when compliments don't work

So, for various reasons recently, I've received a few compliments from gentlemen on my looks.

This is such an unexpected and unusual occurrence for me that I have serious cognitive dissonance reconciling the new information with the world as I know it to be.

"No no no, you don't understand, I'm the fat friend. The comfortable, I'll-never-want-sex-with-her, I can tell her everything, emotional punching bag, good for a laugh one. I'm not beautiful or sexy or delicious. I'm... Well... I wish I was... But I'm not.

I'm boys-yelling-from-cars-'you-fat-shit!' ugly.

I'm the recipient of reassuring-but-patronising-'there's-someone-for-everyone' comments.

I am not beautiful.

I'm beyond curvaceous, I'm just fat.

I'm hairy in all the 'wrong' places.

I have glasses.

I dress strangely.

I am not a thing of beauty and joy forever whose loveliness only increases."

Or at least, that's what I believe...

So when someone, especially someone I regard as... Gorgeous. Shining. Scrumptious. Sexy. Heavenly or just plain marvellous, compliments me...

Well...

Let's just say I feel exactly like Helena did in A Midsummer Night's Dream, when, thanks to Puck's meddling, her best friends BF and her crush who loves her best friend suddenly both start chasing her.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, the man she loves and the man her friend loves, start complimenting her. Swearing undying love to her. And so of course, she, like me, experiences extreme cognitive dissonance, and deals with it by concluding they are mocking her.

I have to admit, it is REALLY HARD not to feel the same. I don't just disagree when someone's complimenting me. I begin to worry that for their own, strange, masochistic pleasure, they're bullshitting me...

Does anyone else have this problem?

Does anyone else feel like Helena when they receive a compliment? Anyone else tempted to scream:

Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born?
When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

 ----------------------------------------------------

O spite! O hell! I see you are all bent
to set against me for your merriment.
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
you would not do me this much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
but you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
you would not use a gentle lady so:
to vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
when I am sure you hate me with your hearts.


PS. Superpraise. What a word!!!

you might actually like it if you try it

(and by like I mean, be companionably depressed...)

So, Shakespeare on love. What a surprise! One of our most famous writers is constantly obsessed with love - who isn't?

Troilus and Cressida is not just about pointless, protracted war that destroys lives, it's also kind of about pointless, protracted love that destroys lives.

Love of course has many aspects, and darling William explores them all. Some of the quotes you may vaguely know ("love is not love that alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove" for eg) demonstrate his deep grasp of the nature and depths of love.

In Troilus and Cressida, Bill explores the nature of sexual love and the question of fealty. Obviously, the catalyst of the plot (the rape of Helen) is itself an indicator of the ruinous effects of infidelity (steal a wife, start a war... Pretty large-scale for most of us, but of course T and C provide the more personal dimension to the argument). The love affair between Troilus and Cressida mirrors this destruction, ultimately playing on the theme of oaths and their breaking. Cressida even points out the problem they face, "they say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one", or as Troilus would have it, "this is the monstruosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confin'd; that the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit".

Basically, big promises, small delivery. All the national and personal tragedy of this plot hinges on the inability of lovers to remain faithful, whether to their marriage partner, or the nation they 'love' and swear to protect (but, actually, putting their own egos and sexual relationships first, drawing their nation into protracted war instead of loving peace).

None of this is any surprise to most of us - infidelity sux. And it appears that modern audiences, particularly after the two world wars of last century, beaten down by constant, wearing battles of attrition and the bending to breaking point of personal morality found new interest in this half-forgotten, 'problematic' play.

We find the cries of our hearts echoed in its words, we join with Troilus' disappointment in Cressida's unfaithfulness, we feel the tragedy of Hector's death - the true, faithful, honourable hero of the play is brought down to dust while dodgy, bloodthirsty, fornicating, egotistical anti-heroes live on.

Troilus and Cressida succeeds for a modern audience because of it's dissatisfactions and disillusions, the very same elements which left a bitter taste in the mouths of more triumphal generations. 

a little better at listening

In between strangely productive hours at my desk this week I've been reading Troilus and Cressida for the first time.

It's listed in the Tragedy category of my Complete Shakespeare, so I'm not holding my breath for a happy ending, but I'm not surprised at all considering the subject matter.

I'm also not surprised at all by the relevance of the subject matter to the news this week: Troilus and Cressida is set at the climax of the protracted war between the united kingdoms of Ancient Greece and the city state of Troy, and thus, at the climax of a war started as the inevitable result of petty personal pride, and drawn on and out into further and further bloodshed by the inability of man to admit defeat or wrongdoing.

Sadly this play is relevant in every decade, and every level of human society. The geo-political after all simply reflects the relations between humans on a much smaller scale, like that ongoing family feud begun when a certain someone didn't give a certain someone else the appropriate greeting at a particular and no doubt important occasion because the certain someone supposed the other certain someone was behind the vicious rumour circling the family that a certain someone's wife no longer shared a bed with her husband. OR WHATEVER!

Consider this depressing summary of the state of affairs after seven years of war, from Priam, King of Troy's mouth,

"After so many hours, lives, speeches, spent,
Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:
'Deliver Helen, and all damage else -
as honour, loss of time, travail, expense,
wounds, friends and what else dear that is consum'd
in hot digestion of this cormorant war -
shall be struck off.'

Really Priam? You're surprised that the original theoretical justification for the justice of this war is still being clung to by its tired, wounded, yet vainly, fiercely, prideful prosecutors? Long after the original slight seems pointless? That the rage over a wife being stolen, that wife who has now spent 7 years in the bed of another, is not dimmed or muffled despite massive bloodshed, social destruction and financial expense?

Strange isn't it that we also cling, needlessly, uselessly to similar causes that do not sparkle with the appropriate level of righteous anger.

We lose interest in the child soldiers of Joseph Kony after about 3 seconds of air time, but will happily relentlessly pursue other theatres of war started by the loss of ultimately an extremely small number of civilian lives in a powerful nation, as opposed to the constant loss of extremely large number of civilian lives in impoverished states with little or no global power.

'We'll keep hitting you cos we can' seems to be the motto of modern war, dressed up as, 'we'll keep hitting you cos we can, and we'll do it to stop you hitting us'.

Hector (you may recognise him in his more recent form of a buff Eric Bana in the 'epic' Troy, which in fact captures very little of the myth itself) tries to pour oil on the flames of self-defensive ardour by pointing out that the wide world knows it's wrong to steal another man's wife, and therefore, just opinion rests with the Greeks.

