This webpage considers the process of writing an essay. In the first part, there will be a structural approach, and in the second part I will approach the artistic practices.

Part One

This information below is from an essay outline that I completed in my last year of university. Before we were allowed to submit an essay in this course, we first needed to satisfy the outline principle.

I do like this method of writing for beginners, and advanced writing.

For beginners, it helps build the cognitive framework needed to orchestrate thoughts to perform musically, to fit the metaphor; otherwise, we need to have a coherent experience, as a reader.

For advanced writers, it provides fool-proof structures that allow you to grapple with difficult topics while having a structure that works with a standardized reading expereince. Though we can have beautiful thoughts, application can deflate the entire background efforts put into beautiful essays. Your editor, should you have one, will also have far fewer things to structurally edit.

For early readers, please forgive the HTML/CSS indenation problems.

Essentially, what is below is a flow of writing that is first achieved. Once true ink is put to true paper, it is more difficult to fix flow and transition mistakes. Though, I waned to show what an essay outline looks like that earned me an “A” throughout this course.

I can’t find a way to beautify the outline, as it was written in LibreOffice, and not MarkDown or HTML/CSS. So, please bare with me. For anyone who finds my website useful, I recommend to copy and pate the block below into a LO or Word document for their own use.

Of course, this thesis and outline is to address a unique view on the Three Penny Opera by Brecht.

Thesis and Outline:
Lex Dei, Lex Populi

1. Introduction:
    a) Introduce Threepenny Opera briefly
        1. The Threepenny Opera by Brecht is a play about the symptoms of society that developed from the adoption of widespread capitalism, and how the human condition adapted to the new sociopolitical environment.
    b) Introduce defitinions of jusice and law that I will be working with
        1. Words for "law" in the general sense mostly mean etymologically "what is right" and often are connected with adjectives for "right" (themselves often figurative uses of words for "straight," "upright," "true," "fitting," or "usage, custom." https://www.etymonline.com/word/law
        2. Meaning "right order, equity, the rewarding to everyone of that which is his due" in English is from late 14c. https://www.etymonline.com/word/justice#etymonline_v_6576 
    c) Working definitions: Private Law, Public Law, Biblical Law
        1. Private: conventional, and verbal or non-verbal established agreements and understandings between two or more parties.
        2. Public: conventinal, normative, established agreements and understandings between all social echelons.
        3. Biblical law: conventional, canonical understandings of moral law.
    d) Thesis Statement [needs to be more specific to reflect paragraphs below]
        1. Brecht's portrayal of lawlessness in the Threepenny Opera spans across several domains: public laws, private law, and Biblical law.
    e) This essay argues [needs to be more specific to reflect paragraphs below]
        1. That law and lawlessness is starkly present within the text but within three different independent applications, sources, and governance.
    f) This essay explores [needs to be more specific to reflect paragraphs below]
        1. What of the three types of laws were acknowledged, maintained, betrayed, and decayed.
2. Body 1: I Fought the Law and I Won
    a) Public Law: Mac and Brown
        1. (pg 30) Brown is the chief of police for the area, and enforces the public law.
        2. (pg 31)Mac is the chief of thieves for the area, and enforces private laws on his guild, and circumvents public law because of his relationship with Brown. Mac and Brown have an established private law, known by subtext.
    b) Private Law: Mac and Brown’s Old Boys’ Club
        1. (pg 31) Mac and Brown are at the Mac/Polly wedding. Mac shows his double-standard treatment of criminal activity. Mac has public law immunity.
        2. (pg 31) Mac’s thieves’ guild has no immunity to the law “They come in with their hands up,” but Mac’s presence sways Brown’s office,  “Well, just for today I’ll turn a blind eye.” 
    c) Transfer sentence into Beggar’s Guild
        1. Similar instances are also found in Peachum’s Beggar’s Guild
3. Body 2: Beggar’s Guild
    a) Public Laws, Social Capital
        1. (Pg 15) Business is arousing human sympathy - Public law: Defrauding https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/defraud 
        2. Public law to Private law bridge https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/social-capital-theory
    b) Private Laws Broken
        1. (pg 37) Beggar throws down stump, confrontation with Peachum, Beggar is fired for being ‘too fat’ (pg 38).
    c) Biblical Laws:
        1. (pgs 15-16) abusing Biblical elements for personal gain; desception and corruption
    d) Transfer sentence into Mac and Jenny’s interaction
4. Body 3: Murder and Betrayal
    a) Mac throwing baby in sewer: violation of Biblical law, public law, private law
        1. Biblical law: 
            1. Epistle of St Barnabas, “You shall not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shall you destroy it after it is born.” https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0124.htm
            2. (pg 51) “But in the end we flushed [the baby] down the sewer.”
        2. Public law: 
            1. murder https://www.criminalcodehelp.ca/offences/homicide-offences/homicide/
        3. Private law: 
            1. Assumed responsibility of caring for a life
    b) (pg 44) Mac throwing guild under bus to save himself “Why, Mac! How can you look them in the eye when you’ve written them off and they’re as good as hanged? How can you shake hands with them?”
        1. Biblical law warnings
            1. Strive not with a powerful man, lest thou fall into his hands. [Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 8:1]
            2. Quarrel not with a passionate man, and go not into the desert with a bold man: for blood is as nothing in his sight, and where there is no help he will overthrow thee. [Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 8:19]
        2. Violation of personal law
            1. Thick as thieves https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/be-as-thick-as-thieves
        3. Violation of public law
            1. Scapegoating https://www.donhammondlaw.com/blog/how-to-set-up-a-scapegoat-for-your-crime/ 
    c) Transfer sentence into conclusion
5. Conclusion:
    a) So, it seems that Brecht wanted to show the audience that money rules over the characters in this play, and not intangible qualities such as legal philosophy. However, the immorality in this text isn't without its own law, as those who break the common law make themselves a new law - a prison style, or mobster style law that you should not overstep and that one should stay in their place. One of the other possible essay equations for this assignment was on capitalist society (Q5), and this likewise nests within this essay question (Q2) because Brecht is showing that cryptic capitalism seeps into all members of society, and not just the public faces that we know (Queen).

