of or relating to William Shakespeare, either of his own writing or in imitation of his style.
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So two posts in a row! Woo! This one will be less serious than Catechism I hope.
OK, I know we both know this word and we're both pretty familiar with this guy, but I want to mention it for a few reasons:
1) He's a cool dude who wrote comedies, tragedies and histories with the foremost intent of entertaining the viewers, all the while infusing his works with moral issues, questions and dilemmas. He asked the questions others didn't dare to ask (e.g. Is it better to just suffer the crap that life throws at us or to try and fight a futile battle against life in which the end result will be death?), but he did this while either keeping the audience on the edge of their seats or rolling in the aisles laughing.
I love this because so many writers get caught up with using stories to instruct and inform (which is very important if not completely necessary for all literature to do this), but they lose sight of keeping their tales entertaining.
We need to be able to laugh, cry and feel emotions because of literature, not just look for theme statements and what the author wants a work to "mean".
2) I also love Shakespeare because of the effect he had on words of the English language. He not only was crucial to the formation of the language we speak today, influencing modern English in its conception by providing it with a plethora of words we still use (such as accursed, bedroom, epileptic, and my personal favorite: rant), but he was so important that he had a word made about him.
A very Shakespearean photo n'est pas?
Ok, well so does Justin Bieber, but this word has more than one meaning!
It can refer to a style of poetry, a school of academic thought, a mode of speaking and even an entire genre. (Take that Biebbutt! Your brain is as dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage!)
Shakespeare wins again!
3) The reason I'm more excited about, is that I'm taking a Shakespearean class next semester! An entire course devoted to the powerful playwright, the Bard of BA, the scrumptious sonneteer!
=> Side note, I totally wasn't expecting sonneteer to be an actual word! I just discovered a word while trying to make one up. Zounds! I don't even know what to think about that. . .
OK, so obviously I'm kind of excited. But here's the main reason:
I just won an anthology of Shakespeare at an English Pizza Party!
It's got nearly every play, his most famous epic poems and the entirety of his sonnet collection! Score!
(The irony is in the fact that it contains every play I'm studying except the one the professor is most excited about. Aye, there's the rub!)
Yeah, I'm a nerd, I know. Just for me, Shakespeare is the coolest part of being an English Major. He's like the Mr. T or the Totoro of the English Department. He's big, trustworthy, but above all, awesome.
And, of course, my best experience of Shakespeare to date (and probably forever) is still Josh reading Othello in spare.
The Hankerchief!
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Have a great weekend again Tim. I hope you had a good day off and I hope you enjoyed the fact that I'm trying to set the record for most Shakespearean photos in one post.
See ya!
"On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures"
-Clayton
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