The response of Priam and his other sons Troilus and Paris is basically, 'hey, they stole our aunt, plus, we're better than the Greeks'. Yup. Seamless logic there guys!

I'm finding it hard to find any joy at all in the love story that's "supposed" to provide the tragedy to the play, that of Troilus and Cressida, not only because the build up is so poor (sorry Bill), but because I really have no pity for Troilus at all. He just seems to enjoy fighting and f&$%ing, and both on fairly pointless grounds as far as I can see, so I'm left a bit cold by their plot.

The main point, in fact, the only point of astonishment I do have, is in the vast difference between Shakespeare's audience and the modern popular one.

I can't imagine any popular tv show now building most of it's plot around a vast series of dialogues and asides, where each person speaks for about 5 minutes at a time. We call that Question Time and nobody watches it. We 'show don't tell' because technology has given us that capacity. And I do rejoice in it! (Honestly!)

BUT, I think we've lost a great capacity to follow and comprehend when someone tells instead of showing, and it is this dumbing down the leads to a paucity of proper debate when we go forth to shed blood.

Perhaps it would be better for our souls if we were a little better at listening...

anonymous and other tosh

One of the many reasons for loving Shakespeare is that he helps you win trivia contests!

At our church weekend away a couple weeks ago, the inevitable happened, and a Shakespeare related question came up. I didn't even get to answer it, another member of our team jumped in swiftly to answer, "what 2011 film questioned the authorship of Shakespeare's plays?"

Anonymous played with the ever-popular idea that it was Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and not William Shakespeare who penned the plays, that theory and many others consistently kept alive by the intellectual snobbery of academics through the centuries, agog that a small-town boy like Billy, who, as far as we know, never travelled beyond England, could possibly have written novels of such depth, political and social intrigue, set in far and fantastical locations, having nothing more than a primary school level education.

Well, beyond the fact that primary school level education for William involved Greek, Latin, maths, history, English, poetry etc etc etc, and that the whole world was opening up to the British mind during the Elizabethan 'Golden Age', it has surely always been true that imagination is a boundless facility, crossing every boundary of human experience, reaching into the limitless and grasping at the divine.

Ie, pretty sure Bill could figure out how to represent life in Verona, having never been there, especially as, conveniently, everyone in his Verona has an English tongue in an English head!

I can of course, like many others, credit William with the expansion of my imaginative and artistic horizons over the years, and I can certainly understand why an artist more educated than I by age 11 (and I have a post-graduate for heaven's sake!) was quite capable of spinning the majestic prosody of the Shakespearian canon.

And rather than snob about that, I want to encourage it! If imagination is not sharpened and encouraged, we never shall see again the like of William's capability. Our literature will grow poorer and narrower as our minds do.

Every school child should be encouraged to imagine fantastic worlds, create in their minds a full gamut of personalities, thus increasing their ability to empathise, analyse and strategise, three skills that will improve their life immeasurably.

So, I thumb my nose at Anonymous as an idea, and all the others who push Kit Marlowe, Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, and indeed, any other candidate, not only because they have a ridiculously small island to stand on historically, but because I think every child, guided and encouraged, can unleash their own Shakespeare within.

So get to it! Read the Bard! And have a bash at your own iambic pentameter!

insomnia

I totally shouldn't be blogging right now... It's 2:50am on a Sunday, I've gotta get to church in like, 7 hours, which means I should be 'up' in at least 6, BUT I JUST CAN'T SLEEP.

So, I turn to you, dear readers for the succour of an audience to bombard (like man-flu, my affliction is comforted by sharing the pain as much as possible with the strong and healthy around me, leeching their joy in an effort to bolster my delusion that I suffer more than you all).

I wonder if Will ever found himself like this, at 3am, hunched over a manuscript, criss-crossing, re-scanning and screwing up parchment. Or did the words just pour from him like coke from a can that's been shaken repeatedly and then kicked around the floor.

For that is what I feel like on the inside as a writer. Effervescent, ephemeral words, buzzing constantly through my mind, combining, collapsing, sparking, a never-ending fountain of sweet, sticky, 'devil's urine', as the Black Death of Coca Cola Amatil is fondly known in my household.

Where Billy and I differ strongly is in the ability to externalise this fountain, allow the gases to escape, and explode into searing verse.

I've definitely got it covered on the 'shaken up and kicked around' front. That feels like the theme of my life at the moment, which is what inevitably leads to the heinously self-indulgent practise of a writer writing about writing (so 1st yr Uni!).

But I'm not so strong in the "pour words onto the page" area at the moment... Slash ever.

I can dribble to my hearts content when the point is meaningless (cue the drivel you're saturated with on this blog!), but as soon as I am striving to get a serious message across in a way that will be evaluated and judged by others... Eek!! You can't see me for the dust!

Maybe Wills developed a serious case of medieval writer's block when asked to confront the political or social issues of his day. Maybe the idea of moving from comedy to politics was a leetle scary for him as well... Or maybe not! Maybe he'd been biding his time, manoeuvring into a perfect position from which to honour some rulers and blast others...

One lesson I have learned well from Billy boy though is, "say it slant". You want to address the hot-bed of Elizabethan politics in one of the most influential cities of Western civilisation? Write a play about a long-dead hunchback with a a thirst for blood. Or the one about a bunch of Scottish lords who get drunk and stab each other.

Slide your message into the periphery while you're entertaining them in the bullseye.

I did finally make the big leap forward a few months ago in my book project when I realised I should just say it slant. The form I was trying to speak in was strangling me even further than my already debilitated sense of self had done the job, and I was too mentally suffocated to accomplish anything.

So I sat down and wrote it all as letters to my sister instead, and that seemed to work.

Now if only I could get to sleep so that someday soon I can get to work!!

The Prince of Denmark and the Temple of Doom

2B or not 2B - not a pencil question.

So, turns out my friend Kerryn has a long running love affair with the Prince of Denmark. Not the one Mary married (whatsisname...? Frederik?! Is that it...?), the other one, the confused and confusing, slightly bloodthirsty, possibly oedipal one. Hamlet.

I can totally understand this.

