April 23rd, 2008
On the 392nd Anniversary of The Bard’s Death
The Barnes and Noble near my house is relocating about a block away from their current location and part of that move involves not moving a single book from a shelf, but taking shipments of all new books. They are not re-stocking their shelves and have loads of great books on clearance at 40% Off. I am thinking that they may have been cleaning out the stock room as well.
My youngest and I happily spent a couple of hours and a chunk of change on some really great finds. One of the best deals was a beautiful leather bound “Complete Works of William Shakespeare”. I haven’t had time to sit and read through any of my favorite plays, like Taming of the Shrew or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but I have gone through and re-read his collection of Sonnets, the 18th of which is my favorite.
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft’ is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
So many people, I’m sure, have memories of being forced to read Shakespeare in school and may not look to “The Bard” for casual reading, but I feel it’s a matter of perspective. In high school, I dreaded it, but 22 years after graduation, I am finding the pure magic of Shakespeare’s work by changing my perspective to this: Shakespeare was a working playwright. I am so amazed at the volume of his work and the pure genius in his mix of comedies, tragedies, and histories - 38 of which have survived….and the 154 sonnets I’ve re-read recently.
There are so many pieces of wisdom that comes from his works like “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, “the lady doth protest too much”, “to sleep, perchance to dream” and “my horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Think of a favorite one of these quotes and spend a few moment perusing the work it came from. I have a feeling that this small exercise will have you longing to dig in and find the mix of humor, sarcasm and outright wit.
There is some controversy surrounding the body of work, of course. Some scholars speculate that maybe Shakespeare didn’t write everything that is attributed to him, but in my opinion, I think we should celebrate the genius of the work and find the drama and controversy there in black and white. While all that glitters is not gold, there is wisdom to be found by searching for pearls. The world is your oyster, no matter if the pearls came from Bill, Sir Francis Bacon , the 17th Earl of Oxford or Christopher Marlowe.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:31 am
So true! I am a huge Shakespeare fun and probably my theatre background has something to do with this. I recently picked up a collection of his works to re-read them and read the few that I haven’t. Othello is my favourite work of his with many great lines.
I’ve always loved the rhythm of his works - iambic pentameter - but moreover, his melding words and his great insight into human natural. How many things can we still relate to today that he talks about in his plays and sonnets? Amazing.