The Bard and I

Despite being a bookworm, I don't tend to gravitate towards classics or heavy reads.  I was a good English student but I was never the one that could glean deep insights from Shakespeare or Hemingway.  I read them all for class (mostly because I was a goody two shoes).  I sorta "got" them.  I passed the test on them.  Then I forgot them.  However in the last few years, I've determined that to leep my book-worm cred, I should probably attempt to broaden my literary horizons.  This doesn't mean that I'm going to start War & Peace any time soon, but I will try to give a few more of Shakespeare's works another look.

This is what brought me to Much Ado About Nothing.  I've probably read, maybe 5 of the Bard's works in my school career, and actually liked one. (A Midsummer Night's Dream is on my Top 10 books list of all time)  My fear of these plays had everything to do with the language and absolutely nothing to do with their quality. The story lines are woven beautifully and the characters are complex.  However, my brain could never translate the language into US-ese.  I was able to get the general jist of what he was saying, but analyzing the actual words was completely beyond me.  So, imagine my surprise when I picked up my iPhone this evening (the only reason I'm doing this is because I can download his greatest works along with tons of other classics for free through iBooks: I'm not highbrow enough to actually fork out the cash for them-there are TOO many other books to buy!) and actually followed along with the comedy.  Beatrice and Benedick kept my attention and the story unraveled like a 60s madcap comedy of errors. 

The play is actually quite good and while I probably couldn't grab an A on any research paper on the subject, I caught some of the allusions and subtext.  A few lines even made some goings on at the annual MD Renaissance (is there any word harder to spell?!) Festival much clearer.  While I'm sure a trip to Stratford upon Avon and the Globe would actually help more in my understanding, I don't see that happening any time soon (unless you want to send me there-my 30th birthday is in just a few months...) 

My goal for my little project is to at least get through the comedies.  I know that I should also read Hamlet and MacBeth again as well if I really want to gain some insight but they're so depressing.  I hope to check in every few days/weeks and let you know how I'm doing on my race to become a more intellectual book-worm so if Shakespeare's not your thing, I apologize. I will let you know when I make it out of Medieveal England into something more exciting like turn of the century England (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also available as a freebie on iBooks : )