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Showing posts from November, 2023

Watching Plays, Reading Plays

I recently attended a performance of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  It got me thinking about the age-old debate over plays, and whether they are to be read or watched. It's a discussion that seems to follow the Bard of Avon more than any other writer. My first direct exposure to Shakespeare's literature was in a high school English class, when I read  Romeo and Juliet . I already knew who Shakespeare was, of course, but this was the first time I experienced one of his masterpieces first-hand. At fourteen, I still struggled with understanding the play, but I enjoyed it, found the footnotes fascinating, and looked forward to studying Shakespeare's other works in future English classes. In the summer I turned 17, I bought a collection of Shakespeare's plays, and read both Much Ado About Nothing and  Hamlet on my own ;  the latter would soon show up on the syllabus in my last year of high school. I would soon after become an English major at Carleton University,...