What You Will

So once I took a Shakespeare course.

Well, "took" is a strong word. More like "signed up for and skipped half of" a Shakespeare course. You could use that substitution for "took" with most of my college classes, but that's neither here nor there. What is both here and there is that I ALWAYS wanted to take a Shakespeare course. When I was in high school looking through the lists of classes the UMaine English department offered like the overachieving twit that I was the Shakespeare course made the biggest impression. "Imagine that," I thought. "A whole class dedicated just to Shakespeare! I bet anyone who is anything in the literary world has taken a class that's just about Shakespeare! I bet that class kicks so much butt! Sign me up!"

Of course, it took about two and half years of prerequisites until I was allowed to enter that hallowed 400 level course. By that time I had pretty much lost all will to study and had become entirely disenchanted with academia in general, so I didn't actually spend much time in the classroom itself, per say. I handed in some papers when the syllabus said to and somehow pulled a B. I loved professors who didn't take attendance.

ANYWAY what stuck out to me most from that class was how much I enjoyed the plays we read... until we had to talk about them. Man, talking about Shakespeare with a bunch of other twenty-something liberal art majors is probably the worst thing ever! They all seemed like they had something to prove, but I was never quite sure what it was. All I knew was that I certainly wasn't proving it. Every little detail of every play had to be talked over and some new facet of meaning had to be discovered. On days I'd show up for class I'd usually sit quietly in the back, avoiding the professor's eye contact and feeling completely intimidated. I mean, seriously guys, can't we just like the story?

No. No we can't.

So that's how I realized I was never meant to be an English major. I'm mostly just a person who likes a good story. Coincidentally enough, Shakespeare made some really good stories. Yes, I realize all his plots are borrowed from previously written plays, but he has so much fun with them that I don't even register it. I mean, have you guys read Othello? The whole thing's a total soap opera! Every bit of it is so over the top: how can you not love it? And don't even get me started on King Lear...

Well, all this Shakespeare love has given me a goal... a dream, if you will. My dad gave me this big fat Shakespeare anthology for my 21st birthday (it looked great on the shelf next to the bottle of Jose Cuervo a friend gave me the same day). It was more than two years afterwards that I first cracked it open, and holy cow! There's so much good stuff in there! I'm thinking that now that I don't have to try to compete with a bunch of my peers it might actually be kind of fun to read his plays and, y'know, try to think of something to say about them. Not something important, for goodness' sake, don't get worried. I just want to try to find the fun in them. Will's got such a reputation for being hard to access, but he's not! He's just fun!

Maybe I'll make a little project of this. See if I can't write a few posts about a few plays. I think first up I'll try to tackle some of the plays I was supposed to read for that class but didn't (sorry, Professor Brucher). One of the ones I most regret not reading was Twelfth Night. I like its other name better: What You Will.

We'll see what I will. We will.