The Merchant of Venice: Back to High School Edition

So I had the intention that I was going to experience The Merchant of Venice as a high school student
I am not sure how I was going to do this or what I was thinking when I originally thought of it, but I got completely distracted.

I did find some great resources for teachers!

Judith Elstein created a complete unit for the Merchant of Venice
I like how much she scaffolds the lessons
The students rework the play several different ways
and also in very hand on ways
It was interesting that for one of the activities
she had students cut apart a book of the play
and then paste the pages to wall
and high light things through the entire play
i think this is really interesting
and would work very well for visualizing everything
but i think it would be over whelming using the entire text
it would however make students very comfortable with the actual lines

Folger Shakespeare Library has a huge
database of resources for teachers
they have all sorts of activities and resources
it looks like a great site for teachers
and they also have a Folger Shakespeare Education Blog

I have been watching for something good to chime in on
so hopefully I will be able to make some good conversation
in the bear future to report back on

Anyways! these look like great resources that
I will have to remember when I have my own classroom!

The Merchant of Stratford?

I have just gotten back from BYU Young Company's production of "The Merchant of Venice"
Over all I really loved the adaptation
It was an adaptation for children
They preform at BYU
and then they travel and perform it for schools as well
They had the children sit down on the floor
and also had children play some of the minor parts like Nerissa

The play was held in Margetts Theatre
This was a very interesting set up
They called it a "round play" if i remember correctly
because it was a big room with tier seating set up on all four sides
and then in the center there were floor seat with "aisles" for the actors to walk
so the audience was all around
in the four corners, props were kept and costume changes and everything took place
so there was no backstage either

this set up worked particularly well for what the play was trying to accomplish
being a child's adaptation, the cast was trying to get the audience and the children
as involved as possible
the only down fall that i noticed was that
at times i felt the actors had to go out of their way to get around the children on the ground
which made it feel awkward because of the lack of space

this was bearable, but what was not is that i felt lines got lost
some lines would not get spoken loud enough
when the actor had their back to my side
so the "round" set up made it hard to hear at times
or i could also be deaf....

Like I said, I really enjoyed the play
I thought they did a wonderful job
and it makes me wish I had children of my own to bring to it

to make it a children's adaptation
they changed a few thing about the original script

to start off the actors asked the audience
what they wanted the names of things to be

so they changed:

The Trader of Italy: The Merchant of Venice

Thus, far I have been reading online with No Fear Shakespeare. I really enjoy reading this way digitally because it breaks the text up on the page that for some reason is appealing to me-- not sure why. They just seem to put the perfect amount of text on the page. And when I read on the computer, I have to be able to physically/digitally highlight the text which this site allows; so it is perfect for my weird necessity to be able to follow with my eyes. But what I like about the No Fear is that it has what they call their modern translation side by side. This is nice for when i read the same lines seven times and dont know what i just read and then i can read the "modern" right to the side.

But this post was originally one and has turned into two. While researching for my next post (which i am really excited about), I found Mike LoMonico's blog post "Shakespeare…in other words." 


Mike talks about the use of "translated" Shakespeare sources and their use specifically in a high school setting. The first thing that he points out that I think is so true and so interesting (and which may be something interesting to research) is why Shakespeare is so commonly translated but not other complicated, thick language literature like Dickens, Hawthorne, Melville, or Fitzgerald for example. 


He then goes on to say that students shouldn't have need for a translation if Shakespeare is taught in "in an active, performance-based approach." Which I think this is so true and takes me back to my Macbeth vs my Romeo Juliet experiences. 


The most interesting and true thing that he pointed out is the fact that the translations take away from the beauty of the language. You lose all of the things that Shakespeare is known for and why he is famous when you straight read the translations. 


I think that yes Shakespeare's plots and complexity of the stories are very amazing and definitely admirable but  I feel like he is really known for his language and the actual words and that is what people think about with him.  


So that brings up the question if these translations should completely be done away with? Should annotations be the only source for better understanding in reading? 


I personally feel like the modern texts can be a great resource. But if you read all of the comments with the article about how it is good for students to get the idea when they dont understand the language but then students should have Shakespeare scaffolded (broken into baby steps for better understanding) to them --everyone makes wonderful comments and arguments which all are very valid. 


For now, this almost makes me want to completely not use the translations as a help but then i feel like if you use then as an annotation of type of resource it is good. 

I dont know. This feels like an English teacher's moral battle. I probably should have made a vlog of this topic and I still may. So be on the look out for that. 

Shakespeare and the Gesta Romanorum

I thought that article I found for Henry V about the sources was very interesting, so I went back to Blogging Shakespeare and found the same lady's series for the sources of The Merchant of Venice.

In the series of Shakespeare's Sources by Liz Dollimore, she once again finds what Shakespeare is using for his source and idea. She specifically compares the 13th Century Gesta Romanorum (which was a Latin book of tales) in which there is a story that is almost the exact same plot line as the Merchant of Venice. She did also state that there are many more stories as well in history with the same plot line.

I thought this was very interesting because it is like Shakespeare took an age old fairy tale almost and created a new and dynamic play. He took the simplicity of the original story and added more characters to give the story more depth. This also allowed for his to create questions for the readers to ask them selves like if friendship or love is stronger and about Christianity and even now people draw Anti-Semitism form the play. It is also interesting that in the original story the princess saved her lover; but in The Merchant of Venice, Portia saves her lovers friend. So Shakespeare put all of these complex spins on the original tale to really create an interesting plot. 

This also shows how much literature is taking others ideas and creating them into new stories. Like what was done with the Lion King to Hamlet, Shakespeare did this with the story from the Gesta Romanorum to The Merchant of Venice.

The article was really interesting, so if this sparks your interest you should definitely read the original article or you can just take my word for it haha

Portia Watercolor

So with every new play we read, 

I try to find a wallpaper for my phone to coordinate.

For the Merchant of Venice, I found this

beautiful water color by Elizabeth E Schuch

I really love it and think it is very beautiful.

She also has many other water colors that she has done for

most of Shakespeare's plays here.

They are all so beautiful; 

I really want to buy some prints for my future classroom

or even just for my home!

She has an Etsy shop where

she has but the paintings on some cool items

or just to buy the prints!

pretty cool!