“A gazillion bloggers, small audiences, reading … Shakespeare.” Preoccupations. n.p. 20 Jan. 2006. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. This post reposts a Dr. David Weinberger (philosopher-technologist, -speaker, -commentator) interview. He says that he doesn’t track how many online followers he has because he believes “we shouldn't be evaluating blogs and bloggers by how many people read them,” and that he’d “like to see the broadcast strategy get a real alternative not just in who the stars are but in the star system entirely.” He claims to blog because “it gets me into conversations and builds friendships.” He also notes that he admires the writing of “that Shakespeare guy.” Weinberger studies how technology is changing relationships in society, and his views on blogging reflect a humanist desire for blogs to be an individual human study rather than a course for popularity.
Bowman, Cindy. "Shakespeare, our Contemporary: Using Technology to Teach the Bard." The English Journal 92.1, Shakespeare for a New Age (2002): 88-93. Print.
Burton, Gideon. “Pragmatographia.” Silva Rhetoricae.
Clemen, Wolfgang. Shakespeare’s Soliloquies.
Dorrell, Heather. “What is Humanism?” HumanistsofUtah.org. Humanists of
Flatt, Molly. “Shakespeare Would Have Had a Blog.” More Intelligent Life, 30 Sept. 2008. The Economist. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. “Shakespeare would’ve loved” that “brave new words continue to rise.” Critics are complaining that blogspeak is making language lazy and static, especially in diction, omitting of vowels, and grammar; however, blogspeak requires concise, interesting writing for success. Shakespeare invented 2,000 now-familiar words and phrases—especially in turning nouns into verbs, exactly as done in blogspeak; indeed, several new websites devote content only to exploring “Vocabulary 2.0.” “Basically, it's a bit love-hate.” But Shakespeare would’ve reveled in it, and it makes a case for the usefulness of the expansion of language resulting from the blogosphere, equaling the possibility of both direct impact and long-lasting influence to the degree today with Shakespeare’s linguistic contributions.
Garrett, Chris. “Fear of Blogging, or What Bloggers Can Learn From Shakespeare.” Chris Garrett on New Media: The Business of Blogging and New Media. Chris Garrett omiq Ltd, 23 May 2007. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. Quotes “Julius Caesar” act II, scene II; and “Measure for Measure” act I scene IV. “Don’t fear what other people or think,” is Garrett’s advice. While there will always be people who will know more, do more, or even criticize, he suggests writing from “what you know” and from “the heart” as the only qualifications for good blogging. This blogging pep talk, of sorts, addresses common blogging fears, and is evidence that there is discourse about the value of blogging among bloggers themselves—the end of which, it seems, is that it’s okay for bloggers to be themselves, and that they should do so, for that is where the value of blogging at all lies. This is exactly the kind of individual self-discovery that humanists would be interested in.
Grayson, Richard. “Mike McPhaden: Shakespeare's 25 things.” Cappelman.com. 16 Feb. 2009. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. Grayson’s comment is in reply to an “Oh well, here it goes anyway” pass-along blog topic post—one that requires the writer to post 25 points of a predetermined topic. There seems to be predetermined disagreement between he and the author over the value of such activities. Grayson relates it to the current recession, saying that “as a time-waster, it's cheap, egalitarian and from the little of them I've read, relatively free of bragging about one's annual bonuses, net worth or Birken handbags.” There are often booms or changes in the entertainment industry during times of economic downturn, so it’s an interesting connection that the new entertainment created by our current situation is actually intellectual (e.g. this post: the original author posted parodies of famous Shakespeare phrases) or self-reflection and the discovery of other persons (another common pass-around is to post 25 things about yourself).
Hett, Dorothy Marie. "Shakespeare is Alive and Well in Cyberspace: An Annotated Bibliography." The English Journal 92.1, Shakespeare for a New Age (2002): 94-7. Print. This source lists several different online teaching and studying Shakespeare resources, showing that there is a breadth of Shakespeare study available online.
James, Laurence. “What Shakespeare Can Teach Us About Blogging.” Freelance: UK. Freelance: UK, 2 Jun. 2008. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. James discusses how Shakespeare filled the content-want need in his time: he used both content that would be rhetorically and intellectually stimulating, for the higher-class audiences, as well as the mundane and slapstick entertainment, which would suffice lower-class audiences. He asserts that the blogger has the opportunity to do the same today; each blogger can pick from a slew of different mediums to present different types of posts. He argues that both eras required a unique voice, and both allowed for “borrowing,” or sharing (today, we do this through comments). The two conditions are so similar that “If the Bard were alive today, Shakespeare would definitely be a blogger.” A well stated case for the parallels of the two renaissances.
Lamont, Corliss. “What is Humanism?” HumanistsofUtah.org. Humanists of Utah. n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2009.
McBurney, Vincent. “10 Shakespearean Quotations for bloggers.” Toolbox for IT. Corporate Executive Board, 11 Sep. 2007. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. In jest, McBurney presents ten Shakespearean blogging (including, “But, soft! What post though yonder blog breaks?”) slogans and eight Shakespeare quotes that describe blogging (including, “Say as you think and speak it from your souls”). While meant only for entertainment, these sayings evidence a direct relationship between bloggers and Shakespeare. Whether it’s understood to suggest that not all bloggers produce content of low-literary value, because some are still versed in such esteemed writing as Shakespeare, or merely that there is intertextuality between the two, it’s a valuable insight.
Murray, Janet Horowitz. Hamlet on the Holodeck the Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. New York: Free Press, 1997. Print.
Nauert, Charles Garfield. Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print.
Priesnitz, Wendy. “Shakespeare didn’t blog.” Challenging Assumptions with Wendy Priesnitz. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. Priesnitz cites a media release titled “Shakespeare Didn’t Blog: Author Says Texting and Testing Are Destroying Kids Writing Style” by Jacquie Ream, which states that “text messaging is destroying the written word.” Priesnitz’s counterargument is that always has been and always will be an illiterate and incompetent population in society, so there is no use in placing blame on any causing factor. Rather, she argues, the technology based communications youth use today actually promote useful/ applicable reading skills because they are consistently reading about things that interest them.
Renaissance Humanism Studies in Philosophy and Poetics. Binghamton N.Y.: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1988. Print.
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Schroeder, Stan. “Shakespeare and Twitter Make an Odd Couple.” Mashable: The Social Media Guide. n.p. 12 Feb. 2009. Web. 15 Oct. 2009. This article tells about the project “Twitter of the Shrew”; it is an attempt to recreate Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.” Each character has their own twitter account, and the play is recreated over twelve days (one scene a day) as each character tweets their lines to a master account. The article cites this “odd-experiment” as an innovative use of technology, acknowledging that the boiled down plot is done in spirit of Shakespeare’s “brevity is the soul of wit” attitude. The experiment is an interesting undertaking, which questions the dynamics of play-to-technology-medium performances.
"Soliloquy." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 19 November 2009. Web. 19 Nov. 2009.
The Renaissance Image of Man and the World. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966. Print.