Shakespeare and Me

As you can see, I'm a bit of a Lion King enthusiast. It's number one on my "Awesome Disney Movies" list(followed closely by Pocohontas and Mulan). And since we all know Disney movies are the best, that kind of makes The Lion King the best movie ever. So there's something you know about me. I'm not quite sure how it's going to tie into the rest of Shakespeare, but while our class is studying Hamlet it seemed appropriate.

As far as Shakespeare, my life was relatively devoid of the man until last year. Sure, I read parts of Romeo and Juliet and Julius Ceasar, but when you're a high school freshman they tend to cover your ears and hum loudly to hide the true meanings of things from you. So Shakespeare started to mean something more to me my final year of high school, in my AP English Literature class. In the flurry of trying cram enough literature into our heads to be ready for the AP Test, we managed to cover quite a few of Shakespeare's works. In one year I studied Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing,  Hamlet, Macbeth, and Othello in depth. While the comedies were fun and witty, it was Shakespeare's tragedies that interested me most. Often in the middle of a terrible, tragic death, my teacher would point out a line were Shakespeare was cracking a joke! It astounded me how witty a writer could be while killing of one of his characters. Once or twice I've come across a pun, or a disguised insult in my Shakespeare reading that has literally made me laugh out loud. I also actually appreciate the language in Shakespeare's writing. Many people call it a foreign language, and it may well be, but I love how complex and intriguing just a couple of sentences can turn out to be. I also have fun looking at footnotes while I'm reading, trying to figure out what words or phrases would have meant to people in those days and learning all the different uses and hidden meanings that can be seen simultaneously in a single word. The lines and characters of Shakespeare are so complex and interesting, I can only dream of one day understanding them. So, my Shakespeare knowledge may not be extensive, but I enjoy his works and am ready to learn more. Hopefully this blog will help me to do so.

-Martina