Teaching Shakespeare Institute 2014 Day One

by Dan Bruno, M.Ed., NBCT and Quintin Burks

Wow!

That is the only word I can come up with (and it is a sad, overwrought one) to describe my first day of the Teaching Shakespeare Institute. If there is truly a theme of marriage in this year's group, then today was the honeymoon. We got to know one another again through discussions about curriculum, performances of Cinna the poet's tragicomic death, performance exercises, and a complete round robin reading of Twelfth Night. Moreover, we received an excellent and engaging lecture from one of the scholars-in-residence on the historical and cultural context of bear-baiting in Twelfth Night. For those intrigued by this concept, and, believe me, it is far more interesting than you would think, much of the substance of this lecture can be found here. In the article, you will learn about the context of bear-baiting and how it enriches lines like the following:

Have you not set min honor at the stake, /  And baited it with all th' unmuzzled thoughts / That tyrannous heart can think? - Olivia, III.i.123-125

To break our day down further, let me get into the schedule (a detailed outline of which has been kindly provided by my co-author for the post, Quintin Burks). After walking into the gorgeous theatre at the Folger and learning about our faculty for the institute as well as its founding principles, we dove into a session on curriculum. We opened this session with each participant offering three sentences:

1. Who are you and what/where do you teach?
2. What plays have you taught/are you currently teaching?
3. Who taught you to teach Shakespeare?

By about the halfway point, it was pretty clear what our master teachers were trying to emphasize: very few of us (I only recall two) were explicitly taught HOW to teach Shakespeare. Side Note: Millersville University got some serious kudos for their intensive course on Teaching Shakespeare; if you are a pre-service teacher, look them up.

After the opening discussion, we did something we affectionately dubbed "Julius Caesar Salad." For those familiar with the Shakespeare Set Free series or the Folger's Pedagogical Philosophy, you know you do not need to teach the whole play to teach Shakespeare. This exercise played to that notion by having each group of 6-7 people perform a scene from Julius Caesar, the tragicomic death of Cinna the Poet III.iii. Here is how to adapt the activity; however, be warned that knowing the steps is not a replacement for experiencing it firsthand. The two-part goal of these posts is to encourage others to apply and to spread the word about this wonderful program.

Julius Caesar Salad: 

1. Give the Cinna scene (III.iii) from Julius Caesar to the class. Divide the class into groups of 6-7.
2. Have the students assign parts to each other (this becomes complicated because you are intentionally stocking the group with more actors than necessary; students have to be creative with how they use the text so that each person in the group is involved).
3. Afterwards, students work on how to perform the scene including blocking, speaking parts, etc.
4. Allow time for practice (20 minutes is good)
5. Hand out a  sheet of elements to add to the scene (ex: tableau, silences, laughter, etc.)
6. Ask that all or a certain number of those elements be included in the scene
7. Perform the scenes in quick succession
8. Once the final group has performed, discuss what the students noticed as they saw each other perform the same scene.

After this excellent session, we moved on to either lunch or getting our reader's cards for the reading room at the Folger (insert nerdy dance break).

After lunch, we gathered for the lecture mentioned above. I still cannot say enough about how enlightening and engaging it was.

After the lecture, we had performance time with two acting experts, both university instructors. We began with a warmup: 

1. Begin by having students shake their hands, then arms, then bodies, then legs then heads.
2. Have students reach as high up as they can while breathing deep, and then slowly exhaling as they reach toward the ground.
3. Then, have students walk around on tip toes, heels, and the sides of their feet. 
4. Students then learn how to project voice while learning trust by using a blindfold and being led first by touch, then by voice.
5. Next, Students hum and breathe while standing in a circle.
6. Have students open their mouths wide to let the sound out while still humming.
7. Have students place their hands on their foreheads and chests to feel the vibration of their own hums.
8. Students then move into a circle, standing shoulder-to-shoulder to feel the vibrations of of their neighbors, opening their mouths when directed to create a mock vocal symphony.
9. Stop. There should be silence
10. Students simultaneously speak: “Hello, my name is (Whatever their names are, probably not Slim Shady)."

After these activities, we did an activity called Shakespeare in a Can (or in this case, three).

