Paper Reflections and Regrets

Although I do not mean for this to be a sob story, I often feel as though I fit amongst the penny-paying crowd of the Globe Theater.  Dr. Sexson often speaks of the "intimidation factor" and he uses it as a way to encourage us to continue reaching further into the recess of our intelligence; a positive notion yet, but with the wrong mindset the intimidation factor settles as a dark cloud over an empty blog.  I guess I'm being a slight bit dramatic, but we are talking about Shakespeare...


Ashley Arcel's term paper encompasses everything that a term paper should be (also said by Dr. S).  Her command of language and eloquence is astonishing and of course, intimidating.  All semester I have been in awe of her ability to compare and contrast elements of mythology and Shakespeare.  Bravo Ashley and thank you for sharing your marvelous insight.


Upon sharing my presentation I had a few thoughts cross my mind at a rapid and repetitive pace...  First, how is it that I can almost effortlessly stand in front of my sophomore English class in Manhattan and teach Shakespeare?  I am not nervous, nor blink an eye when a student obviously knows more than I do about whatever area we are studying?  I simply continue on and feel pretty darn good about.  However, speaking in front of the class last Thursday was a different story.  When I spoke my voice did not sound as my own.  Essentially, I gave a false performance.  I liked my term paper and in fact I still like the topic it covers.  However, upon settling in on the writing process I realized that I picked a topic too large.  There are too many avenues for it to travel down that I could not contend with in a short paper.  I could have switched topics, but I felt connected to "forbidden love" because I knew that I could use the concept in my future classrooms.  I suppose I won't intimidate anyone who in our class, but one day I hope to take away the intimidation factor of Shakespeare that many high school students wilt under.


After loathing in a brief bath of self-pity, followed by a quick rinse of self-esteem I started to think about Nick Axline's paper and presentation.  I am beginning to consider that our topics together could piggyback off of each other.  Well, his can stand alone just fine, but adding his insight to Shakespeare's use of forbidden love makes sense.  Basically I was trying to argue that Shakespeare uses the many faces of forbidden love in every aspect of his work...And Nick talked about every possible identity is used in Shakespeare...so there seems to be an obvious correlation here.  I like Shakespeare enough, but it wasn't until after listening to Nick's presentation and comparing it to my own that I felt for the first time that Shakespeare really is a genius.  Awesome.