Not only because Hamlet is a fine artwork that mirrors life (most murder victims have been done in by family members, and the secondary victims (ie, the rest of the family), are deeply and irrevocably affected by the tragedy, and twice as likely to commit the same act themselves), which is of course, the best kind (we'll have to have THAT argument later if you think art should be fantastical and not like life at all. What planet do you live on?! And how are you defining fantasy anyway?!!). But also because the PofD is a great example of the philosophical and psychological depth of Shakespearian tragedies, with layer upon layer of ethical, epistemological and ontological questions raised and explored. LOVE IT!!

For eg, the famous/infamous 2B speech.

Besides the first line, which frankly, is all most of us know, it is worthwhile to read the soliloquy over again to catch the rest of it:

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely, [F:poor]
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay, [F:disprized]
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment, [F:pith]
With this regard their Currents turn awry, [F:away]
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia? Nymph, in thy Orisons
Be all my sins remembered. ^[2]

One of the first things you should notice are the other phrases that have worked their way into the vernacular and firmly remained there almost 400 years later. Not just "to be or not to be", but also, "to sleep, perchance to dream", "shuffle off this mortal coil"and perhaps you may recognise "thus conscience does make cowards of us all" and "the undiscovered country". At least one thing you can learn from Shakespeare is how to understand The West Wing better.

Anyway, can't you feel the weight and worthiness of these words?!

Maybe it'll help you as it helped me to learn that being is a verb. This will make every proper scholar of English frown in consternation, buuuuuuut, it took first year Koine Greek at Bible college for me to learn that I am, be, being etc are VERBS. So, from the very beginning, Hamlet is asking, "to exist/live/breath/carry on existing or not?" And so from there unfolds the dilemmas involved in answering this question.

This soliloquy is an incredible way to express weariness at the calamities of life, the desire for death and yet the fear of it, the wondering of what lies beyond and the impact that your answer to that question has on your interpretation of your current experience and your choice of action.

Do you think nothing lies beyond? If so, you're probably more willing to risk and chance at what may come in this life than sleep and waste it. But if you're hoping for something beyond the grave, AND this life becomes too overwhelming, then suicide becomes a rational act to contemplate, as one way of solving your problems and moving on to something better.

However, all the horror, anger, shock, rage, sadness, confusion, distress and heartache that surrounds self-murder demonstrates that rationality is not the most important category of decision making.

The most painful barb that works its way into the flesh and cannot be removed is the knowledge of the volition, the act of the will needed by your loved one, to choose this method of resolution for their troubles.

'Why' is the question asked longest. Long after 'how', 'what', 'where' and 'when' have all been answered and discarded, 'why' stays.

Having been on the receiving end (so to speak...) of two suicides in my family, I know the question never goes away. Pure rationality cannot answer it, because in the cold light of a philosophical equation, the problem with suicide is that it can be made to make 'sense'.

But the sheer nonsense of it, the horrific absurdity is the overturning of every other factor in the calculation. Familial love squared. Hope multiplied by assistance equals...

In the end, poor Ophelia is the only one who casts herself into the river, never to resurface in this world again.

In a dramatic sense, she is the flipside of Hamlet's decision to take up arms. She is the other option he's pondered and given himself.

Of course, both end up dead, as we all do (and hey, this is tragedy people! Even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kick the bucket!), but one of the many questions Hamlet's soliloquy raises is 'whose death was nobler?' nobility being a sister of righteousness. 

this means war

So, the Olympics are on. Well duh!

And from the vibe on facebook, I reckon every other Aussie is as disappointed with the free to air coverage as I am. So much swimming!!! Surely that's not our only event?!!

But it's not just the coverage I've been slightly depressed about.

What's with the poor sportsmanship at the Badminton?!

Basically, the way the tournament has been designed this year means that China can't win all the medals or something. Boo hoo. So, when the Chinese were supposed to be playing Korea yesterday, instead of just forfeiting, they turned up BUT BARELY PLAYED PROPERLY. They got nothing but net for service after service INTENTIONALLY, and eventually were warned by the umpire that if they didn't play properly, they'd be disqualified.

I said I was disgusted with this behaviour, so, cue hour long 'discussion' (ok, we were arguing, but we love to do that, so don't think, 'emotional blackmail at 20 paces', think more, 'passionate discussion') with my housemate Phil. Phil wanted me to have sympathy for the teams because strategically, they were making a good move in the context of the tournament. Which is true. BUT, I still believe playing poorly on purpose is unsportsmanlike because sport is war. War is life. Life is unfair, therefore, sport is unfair.

Do you follow?

Probably not, because my philosophy of sportsmanship is not logical at all. Phil is right. If China want to win all the medals, they've got to play the tournament, not the game, to ensure they get the top three spots. (He'd have to explain the mathematics to you, I have to hold all my fingers in front of me and move invisible tokens in the air to understand it. Let's just take it as a given that, because of the maths, China would ultimately win more if they lost in the short-term.)

But even though it's correct, I still hate it!! It seems so wrong to me to intentionally lose to gain advantage for yourself.

After an hour or so (it was somewhere past midnight by this point. Not super surprised, Phil has combat mechanisms on the brain over at Pack of Heroes where he's designing a game), Phil asked a fascinating question. Why am I fixated on this idea that you should just give it all you've got, every time, no matter whether at the tournament level it's advantageous to rest on your laurels for a while? Ie, why can't you intentionally slack off every now and again?

And for the answer, I have to dig deep into my psyche.

Is it a hangover of Protestant work ethic? (Sadly, I have no work ethic, so that can't be it...)

Is it because I'm scared I'll lose? Well, yes... But there's more to it than that...

I/we concluded it's because in general, I approach all of life as an underdog. Just like Baghdatis at the Australian Open, I'm unseeded, I don't know what I'm capable of, and nobody else does either, but the odds would suggest that the classic favourites will beat me. Translating this out of sport for a moment, I'm not pretty enough or rich enough or socially powerful enough just to skate, so, I have to try (at least, that's what it's like in my own head...). And I have to try all the time, because just like war, it's win or lose. Either you kill them, or they kill you.

Again, Phil is right, this is totally illogical, because if you've got to conquer a small village before you take on a big city, then you don't squander all your energy, soldiers and resources on quashing the village.

But in my head, I would. Cos to me, even the small village is a major threat...

SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE?!!

The point is, in my mind, the whole world is the field at Agincourt, and I am Henry the 5th.

The English army, or what's left of it, is with me. We've marched through a horrid French autumn, it's been wet, cold and muddy. We're half starved, we're mostly untrained, and the French are in fighting form. They've got home ground advantage AND, shiny armour. We. Are. Screwed.

