Textual Poaching Assignment: King of Cats

King of Cats: An Origin Story

This assignment caused me to think deeply about what it means to identify as an English major. I don’t share a passion for reading that many of my classmates enjoy. I have always been more drawn to the conversations sparked by literature. I love talking about literature much more than actually reading it. When I think about the dissonance between societal depictions and treatment of those that love literature and my own self-image, I don’t see an egregious misunderstanding, rather I see dislocation. For this assignment, rather than reconcile my own misrepresentation in society, I needed to reconcile my own displacement from my English literature community. If I don’t have a lifelong passion for literature, then what about me can be identified as an English major?

Shakespeare is synonymous with the idea of English literature, and therefore seemed like an obvious choice as a representative text. Shakespeare exists in two spheres. On one level, he is the pervasive pop culture icon, the bane of every high school English curriculum, the inspiration for countless adaptations. On another level, he exists as a topic of serious scholarly study and appreciation. This second sphere is the business of the English profession and scholarly field. Despite my presence in the English community, I feel resigned to the first level of Shakespeare appreciation. Although I am an English initiate, I am uninitiated in the more sophisticated conversations surrounding Shakespeare.

My project attempts to represent the dissonance I find in myself. I selected a more obscure character from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Tybalt, and wrote a fan fiction script about his attempts to kill a rat that plagues his house. Tybalt is a minor character whose impact on the story is outside of the scope of the general pop culture knowledge of Shakespeare’s most recognizable play. By taking his character and writing a fan fiction about him, I am blending the two spheres of Shakespeare. I acknowledge that I know I should be aware of and capable of participating in the scholarly sphere, but demonstrate my inability to do so by dragging Tybalt into the more common sphere.

We could perhaps begin to compile some meaning in this trivial little story. I used exclusively original dialogue, and had a fun time piecing it together into domestic unexciting situations. We might say that it pokes fun at Tybalt’s melodramatic nature, or his complete lack of character development. By calling this an origin story, and by giving Tybalt this arc where he transitions from a cat hater to a cat lover we might be able to say that this script gives Tybalt’s character more substance than the original play.

I feel the contradictions between myself and the representation of my identity strongly. I love Shakespeare and enjoy talking about his enduring legacy, but I lack the ability to dissect his work further, an ability I believe it is reasonable to expect a man of my identity to have.