Thursday, May 29, 2008

Lunchtime read: Shakespeare

The more you read about Shakespeare the more it strikes you that it is amazing anything of his life is left. If his plays hadn‘t been pulled together in the First Folio what would be left of him?

Most of what he left behind were questions providing academics with various life times work to argue over his sexuality, sequence of plays and his relationship with his family.

For almost every aspect of his life and work there is an academic that has made to their contribution to summarise and collect and interpret information. As a result you know how many new words Shakespeare introduced to the English language, how many references he made to various countries and how many different words he used across all of his plays.

What these things tell you is not just how hard working the great man was but just how important he has become and continues to be for anyone working in the world of English literature.

Final bit of this enjoyable book tomorrow…