And that's why the absolute triumphs of Shakespeare's Henry 5th are the bookends of the battle, the St Crispin Crispian's Day speech and the 'victory' speech at the end.

The Crispian's Day soliloquy strips layer upon layer of clay from the frail pots of the English army to at last reveal the bold light of truth, sacrifice, nobility and right underneath. Yes the odds are against them, yes, they're hungry, yes as a 21st century observer I totally disagree with their justification of war and I'm not totally crash hot on the effects of it either, BUT, they are standing for right (so they think), and thus, despite the terror, should fight, because they will be proud to show their wounds, the cost of their sacrifice for right.

Huzzah huzzah!!!

But Henry is still shit scared. That's why, in the early hours of the morning, before the dawn speech, he's on his knees, in the mud, pleading with Almighty God to fight on their side. He knows he's the underdog by a long way, and needs divine intervention.

So, the English go out and give it their all, and, in an absolute shock victory, by a margin so incredible it's almost laughable, they win.

They win!!

Everyone expected the French to win, including the French. Even though the froggy bastards went and killed all the messenger boys behind the lines (yes Matt, as per your comment like, two years ago, I will one day do a post on Billy's racism! ;-).

Underdog triumphs is the order of the day, and they approached the battle in the right way, ie, to the last breath.

And thus the incredible, but totally understated beauty of Henry's closing remarks. He orders that masses be said for the dead, and that the non nobis be sung.

For those of us who didn't learn Latin at private school, or aren't pre Vat Two RCs, the words of the non nobis can be roughly translated as,

"Not to us Lord,
not to us,
but to you,
be all the glory."

It's the opening of Psalm 115 and it's the perfect cry of the underdog who triumphs.

Henry/underdogs everywhere/me could try to take the credit for our victory. Surely it was by our unexpected strength we vanquished our enemy. Surely the stirring speech we made to the troops did the job. Surely it's because we're awesome that we'll just win the badminton anyway. We did it!!

No.

It is never by our own strength, whether physical or otherwise that we triumph. Even our strength is given to us by the hand of the Lord.

So, perhaps I also baulk at the idea of slacking off intentionally (not involuntarily, that's a whole other thing!) is because your opportunities, body, skills, talents, life have been GIVEN to you, as a gift, for a while, so you're supposed to use them for God's glory. Not just to sit on your arse. You're meant to use your resources.

So anyway, Henry the 5th is the reason I don't like the poor showing at the badminton. Or something. ;-)

Non nobis Domine, Domine. Non nobis Domine. Sed nomini, sed nomini, tuo da gloriam. 

revival

Ok so, we all knew (and by 'we all' I mean me and the Russian advertisers who've been reading this blog diligently over the last year or so of my total non-attention) - THIS BLOG NEEDS AN OVERHAUL!

Or, this blog needs to die...

I'd be more than happy just to let it crumble and evaporate via my neglect - I have so many things I should be doing right now. Really should be doing. Y'know, stuff that might generate some income for eg...

BUT, whatever I do, whether I'm shopping with mum, cruising facebook or watching the Olympics coverage, William S continues to invade and stimulate my consciousness, whispering or shouting about the true riches of the English language, the remedy for mental impoverishment, the baselessness and triumphs of humanity, the need for God, the comic possibilities of Belgium.

SO, I am constrained! I can't just let this blog die, because Billy is still my constant companion!

I mean, I'm basically homeless at the moment, and only brought a scant carload of things back east with me originally, BUT, I not only included my craft stashes, favoured cookbooks (had to leave some behind though!), winter clothing and computer, I squeezed my Shakespeare in as well, and, just in case I'm caught without him, have of course downloaded him to my Kindle.

What am I to do? I keep reading him, so I'm going to have to keep going with this one outlet for my passion that won't bore all my friends to death because it's not a dinner party, it's the internet, and they can take or leave it as they like.

So, my next barrel of posts will have to be slightly retrospective, to catch up on the more recent Shakespearian moments in my life, but that taster is this.

I was standing on George St with my mum, waiting for the lights so we could enter the palace of Myer and spend lots of her money, and for some reason we were caught up in a conversation about language (I honestly don't know how that always happens to me... ... ... Ok, I do. I bring it up :-S But it's interesting!! Well anyways...).

Mum said a couple of teenage girls were moaning about why they have to study Shakespeare at school, because, "no one talks like that any more! That's like, 40 years old!"

Oh dear.

So anyway, the purpose of the blog will obviously change, but the central nexus remains the same. William so-called Shakespeare, possible historical figment of imagination, playwright? Actor? Gay? Name associated with gems of language, as hard as diamonds, and as everlasting.

This is the previous blurb of the blog - who was I kidding?!! (Well, myself...!)

I LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE, MYSELF INCLUDED, USES THE WORD 'RANDOM' FAR TOO MANY TIMES A DAY FOR IT TO REMAIN MEANINGFUL. OUR DICTIONARIES ARE SWOLLEN WITH NEW WORDS, AND YET ORWELL WAS RIGHT, OUR BREADTH OF USAGE IS SHRINKING. FOR SOME REASON, DESPITE A FULL AND BUSY LIFE, THIS ANGST ABOUT LANGUAGE, ABOUT MEANING, PROVOKES ME TO READ ALL OF SHAKESPEARE'S KNOWN PLAYS AND SONNETS, IN A YEAR, AND TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT... OR NOT. I MIGHT GET BORED OR BUSY, BUT I'LL TRY. HERE'S TO BILLY AND I.

I fail to capture the durm and strang

On Soph's instructions I'm not apologising for my irregularity in posting, for that would draw attention to my self-absorption in assuming people would've been frustratedly waiting for me, when in reality, you're all about your daily lives without fussing at all.

However, I have decided to give up on the goal of doing it all in a year. I haven't read a word of Henry the 6th for a week, and keep accidentally calling it Richard the 6th in my head and to others. Oh well.

Not that Billy hasn't continued stalking me.

First, there was the delightful present of a performance of Comedy of Errors by the students of St Andrews Cathedral School (I mustn't call them the kids!).

They did a fantastic job! I didn't even realise there were two Dromios until the scene where they talk over the door to each other, and suddenly, there were two very similar looking boys on stage doing a fabulous job of yelling Shakespearian lines in consternation. Well done! And the Dromios also did an excellent job of physical comedy (as did their counterpart Antipholae in poking them in the eyes).

