Now, I will admit that even though a random audit is supposed to be going into a class you have ZERO business being in, I kind of do have a slight amount of business here. Sue me, you’re going to hear about an english paper from an english and writing student. But don’t fret dear people, Shakespeare baffles me, I’ve never truly understood him, and I’ve never taken this class. That’ll have to do.
Today’s topic: Richard III, Performing Power. Never heard of it, will probably never look into it much further. Studying Hamlet last semester was absolutely enough for me.
I have had Benji as a lecturer before, and we love to see it. He always starts his lectures with three key points that he’ll focus on, and he always revisits those at the end. If you happen to miss a class, all you need to know is in those three short sentences. But don’t think I’m promoting missing class. Go to your lectures.
Now, I only have a limited knowledge of Shakespeare, so it’s not surprising that I’ve never heard of this play before, and as I’m not in this class, God only knows what it’s about. From the brief introduction, I’m gathering that some guy named Richard is just way too dramatic for his own good, and it probably causes a heap of problems that likely causes a lot of death. Everyone always dies in these plays, I know that much. What I have gathered from the lecture so far is that everything, and I mean everything, is a performance. Especially power, which makes a whole lot of sense. Everyone in power these days likes to put on a whole spectacle type of performance to get their points across. This is actually making a lot of sense; powerful people are just challenging their inner Shakespearean drama kings and queens. I’ve cracked the code guys.
I love the fact that before we even get into the juicy content, everyone gets a chance to say whatever the hell they want about what they thought of this week’s text. Sure, most classes do this, but you won’t understand how fun it can actually be until you have Benji running the show. Maybe this audit is meant to pressure you all into taking his classes because he’s awesome, and what about it? I wasn’t paying the most attention in this lecture, so I’ve got to find something to passionately talk about.
What I did tune in for, however, was when we started talking about the structure of plays based on the amount of acts they have. Long story short: five acts contain more content than three acts. Who knew?
I’m going to be so honest, I wasn’t taking as many little notes as I should have been. A uni student will always have piles of work to do, and ya girl was needing to multitask. But hey, if you really want to know more about what this class is like, go and see for yourself. I might not do the whole Shakespeare thing if I can help it, but I would still recommend this class if the idea floats your boat.
To be, or not to be: that is the question.
