Dork in Sheep’s Clothing

Lest you think for one minute that I am actually cool, I’m about to let you in on my inner dork.

I’m a Shakespeare nerd.  A BIG one.

I’m not talking about Renaissance Faire going bustier wearing Shakespeare dork, I’m talking filtering every interaction I have with people and life through what happened in a Shakespeare play (and musicals, these are my frames of reference).  If Shakespeare “Invented the Human” as Harold Bloom claims, then I am such stuff as his dreams are made on.

This summer I’m teaching a summer course in Shakespeare and it’s dreamy. 

I get to be these kid’s first foray into the otherwise daunting world of the Bard.  I get to tell them the stories!  I get to show walk them through Shakespeare’s haunted plots twists of Macbeth and Bottom’s absurd transformation into a donkey! 

There’s little less inviting than a big fat book like this:

 

Until you have some big nerd riding around the room on her imaginary horse and pretending to be the entire Birnam Woods closing in on Macbeth's castle.

Hearing the kids today cackle like Witches and snicker at the love square in Midsummer is music to my ears.  Watching their faces fall when they learn how callous Macbeth has become in the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech is to watch young students tap into the human experience.

This is my favorite Shakespeare quote, though not my favorite play (King Lear and Pericles).  I love the contrast between the beautiful language in this passage and the deeply nihilistic sentiments.  Every time I teach this part I tell Ellie’s Shakespeare story.  I tell it like this:

When my sister Ellie was nursing full time she had a very elderly patient for whom she was caring.  He was comatose and had been for some time.  As she was ministering to him he woke briefly and began quoting the above section of Macbeth, which is a rumination on death and the meaning of life (or lack thereof).  By chance, Ellie happened to have memorized this passage in a high school class and they recited it together.  After that she went and found his wife somewhere in the hospital, they visited together for a brief while and then the man died.

 

I know it’s all super nerdy, but it feels wonderful to be reconnecting with my passion and seeing Shakespeare’s texts – which I have picked through and analyzed with a fine tooth comb – through the eyes of neophytes.

I’m so lucky to be able to communicate the ecstasy Shakespeare wrote to these kids.  I hope you all get to do your passion from time to time.

My other absolute favorite Shakespeare quote.  I live in hope for so many things.

Silas playing Caliban from the Tempest.

Miranda and the Tempest

  

William Jude’s namesake