...what dreams may come...

Over the weekend I corrected a flaw in myself. Up until this past Saturday I had never read Hamlet. It's shocking, I know. One of the greatest works of literature in the English language, and I had ignored it. I must also admit that this was the first time I read Shakespeare out of the classroom. I hope it is not the last.

I am a huge admirer of good dialogue. The movies I find myself rewatching are usually those with intelligent, entertaining, and quick moving scripts (well delivered, of course). Shakespeare has perhaps the firmest hand in writing dialogue ever, and in Hamlet he is at his best. Wordplay and rapier-sharp wit abound, including many oh-so-clever puns, and Hamlet has some mighty fine soliloquies. This wordsmanship couples with Shakespeare's keen insight into humanity to create complex, layered, but real characters. There's also a plot, but it's nothing special (in fact, in the hands of a lesser playwright it might end up being laughable). It serves to showcase the angst and depression of Hamlet, the wickedness of the King, etc.

I was worried that, having not read Shakespeare for a few years, it would go over my head. Surprisingly, I found it easier to read and comprehend than ever. That is not to say I understood everything--I still don't know whether Hamlet was nuts or just pretending--but I understood everything I had to.

I'm now attempting to memorize Hamlet's (deservedly) famous soliloquy, as follows:

"To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd."

Anyway, now it's on to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and 100 Years of Solitude.