1. Students pair up and choose to be either partner A or partner B.
2. "A" students select a particular quotation from Shakespeare from the A can (and keep it to themselves, not even showing their partners).
3. "B" students select a particular quotation from the B can (and keep it to themselves).
4. One of the two selects a location from the third can.
5. Allow time for students to briefly prepare an improv scene without sharing their quotations; these scenes are made up of improvisational dialogue and situations in which the students must use their quotations.
6. Students perform scene, being sure to include their quotations in their scene wherever they belong.

Lastly, we reflected on our performance activities using something called Rounds. Standing in a circle, we each went through a series of sentence starters:

• I learned...
• I wish...
• I noticed...
• I resent...
• I appreciate...

In completing these, we learned a lot about what we had learned and experienced that day. This statement may seem obvious, but try the activity and then tell me you aren't shocked at how thoroughly the day's lessons are analyzed.

After a wonderful dinner at a restaurant called We the Pizza (GO THERE!), we gathered to read through Twelfth Night. As we read together, laughing at the jokes and cringing at all of the references to bear-baiting (read the article), it was apparent that after only one day, the TSI class of 2014 had become a strong family, built upon a foundation of Bardolatry.

Getting to Know You...Shakespeare Style

by Dan Bruno, M.Ed., NBCT

This post is the first of many I will be creating from the 2014 Teaching Shakespeare Institute here at the Folger Shakespeare Library. The activity below is something we did on our first night, after we had dinner and a chance to introduce one another. This activity will, infectiously, help you remember the name of anyone in the group through either repetition or movement. The activity comes from Professor Caleen Jennings at American University.

First, make a circle. Then, in whatever order you wish (clockwise or counter) have each person say his or her name loud and clear for all to hear.

Then, have each person go around and say an adjective that describes him or her followed by the name (ex: Dancing David). Professor Jennings used a simple technique to make sure everyone was ready to do this (a technique she repeated for each subsequent step): she had us raise our hands when we were ready. Simple, effective, quick. Got to love it.

After the adjective addition, have the participants add a motion to the adjective name combination. This is where things become much more interactive. As each participant says his or her adjective and name, accompanied by the movement, the entire group repeats it. So, if Dancing David's motion is jazz hands, as soon as he says "Dancing David" and does his jazz hands, the whole group says "Dancing David" and does jazz hands. And there is seriously no place to hide; vulnerability and risk in a getting to know you game is a great way to start chipping at those too-cool-for-school exteriors so many students put up as a front.

After the previous step, each person does the same thing, but adds his or her favorite Shakespeare character ("Dancing David," jazz hands, "Richard the third"). The group repeats after each person as in the previous step, but adding the name of the character.

The next step is the same as the last, except you throw in a motion to match the character ("Richard the third," hand stretched out like a claw that tries to hold to his power).

Finally, each participant goes through the whole string again ("Dancing David," jazz hands, "Richard the third," hand stretched out like a claw that tries to hold to his power), but this time adds a stage death. This can be as silly or creative as each participant wants. One of our group's favorite characters was "Bear" and another "Pursued by." These two had very creative deaths.

So, it takes a while with all of the repetition of each person's adjective, name, gesture, character, gesture, and death, but it really cements each person's face and name in memory.

To illustrate, a number of us ran to Target for provisions. The entire way there, the entire time at the store, and the entire way back, we were calling each other by name, or miming an action to help us remember. Good times.

Waning Poetic: Engae Now! May 2014

by Dan Bruno, M.Ed., NBCT

Turning and turning in a widening gyre...
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.
-William Butler Yeats

This time of year brings on some many forms of frenzy: promposals, AP testing, Standards testing, closing out the year, awards, sports, academics. The list, like Yeats's gyre, grows with each rotation of the day. In my district, a new superintendent, the same old board of supervisors, and the same old school board have led to the same old budget crisis. Positions slashed. Apologies made in e-mails. What seems absent are the passionate arguments over raising the only source of revenue the schools have: the real estate tax. In dependent school board states like ours, the school board cannot tax; instead, they are entirely dependent on the whim of the supervisors. Democracy at its finest and most flawed. Public debate too often comes down to facts and figures, bottom lines and dollar signs. The truth is that these issues require a bit more passion.

In the world of our classrooms, passion comes in the form of verse. From Shakespeare to Schnackenberg, emotion does not come in a more crystallized form than the poetry we teach. Oftentimes, like that public discourse mentioned above, we lose ourselves in the technical and forget that poetry is, at its best, an individual expression of singular experience. People write verse to share these experiences with an audience. When we focus solely on the techniques and minutiae, we alienate students from an art form that offers them an outlet in a world full of inputs. This month's Engage Now! focuses on helping students own poetry through creation.

