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 Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:53 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:58 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:05 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:08 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:20 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:30 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:48 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:03 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:48 am
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Slide 1
How many here have heard of Sherlock Holmes? How many of you have actually read at least one story of the series? Whether you've heard, read or seen a form of the Sherlock Holmes series, it's clear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's
My name is Prof. Moonie, and for my project I took the story "A Scandal in Bohemia" from the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and transformed it into a play.
Slide 2
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a Scottish doctor who became a writer after the success of his Sherlock Holmes series. While Sherlock Holmes was not the first detective character of 19th century literature, he immediately became "the detective". As a result, Doyle capitalized the Victorians fascination with crime.
Slide 3
Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes first appeared in the novel A Study in Scarlet, which was first published in December 1887 in The Strand Magazine. In this novel, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson first meet each other. The story that I used for my final project - "A Scandal in Bohemia" - was first published in The Strand in July 1891. In this story, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson investigate a case revolving around a scandal with the King of Bohemia and the American adventuress Irene Adler.
Slide 4
Many of us have either heard, read or seen at least one form of the Sherlock Holmes series. However, very few know who inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to create the series. Other authors of the 19th century, such as Samuel Coleridge, have mentioned in their works who inspired them. In "Biographia Literaria," Coleridge states - “I shall hardly forget the sudden effect produced on my mind, by [William Wordworth’s] recitation of a manuscript poem.” So who inspired Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
Slide 5
It hasn't been until recently with the publishing of an autobiography about Doyle that the mystery behind the inspiration of Sherlock Holmes is solved. In the autobiography, Doyle mentions three people that inspired him. Two of these people were authors who had wrote detective fiction themselves - the French author Émile Gaboriau, and Edgar Allan Poe. Doyle states in the autobiography - "Gaboriau had rather attracted me by the neat dovetailing of his plots, and Poe's masterful detective, M. Dupin, had from boyhood been one of my heroes." Finally, the third inspiration, who specifically became a model for the beloved character Sherlock Holmes, was a professor Doyle had while attending college - Dr. Joseph Bell. As Doyle describes, "I thought of my old teacher Joe Bell, of his eagle face, of his curious ways, of his eerie trick of spotting details." Sounds quite a bit like Sherlock Holmes, doesn't it?
Slide 6
After dwelling into the history and inspiration of Doyle's series, I began to work on creating my play. I knew that converting the original text into a short play script would be quite challenge, especially when there are important facts pushed into every nick and cranny of the story. As I worked, I kept Edgar Allan Poe's views on length in mind. In "The Philosophy of Composition," Poe states, “If any literary work is too long to be read at one sitting... for, if two sittings be required, the affairs of the world interfere, and every thing like totality is at once destroyed."
Slide 7
So, keeping Poe's views in mind, I went through the original text transforming it into a short play, while trying to keep the charm. The formatting I went with was similar to Shakespeare's Macbeth in the book Shakespeare: Four Great Tragedies. It kept the play appearance, but was a format that I could use with MLA formatting. Keeping with the original text's 3 sections, I created 3 Acts for my play. For each of the acts, I tried to keep it to 2 or 3 scenes each. Because I didn't want the play to be too long - and to conserve paper - I tried to impose a limit of 3 pages per Act. In the end, my play became 11 pages long.
Slide 8
In some cases during my writing I added tidbits of originality. One of these was expanding a scene from the original text into three different scenes. In Doyle's original text, the entire scene is Sherlock Holmes returning from his adventures and sharing his experiences with Dr. Watson. For my play, however, I wanted the audience to see the events actually taking place. So, as a result, you get three scenes - Holmes' observation of Irene, the wedding scene, and Holmes giving a brief summary of the events with Watson. For the wedding scene, I ended up using actual 19th century wedding vows to create more dialogue, since there was a limited amount of dialogue available from the original text.
Slide 9
Throughout the process, I began to realize a common theme among the text - the lesson of observation. We've encountered a similar lesson before in a piece we've read in class by Zitkala Sa. In "Impression of an Indian Childhood," Sa recalls - “Frequently [my mother] asked, “What were they doing when you entered their tepee?” This taught me to remember all I saw at a single glance."
Slide 10
The ability of observation of collecting facts at a single glance is common with Sherlock Holmes. Throughout "A Scandal in Bohemia," Watson and readers are introduced to Holmes' constant teaching of observation. The first lesson of observation in Doyle's tale appears at the beginning when Holmes and Watson are having a discussion about Watson's latest activities, and then leads to the discussion of how many stairs there are in the hallway. [Read from text] The theme of observation continues with determining who sent the note, and then with Holmes discovering where the photograph that the team is questing for is located. [read from text].
In the end, I'm pleased with how my play turned out and that with my constant dwelling in Doyle's piece I realized that I, like Dr. Watson, still had room for improvement when it came to our observation skills.
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:51 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 10:54 am
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:29 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:32 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:35 pm
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Posted: Mon Nov 29, 2010 5:48 pm
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