I was going to blog about a specific essay, but I think I should just talk about the source.
If you’ve never been on thisibelieve.org, it’s time you checked it out. It’s a compilation of essays by regular people who have a point to make. If you spend an hour perusing this site’s contents, you may find new ideas you’ve never thought of, you may hear stories that shock or inspire you, and you may get a sense of what’s out there in the world today. You can listen to the authors read their own work if you’ve got about 5 minutes. The essays are organized by topic, so you can go straight to whatever interests you and hear some opinions on it, whether it be education and knowledge (my personal favorite), the environment, freedom, or government and constitution. I list these because they are some of the more Thoreauvian topics, but there are many more.
You can find some wonderful, vintage essays straight from the 50’s, and see how thought has changed and how it has remained the same. You’ll also notice some very influential authors mixed in among the names you don’t recognize which may belong to someone halfway across the country who lives a completely different life from the one you know, but who wants to tell you what gets them out of bed in the mornings. If you’re feeling up to it, you can even submit one yourself.
It’s a great trait of our techy culture that everyone can get on their soapbox just as Thoreau did in the 19th century, and there are some excellent writers and thinkers out there. The kind of individuality you see on this site, every man getting his say and making his mark, can be looked on as a sign of living deliberately. These people broke out of the thoughtless routine of day-to-day life and took the time to organize their deepest, most personal beliefs and take a stand. The results are entertaining, inspiring, and powerful.
This was something that came up in another class of mine that made me think of some of the issues we were dealing with in this one. I’m reading Julius Caesar, and I found an interesting footnote about how Shakespeare portrayed Brutus’ reaction to the death of his wife, Portia.
Mark Antony gives a dramatic, involved speech that draws in the crowd
Some context: In Act 4, scene 3, Brutus and Cassius, two of the main conspirators responsible for Caesar’s death, are having an argument over Cassius’s corrupt practices (he wanted Brutus to pardon a friend of his who was caught accepting bribes). Shakespeare is always trying to portray Brutus as a righteous senator, a man thoroughly dedicated to his honor. He also makes it clear that Brutus is a great proponent of Stoicism: one of the most famous points in the play is how Mark Antony is able to manipulate the crowd of plebeians with his common-man persona while Brutus is too emotionally detached to effectively reach out to them.
Now as Cassius and Brutus argue, insults and accusations fly, but they eventually calm down and apologize to each other. Cassius remarks that he’s never seen Brutus so angry, to which Brutus replies that his life has taken a grievous turn: his wife, Portia, has “swallowed fire” in order to take her own life, being unable to cope with her anxiety about her husband’s predicament (he’s about to go up against the armies of Mark Antony and Octavius Caesar). Cassius remarks even before Brutus’ confession that he doesn’t seem to be following his usual “philosophy” of Stoicism, being as wracked with emotion as he is. Afterward Brutus implores him not to speak of Portia anymore and tries to return to their discussion, but drinks heavily.
Enter Titinius and Messala, two military allies to the senators, and Brutus is all business again, completely obscuring the grief he showed moments before. Messala, thinking that Brutus has not heard the news, tells him of Portia’s death. Brutus responds as follows:
“Why, farewell, Portia. We must die, Messala./ With meditating that she must die once,/ I have the patience to endure it now.”
Cassius remarks that even though he is theoretically as much a Stoic as Brutus, he could never endure such a blow and hold so steady. Brutus then dismisses the topic, saying, “Well, to our work alive.”
Brutus and Cassius, Act 4 scene 3
So here’s the quote from the footnotes of my copy of Julius Caesar that really piqued my interest:
“Some editors suggest that this was the original version of Shakespeare’s account of Portia’s death and that he later deleted this and wrote in lines 142-57, preferring to demonstrate Brutus’ humanity rather than his Stoicism; the Folio printer then set up both versions by mistake. Line 158 would follow 141—as 195 would follow 179—neatly enough to make this an attractive theory.”
This is to say that originally, Shakespeare wanted to have Messala be the first person to tell Brutus of his wife’s death and to have Brutus actually be as impervious as he tries to seem, but he later changed his mind and chose to portray Brutus in a more human and relatable light, cutting Messala’s role as the bearer of bad news and limiting the discussion of Portia to the more emotional exchange between Cassius and Brutus.
This snippet related so much to what we’ve been reading about in this class, particularly in the Broadview Reader, that I got really excited. Not only does it tie in the history of printing with a little allusion to the state of printing in Shakespeare’s day, but it brings up the ever-controversial topic of versions and authorial intent: the words are all Shakespeare’s, but there are many possibilities as to what he actually wanted to say. The slightest edit can change the meaning of the scene and of the entire character of Brutus, and so create an utterly different version. We’re uncertain of what Shakespeare wanted to keep and what he wanted to cut, so we reproduce all of his words, but if he were able to choose, he might want to convey one version over another. It is up to editors to do Shakespeare justice and make sure that readers understand the possibilities.
