my sincerest thanks to you

I have finished copying PREFACE of my graduation thesis yesterday. The graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago is very long and it will take more than 30 days to copy the full text of the thesis--LEAR'S WORLD IN KING LEAR.

Now four months have passed since I broke my left ankle. I still have some pain. But I can walk ---slowly and delicately. I'm getting better and better. I am getting active. I'm getting busier.

I think I will stop English writing for a while. I greatly enjoyed writing in English, which always brought me comfort.

Thank you for reading my poor English.
Thank you for supporting me spiritually.
Thank you for sending me get-well cards.
Thank you for everything.

I'd like to be back again some day. Good Luck!

(I've asked teacup to make this KARIN'S ENGLISH WRITING into a book. I hope it will be a nice book.)

graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago (4)

Today will be a very busy day. I am going to take care of 7 children at my daughter's house. Three families will gather at my daughters house with their little children this afternoon.

All parents will play the saxophone in the basement which is made for playing musical instrument. They belong to a musical band and enjoy playing the saxophone as a hobby. They have a concert in November every year. I think it very good for my daughter and her husband to have the same hobby-- playing the saxophone.

Usually my daughter's son, who is 11 years old, takes care of them. But today he has to go to school. So I offered to take care of their little children. I hope their parents will be refreshed by playing the saxophone in the basement. Will you please come to their concert in November?

Now I think I will write the last part of PREFACE of the graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago.
This is continued from yesterday's article.

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King Lear is a play that has almost heart-breaking pathos in it, but those who have read or enjoyed the play will find themselves refreshed. A great tragedy always gives us this kind of feeling. This is one of the most important elements that a tragedy, if it is a great one, should have.

The fundamental difference between tragedy and comedy is that the former contains one or two noticeable characters that surpass others in some points and capture our special interest---for example, the hero in Hamlet, Lear and Cordelia in King Lear, Othello and Iago in Othello or Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth in Macbeth.

But comedy does not have specially noticeable characters. We feel common interest in various types of people in it. To say in other words, tragedy is the simper in its form and concentrates our interest in one or two main characters. Therefore, it has a deep significance to discuss a hero or heroine of a tragedy.

A play is often said to be the epitome of life. When we read or watch a play, we unconsciously regard characters in it as real men or women with whom we have intercourse in our daily life. We follow their actions and try to understand and analyze the psychology of them, thinking as if they were living with us.

In studying King Lear I will try to follow the hero and see the process of his changing from a man who lacks the touch of humanity into one who is really human.

graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago (3)

I've just been to K City to teach English grammar to a Korean boy, using Japanese, as a volunteer. He can understand Japanese, English and his mother tongue Korean.

I wrote about him last week. He is very quick to learn. We are very good friends and enjoy learning English. I'll miss him when he goes back to Korea in January next year.

Now I think I will go on writing PREFACE of the graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago.

This is continued from yesterday's article. Of course, I do not completely agree to what karin wrote when she was 22 years old.

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In appreciating any literary work the most essential thing is one's reaction to it---that is, what one feels or thinks about the work. And to make one's reaction a fine and worthy one, one should try to understand the object completely by reading what has been written on it.

Otherwise one would fall into self-complacency and nobody can hope any development from it. We should do so particularly in studying Shakespeare, who lived quite in a different period and age from ours.

In reading Shakespeare, the first thing we should do is to consult the Shakespeare Glossary or some other dictionaries to get the story. The next thing is to pay special attention to our predecessors' studies or views. We must be modest enough to listen to what those scholars or critics did say. This will give us a clear understanding of Shakespeare.

For example, if we are told that Edmund and Lear in the King Lear are two main characters who represent the two opposed views of life and the world in the days of Shakespeare, or that Cordelia in the same play shows us the wisdom Shakespeare himself values most highly---that is the wisdom of Christianity, our own reaction to the play will be a different one from that when we do not know those opinions.

Some other critics may say that Cordelia has nothing to do with Christianity and there is no element of Christianity in the play. This will also helpful for us to decide our reaction.

In what are we most interested when we watch a play on the stage? Story? Plot? Characters? Words spoken by them? One gets interested in the play in one's own way. One has one's own view of a play, just as one has one's own view of life. So, there are a lot of ways of appreciating a play.

(to be continued)

graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago (2)

What a beautiful morning! I will finish writing PREFACE of my graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago. 40 years have changed me so much. I think it a miracle that I've lived to be 62.

This is continued from yesterday's article.
(the graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago)

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There are two types of genius in the literary world. One is a man who shows a wonderful creative genius in his works and the other a man who creates an enduring masterpiece by means of wise and excellent adaptation from the existing books.

William Shakespeare belongs to the latter. He composed most of his plays, drawing their materials from the old stories which were already well-known among people in his days.

King Lear is not the exceptional. The story of King Lear is a very old one. The first book that tells us the story is said to be Historia Regum Britanniae by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In the 14th century it is found in Gesta Romanorum and in the next century many historians and poets came to take up the story as materials of their works.

John Higgins in A Mirror for Magistrates, William Warner in Albion's England, Edmund Spenser in Faerie Queene, or Holinshed's Chronicles. In 1602, a play titled The True Chronicle History of King Lear and His Three Daughters, Gonorill, Ragan, and Cordella was published. Shakespeare is said to have written his play King Lear a few years later. Those books which Shakespeare had beside him, when he wrote King Lear, are said to have been Holinshed's Chronicles and The True Chronicle History of King Lear.

The important thing is not whether Shakespeare had source books or not, but how he put his construction on them in order to make his play fresh and vivid. In this point Shakespeare succeeded to admiration and he created the greatest play that was quite different from all those books from which he drew its material. I think it will be interesting and meaningful to study King Lear comparing with its source books, but I did not have enough time to do it.

(to be continued)

graduation thesis I wrote 40 years ago (1)

When I went back to Niigata last week, I found the final draft of my graduation thesis which I wrote 40 years ago. The graduation thesis itself I submitted to my teacher was not returned to me. Therefore, I was very happy to find it. I think my English ability reached a climax in that year.

I think I will copy my graduation thesis here, remembering my old good days. The title of my graduation thesis was

LEAR'S WORLD IN KING LEAR

PREFACE
I have come to find that William Shakespeare's plays are very interesting to read---though I do not know how interesting they are when they are put on the stage, because I have never had any chance to appreciate them on the stage.

When I was a sophomore of N University, I attended a class of King Lear, for I knew its story and to read it in the original had long been one of my dear dreams. In that class we students were allowed to be in full activity. Every week one or two students were appointed to prepare for the next class.

Those students tried to make thoroughgoing preparations, reading many books concerning Shakespeare, or consulting some dictionaries which they usually did not use. In that class, being helped by a teacher, they gave us a lecture on some part of King Lear.

That was my first time to read Shakespeare. To tell the truth, I felt how tiresome it was to read Shakespeare at that time. It was because I did not read it carefully. I should have hungrily read every word of it. Reflecting upon those days, I feel very sorry not to have tried my hardest to read Shakespeare.

The next year, I took a class of Hamlet. It was Hamlet that let my eyes bend on Shakespeare's other plays. When I finished reading Hamlet, I felt like reading other works and I made up my mind to read all of his works. Since then I have been reading Shakespeare's works but so far I have read only one third of them. Of course I did read King Lear again. This time it impressed me so much that I decided to read it more deeply for my graduation thesis.

Considering of my poor ability of English, I cannot help admitting that Shakespeare is too difficult for me to understand. It may be altogether irrelevant that I should say something on his works. But I will try what I can do in my own way.

( to be continued)