Thanks to everyone who attended the Book Lovers’ Group last Thursday to discuss Shakespeare’s The Tempest! The afternoon session had a total of four people attending (Sallie, Lin, Sona, and myself), and the evening session had two in attendance (Judith and myself).
Our afternoon discussion started with sharing our initial impressions of the play, and generally everyone was happy to have had the social pressure to read Shakespeare. The Tempest was a new one for all of us, though we were familiar with many of Shakespeare’s other plays, so it was interesting to contrast it against the more popular plays. We spent time discussing some of the postcolonial criticism of the play and whether Shakespeare has embedded an argument for or against the colonizing that was happening when this play was produced. There was a question about Prospero’s motivation throughout the play and whether his forgiveness given out at the end was sincere or just a means to getting his dukedom back. Sona made a good argument about Prospero having a legitimate change of heart after witnessing his daughter, Miranda, falling in love with Ferdinand. It is possible to see autobiographical elements in Prospero, and maybe this stems from Shakespeare’s relationship with his two daughters?
Lin did a bit of research the ‘Masque’ tradition of entertainment and we considered whether this play could be a forced bit of propaganda for when it was put on for King James I due to the fanciful aspects of the play and how difficult it is to understand Prospero’s change. This was a fun theory to tease out, and it gives the ending an interesting new interpretation.
In our evening discussion, Judith mentioned that she had seen a very avant-garde production of this play at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. The way it was staged made it difficult to track the passage of time and the spatial locations of the different scenes and, after her recent reading of the play, she found a lot of similarities between The Tempest and traditional Noh plays. After sharing our notes from the afternoon session, she still feels that Prospero’s forgiveness was not sincere and just a means to an end.
In regards to the next meetings:
December 20th is an open discussion, and Lin, Sona, and I will be here so we’re still planning to meet before Christmas. I am planning to read The Emissary by Yoko Tawada which recently won the National Book Award for best translated literature!
January 17th will be the next book discussion, and everyone attending has approved a newly published book of short stories as the choice for January: The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya. We did not discuss a newly published book or a collection of short stories in 2018 so it fits into our selection nicely. This will probably be our only Japanese authored book for the year, so feel free to pass on your considerations for the rest of the year.
Thanks again for everyone who came out! We’ve got a great community of readers here at the TAC and I’m looking forward to the next time we convene.
Greetings Bibliophiles,
Thanks to everyone who attended the Book Lovers’ Group last Thursday to discuss Shakespeare’s The Tempest! The afternoon session had a total of four people attending (Sallie, Lin, Sona, and myself), and the evening session had two in attendance (Judith and myself).
Our afternoon discussion started with sharing our initial impressions of the play, and generally everyone was happy to have had the social pressure to read Shakespeare. The Tempest was a new one for all of us, though we were familiar with many of Shakespeare’s other plays, so it was interesting to contrast it against the more popular plays. We spent time discussing some of the postcolonial criticism of the play and whether Shakespeare has embedded an argument for or against the colonizing that was happening when this play was produced. There was a question about Prospero’s motivation throughout the play and whether his forgiveness given out at the end was sincere or just a means to getting his dukedom back. Sona made a good argument about Prospero having a legitimate change of heart after witnessing his daughter, Miranda, falling in love with Ferdinand. It is possible to see autobiographical elements in Prospero, and maybe this stems from Shakespeare’s relationship with his two daughters?
Lin did a bit of research the ‘Masque’ tradition of entertainment and we considered whether this play could be a forced bit of propaganda for when it was put on for King James I due to the fanciful aspects of the play and how difficult it is to understand Prospero’s change. This was a fun theory to tease out, and it gives the ending an interesting new interpretation.
In our evening discussion, Judith mentioned that she had seen a very avant-garde production of this play at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut. The way it was staged made it difficult to track the passage of time and the spatial locations of the different scenes and, after her recent reading of the play, she found a lot of similarities between The Tempest and traditional Noh plays. After sharing our notes from the afternoon session, she still feels that Prospero’s forgiveness was not sincere and just a means to an end.
In regards to the next meetings:
December 20th is an open discussion, and Lin, Sona, and I will be here so we’re still planning to meet before Christmas. I am planning to read The Emissary by Yoko Tawada which recently won the National Book Award for best translated literature!
January 17th will be the next book discussion, and everyone attending has approved a newly published book of short stories as the choice for January: The Lonesome Bodybuilder by Yukiko Motoya. We did not discuss a newly published book or a collection of short stories in 2018 so it fits into our selection nicely. This will probably be our only Japanese authored book for the year, so feel free to pass on your considerations for the rest of the year.
Thanks again for everyone who came out! We’ve got a great community of readers here at the TAC and I’m looking forward to the next time we convene.
Happy Holidays,
-Drew