Shakespeare Fan Boy

Small group, I had to introduce myself, and I was looking at the shortest introduction. This is nominally a Shakespeare grouping instead of any of the other kinds of groups where I might¹ belong. This Shakespeare group, with breathless excitement, trods the ground between “professional” and “amateur” with heady, unceasing joy.

But how to introduce myself²?

Shakespeare Fan Boy

While I might be a student of human behavior, I’m not really a Shakespeare scholar — I do this stuff — toy with studying Shakespeare’s works — for fun. For my own amusement. To entertain what I’m pleased to call my mind. The start point was when I got around to quoting Shakespeare way too often, that’s most of how I got into this³.

Or “why” Shakespeare⁴.

First, seeing the film version of both Henry V and Much Ado brought life to the texts. Alongside those were various performances, usually RSC in London. Brought more to life. Then came the Globe Theatre and for a narrow window of time, I saw performances there, and that certainly breathes life into the plays. Finally, echoing back to UT-Austin’s Winedale⁵ summer shows, that connects it all together. Circles back to live shows, and compares, quite favorably, with the tonier RSC versions⁶.

So much for making this short.

I’m no scholar, and through various podcasts⁷, books⁸, and most important, performances⁹, I have a thin, barely working understanding of the plays.

I do this for fun.

I have found that Shakespeare’s work can encompass the whole of the human experience.

That, and quoting Shakespeare is second only to quoting in Latin¹⁰ as a way to access a secular canon that is remarkably free of too much political incorrectness. Quoting Shakespeare tends to be safer than quoting the Torah, Bible, or Koran. Depends on the audience, but so far, yeah, stick with Shakespeare whenever possible. Even quoting Star Trek or Star Wars¹¹ elicits negative feedback loops.

No rhyme. No reason. No definite direction. Looking at the footnotes? No indefinite direction, either, too widely spaced by days, weeks, months, and years.

Shakespeare Fan Boy

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1. Like, see astrofish.net/travel. ↩
2. Besides the bog-standard bio? ↩
3. Shakespeare enriching life answered. ↩
4. Indeed, why? ↩
5. Shakespeare at Winedale… ↩
6. Seriously, Winedale’s King Lear. ↩
7. The podcast is linked int his year in review… ↩
8. Like books about Shakespeare, Shakespeare for Squirrels, Nutshell, or Death by Shakespeare? ↩
9. Other good performances of note… ↩
10. “Anything in Latin sounds better?” ↩
11. cf., Geek Pride. ↩