Sandwiches

There's something that Shakespeare does to one's writing. I'm not saying it necessarily improves it, but it sure as hell spins it quite a ways.

E.g. today I wanted to tell a group of colleagues that there're plenty leftover from the tea break. This is what I wrote: "As I write, there is a huge plate of sandwiches left unvisited..."

That last word was inspired by Hamlet's, "winds of heaven visit her face too gently."

What other word could be used?

Fav lines

Some of my favourite lines:

"I love with all my heart that none is left to protest!" (Much Ado About Nothing)

"I love you...more than eyesight and liberty" (King Lear)

"Then let our lips do what our palms something-something" (Romeo & Juliet)

"I have thee not but I see thee still..." (MacBeth)

Gilbert and Shakespeare

Always like it when books have all their chapters start with Shakespearean quotes. Dan Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness - a great work on how our minds 'process' happiness - does.

What's Needed in Commentaries: Emotion!

It makes a huge difference if you read scenes like a character would do it on stage i.e. with emotion, passion, feeling.

I doubt I'm the only one who's looked at pages and pages of script and felt they were lifeless - until I read it like I was the character. (E.g. try watching Ian McKellen as MacBeth, then read the Banquet scene again)

This is why I need to watch the movies to get the emotional gist of the play prior to reading the original text.

To Buy or Not To Buy

That is the question.

Whether it's nobler in mind to :

1. read CliffNotes No Fear Shakespeare online (save cost, but tough on the eyes and impractical for travel), or

2. buy the SGD11 books (most practical, should sput greater interest and speed up reading, but it costs money), or

3. buy other parallel translation books (better than option 2as there's more variety, but costs higher)

Hendiadys

MacBeth's 'bank and shoal of time', Hamlet's 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' (and many more) - hendiadys. A motley pair not merely repeating each other but providing different takes and angles to that deed which they flavour.

Lear's Fool

Only this morning my colleague mentioned in passing that his favorite character in King Lear was the Fool. As I had only reached Sc.iii of the first Act, I had no clue who was being referred to.

But now, after reading Sc.iv, I'm intrigued. The Fool is no fool but an revealer of fools. He speaks wisely, because indirectly and in riddle (or shall we say parables?). Almost a prophet, the Fool is bold, daring, forthright, sparing none in his sharp gaze.

My thoughts float to the likes of RPK, the OT Prophets, and other public subversives. And yet the Fool also offers scintillating advice, akin to Polonius':

Have more than thou showest,   

Speak less than thou knowest,  
Lend less than thou owest,  
Ride more than thou goest,  
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest,  
Leave thy drink and thy whore  
And keep in-a-door,  
And thou shalt have more  
Than two tens to a score.

Does the world need more of Lear's fools?