Madison's Commonplace Blog

It's always the stars that get me in poetry. Poets talk of the ocean and the mountains and forests with endless green, but the stars  always hit a little bit different. So of course, when Orsino told Viola, "I know thy constellation is right apt/For this affair," I was immediately drawn to this phrase. Substituting the definition for "thy constellation" found in the Folger edition of Twelfth Night, this phrase reads something like, "I know that the stars that govern your success have shaped you for this task." I love the imagery that this phrase brings, the idea that there is something greater watching over us. This reminded me of a quote from Joseph Smith that I love: "If you live up to your privileges, the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates." This world that we live in is so often filled with confusion and heartache and wondering why  things are so hard and  how  they could get better and when life will finally slow down...

 I found the Friar to be one of my favorite characters in Much Ado About Nothing , because of his calm demeanor, and his ability to see the truth when everybody else got distracted or confused. He is also extremely wise, and one of my favorite passages of his wisdom comes when he is helping Leonato devise the plan to hide away Hero and make Claudio believe that she is dead, so that his anger at Hero will turn to grief. This is the perfect plan, he reasons, because "that what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lacked and lost, why then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that possession would not show us whiles it was ours" (4.1.229-33). I think the principle that the Friar is teaching here is one that I need to keep in mind more often in my everyday life. I am often reminded how grateful I am for food when I am fasting. I recognize the miracle of modern technology that provides my apartment with heat when I have to walk to campus in the col...

Much Ado About Nothing: Act 5, Scene 4. I love imagining this scene. Would the chapel be silent as the onlookers gape in astonishment, or would it be full of their excited chatter? Would Hero simply nod in her obedient way as she revealed that she is still alive, or would she be unable to suppress a smug smile from creeping across her face as she saw Claudio's reaction? And Claudio - what would  his expression look like? Shock? Guilt? Joy? The fact is, this moment is a moment that seems, to most of those present at the chapel, miraculous. Hero, the girl who had died the day before, was yet living. I love the Friar's words at this moment: he says that he will explain everything in due time, but "meantime let wonder seem familiar." Isn't this something we do much too often? Our daily lives are filled with miracles - hearts that keep pumping blood to sustain our lives every second of every day, technology that allows us to explore the entire world from the kitchen ta...