2 observations

[Carina Felix]

I didn't know that a female's play actual became popular in 1613 (Greenblatt 12). I thought that the only successful female books, plays, etc., were all written under a men's name. So the fact that this women stamped her name on a play was a huge risk to take because even if it was the most amazing play ever, such as the text states, women weren't taken very seriously.

It was kind of funny and interesting that the books that were targeted towards a female audience were books such as "A Happy Husband" where the author basically was trying to teach women how to be females (11). And they were all written by men lol. FANTASTIC! Because men know exactly how to coach women through child-birth...

I am offended that some people think.. or thought.. that if you didn't like Shakespeare it was because you didn't understand him (1). Well I am not the biggest fan of Shakespeare, not because I don't understand it and not because I don't love the story lines (btw I love death, so I am kind a fan of that..) but anyways... I am not into it that much because I like books that flow and that I can breeze through and really completely understand the language and really be able to appreciate it. But when I am reading Shakespeare, I have to look up words and think of the time period when it was written, which slows me down and irritates me. But that's just me.

[Carina Felix]

@janelle & @crystal

Don't blame the parents. They did not think they were punishing their children, I'm pretty sure they thought they were doing them a favor... you know, giving them the gift of life lol.

But also, dying at such a young age was the norm. Just like we see living to 100 as a great feat, in a couple thousand years people may even be IMMORTAL and be like "wow I can't believe people back then in 2012 Portervillians only lived until they were 80, how could parents give birth if they knew someday their children were gonna die?"

And what's the point of refraining from having children? Would you rather give birth to 10 children and have half of them die or would you rather everyone have stopped having children back them so the world would stop reproducing.... Well you couldn't answer that... because all y'all would be dead had they stopped having children.

[berenicecontreras]

I found the observation about like expectancy being very low extremely interesting! (2)
I wounder what it would be like to know you wont life for long. I mean it's a worry till this day but life expectancy has increased by at least forty years!I wonder what it would feel like to know you're sick and not being able to do anything to help yourself? Life must have really been an adventure then!



I had no idea that "...daughters normally inherit a substantial share of their father's personarporperty."
I always assume that people are their own person despite their back ground however it is proven that we do in fact form personalities based on our fathers status , which reflects on you. (10)

[berenicecontreras]

@carina i completely agree with you about Shakespeare! I like reading with ease and am not the biggest fan of his work, i'm not saying it's terrible , it just really isn't my preference.

Good point with men understanding women , lol
I found that point very ironic also! lol

[zacko]

Carina you have to realize that you can only truly understand him if you like him either way they will have an excuse for your disagreements with their view of literary Jesus. I'm not a great Shakes fan, but I can respect his work and pretend to for an A grade. I'm sure it'd be easier too understand in England in their time, but no matter we have Google. Happy late b-day

[Juan Jaimez]

I find it rather ironic and paradoxical that England and the Queen actually endorsed pirating and looting of ships during the Spanish War (6) because England boasted of their classiness and elegance but stooped to the levels of criminals in order to help establish economic balance.

I also liked how Greenbalt emphasis the universal versatility that Shakespeare's works have and how it retains it's complexity and beauty even if it is translated to different languages (1).

[zacko]

Juan,
That's i'm truly jealous of that observation, because I myself didn't notice it and it made me laugh a bit. England may be classy tea drinkers and what not, but I definitely believe that looks are deceiving. I'm glad we colonized.

[Megan Carazolez]

I find it pretty cool that during the time that Shakespeare was born was a time that hardly any children survived due to the plague, he beat the odd of survival, and the odd of changing social classes, he was someone who you wouldn't peg to be a success story, but he was, and it started the day he was born. [3]

I find it interesting that women were accepted as long as they had the respected bloodline that came with them. If those women didn't have the respected bloodline they would not have been the respected women that they were, which in my opinion doesn't seem fair, but during this time period there were a lot of unfair things that women could not change no matter how bad they wanted it to. [10]

[Megan Carazolez]

Crystal, I agree with you, you pointed out that they continued to have kids, knowing that they were going to die soon after, why couldn't they wait until illness rates were down to have a child? Instead of having more children and having to deal with continuous heartache after their deaths.

[jmahurien]

I know I'm pretty late in this, but thought I'd just chime in my interesting thoughts about the first part of the reading:

I found it interesting that even though the actors and such were seen as the lowest of lows, like Ms. Chacon told us on Friday with the charts, that there would be 50 million theater visits (3) . It seems that, even though society around that time was somewhat largely church based, that they would enjoy the sin so much.

I find it interesting that there were self help books (11) back in this time period. When you think about the writings of the past, you don't really think of books like "Choosing a Good Husband For Dummies", but it seems like those were basically a large part of their society. Books like that seem more modern in the idea of improving yourself and your life, instead of trying to work to others benefits.

[jmahurien]

@megan
Well, that's kind of a biased view on things, just looking at the women. It seemed like for a lot of males, things were pretty unfair. In the lower class, males were expected to be the ones to do the physically enduring tasks, such as chopping down trees for firewood, taking care of all the animals, building houses, and so on, while women were mainly appointed to doing housework. If I was a man living in that society, I would be pretty upset if women were able to get all the "benefits" of being a man without doing as much hard labor as the man usually did.