Speaking of the Bard

I think it’s fair to say that everyone knows Shakespeare, whether they realize it or not. The English language owes a lot of its common phrases to the Bard. Many of us were forced to read his plays in school. My first introduction was Julius Caesar, which I thought was a giant bore and hated, although it did add “Beware the Ides of March,” and “Et Tu, Brute?” to my lexicon. Next, it was Romeo and Juliet, which was a whole other story. What teenage girl doesn’t love a love story? And since the Zeffirelli movie version was out about the same time, it brought it to life in a way just reading the play in class hadn’t. To this day, it’s still one of my favorites.

I think we may have touched on Shakespeare’s sonnets, but we didn’t study them the way we did the plays, but he’s credited with writing 154 of them, which seems to be a pretty substantial collection, if you ask me. Sonnets are short and they’re easier to digest, so today, I’d like to share two of my favorites, Sonnet 29 and 130.

#29 is my most favorite, and has been for many years. The speaker is an anonymous lover. Shakespeare addresses the person he loves (traditionally believed to be a young man) directly, referring to him as “thee.” Recently, I was reading By Any Other Name, a novel by Jodi Picoult based on the idea that much of Shakespeare was actually written by a woman. In it she suggests that this was written by a woman speaking to her dead child, which puts a whole new spin on it. [Side note—I highly recommend By Any Other Name. It’s excellent.] I chose this clip of Dame Judi Dench reciting it, because I think it’s spellbinding; you can tell that those around her felt the same. There’s a bit of conversational chatter at the beginning that I’ve left because it’s fun and reminds us of Shakespeare’s impact on all of us. If you want to skip that, the actual recitation begins at about 1:25.

There were quite a few videos of different people reading Sonnet 130, but I chose Stephen Frye’s because I love the way he brings it to life and makes it sound almost modern. For sure, it makes those of us who may not be the most beautiful, feel that we are still worthy of a boundless love. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do.

Happy Poetry Month!