The girls were also wonderful, and the costumes and settings were delightfully done. The whole thing had been brought forward to a miraculous 1920s Mediterranean coast that wouldn't have existed that way, but it was great.

The best part about the night was coming into the darkened black-box school theatre, walking in through the sets, over the boards, and feeling a sense of sick and excited anticipation taking me right back to the same experience myself of pre-show nerves before a school performance. It was thrilling.

And I didn't laugh too loudly, so no one forgot their lines on account of me (I believe).

More Shakespeare popped up in my choice to show my friend Rach the latest BBC Taming of the Shrew from their Shakespeare Re-told series - which is absolutely amazing. (I know I'm using an effusion of adjectives in this post, but it's because I feel so restricted by the written word when trying to convey the bubbly joy I've felt at these particular moments). Seriously though, I dare anyone out there who has read or heard of Dr Emerson Eggriches Love and Respect to watch it and see if they don't see the exact same principles wrought so wonderfully that you'll want to love like that forever.

Hmmmm. So you see that I can't escape him anyway, just in going about daily life. And also of course he keeps popping up in other books I'm reading. He was quoted in a novel I finished last weekend, and I'm buried in I Capture the Castle at the moment which is truly stunning me. I've been sitting here howling with delight, surprise and depression. If my neighbours have heard me yelling out, "oh no!!! Oh nooooo. No no no. Oh that's just terrible" they'll probably think I'm having an over-excited girlish conversation with someone. But no, it's just me, here in our loungeroom, realising over and over again why reading Shakespeare and being bookish has meant not only that if I'd kept a journal as a teenager, it would've been hilarious reading for the world upon my death, but why even now, it certainly makes me a little peculiar...

Oh why oh why did I have to be more Cassandra than Rose? More Lizzy than Jane, and frankly, more Mary than them all??!!! I love it of course. I truly adore being this way, because it has made I Capture and exquisite as well as exquisitely painful read, but sometimes it's a little depressing.

So if none of that made sense, I apologise (knowing of course as mentioned before that it has no effect on you but to cause a slight sense of distaste), and certainly shall strive to be better.

Action heroes

Another fab thing about Henry 6th is the hilarious stereotyping of the French - in Act Two, they're wandering around half-dressed, disorderly, and totally unprepared for battle.

Meanwhile, the English hero Talbot is winning battles, trading witticisms with French Laydeeeesss and giving glory and honour to the full force of England - a leader who's a team player.

As I mentioned last time, it's all very wham-bam, thankyou Ma'am, and it's totally a boy-play, in the way that most movies with Sly Stallone are boy-movies. The battles, the short dialogue, the fast pace, it's all there.

Now I'm not much of a boy-movie person. I enjoy the occasional James Bond (more because I can indulge in my favourite sport of eye-rolling), and some espionage type stuff does hold appeal for me. The more brainless movies like Fast and Furious just leave me bored.

But even though I don't always enjoy that kind of movie, I'm finding it really refreshing to see an action plot through the eyes of Elizabethan language and intrigue - for me, it lifts it to a completely different level. Does that mean I'm a snob? I don't really know... Am I a snob because I find the form more interesting, and the concerns of the plot more relevant to life now?

Shakespeare's thematic concerns in his history plays are clearly the construction and use of power - and I think that's part of what keeps them so fresh and relevant.

So maybe I'm not a snob, but I do find action in this form more mentally and emotionally engaging. And you get to read the word "contumeliously". Mmmmmm :-)

I'm also really looking forward to seeing a high-school version of Comedy of Errors on Saturday night - hurrah! It'll be interesting to see if they can pull off the whole 'two sets of identical twins' thing successfully enough.

And props to Bron S for recommending "Looking For Richard", a 1996 Al Pacino doco on Richard III - I am totally going to hunt for a copy of that to bolster my History phase, and look forward to hearing from English actors about why they reckon Americans have difficulty performing Shakespeare - well duh!

Does anyone else out there have a Shakespearian Doco Recommend?

It's a maaaaaaaaaaaaans world.

"Dauphin. I am by birth a shepherd's daughter,
My wit untrain'd in any kind of art.
Heaven and our Lady gracious hath it pleas'd
To shine on my contemptible estate.
Lo, whilst I waited on my tender lambs
And to sun's parched heat display'd my cheeks,
God's Mother deigned to appear to me,
And in a vision full of majesty
Will'd me to leave my base vocation
And free my country from calamity -
Her aid she promis'd and assur'd success.
In complete glory she reveal'd herself;
And whereas I was black and swart before,
With those clear rays which she infus'd on me
That beauty am I bless'd with which you may see.
Ask me what question thou canst possible,
And I will answer unpremeditated,
My courage try by combat if thou dar'st,
And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.
Resolve on this: thou shalt be fortunate
If thou receive me for thy warlike mate."

Act One, Scene Two, Joan la Pucelle (or Joan of Arc).

That bit of dialogue pretty much sums up what I love so far about Henry 6th (Part One).

In a very short 21 lines, Joan's character is introduced bluntly, her history expounded, her role established, a sword fight proposed (it follows) and a hint of sexual tension added to the plot. Wham bam, thank you Ma'am (or Miss as the case is).

Particularly in contrast to Comedy of Errors, but just generally  in the context of the comedies and romances, Shakespeare's history plays are action in the full sense of the word. He powers through huge slabs of plot, churning through characters and scenes. He moves the reader from the bedroom to the battlefield to the boardroom fast as lightning as he chops and changes scene to scene. It's fast paced and breathless. You get the feeling as you read that the players would be struggling for breath at the end of some sections of dialogue.

Not that it's all like that. Shakespeare is a master of pace as well as all the other elements of good drama, and still pauses, and slows down, and focusses in on more intimate moments. There are finely drawn scenes and bittersweet moments.

But Henry the 6th so far has certainly not been putting me to sleep.

And I'm looking forward to the rise and rise of the bombastic and slightly deranged Joan la Pucelle as I read one Act before bed each night for the reast of this week.

Alzheimers

I love the way Shakespeare plays with the boundaries of reality, not just in his comedies, but in every genre he pursues.
He uses fairly traditional magic devices; sprites and fairies, potions etc. He also plays with time and myth, but one his most successful devices is the recurring motif of confused identity.

