A Year of Shakespeare

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If you are reading from the “subscribe” feature, you may end up with a rougher draft through the provided link than the one currently posted on the site. If you happen to catch an error, please refresh the page to see if it has already been fixed. If the mistake still stands, please let me know!

The joy of blogging serves many purposes. A big one for me is overcoming my perfectionist tendencies. While not an excuse for slipshod posting, I submit that the habit of daily entries forces me to move on more readily than I otherwise would. That benefit, however, should not come at the expense of your enjoyment of a professional, well-presented blog.

I thank you for your patience, your comments, your participation and your feedback!

I went on a quest this morning to discover famous actors who have played in Othello. By doing so, I noticed an interesting quirk that may be characteristic of our age.

ASIDE: reading the Shakespeare canon in one year is a bit like traveling around the world. It may seem like ample time to explore, but once you get out there and start the adventure, you realize you could spend a year in each country and still not do everything you might have wished.

For me this means having to make difficult choices. Even though I’ve allowed myself two weeks for Othello, there simply isn’t time enough to read every commentary, watch every movie or listen to every dramatized version.

So when it comes to a tremendous play like Othello, what is a person to do?

Now for my discovery: something must have changed in dramatic circles and psyches, whether only in America or around the world I cannot say. Because Orson Welles and Laurence Olivier, two of the greatest actors of all time, chose to play Othello, the ostensible hero  – or at least the tragedic centerpiece.

However, when it comes to modern versions, the preference among actors seems to be to play Iago! And why not…doesn’t he have the juicier part?

I’m currently listening to two versions available at Audible.com (I’m not compensated, just a member): one on Naxos with a British cast HERE and another terrific (though WARNING: line-edited) version with Ewan McGregor as a particularly delicious Iago HERE.

As for film, I noticed that Kenneth Branaugh chose to play Iago in the 1994 movie version as well.

Maybe you can see my problem. I want to spend all week rereading the play and absorbing commentary by leading scholars, including Harold Bloom, whose What a Piece of Work Is Man I bought some years ago and finally loaded onto my computer.

I want to listen to, and watch, every Othello ever made, including the Verdi opera with the great Placido Domingo available on Netflix.

But I can’t actually do all this, can I? I mean, I could…but then I’d burn out on the blog after just the second week, right as I’m scheduled to start Titus Andronicus!

To riff David Bowie, I could be a hero…but at the expense of the whole project – and I can’t let that happen.

Yes…this post is all over the place. One of my diary entries. This time just to vent my frustration that there is so much I’d love to do…and so little time.

But these are the choices that must be made in order to travel the Shakespearean world in only one year.

Crossed over into the new year watching Romeo & Juliet and Shakespeare in Love on Netflix before they expired at dawn’s first light.

Best…celebration…ever.

I felt twice a fool: once for having paid so little heed to everyone’s favorite filmed version of the greatest love story ever; and second, by my ignorance of how embedded Shakespeare’s biography is within the fictional tale of a love that won his heart and influenced his career.

A more fitting beginning to the year I could not have imagined – not  for myself, who wishes to correct the errors of his ways no matter the expense in personal standing. It’s what this project is about in its essence…returning to the plays themselves and attempting to grow in understanding of them and, through them, me – and the world around me that Shakespeare did so much to define and shape.

As an aside, this app tends to delete words at the slightest touch and original posts might therefore suffer from strange omissions. I shall work to correct these as the year progresses.

Also: I have decided to try and maintain this as a daily Shakespeare journal, record my thoughts over time as Shakespeare’s words exert their influence over me…sort of like a travel journal with my interior the undiscovered country and Shakespeare being the greatest tour guide in Western literature.

I wish you all a happy, prosperous and peaceful 2014.

May your fondest dreams come true.

The new year is about to begin and I couldn’t be more excited. Othello and Peter Ackroyd are waiting to be started and this blog will officially kick off with the descent of the mirror ball in Times Square. I’ll probably be the only person thinking Shakespeare at the stroke of midnight…

I have created a syllabus the merges chronology with theme and allows for a reasonable 52-week pace. Like any form of physical travel, there will be some adjustments once wheels leave the ground. But I love the plan!

Most months call for ONE major play with accompaniment beginning with Othello and ending with the Tempest. I’ll explain my reasoning as the year unfolds.

But if you’re thinking ahead, here is the lineup for January:
Othello
Titus Andronicus
A Comedy of Errors
Two Gentlemen of Verona

Othello and Titus pair a seasoned tragedy with Shakespeare’s first attempt, while Comedy and Gentlemen are considered two of the earliest extant plays period.