Katie Greene's May Engage Now! puts poetry in the students' hands so that they can write it and perform it. Utilizing the web site Shadow Poetry, students explore forms and write poetry in forms they find appealing. To top it off, they must find pictorial representations of their work and use it to decorate the page. The activity is light enough to fit the hectic schedule of the end of the year while still packing a hefty intellectual punch. If you are looking for a way to close out the year with fun, flexibility, and intelligence, head over the NCTE Connected Community and download the lesson. And best of luck at the end of this year.

Authentic Audiences: Engage Now February, March, and April

By Dan Bruno, M.Ed., NBCT

This year, even the denizens of the South can put on the face of the grizzled winter survivor. And, just to add injury to injury, we've had so many of them that plans are becoming more of a suggestion than a reality. I mean, how do you reduce a 4 week unit into 2 days? We are only now catching back up where we need to be for the AP exam. If you'd told me that I would ever grow weary of the interruption of snow days, I would have laughed in your face; however, even the students, hearing that it might be below freezing for a number of nights in APRIL, are groaning about the never-ending winter. But I digress.

This post starts with an idea: What makes us write? There are a lot of suggestions, the least of which is the assignments people like us give out. But, if we are honest, the reasons most people write are far more mundane and far more important.

"Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being."

In Stephen Heller's Engage Now! for the month of February, students are asked to develop a real world setting for the release of their junior research projects: a symposium. The symposium audience, composed of their peers and community members, observes presentations of the research these junior students have done in a professional setting. The students in Mr. Heller's class research contemporary issues, but the plan and format are so flexible that this symposium format could be adapted to any research project. Most important, the research symposium precedes the submission of the final paper, so the feedback given by audience members is applied to the revision of the final paper. Lastly, anyone who knows the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification process recognizes the importance of including the community in the classroom as a measure of excellence. This symposium requires parents to jump in, get involved, and provide feedback to their own and other people's children. What a way to bring various members of the community together: supporting the children they work so hard to support.

This realistic environment to "publish" one's work is something numerous teachers of writing reference in order to create a successful, student-centered classroom. Even if a symposium is out of reach, involving parents in the learning process can be one of the most important and vital connections for a child to see in action. I've used rubrics for writing to involve parents before, asking them to review their student's work and write feedback based on the rubric. These rough drafts can be included in any process paper project and used to soften the blow of the sometimes "harsh" teacher comments. "I agree with your mother that the sentences here are a bit confusing" is a lot easier to accept than "Your sentences lack clarity throughout this section."

The authentic audience makes another appearance in the March 2014 Engage Now from Courtney Morgan, The Aesthetic of Race. Students, doing a study of race, are asked to read informational texts about race, including Toni Morrison's "Recitatif," and then write an argumentative essay about race based on their reading. Students are asked to respond to the question "Is cross-racial friendship possible?" while considering the works they've read throughout their study of race. Students are encouraged to submit their essays to the Post Register's Essay Contest, providing a real world setting for the success or failure of their work. The plan is so extensive that one needs to merely sub in or out the standards and assessment tools used in his or her district (although, admittedly, my state is one of the few stragglers not adapting to the CCSS yet, so the standards substitution is probably only an issue for the few, not the majority). Head over to the Connected Community and download a copy for your lesson library.

Questions about race never seem to fail when it comes to spark good, thoughtful writing. Students realize the real implications of race around them because of the mosaic they see daily in each and every classroom. Our society is so racially conscious that these conversations are sometimes difficult to have without the suggestion of offense impressed upon every utterance. Lessons that provide strong frameworks in which to have these discussions foster the type of communication that builds bridges and creates cross-racial friendships.

The final Engage Now lesson in this post also deals with engaging with authentic audiences; however, the audiences in this lesson are different enough that students are forced to switch modes of discourse and medium of presentation. In Anna Roseboro's April Engage Now, students engage in the "thematic choral reading" of poetry and in the art of self-assessment in order to demonstrate to different audiences their competency in the study and performance of poetry. The "thematic choral readings" involve groups of students gathering together to choose poems they will perform as a group. The students figure out how the poems are connected and how they will be performed. Once the performance occurs, students write a reflection that serves as one half of a discussion between the teacher and student about what is deserved based on the final performance. For more details, check out the full plan at the link above.
Students crave authentic audiences and experiences for their writing. Nothing motivates like an uncontrived purpose. Knowing that someone will be reading and reacting to their words, that their words have the power to shape their academic and cultural identity, empowers students to become better writers, raising the stakes without attaching penalties. As Goethe said: "Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and help them become what they are capable of being."