In Comedy of Errors (COE), you've got mulitple characters that look identical and thus are confused with one another (the Antipholus' and Dromios). And in other comedies and tragedies, you've got characters in disguise, which can cause a lot of confusion and angst, like in Twelfth Night. But he also uses it as a simple plot device to create situations that wouldn't have otherwise happened, like in one of my favourite ever scenes, where Henry V wanders among his soldiers on the eve of battle to test the mood and have a chat with God... It's fabulous.
But the confusion of identities in COE creates for me the same joy but also angst that other farce comedy like Mr Bean (and I reckon The Office) creates. On the one hand, the situations are hilarious and fantastic if performed well (as Rowan Atkinson does par excellence). However on the other hand, I feel the awkwardness, pain and frustration of the situation too keenly if the performance is too accurate, which makes it a painful experience to watch... Does anyone else find this kind of farce excruciating?
I really feel for the confused characters of COE, especially Adriana (who as you may remember was already anxious about her husband's love), who experiences an excruciating day of her husband apparently going totally mad and cracking onto her sister.
 
Worse still, she is accused of sending him mad by nagging! Her jealousy is blamed for his supposed mental distress! (Eh-oh, I've started copying his synonymous parallelism!) But as her sister Luciana points out, Adriana's nagging is being rather built up, she loves Antipholus, and this is how she expresses it... Her love is further exposed by her extreme reluctance to leave him with the Abbess and her desire to nurse him...
 
Anyway, leaving the nagging issue aside, it must be very distressing for your nearest and dearest not to recognise you at all, to claim they are not married to you and have no idea who you are... (Although, I can also see the fun in simply pretending not to recognise your family at all, and demanding instead that they address as you as Sir Pontington, Knight of the Realm or something. Maybe I shall pretend to be someone entirely different tomorrow...!!)
 
But it all makes me wonder if anyone in Billy's time lived long enough to develop Alzheimers...? Not that you have to be old to get it of course, but it would seem it helps...
 
So even though the comedy is absolutely hilarious (I particularly recommend Act Three, Scene Two to all, Belgium will become for you a far naughtier locale than you ever thought it could be ;-), there is a tinge of sadness to it all for me...
 
And thus I leave Bill's 'first' comedy, highly amused and thoughtful (exactly the way I like it) and move on to history with the First Part of Henry the Sixth. Huzzah!
 
How delightful it is to tick something off a list, even though it's not the assignments I should have completed or the study I should have done by now ;-)
 
But I shall leave you all with one delicious word from COE to ponder - distemperatures.
 
Ohhhh yeaaaahhhh.

Worry worry?

Ok so, it's the end of semester, I'm run off my feet, lotsa things to do. Assignments to finish (well... Start...), Mario-kart to play, strange mission expos to go to, so I haven't really kept up with either my reading or my blogging. Apologies.

But you shouldn't be surprised I'm flagging so soon you know? I'm Gen Y! We're all about instant gratification, not drawing out every experience until we've wrung each sweet drop of... Um... What was I saying?

Um...

Ooh, isn't that strange, I just pulled a super-curly blonde hair out of my....

Sorry... What was it...?

Oh that's right. Stop with the guilt trip ok?!! I'll get to it! I know I haven't said anything for a few days, but I've certainly been thinking about the blog.

Which is why, partly in response to Soph's demand for actual Shakespearean material, I want to return to a second for Adriana's well of anxiety...

In my last post I analysed most of Adriana's freakout about her husband being late home to lunch in classic 2nd Wave Feminism terms. I attributed her anxiety to lack of education, empowerment and occupation, combined with patriachal exploitation of women in Graeco-Roman society.

Now I still reckon all that's a pretty fair assessment. Each of those elements of her situation would have a massive impact on her mental well-being and behaviour, as they have had on millions of women... But I don't think that's all there is to it...

We had a fantastic sermon on worry at church on Sunday night, and it's reminded me of a few things...

Many people in our country struggle with anxiety and depression. It's serious and devestating, but also creates many everyday heroes and heroines.

But what looking at worry reminded me of is that for many people, worry, anxiety, is built into their world view.

Adriana questions,

"Whilst I at home starve for a merry look,
Hath homely age th' alluring beauty took
From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted it."

In Adriana's world, she worries that her value will only be high while her external beauty lasts.

She also asks,

"Are my discourses dull? Barren my wit?
If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd,
Do their gay vestments his affections bait?
That's not my fault; he's master of my state.
What ruins are in me that can be found
By him not ruin'd? Then he is the ground
Of my defeatures. My decayed fair
A sunny look of his would soon repair.
But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale,
And feeds from home; poor I am but his stale."

I think basically what she's wondering is if the very way she speaks and interacts displeases him, and that if that's the reason he's run off and left her (which he hasn't at all)...

Now, a lot of the guys I know say women worry too much. Can I just say though, it is freaking hard to be a woman!!

I spent at least half an hour the other day feeling totally depressed about the fact that I don't have lady fingers, but thick, square man fingers... And that that is yet another thing about my body that not just falls short of, but is pretty much the opposite of our society's ideal of feminine beauty... 

Now scoff all you like boys, but when your value as a woman is defined by how pretty you are, it's difficult not to feel anxious all the time about how pretty you are (or aren't!!).

So the 2nd Wave Feminist response is pretty much to say, well, society's standards of beauty are screwed, so screw them! Violate the rules, grow your body hair, stop wearing make up and find your value elsewhere.

And I say, hear hear!

But there's still gotta be more to it than that. Rejecting beauty as the standard doesn't fix the problem. Adriana moves from her looks onto her identity and the way she expresses it to her husband. She's now anxious about her behaviour as a woman...

And even if she moves on from that, there'll always be something else!

Some Feminists have fixed Adriana's problem by telling her she doesn't need men, and just shouldn't bother entering into relationship with one...

I think as long as Adriana is looking for any human, either herself or others, to provide total secure value for herself as a person, she's going to be anxious...

Jesus said,

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body... Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" And "I am the bread of life. The person who comes to me will never go hungry, and any person who believes in me will never be thirsty."

A gift for a phrase... And for feminism...?

Firstly, I promise that I am reading Comedy of Errors, and shall tell you about it, but, one small digression...