Chronology and attribution are two thorny Shakespeare issues that must be dealt with at some point, but not here and not now.

All that really matters is that the blog officially begins in less than 12 hours with the greatest Shakespeare play I’ve never read.

Can’t wait!

This January 1, I’ll be restarting the blog, beginning with Othello.

My last attempt broke off for various reasons, none of which really matters, except they left me with unfinished business and the need to make amends straight away.

Thank you to everyone who added comments, especially those who wondered where the blog went. I have a few new tools this time around that I’m extremely excited about, namely the good people at Audible.com and the helpful WordPress app available for Android.

I’ll be starting the entire year’s reading from scratch, making no assumptions, presuming nothing from my previous endeavors.

For those wondering why I’m not taking the plays in their presumed chronological order, I feel this is too constricting over the entire body of work.

Plus, I’d rather be guided seasonally, thematically, and by whimsy…just because it opens up the possibility for more “aha” moments and deeper personal connections.

I will cite any third-party sources consulted for context… and freely admit that Peter Ackroyd’s Shakespeare: the Biography will be my bedside reading and tour guide along the way.

The same rules, however, apply this time around. I will be reading the poems and plays without agenda or pontification, just trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. Any and all errors of judgment, fact and good sense are wholly my own.

You are free to drop by to join in the conversation whenever you like. I will be moderating the comments, but not for agreement of anything I write. Only to eliminate trolls who see the need to fill any available open space with self promotion.

I will have more to say about Othello at the turn of the  year. But I will offer that I have chosen it because it’s the one biggie of Shakespeare’s that I know least about. Really, my ignorance here is appalling.

There’s only one way to correct this and that’s by reading the play.

As an aside, you may find more errors in my writing due to the fact I’ll be generating more content from my phone. This is by no means an excuse for slipshod work on my behalf…so if you encounter mistakes, please shout them out. I will be editing from a computer as necessity  demands (and time permits).

Also, and for the record: I DO NOT OWN ANY IMAGES USED HERE STRICTLY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES. ALL LEGITIMATE REQUESTS FOR REMOVAL WILL BE PROMPTLY OBEYED.

I wish you all a beautiful, joyous Christmas.

See you in the new year!

When I started this blog, I knew that life would present challenges to my completing it… that there would likely be revisions as I went along. My intent was to put it out there and watch what happens, to be open to anything so long as I kept to a schedule that would allow me to complete all of Shakespeare’s works in a year’s time.

I hit a big snag when I reached the Sonnets. I have had to ask myself serious questions why that was… and what it meant about the project as a whole. Why had my interest suddenly gone south? Why was it at that very time that other pursuits called me away?

Those two pursuits include another blog and a screenplay that I need to finish soon. What these have done is call my attention to the obvious fact that I’m not in alignment with my goals and values. Or rather that my goals and values need clarification. Just what does Shakespeare have to do with what I want to accomplish?

In searching for the meaning behind this lack of congruency, I believe I hit upon the larger issue that the sonnets brought up: the world has plenty of Shakespeare experts who can tell the curious reader everything she needs to know about the works in infinite detail. I’m adding nothing of value in this arena whatsoever.

My inspiration for starting the blog was wanting to read Shakespeare to see what he had to say to an aspiring writer in the modern world… to anybody in the modern world, actually, but writers in particular since that’s what I happen to be — allegedly. So how did I get off that track?

I’m not sure I ever got on that stated track. What I have been doing is venting my pent-up snarkiness on the works as I’ve muddled through them, sharing epiphanies which have meant a lot to me but have likely been of marginal (or less) value to others. That seems entirely lame of me.

But as I put down the sonnets (to pick up later) and dove into Coriolanus, I discovered my joy had returned. The plays… aha. That’s what this is truly all about!

It became clear to me that I had erred in trying to present myself as anybody but the village idiot regarding Shakespeare scholarship or quasi-literary analysis. What I needed to do was approach it as me… just me… a guy trying to write a screenplay and figure out what he’s meant to do in this lifetime. How reading the Bard fits into this 2010 life of mine. And to invite you to ask yourself how Shakespeare in turn might fit into yours.

I was tempted to call this post “A Revaluation of All Values” after Nietzsche, but opted for the more mundane Tiger-riff instead. The goal here is not to cheat on the blog, but rather to focus in on what the blog means and is truly all about. Otherwise, why continue with it?

So then. About Coriolanus…