Making it Count

In the 2009-2010 school year, a history teacher colleague and I set out on our second year of the journey we called Hislish. We taught together, everyday. We saw the same kids, everyday. It was a tight-knit group. Unfortunately, at the end of that year, I received an opportunity to teach for the Governor's School, the position I currently occupy. The decision to leave was hard, but the future of our class was, like so many abberrations to the early 20th-century factory model of education, administratively in doubt. I still see those kids in dreams and in memories, but I hadn't seen them in the flesh for a while.

I use that metaphor, in the flesh, intentionally. Flesh is weak and malleable. It betrays our confidence in it with the slightest pin-prick of a splinter. It betrays our trust in it when it falters and fails to recover. I saw these students again in the flesh because one of them discovered how frail our lives can be.

On February 27th, one of my former students, at the age of 20, died of Leukemia. He fought 14 months. We say that we fight cancers of all types, but this time the fight was truly vicious. This young man was a fighter in the classroom, on the football field, and in his daily life. There was no challenge too big for him to accept. In fact, the bigger the challenge, the more fight in this student. On March 8th, sitting in a church built to host 800 people in a single service, I looked around at the crowd so large people were standing along the walls. Five eulogists chronicled the young man's many achievements: football captain despite his short stature; All-State defensive player again despite his small stature; honor roll student; college student athlete; devout man of faith; best friend to another student; brother to another young man graduating high school this year. As you might assume, tears come often and plentiful, but so did the laughter. The funeral truly was a celebration of life. And we all celebrated together: catching up while sharing bittersweet hugs and smiles.

But it wasn't the funeral that helped me understand the importance of our lives, as teachers, to these young people. It was the viewing.

As it was only my second viewing, I was hesitant to go. Luckily, my sense of duty and my affection for the family prevailed. That was what made this even harder; the young man's mother was a colleague. How do you look someone you know in the face and truly offer them the encouragement and sympathy they need, especially after the loss of a child? The answer was unexpected. As my wife and I stood in line to express our condolences, I could hear my friend crying with each expression of grief as though it were the first. The heart-rending cries of a mother who has lost her child. I held it together, trying to appear strong for her, trying to stand as a support it a time of trouble. Then we were there, standing before her. We gave her a big hug. She stepped back, and said: "Do you remember the poem he wrote for class about being a big brother?" I said I had. She asked if I remembered walking it down to her and telling her that if it didn't make her cry, then nothing would. I said I did. Then she said this: "I've kept that poem in my purse the entire time." We both crumpled. I wanted to say "thank you for sharing that with me" but all I could manage was "Thank you" before losing my composure. We hugged, and my wife and I moved out of line.

But in that moment, I knew why it was I started doing this job in the first place. That might have just been an assignment at the time, but it became something more. The work we do, asking students to define themselves in different formats and fonts, asking students to express their humanity, is vital. Science and mathematics have their practical applications, but the humanities helps us to feel and to know ourselves better. So, behind all of the sadness and the encouragement, behind the faith and the despair, behind the questions and the silent answers, a small piece of paper was transfigured into a totem of great love. All I had to do was give him the time to write. I cannot think of a testament more powerful than that.

So, hang in there. Keep teaching. Even in these darker days of the third quarter, there are moments that remind us just how muchh our work means in the long run.

Real Linguistic Horror

by Dan Bruno, M.Ed., NBCT



Stephen King has been dethroned; at least, he has been dethroned as the king of horror among young adult writers. Tapping into what could accurately be many teenagers' worst nightmare, Michael LoMonico has written a novel about a young man who must (gasp) speak only in Shakespearean verse. My students would be, and were, horrified at the thought. If your students are anything like mine, they fear the Shakespeare unit more than most things because they are, well, Shakespeare. So many students come to the high school English classroom with one of two Shakespeariences (Yeah, I said it):

1. The Dummy Experience: Nothing makes someone feel smarter than being handed a copy of a novel with a "simpler" version of the text on the opposing page. Did I say smarter? My mistake. Just as translations of great works of literature only hint at the meaning tucked away in its original language, so too the "No Fear" and various other off-brands of Shakespearean play sacrifice meaning for accessibility. So, when students come to the high school classroom, if they've had the dummy experience, they sit waiting and ready to jot down the answers that the teacher will provide and then ask for on a test. The loss of complexity is a loss too dear to be taken lightly. There are lines and phrases in Shakespeare that still defy a single interpretation; heck, some lines still defy any interpretation. To remove that layered and personal process of meaning making reduces the study of Shakespeare to a gotcha course in plot summary. I did not sign up for that.

