A quick review of Joss Whedon’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”
This movie, released in 2013, was filmed at Joss Whedon’s home with a few of his close friends. Amy Acker plays the role of the quick witted Beatrice, who has decided never to marry after being hurt by love previously. Alexis Denisof takes on her would-be wooer, Benedick. The two utilize both entertaining verbal repartee as well as physical comedy. I particularly enjoyed the scene where the Prince, Leonato and Claudio talk about Beatrice’s supposed love for Benedick and we get to see Denisof rolling around just outside the patio door. It reminded me a bit of laser-tagging Barney Stinson (portrayed by Neil Patrick Harris, who, as a Whedon actor, I was hoping to see make an appearance in this film) with exaggerated ninja-ing and dramatic barrel rolls.
Also particularly entertaining was Nathan Fillion, who did such an amazing job playing the dunce Dogberry, as though he were the straight man of a comedy duo. His timing and delivery helped him to steal every scene he was in.
All in all, I really enjoyed this film, but as it is quite late, I’ll be heading off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I can either watch more Shakespeare, explore a bit of Milwaukee’s history, or get even more studying for the GRE done! Wish me luck!
You know it’ll all end well when that’s how I open a post. I saw a tweet today that featured a portrait of James VI/I of Scotland and England. While that is all well and good, and I am very glad that he got a bit of publicity today, the author of the tweet continued on that it was he who first thought to bring the two nations together under one monarch.
James was particularly fond of the idea of a “Great Britain,” and while he did unite the two nations (of course along with Wales and Ireland) under one crown when he ascended the throne of England in 1603, he was not the first monarch of the Isle to take action with that end goal in mind. The ascendancy of the Stewarts was the inverse of the fortunes of the Tudors, whose last monarch, Elizabeth, passed her crown on to James. The first Tudor king, though, Henry VII, also held dear the dream of a united kingdom of Great Britain. Why else, would one imagine, he marry his eldest daughter, Margaret, not to the French, the Spanish, or a German prince, but to the Scottish King? Any of their future children would carry the blood of both the Tudors and the Stewarts, bringing the two dynasties an intimate connection which later came to fruition with James VI.
Without the ambition of Henry VII, there would not have been a Stewart claim to the English throne, or at least as legitimate as the one James possessed through his descent from Margaret Tudor.
Of course, there had been marriages between the royal families of Scotland and England before, such as the marriage of Joan Beaufort and James I, but she was not the daughter of a ruling monarch, she was only his half-niece. She did, however, have royal blood and was a descendant of Edward III through her father’s line. Another example of the English royals marrying into the Scottish ruling family occurred much earlier, with the marriage of Joan of the Tower, the youngest daughter of Edward II and Isabella of France to David II of Scotland (the House of Bruce). Margaret of England, daughter of Henry III and Eleanor of Provence, married into the Scottish royal family by her marriage to Alexander III. Joan, a daughter of John of England, married Alexander II. I could go on, but the point is adequately made.
Marrying into the Scottish royal family wasn’t a new idea in by Henry VII’s time, actually, it seems to have been almost a traditional practice (especially if one had a daughter named Joan!). Henry VII, though, hoped to have Scotland under his thumb more directly by having his eldest daughter marry her King, whereas most of the aforementioned marriages were between Scottish monarchs and younger daughters of English monarchs. In an interesting turn of events, it was not Scotland under England’s rule, but England under the rule of a Scottish king that brought together the two nations in a more peaceful manner than had been experienced previously. The Wars of Scottish Independence had, for a time, brought both nations together, but in a forcible manner, unlike that which passed under James VI.
This is particularly important to remember, especially tonight, when the Scottish people are voting in the largest referendum to date in their history. Scotland has a proud and vibrant history, and it is because of that history that the citizens of Scotland are voting tonight.
I cannot make any claim as to how I want to see this turn out. I certainly have my own opinions, but it is up to the Scots, tonight, to decide for themselves. I just hope that they remember how it wouldn’t have been the United Kingdom without a Scottish monarch to bring it all together (even if it had been an aim of the English monarchs for centuries before it actually happened).
