night) stands out for doing just that, in that Celia and Rosalind form an alliance, Rosalind turns away from it in moving toward relationships with men, and Celia openly opposes Rosalind's interest in heterosexual involvements, revealing her investment in the friendship and willingness to take extreme measures to maintain it (for socioeconomic, emotional, and as Tvordi argues, even erotic attachments). Celia challenges the plays' heterosexual imperatives.
This is highly applicable research for our group as we are interested in looking at the theme of feminism within As You Like It. It would really help provide us with a more well-rounded discussion because there is so much focus on Rosalind in criticism of the play. This offers excellent perspective on Celia, who claims far less of the play's spotlight, and the ideas expressed in the article give us more to work with in developing our ideas of teaching As You Like It with a feminist emphasis.
4)
In her article, "Wrestling as play and game in As You Like i]It," Cynthia Marshall acknowledges the the ever-prevalent undercurrents of social and sexual tension as themes central to psycho-sexual and feminist readings of the play. However, in her work Marshall advocates a different reading and argues that the underlying conflict in the narrative serves as an illustration in effective conflict management. Quoting scholar C.L. Barber, Marshall attempts to place her analysis within the context of Shakespearian literature by stating that the play exemplifies, "power to express conflict and order it in art." She then points to the strained and then repaired relationship between brothers Orlando and Oliver as the archetype for conflict management and resolution in Shakespearian literature and poses questions of the realities of physical versus emotional presence, and it's relationship to conflict management in the aforementioned duo's wrestling match early on in the work.
As Marshall mentions, much of the contemporary criticism surrounding As You Like It has become increasingly dark, as various readings of the play have focused on social and sexual tension. What separates Cynthia Marshall's analysis apart from her contemporaries is her refreshing take on the conflict in the play and the lessons we can learn from it if viewed as an example of conflict resolution. As our edition will be geared towards high-school students, it will be of paramount importance to explore themes from various angles and perspectives, analyzing the work for the betterment of ourselves and society. Marshall certainly does this, as her criticism brings to light new and useful viewpoints for the modern student of Shakespeare.
References:
Marshall, Cynthia. "Wrestling as play and game in As You Like It." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Spring, 1993, Vol. 33, p265(23), 1993.
Park, Clara Clairborne. "As We Like It: How a Girl Can Be Smart and Still Popular" As You Like It. W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. Print. 277-281.
Rudd, Amanda. "A Fair Youth in the Forest of Arden: Reading Gender and Desire in As You Like It and Shakespeare's Sonnets." Journal of the Wooden O Symposium , 2009, Vol. 9, p106-117, 12p, Database: Humanities Source.
Tvordi, Jessica. “Female Alliance and the Construction of Homoeroticism in As You Like It and Twelfth Night.” Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women's Alliances in Early Modern England. Oxford University Press, 1999. Print. 114-130.
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