"Who else would soar above the view of men..."

I love it when some lines 'hit' home. And you know you're encountering literary brilliance because even the non-literary seems more special as a result. I'm talking about particular Shakespearean lines which stand out, come at you and, well, 'stick'.

Today I've been reading Julius Caesar and that cryptic verse, "Who else would soar above the view of men / And keep us all in servile fearfulness" is awesome-ic.

In these words the colours and overtones of majesty, illicit authority, success, pseudo-divinity, totalitarianism, oppression fall upon my mental framing. Any surprise I'm now thinking about Malaysian political leaders?

Shakespeare Now!

Simon Palfrey and Ewan Fernie started a series of small books on Shakespeare entitled Shakespeare Now! Check out the blog here.

I'm also delighted to know that two my fav philosophers, John Caputo and Richard Kearney have also contributed to one a book called Spiritual Shakespeare (ed. Ewan Fernie).

Not a Poem guy

I realised I don't enjoy the poetry-heavy plays (e.g. Midsummer Night's) as much as I do the prose-oriented ones (e.g. Hamlet). Somehow reading pages and pages of poems turns me off - but a sexy rhyme inserted here and there? Now that's magic.

My next NoFear purchases:

• Julius Caesar
• Othello
• Merchant of Venice (though I'm rewatching the movie)

Hath not a Jew dimensions?!

I loved Al Pacino's rendition of Shylock; made me almost think of him as the 'hero' of the play. A top-quality scene of course was the one with the dark bluish background, where he was screaming:

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with

the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject

to the same diseases, healed by the same means,

warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as

a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?

if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison

us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not

revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will

resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian

wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by

Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you

teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I

will better the instruction.