This week I have been working hard on studying for the GRE, which has been an adventure in and of itself. Learning more about my weaknesses and strengths as a student and academic is an interesting exercise and has proven to be surprising and difficult. Regardless of my own Sisyphean trials these past couple weeks, I have been working to stay connected, at least marginally, to the community from Kings and Queens 3. One of the best ways to do that has been via Twitter, and from there, I found a fascinating tidbit to share with you today.
In this post, Sarah Greer give a little information about what she studies, female monasteries. Not nunnery? Well, a nunnery and a monastery were two different things! She does a great job of explaining why she uses the term “female monastery.”
As may have been obvious if one compares the dates of this post and the last, there has been a bit of an unintended hiatus on Semper Eadem. A bit of personal history and explanation, if you’ll indulge me – I just moved from Marquette, Michigan, which is located in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My current location is Milwaukee, where I am working full-time and preparing applications for graduate schools. In the course of moving, I found a fabulous little apartment close to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where my partner is pursuing his PhD and where I work, but there was one small snag… no Internet access. We tried, for a month, to get the local Internet oligarchy to bestow us with the world outside of our own… but it took my partner’s and my own combined efforts to get any traction. Finally, after hours of phone calls, unfulfilled promises, and angry tweeting to get Internet into our small studio.
So now, with some fantastic speedy interwebs access, I am returned to life online!
“It is noteworthy that the model for the King’s action is Greek. Luminalia also had a Greek component in that one of the minor themes dealt with the expulsion of the Muses from Greece and their eventual settlement in Britain. Greece signified culture in contrast to Rome with its associations with military and imperial might.”
– Graham Perry, The Golden Age Restor’d: The Culture of the Stuart Court 1603-42, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1981, p. 202-203.
From a printed edition – 1880
Upon reading the above quote in Graham Perry’s work on the Stuart masques, it really got me thinking of Queen Anna’s first public masque, The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses by Samuel Daniel and designed by Inigo Jones. Even though the quote is in reference to the Caroline masques and not the Jacobean ones, it is an interesting framework to examine the assignment of roles in the masque. Performed in 1604, it was the first masque of Anna’s career as Chief Masquer (not Blackness by Ben Jonson in 1605 as Perry asserts). Below I have compiled a chart of who danced with Anna in the masque and what persona they embodied. This is an appendix taken from a paper I wrote up as a thesis of sorts to complete a directed study. In the scope of this post, I’ll just be looking at the role that Anna took, rather than the ones that were assigned to her Ladies of Honour. I hope to, at another juncture, have the opportunity to look even deeper at the masque and analyze the iconography and symbolism in the text and device.
The Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, by Samuel Daniel
Name/Rank
Role
Queen Anna
Pallas Athena
Countess of Suffolk
Juno
Countess of Hertford
Diana
Countess of Bedford
Vesta
Countess of Derby
Persephone
Countess of Nottingham
Concordia
Lady Rich
Venus
Lady Hatton
Macaria
Lady Walsingham
Astraea
Susan de Vere
Flora
Dorothy Hastings
Ceres
Elizabeth Howard
Tethys
I’ve gone through and done a simple sorting scheme – Red = Roman, Green = Greek. The role that Anna chose for herself was quite significant in terms of how she wanted to be perceived and was an effort in self-fashioning her public identity. Instead of choosing the role of the Roman Queen of the Goddesses (well, Queen Consort!), Juno, she gave that role to Catherine Howard, the Countess of Suffolk. Suffolk had served Queen Elizabeth for many years and was a person Anna respected and trusted, as is evidenced by the fact that Suffolk had been chosen to be godmother to Anna’s daughter, Sophia. Anna accorded Suffolk with a very high honor in placing her as the queen of the goddesses. Her choice for herself was Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, battle, and the arts.
Athena was also the patroness of the City of Athens, which was named for her. An ancient cosmopolitan centre, Athens was home to a bustling arts and culture scene and has typically been regarded as the birthplace of western civilization as we know it.