Hannah/West Wing Bandit left a comment the other day on "Doing Things in the Right Order" that I rudely forgot to reply to (sorry Han!). I had been referring to Billy's gift for phrases and the huge number of quotations credited to him. Hannah said:

"Interesting...but can it just be that his records are the FIRST to have written

those quotes down??? Is that why he's credited with 'coining the phrases'...

could it be possible they were already around,

or is that was 'coining the phrase' means?"

Basically, it's impossible to tell for certain (as are most things to do with Shakespeare!). However, from the surviving manuscripts of other playwrights at the time, such as Ben Jonson and Kit Marlowe, as well as other documents (thousands from that era of all types of documents), it would seem that if any of Shakespeare's quotes were common parlance at the time, no one else really bothered to write them down. Strange though it may seem, it is quite probable that with his fantastic gifts for drama and language, Billy just hit upon the perfect description, witticism or image more often than not.

For example, "to be, or not to be, that is the question" is a stand out quote not so much because the words are unusual, but because they burrow straight into the brain and stay there. And that's Billy's gift.

One of Billy's other gifts is his understanding of women and ability to write strong, interesting, vibrant and funny female characters (also a lot of fabulous female villains. Oh Lady Macbeth, how I love to loathe thee!).

Considering the fact that all female roles were played by young men and that most other playwrights just didn't bother even writing many lines for women, this is quite fantastic. What a mind-blowing exercise it would've been though for his original audiences to watch a young man playing a woman playing a man, such as with Viola in Twelfth Night - conFUsing!!

And in Comedy of Errors, probably among his first plays, Billy's gift for understanding women is right out on display.

Not just his understanding of our vulnerability in the area of fat jokes - yes, that's right, I found one of my favourite quotes again, "she is spherical... I could find out countries in her". Isn't that great?!!

But he also displays his understanding in, um, more important matters also...

Comedy of Errors is a farce (that's not a bad thing!). The action is all carried out in one day, where two identical twins with the same name, and their identical servants, also with the same name, are wandering around Ephesus, just generally getting into one huge scrape. So, it's hilarious, and bawdy, and would've been a very very funny play.

However, there is still such a depth there, and where it first hits me is in the dialogue given to the female characters. The first scene with Ephesian Antipholus' wife Adriana and her sister Luciana is fantastic!

But also a little scary...

The writing expresses so well the anxiety that can consume a housewife who is obviously an interesting and intelligent person, but who has not much to do except wait around for her husband to come home for lunch. It's Betty Freiden four centuries too early!

Adriana and Luciana have a fascinating back and forth about the wifely "duty" to be patient at the will (and whim) of her husband, to be obedient, with Luciana (unmarried) essentially telling her sister just to deal with it, and Adriana pointing out that she has no idea what it's like to wait around on a husband.

Actually Adriana is worried that the reason her husband is home late is because he's cheating on her. Why does she think this? Possibly he's pretty crap at expressing love for her. Possibly because in the society being portrayed, women were actually the property of their husbands, and therefore didn't have a strong sense of security that he wasn't going to do whatever his penis told him and would instead live up to the promises and comittments he's made to her.

Possibly she's just got bugger all else to think about because no one would educate her or allow her to do much other than cook dinner...

Whatever the reason, she's stressed out and freaked out, and Shakespeare does an excellent job of representing her anxiety sympathetically.

What it would've been like to watch two young guys playing that scene is a little beyond me, but I swear I've witnessed almost that exact conversation, and wondered the same things as Luciana wonders...

Isn't that amazing?

And it's not even the Bible!

Comedy of Errors

Seeing as the whole point of this blog is for me to actually read some Shakespeare, not just read about him, I figured I should stop procrastinating, get down and dirty and get into it.

So I "solved" the whole chronology problem by deciding to go with the table in the front of my Collins that was included in the introduction to the 1951 edition. I figure it'll stay with me as I cart the book around, and I can tick the plays, poems and sonnets off in pencil and feel very smug, which I look forward to.

The table said I should begin with the Comedy of Errors, so I have, and let me tell you, my brain took a while to clunk into gear at first.

I know that for many of you, reading Billy the Bard is an experience equivalent to drowning. No expression, no description, no image, no plain dialogue makes any sense to you at all, and so after a page, you're asphixiating slowly in a flood of phrases, eyes sliding closed, brain blacking out, hand's grasping wildly at all persons near you to force them to explain. And then, you stop struggling, your face grows increasingly pale, and you slip down into your chair in the back of English class, succumbing to the sweet sweet relief of death. For in death, you think, you won't have to read any more Shakespeare!

Well surprisingly, for those who suspect my love of the Bard is based solely on a snooty capacity to understand what he's talking about, I too share that experience of drowning-whilst-reading-unassisted.

When I come back to the Bard after a long absence, it is a little like riding a bicycle. All the muscle memory does eventually kick back in, but at the beginning, it's all very wobbly. After a while, I can begin confidently to increase speed and difficulty, begin racing up hills and down again, swooping joyfully all over the place, but just like all of us, I couldn't ride a bike immediately, I needed lessons, and training wheels, and a helmet, and adult supervision.

And for some us, all that much needed preparation was done pretty poorly in school, partly because some of our teachers couldn't ride the bike themselves, leaving them and us nowhere, and partly because some of us hadn't really read much of anything at all by the time we needed to tackle Shakespeare, and that makes the whole enterprise difficult in itself. It's like an immensely fat kid going from no exercise a day to a 10k run instantaneously - it's going to hurt, a lot, and may end in cardiac arrest. There needs to be a warm up, and some training.

(P.S. I will note here and now and forevermore. I am allowed to make whatever gentle fat jokes I like, for I am fat myself, and have heard them all. We fat people (mostly) understand one another, but if a fat person would like to register a complaint, please do, and I shall consider toning it down. You skinny people can just shut it :-)

One of the things about Shakespeare that most confuses those who now have to struggle with him in the 21st Century is that his was the language of the common people of his time, and yet it seems so inscrutable to us now... Even my Collins edition comes with a 2,500 entry glossary, (which I only just discovered!) "explaining the meaning of obsolete words and phrases" for the dumbfounded reader. We obviously all need help!

And I think that's ok. It's fine. It's completely appropriate that with all the shifts in language and meaning, with all the new things we've needed words for, and all the old things we don't even know of any more, it's understandable that a person can't simply pick up Shakespeare and understand all.

But let the language wash over you a little. Not in dunking breakers, but in gentle slap-slap-slaps to your semi-submerged face, and you begin to understand a little. After a while, you find you're grasping aspects of the plot, and as the scene changes, all of a sudden, you think you've figured out basically what's going on!