Works Cited

Brecht, Bertolt. The Threepenny Opera. Translated by Ralph Manheim and John Willett, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015.

Part Two

When reading one, or many things, while preparing for, or writing an essay, it is important to think of the big picture, develop that picture, and retain that picture: in mind, paper, and/or other ways such as a mind-map which has become popular.

One theme that I plucked from within the Three Penny Opera was that of legalism. I don’t particularly like law, well frankly, I don’t like the study of law at all. Though, for a course writing assignment, and practicing essays, I wanted a challenge.

So, I asked myself: how can I address law in such a way that my cohort would not address? Furthermore, how can I push boundries of conversation that are neutral in argument, not anger the reader, but still make them uncomfortable?

The discomfort of reading remains to be a rententive practice for many writers. Aside from Happy Birthday, the song, nobody remembers, recalls, or desires to encode the memories of non-controversial writing. The entire point of Art is to put the viewer, reader, or person who otherwise experiences, into such a place that their mind would not go, comfortably. We avoid discomfort. We accept comfort and regularity.

So, for my reader(s) and for myself, I want to push into areas of discomfort that broaden my understanding through these attempts or essays. I do hope that you, the reader of this webpage, do so as well. We don’t need another classical artist’s craft. What, instead, we need is that the current artists develop something that pushes people, and disrupts their day-to-day thoughts; how they view the world, and participate in the world; to look at red with new eyes, and reject blue with other views.

While modern artists, who have excellent crafts (that I’ve personally worked with and met), they do fall prey to the new cliche: break down all “old” practices and make something new. In some ways, a person may read and then say “Wow, this is totally punk rock!” However, how important is punk rock is everything is punk rock? If there wasn’t a need for punk, then punk wouldn’t have needed to exist.

So, what else is can a new artist do than to struggle against the current narrative of teaching within Art departments? Push against what is common to shake the very readership of the to-be artists who are fledging but not yet left the nest.

I met one young artist who said they practiced post-post-modernism as a writing approach. Stated by them, it was becuase of post-modernism, and modernist writings have become borning and stale.

I agree, personally!

We should be going in all and every direction to toss the metaphorical boat on all sides. Expose yourself to many and all things. This is what makes a well-rounded person: experience that which is difficult to experience, and/or rare to experience. Then, when you’ve experienced enough, and you develop a voice for your personal account, then write. This is the time to write.

Writing isn’t about looking at one book (e.g. the Part One example) and formulating an argument that has likely been argued before; instead we must look at dark corners, lit centers, and combine the two so we can see the interplay dance on our page. Otherwise, what’s the point in learning if we exist within ourselves, within our own mind, and without any sembelence of challenge? Milquetoast is to be feared, but fear itself should not be feared as we merely are reading.

So, then, read and write. Write and read! Read, write; right what’s read about rites; and move your audience. Think differently, and push the boundaries of our understanding. Art, and philosophy do preceed science. Science only comes after great artistic discoveries, and art inspires us all to ask questions with a great smile and full heart. Don’t let subjects die; especially so since we have the entire world of information in our grasp!