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Sunday, April 3, 2011

Pre-Hub Hub

"hubs" via here

To be honest, I was a little shocked when Dr. Burton announced on Wednesday that we needed to write a hub post for Monday. I was planning on another week, at least, of posts that would further develop my focus of familial Shakespeare! Thankfully I was able to talk to Dr. Burton after class and share my anxiety. I told him that this hub post would not be filled with very many links or as developed since I hadn't planned for a hub post so soon, but he told me that it was fine and that this was more of a chance to get things going. Phew! I thought Mandy's hub-post was clearly formatted and informative but not intimidating, so I will follow her example with a few changes.


Focus:
I began my focus on the familial Shakespeare. I decided this was too broad to write about with each post so I broke it into 5 parts which I have now shortened to 3:


  • Love & Marriage
  • Tragedy in the Family
  • Filial: Parent-child Relationship
Within each category is Shakespeare's own biographical information, historical information of the time, an in-depth analysis of the topic in one of Shakespeare's plays, and how it relates to the modern family.

Thesis: 
Familial relationships in Shakespeare's works parallel directly with his own life and the views of the time. I argue that the Elizabethan familial relationships are the same as today, and that we can use these relationships portrayed in Shakespeare's literature as tools to learn from the pitfalls and successes. 

Support/Evidence:
  • First, I began learning about the life of Shakespeare in Michael Wood's documentary "In Search of Shakespeare" and wrote about him as a son, husband, and father in one, twothree and four parts.
  • Then I started 1 of the 3 sections I am focusing on within my topic by researching Elizabethan marriage in Bruce Young's Family Life in the Age of Shakespeare. I wrote about the three types of marriages in Elizabethan times that are illustrated in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
  • Next will be Tragedy in the Family with a close analysis of Hamlet. I will compare the reaction of families to tragedy in Elizabethan and modern times.
  • Finally, I will spend the majority of my time analyzing filial relationships within King Lear. This was the beginning inspiration for my familial focus so I think it is appropriate to end where I began.

Comments (3)

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I share your anxiety! Thanks for the great straight-forward and organized example. I think you have a lot to work with from your previous posts and it will really be just a matter or organizing it, which it looks like you've already begun to do.
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yeah, this is really helpful in seeing that the hub post need not be so scary or intimidating, as i have felt it is. thanks for sharing mandy's format and for making the hub in general easy to follow! i will definitely be referring back to this post for my own hub. thanks!
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Looks like you've got this all figured out, Sara. I have no doubt that you'll tie your blog together well by the end of this semester with much thought out work and analyses.

My one suggestion would be to weave Shakespeare better through your thesis. The idea that Elizabethan familial values are the same as today kind of threw me off because I was on the track of Shakespeare paralleling his life in his plays. So instead of saying Elizabethan values have continued through today, I'd emphasize the timelessness of Shakespeare (which you already do in your posts, so just recognize that in a clear thesis) and use that to note how his family life and the way he applies it in his literature can transcend time and apply to familial situations today. It's not a big change, but I think it'll connect your thesis together more clearly and with a more centered topic.

Sounds like you've got everything down though, Sara. You're certainly an example for a lot of people on how to format a good blog. (: I'll be posting my peer review shortly.

-Whit
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