This past week, we learned about the classic plays of Macbeth and King Lear, and how we can tie certain elements in with them. We were assigned a group and were given a project where we had to analyze certain aspects in the story and make comparisons and find evidence for a critical theory inside of the stories. My group decided to do the aspect of psychology and how it relates to characters in the stories. To me, psychology is really easy to relate to Shakespearean literature because the characters all have lots of things going through their minds and have pretty straightforward motives. I hope it doesn't turn into making a lot of assumptions, I feel like that could be one downfall of using psychology. It can sometimes appear subjective and a little bit random, but I hope it doesn't. I feel like if we do it right we can make it completely accurate and prevent it from appearing subjective.
This week we read two poems that I thought were pretty interesting: Ozymandias and Sonnet 146 (Poor soul. the centre of my sinful earth). To me, these poems had quite a bit in common because it focused on the fact that we focus too much on what we have in terms of money and power, rather than focusing on our souls. We have this along with a body that doesn't last forever, but a soul that does. Our soul is eternal while our bodies are temporary. I think it's interesting to think about, but perhaps an atheist wouldn't find it very interesting because it talks about how we should focus on the things they don't believe in. Although I also think it still has meaning because you shouldn't overvalue your power or the amount of possessions you have because once you die, none of those things matter and you've still only got your soul (or nothing).