Perhaps Anna’s motive was to seize a new image for herself, one that reflected virtues that she wanted others to think she possessed, or ones to which she did lay rightful claim? Perhaps her choice of Athena was a chance to scintillate and titillate the English and to show that she was a very different sort of Queen consort? The last queen consort, Katherine Parr, was also a very literary woman who published popular works in her own name while she was Queen. Anna didn’t create written works on her own, she was more of an idea lady who directed the works of others. It was through those works though, that the image that Anna wished to portray comes out clearly. In Vision of the Twelve Goddesses, as Athena, her persona was of a strong, wise female who held dominion over Athens. Her costume included a short tunic (that bared her legs below the knee) and a helmet with a spear.
Anna’s husband, James, dearly held to the ideal of pacifism and detested using force and military might. With her act of appropriating the weaponry and tools of war, Anna took on a more traditionally masculine role in their perceived relationship and set herself up as a worthy successor of Elizabeth I. Which was a prudent act to take as the costumes were also from Elizabeth’s wardrobe. As a cost saving measure, the Late Queen’s wardrobe was raided for her sumptuous gowns and the garments altered to be fit into appropriate costumes for the masque.
(“I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.” ~excerpt from Elizabeth’s speech at Tilbury, 1588)
Looking to the quote at the start of the post, however, it is interesting that Anna chose Athena instead of Minerva. Minerva, Athena’s Roman counterpart, would have more exemplified the Early Modern interpretation of the Roman empire, one of peace loving imperialism, instead of the Greeks, who demonstrated the aforementioned arts and sophistication. Anna, then, presented a dual image. With choosing the Greco-interpretation of Athena, she sided herself with the perception of culture that was generally accepted to have belonged to the Greeks. Perhaps she was trying to conflate the new dynasty with a rebirth of Athens. With choosing Athena, though, she also personified the militaristic might of the Goddess of War, tempered, of course, with Wisdom.
In so doing, Anna managed to display both the sophistication of the Greeks with the imperialistic might of the Romans, subtly reminding the attendees of the virtues of Pax Romana and the olive tree of Athens.
While exploring the Iron Ore Heritage Trail on a run last week, I found something interesting and quite unexpected! This area I’m currently living in, the around surrounding Marquette, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula, has a lot of ties to mining in its history. Honestly, mining is what provided the boom for enough people to come and settle here to actually give the area its population. One of the major players in the mining industry up here has been the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company, and love them or hate them, the company has provided a lot of jobs over the years here in the U.P. CCI was huge here, and one of the endeavors of the Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives has been to collect and preserve the documentary history of the company and the impact it had on the residents, natural landscape, and economic situation of the Upper Peninsula.
Old Hoist House, Ishpeming, Mich.
Well, on this particular exploration of the Trail, I found that, literally just lying on the trail, was an old book. I looked at the first page (the cloth bound book’s front and back covers were missing), and saw that it was a ledger for processing preferred stocks from CCI dating 1929-1931. I immediately grabbed it and brought it home (as it had begun to violently storm). After letting it dry and letting the bugs run out, I contacted my friends at NMU’s archives and they were thrilled to say the least. I brought it to them the next day and then we went on a field trip so I could show them the building where I was pretty sure it had been stored. There was only one building that was close to that part of the trail, and it is an old hoist house, and according to An Old Finnish Man, it is actually the oldest building left in Ishpeming. A hoist house is something that I’m trying to learn a little more about, but it looks like this was just storage for the mine. Typically, a hoist house literally houses the mining hoist. There are a few examples of remaining hoist houses around the UP – one being the Quincy Mine No. 2 Hoist House in Houghton, Michigan. This one has been preserved, rather than abandoned like the one in Ishpeming. It is on the National Register of Historic Places, which is pretty significant. Regardless, the one here in Ishpeming seems to house previously unknown documents relating to CCI and hopefully this means that there will be more exploration of the building and its possibly historical contents!! I am excited and hope I get to be a part of this adventure into history!
Welcome to the redesign of Temporal Exploits, a virtual museum and archives. With the shift to WordPress and back to a blogging background, this site will feature works and stories that inspire me to continue my sojourn into academia as well as to publicly house my own personal works. We are now called Semper Eadem (always the same), to emphasize the important link between the past and the present, and the present and the future. Thank you for visiting the site today and I hope that you enjoy your stay!