2. The Play Experience: For clarity's sake, let me say that I do not mean actual performance of the plays. As a matter of fact, you will see that I advocate that later. What I mean here is the let's-all-dress-up-and-pretend-we-are-doing-Shakespeare-but-remove-the-difficult-language approach. One of my favorite lessons in the Romeo and Juliet unit is walking through the opening, guiding my students to an understanding of what those naughty young men are saying. Students think Shakespeare is the stuff of old, stodgy men in bizarre costumes. They don't really believe the language says so much in such a small space. When they do realize what those two bawdy young men are saying, they usually claim that I have either ruined the play or made the play for them. After all, Shakespeare is a classic, he cannot be "dirty." They never get this in the versions they do in Middle School. In my experience, the Middle School experience is limited not because the teachers don't have the knowledge nor that the students are incapable of dealing with the language (I mean, the original audience was largely undereducated by today's stringent middle school standards). What I mean is that the "fun" of creating the play usually outpaces the struggle to understand what the play says. Oftentimes, the aforementioned dummy versions of Shakespeare are substituted in these productions.

What Mike LoMonico's novel does for young adult readers is build the very confidence needed to take on these plays using a bit of magical realism and a plot straight out of Disney. The moves the narrative makes are so familiar, so unthreatening to young readers, that they cannot help but be charmed by its invitation to sit for a while and enjoy a story about a young man who magically cannot speak in anything but Shakespearean phrases. Opening with the requisite establishment of a teenage voice in all its slang-ridden glory (I seriously felt that I have taught multiple Emmas in a single year), LoMonico's narrative quickly moves the two protagonists to the inciting incident in Peter's parents' study. As anyone who has owned a Riverside Shakespeare can attest, and as I am sure the Reverend Hale of another well-known play would attest, it is certainly a text weighted with authority. Once the tome strikes Peter's dome, he is unconscious until the EMTs place him on a stretcher and he says "For this relief much thanks." I write this in italics because this is how LoMonico denotes Shakespeare's words in the text, providing a quick visual reference for students as they read. The emphasis is unnecessary, but it draws attention to Shakespeare's language. At the end, this focus seems to be LoMonico's thesis: Shakespeare's language is not just immortal, but magical in the way that it transports the imagination to new places. Whether Peter, the eponymous Shakespeare Kid, is at school or a Mets game, the presence of the Bard's words in his speech amplifies everything.

A few students have read it and they are amazed at how enjoyable the experience was. Their horror at reading a "Shakespeare" book has, to once again shamelessly paraphrase, converted from disdain to courtesy. They even seem more open to the idea that we will be tackling one of the plays in a month's time.

This eagerness borne of LoMonico's novel is what classroom teachers can harness. In the Commonwealth Governor's School program, we have limited, but mandatory, summer assignments. My proposal for next year will be to adopt this text as summer reading for the ninth grade. The way the story incorporates and comments upon the play Romeo and Juliet is the perfect introduction to a year that has them encountering the play at the beginning of October. Besides, the story is fun and fast-paced, perfect for a day at the beach or a stormy day inside.

Bottom line: Go get this novel. It is widely available from Amazon. When you open the front cover, be warned. You won't be getting much done until you reach the end of Peter and Emma's journey through Shakespeare. So now the wheel is come full circle, and I will bid you good night, good night until we meet again.

Location:Rose Hill Ct,Fredericksburg,United States

Love or Lust: Romeo & Juliet and Missing the Point?

by Dan Bruno (@HSMatters)

I may be in the minority on this one, but I have to come clean. I have never been able to justify the modern argument about love or lust in regards to Romeo & Juliet. There are many reasons for this confusion, but I want to make sure I am clear: I need someone to explain this conflict over love or lust because I cannot see it.

