Other Reading

I was thinking over what other readings I had done in other classes and besides stuff in our textbooks, I really hadn't at all this semester! At least not any that you could think very critically about.

However, I actually ended up reading one today for my British Literature class. We got done reading 'Twelfth Night' and I had chosen to do my final paper on the play. If you aren't familiar with it, the play is basically about a bunch of people running around and getting all confused with gender and sexuality because one woman dresses up like a man and fools a whole bunch of people. You may have seen the movie 'She's the Man' with Amanda Bynes, which is basicallly a modern version of this play.

So I did some research into gender and sexuality in 'Twelfth Night' to help support my paper. One of the sources I found ended up just restating what I had already figured out and helped me add to my paper. Overall, the play messes around with people's perceptions of gender and sexuality and although the ending is a bit ridiculous and doesn't actually address any of the issues brought up in the play, it leaves plenty open for speculation, which is what this article - and many others like it - delve into.

This was definitely an article that helped my think critically about the play. It examined the deeper issues brought up that aren't actually really discussed in detail in the play, but allows the reader to reflect on. Gender and sexuality are complex issues in themselves and it's always interesting to examine them, and having characters that are dealing with those same issues helps to do this as well.

This is one thing that I like about Shakespeare - even when he's writing what seem like silly and funny plays without much depth, he seems to inject deeper issues and topics in there that may take a little digging to get at, but can be worth hours of discussion afterwards.