Katharina: Husband, let’s follow, to see the end of this ado.
Petruchio: First kiss me, Kate, and we will.
Katharina: What, in the midst of the street?
Petruchio: What, art thou ashamed of me?
Katharina: No, sir, God forbid; but ashamed to kiss.
Petruchio: Why, then, let’s home again. Come, sirrah, let’s away.
Katharina: Nay, I will give thee a kiss. Now pray thee, love, stay.
Petruchio: Is not this well? Come, my sweet Kate. Better once than never, for never too late.
–from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew
Ah, the sweetness of hard-won marital bliss! What better introduction to a new loving vow: to read all of Shakespeare in 60 days.
The idea of this blog is that literature (my preferred art form) heals. The woes that we face right now in a critical point in history–from racial injustice to climate change to gigantic gaps between the rich and the poor to an unrelenting wave of violence and suffering sweeping the world–make most of us feel powerless and small.
Here is where literature waltzes in, and it is to be taken in like nourishment. I want this blog to be fun and soothing and (hopefully a little) insightful. The pleasures of reading are legion and they don’t stem from a purely frivolous worship of everything and anything entertaining. Through reading we see ourselves and our world and (perhaps) create our future.
I will collect the tastiest morsels of each of Shakespeare’s plays that allow for general conversation without requiring readers to know Shakespeare’s works previously. Simple pleasures, not didactic dissertations.
Onwards and upwards! 60 jam-packed days of a Shakespeare-o-thon! I can’t wait.
Leave a Reply