Friday, June 11, 2010

Motiveless Malignant






Here is the latest addition to my collection of old books. Courtesy of my grandmother, I have accquired a book containing Shakespeare's four major tragedies: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello. Now I am not the biggest fan of Shakespeare ever. I have an appreciation for his work, but after taking a Shakespeare class I'm a bit...unenthralled. Regardless, I do sincerly love Macbeth and Othello. The second picture from this set is Lady Macbeth's famous "unsex me here" speech. She is one of the most fearsome ladies in all of literature. Fabulous. And her speeches are incredible. This particular one is from Act One, Scene Five and is just chilling. Especially when delivered by a great actress. The third picture is from Othello and is the last part of a speech by Iago, the best example of pure evil one can find in Shakespeare. I love reading his speeches for the same reason as Lady Macbeth. The word choice is just so powerful and epic. Iago fascinates me because he is entirely motiveless. As a play, Othello fascinates me for so many other reasons, but linguistically it is all about Iago.

In case you haven't guessed by now, I love taking pictures of words (witness examples here and here). I think it's because I can combine my love of language with my love of photography and end up with an image that, for me, conveys such a depth of meaning. Plus, I just like how some words look. And I think that books sometimes deserve to be looked at in new and unique ways.

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