Shakespeare...the legend

I'll admit it - I am excited for Shakespeare. I really enjoy his plays - I wish we could have read more of them in high school. I've read a few of his works on his own, but I feel like his works are best learned through discussion (with someone who actually knows what he's saying...)

Shakespeare is such a popularized figure. Like da Vinci's "Mona Lisa," Shakespeare created characters, words and plays that have become so integrated into popular culture that most people don't even realize it was he who invented the word "bittersweet." I was shocked when I first discovered it was Hamlet who said "to be or not to be" - I was introduced to that idea on the popular TV show "Doug."

To prove my point, and to relate this blog to sonnets...

Buy one of these!

Or this!

But, what is it about Shakespeare that has made him such a popular figure in our culture?

Why is he all over the place?

Of all the brilliant authors, why do most people automatically think of Shakespeare when asked to name a play writer?

What is reality?

Why do these authors keep messing with our minds?!

What is real, and what isn't?

Gilles and More are actual people, but Raphael Nosenso is fictional. They talk about the imaginary place of Utopia, even in the preface "psuedo-letters," as though it's real.

It was hard to remind myself that this place was fake, made-up, when people I knew to be real were talking about it as though it was an actual place to be found. The more I read, the less sure I am of my pre-conceived notions of the book, Renaissance England, and even my own beliefs.

Bah. Can't we just go back to the Bernstein Bears - one simple moral at the end of every story!

Folly's Medley

Inspired by Erasmus' The Praise of Folly:


Fiddle-ee-dee, Fiddle-ee-dough
What are all these long faces fo'?
No no no, this won't do!
Not in the least...
Why over-analyze
criticize
customize
When you can inspire
desire
aspire
Here's to you, fire-fly chasers
Carry on, starry-eyed dreamers
Fee-figh-fo-fum
Listen to the beating drum
and watch the nodding servants pray
while the holy fathers play
Foolosophers you try and hide
But within you I abide
Fun
Frolic
Free
Frisky
I am friends with Mirth and Whisky.
In Latin call me STULTITIA
Greeks know me as MORIA
Fiddle-ee-dough, Fiddle-ee-dee

Folly - that's me!