#shx26

obsessed, loved every second, utterly defining of my sensibilities and how i view the world, felt my brain exploding while reading: lear, as you like it

love is not the right word for this but i am utterly entranced and want to spend my life dissecting it, provoked actively negative feelings at many points but also raptures of ecstasy: merchant of venice

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE will reread endlessly but not at the intensity level of burrowing into my brain like a parasite: much ado, twelfth night, julius caesar, henry v, richard ii

formerly defining, no longer has that weight in my psychic landscape, but will forever have a place in my heart and shaped me as a person fundamentally: hamlet

really so beautiful and fun and i think about lines from these on a regular basis, and i respect them deeply, but don't necessarily love them with the intensity that i do the ones above: othello, macbeth, antony & cleopatra

contrarian defender of and not just because i'm a marxist but that is important background context for my contrarian defense of it: timon of athens

didn't love it, but honestly it was so wacky and has ties to a ton of the really ~ Big Plays ~ and adds a richness to them and i will weaponize in a trivia game for sure: cymbeline

honestly didn't really care about it but might have been the fault of overblown expectations: midsummer's night dream (sorry)

May was lovely!! I read King Lear and the Tempest with pals, and that really added to the experience. I loved King Lear, it instantly hit top of the list for me, and it was fun to revisit the Tempest for the first time since high school -- Tempest and Lear also had some of the best adaptations I've watched so far (Kurosawa's Ran and Jarman's Tempest). Taming of the Shrew was also incredibly meaty and frustrating and fascinating (and the Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton adaptation was delightful), but Henry VI pt 1 was my first real stinker of this project. I'm hopeful that parts 2 & 3 will be better, otherwise my fight to get to Richard III will be a slog.

Here's what I'm reading and watching for June:

The Winter's Tale

Henry VI parts 2 & 3 (I'm extremely nervous about getting bogged down in this)

Romeo and Juliet (my final reread!)

April was interesting. I lost steam at the beginning of the month, but Henry V and As You Like It reinvigorated me. Also, I got to see my first live performance (Timon of Athens which is incredibly rare to see live!), and it was a delight! I'm not a theater person but this made so much click for me. Will be prioritizing more live performances!!!

Antony & Cleopatra was beautiful and delightful, Timon of Athens was extremely fun (and another one of those rare experiences reading Shakespeare where you don't know what's going to happen), Henry V was AMAZING and got me back into the history plays, and the biggest surprise for me was As You Like It. I was expecting it to be a bit of a dud, the lecture I listened to beforehand harped on the pacing issues extensively, but, oh my god, it's my personal favorite I think. A really beautiful experience. Another great month!

Here's what I'm reading and watching for May:

King Lear (this was a large motivation for starting the entire project!)

The Taming of the Shrew

Henry VI part 1 (splitting these because I've heard part 1 is the weakest, and I want to do parts 2 & 3 together)

The Tempest (this is my second re-read after Hamlet!)

March was a really, really excellent month. Julius Caesar -> Merchant of Venice -> Hamlet was an incredible run.

It was really fun to reread Hamlet as an adult since it was my favorite as a teenager and it was a delight to revisit with more life and perspective. Also, Julius Caesar feels underrated which is funny to say about a Shakespeare play that defines our modern understanding of a historical event, but it's true. It's definitely in my top 5 plays. Merchant of Venice is a horrible, frustrating, fascinating experience because there's so much there to analyze, the economy of the play alone could be something you study for your whole life, but the bigotry is just an impossible hurdle that leaves you with this awful ending, and so much of the writing about the play is infuriating, too. I think if anything it's the play I'm most interested in now—because of all the faults, it feels like there's more to analyze than with a "perfect" play. And Cymbeline was so fucking weird and stuffed full of plot and every single one of Shakespeare's favorite themes and devices, I don't think it necessarily cohered for me, but it was fascinating to see it all laid out.

Here's what I'm reading for April

Antony & Cleopatra

Timon of Athens

Henry V (I am taking a lesson from February that I need to parcel out the histories)

As You Like It

Kind of a bumpy month. I LOVED Richard II, and struggled with Henry IV 1 & 2. I think part of the block I felt is that I really like alternating between comedy and tragedy, and Henry IV has both of those components in a way that felt discordant for me at times. But now that I'm through them, I have immense appreciation for them. Twelfth Night was like a drink of cool water, an utter delight. I will now always break up plays with a comedy in between no matter how much I want to do a big history block!!!

It's very surreal to process that I've nearly tripled the amount of Shakespeare I've read since I've knocked out 8 plays back to back in the last two months. Trying to align some of my reading with Ulysses so I'm bumping Hamlet way up in the order (and I want to do Julius Caesar for Ides of March lol).

Here's what I'll be watching and reading next month:

Hamlet (my first reread and I'm excited to see how it stacks up to how I remember it! I have a Hamlet tattoo because I loved it so much as a teenager, lmfao)

Cymbeline

Julius Caesar

watch a stage adaptation (NOT a film adaptation) — I usually just watch a BBC or RSC one on Kanopy (my—and probably your— library's free streaming service)

read the play — I'm using the annotated Folger's from this post

listen to lectures — I listen this podcast which has a ~45 min lecture on each play on my walk after I finish the play and then depending on the play there's usually 2 or 3 good lectures on youtube which I listen to while I cook or do chores (the comedies get less love but there's the full recording of Harold Bloom on the tragedies and a Harvard class that goes through most of the big plays + interesting one offs depending on the play)