What joy! What rapture!

Now all of a sudden there's two pages of dialogue you don't understand at all, oh no! The blackness begins to creep in at the edges again, and your egg-beaters are powering away under the surface to remain upright and floating...

But then that character from that scene you did basically understand comes staggering on into this one, and you see the action again and know what's going on!

It's fantastic! It's funny! It's all beginning to make sense!

It's Shakespeare.

Doing things in the right order.

Ok so here's the thing.

It turns out that when I'm interested in something and I'm not going to be marked on it, I am quite capable of becoming organised, researched and fully prepared. Though I prove almost incapable of actually doing the required amount of research for a lot of my college assignments, I have begun reading and researching for this blog like nothing else.

Having long ago read through the various prefaces and introductory chapters in my Collins Edition, (including a mini-bio by Ms Germaine Greer) I decided I needed more info. My first go-to was Bill Bryson's Shakespeare the Illustrated Edition (thank you super-cheap store under Central Station – hallelujah). And I've got one word to say to you. Faaasskinating.

Did you know that our William, Billy, ol' Billy Boy, is responsible for roughly one tenth of the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations material (Bryson, pg 151)? He coined many phrases, a couple that I knew of (“one fell swoop” and “the milk of human kindness” for eg) and some that truly stunned me to know of their origin.

For example, a favourite amongst country folk to this day, Shakespeare created the description “blinking idiot”! Also “vanish into thin air”, “bag and baggage”, “flesh and blood” (!!), “foul play”, “be cruel to be kind”, “pomp and circumstance” and “foregone conclusion”. Wow!! What a wordsmith!

400 years after writing his plays, we still constantly quote Shakespeare, even when we don't realise it at all.

As I said, I don't think you have to be highly educated to read Shakespeare. You certainly don't have to be highly educated to call someone a blinking idiot! Quoting Shakespeare isn't an act of toffery, it's normal every day use of English!

One of the most interesting dilemmas my research has raised for me thus far is the issue of chronology. Almost no one can actually agree on the order in which Shakespeare wrote the plays attributed to him, and there simply is not enough historical data to go on! Personally I would prefer, I think, to read them as close to original birth order as possible, in order to gain a sense of Billy's development as an author, and scry out the development of particular themes. However, there are several major disputes to overcome in making that decision (not least of which my request for votes on where to start!).

The intro in the Collins lists Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew and the Three Parts of Henry VI as his earliest works... And unfortunately the Tempest among the very last! (Why include it first I ask you?!!)

So I'm still pondering... What do you think? Is chronology important? Should I read them in order or not?

It's nice and fat.

Despite being at least four inches thick, it's surprisingly lightweight.

Bearing a facsimile of the Chandos portrait, allegedly but uncertainly of the man himself, my Collins Complete Works of William Shakespeare won't cause too much strain to the shoulder muscles as I haul it around town for the next year or so.

Nor did it cause too much strain to the hip pocket nerve. As I recall, it was a sweet 16 bucks, and I talked my mum into buying it for me in a post-Christmas, A&R sale at Orana Mall before I moved out of home in Dubbo to Sydney for further study. It was a good purchase.

I know this will sound anachronistically 'high-brow', but is it possible to do "futher study", or more particularly a Journalism Diploma and an Arts Degree, without occasionally dipping into The Bard as a source of all that is golden and good in our language? I don't think so. Which is why I have reasonably frequently thumbed the delightfully parchment coloured pages of this tome to refresh my memory of one of the great speeches or sonnets, or to check if I have recalled a phrase correctly, or just to re-rehearse the passage in Twelfth Night wherein my middle name is hallooed to the reverberate hills (ever since learning that particular scene for Shakespeare Festival in Year Nine, it has given me great joy to quote it when people ask what the O stands for... Mostly people never know what I'm rabbiting on about...).

Of the many many silly things I've had to read in my 19 years of school (and counting), there have been many which have caused me to raise my eyebrows in perturbation, roll my eyes in exasperation and grit my teeth in condemnation. Never ever has Shakespeare made me do this.

I emphasise the 19 and counting not so much to talk up my educational qualifications for approaching this project, (who should need to be highly educated to read Shakespeare?! And I'm not sure that I am highly educated anyway...) but to draw attention to the endlessly satisfying fount of interest and delight that has remained without peer amongst all the literature I've chosen or been required to read.

Not because there are no other excellent authors who have surprised, challenged and inspired me, educated and filled me with joy. It's not really a comparison of depth. Shakespeare does have much that deeply satisfies, but Shakespeare, for me, has remained unparalleled mostly because he has much. He wins in the muchness stakes. There are just so many plays and poems and possibilities that ol' Bill's pretty hard to beat for pouring out buckets of the good stuff (as Bertie W might say).

Just $16 for buckets and buckets of the most startling, fascinating, hilarious, vile, disgusting, awe-ful, wise, vainglorious, meaningless, piercing, rhythmic literature to feast on feels... Well, I was going to say like robbery... But it doesn't. It feels liberating. It feels exciting! So many wonderful wonderful words, and sentences, and verses, and plays, available so cheaply for EVERYBODY to read!!!

But we don't.

We hardly do.

My housemate was surprised when I knew not just which play but which author she was quoting from - Shakespeare!

I think if pressed, most of my friends could recall the plot of Romeo and Juliet correctly, but ask them to take a stab at Lear, Hamlet, Henry V, Much Ado or even Julius Caesar and they'd be stumped. There's been no movie out for ages (or at least, not one with Leonardo DiCaprio in, and therefore, not one that they'd have seen), and even if they'd worried their way through one or more of those in highschool English classes, the plots and dialogue have long fallen down the back of their memory-couches, next to the basic rules of algebra and how to thread a bobbin.

And that makes me sad...

I'm happy to leave algebra there, gathering dust and cockroach eggs, and I can remember how to thread a bobbin sometimes, so I don't much mind about that.

But I'd like to pull Billy out from under the couch, dust him off and have a look. I'd like to plumb the depths of his dating advice, get his best strategies for taking revenge on sworn enemies and glean his wisdom on cross-cultural relationships. You know, all the stuff that is so relevant to modern life.

Please vote (via commenting) on whether I should start with tragedy or comedy. The first play in the book is The Tempest (Oh Prospero!), but I'm happy to start wherever.