the Shakes

Can I just take a minute and talk about the love I have for William Shakespeare?

I mean, it's almost obsessive.

Not, like, "I would give anything for one legendary wild night with the man" kind of obsessive - much more along the lines of, "I am physically aching with the desire/need to read, analyze, and perhaps discuss some Shakespeare."  Seriously, I'm craving it.

Part of the problem is that I simply have not had time to read anything for pleasure, other than the occasional Buzzfeed article or Twitter post, in more than a month.  I took my last-ever undergraduate literature class this summer - Myth, Symbol, and Allusion - and it left me with a fiery yearning for some good, deep lit that I have just not been able to satisfy.  All I've been able to think about lately, though, is how much I want to read some darn Shakespeare!  I can't get it out of my head.

I want to re-read those that I've already come to love (and, in the case of Henry V, memorize), particularly Hamlet and the sonnets.  I additionally want to read those that I haven't ever read before, such as Othello, Coriolanus, and Twelfth Night.  *I would also REALLY LOVE to see Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing; it looks marvelous.  Netflix…?*  I need something into which I can immerse myself, something that simultaneously carries me along and forces me to examine things - both in the text and in the real world - a little more deliberately.

Other Shakespeare-related things I would really love to do?  Visit London; make a stop (or even see a play!) at the Globe; hang out, maybe eat brunch, and definitely have some tea in Stratford-upon-Avon; visit everywhere else in the U.K.; read virtually any work of his at Book Club; take another Shakespeare literature class; maybe take a Shakespeare acting class or workshop, because performing it is far different from reading it; and, of course, spend an afternoon with the man.  Seeing as how that last one is, sadly, utterly impossible, it would be almost as neat to just hang out with other Shakespeare geeks for a whole day, maybe two, and talk it all out.  This would be especially magical if at least one participant spoke with a legitimate British accent.

So why am I writing all of this instead of reading right now?

Good question.  I'm off to Agincourt to witness some literary heroics.