I have many colleagues who fret over the sensitivity of the main characters committing suicide in a play we teach to fourteen-year-old students. I am beginning to believe they fret over this portion of the play because they have allowed cynical, modern lenses to interfere with their artistic vision. If we dive into the play, a number of reasons against the reading of the play as lust surface from the depths of Shakespeare's text.

First, the contrast between the other male characters and Romeo. A softie by any other name would be as saccharine as Romeo tends to be. He speaks in the conventions of courtly love, by acts with the abandon of a teenager. The other male characters do not speak in courtly phrases and tidy metaphors; instead, they revel in violence and conflict. Heck, Tybalt has such an act to grind he actually hates the word peace. Forget the concept they represent, Tybalt's out for logocide. The most bawdy and lusty characters end up dead by open brawling violence, not quietly committing suicide in a tomb. Romeo is different from the other males precisely because he is not as lusty.

Second, the holy palmers' kiss sonnet. Shakespeare and his sonnets; Petrarch and his sonnets; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and her sonnets; let me count the ways. If there is one thing "universal" in literary study, it is that sonnet structure is associated with love. If sonnets are poems about love (yes, even ironically about love), and this first dialogue between Romeo and Juliet is a sonnet, this dialogue must be about love. Before I get harangued for simplistic syllogistic logic, also consider the metaphor Shakespeare uses in the sonnet. The two lovers are not just speaking about love, they are speaking about pilgrims on a holy quest. Love and holiness: I just cannot reconcile myself with lust and holiness being a pair. Was Romeo just pining away for Rosaline? Yes; but my dude does not miss a beat. Why harp on what's past when what's present is so lovely.

Third, the balcony scene. The stories of Petrarch and Laura and Dante and Beatrice are sweet until you realize that they are essentially pulling off the literary equivalent of Frankenstein's monster. Each man, at the loss of so lovely an object of admiration, reanimates the dead woman and speaks for her. In this way, the two female voices become formulaic, expected, in line with the men's perspectives. Juliet is not given the chance to speak in such saccharine language as Romeo because the meddlesome male is spying on her. Juliet is relieved that Romeo sneaks up on her at night because the night's darkness can hide the "maiden blush
 that would "bepaint [her] cheek / For that which [Romeo] hast heard [her] speak." Realizing that the conventions of courtly love are useless at this point, she says one of my favorite lines in Renaissance literature: "But farewell compliment. / Dost thous love me?" I can almost she her crossing her arms, narrowing her eyes, and preparing to shove this fool off of her bedroom balcony. Juliet is not one given to frailty and helplessness. Unlike the ideal women of Petrarch and Dante, Juliet has a life and mind of her own, and she is smart. Some say that Romeo is lusty and pushes her past her own comfort; I say that Juliet knows exactly what she is doing and falls in love with this deep and sensitive soul. Like Ovid before him, Shakespeare seems to be letting the poets prove to be the best lovers.

Fourth, and final, the union of the two families. This feud is old. This feud is bloody. This feud could not be stopped under pain of death. Watching the Folger's Master Class on Romeo & Juliet last night, I was struck by the actress Erin Weaver's explanation of the suicide scene. She says that there is ample justification in the text, besides the love for each other, that drives Romeo and Juliet to suicide. I have to admit that was a new perspective. She explained specifically that Juliet has little in the way of relationships with others outside her family, and these relationships break. The one with her mother is not particularly strong from the start, but when her father says "get thee to church o' Thursday, / or never after look me in the face" Juliet's heart breaks. In the eerily similar passage from Much Ado About Nothing, the good friar convinces Leonato that Hero's disobedience is false. In that play, Leonato relents, is shown the truth, and everybody lives...(you know the rest). In this play, Capulet leaves angry, the betrayal is real, and Friar Lawrence is not big on communicating effectively with others. Abandoned, Juliet only has Romeo left. With him gone, what more can there be? To ascribe to lust the power to end life, the power to stop violence and convert it to peace, and the power to mend physical and emotional wounds is to miss the point. What else but holy love, corrupted by the violence of these two families' rage, could be of significant enough loss to justify the immediate and certain change of heart in these two old, battling fools?

I am interested in what you think. Am I just being ridiculous? Have I missed something big glaring at me? I have always found the idea of having the debate over love and lust intriguing, but I've never seen how the lust side can get enough textual support to be convincing. I'm looking forward to reading some feedback and discussing this seminal text.