What I know about Bill

I've rarely met the modest English/literature academic, but it appears that our class is full of them.  Perhaps many of my peers have commented that they know nothing about our friend, Shakespeare, in order to skate by answering on-the-spot questions and risking a loss of their self-imposed academic status; or maybe we simply don't know much about Bill.


In Lisette Langdorf's blog she describes a familiar high school experience with reading Romeo and Juliet; one which I can relate to as being my first experience with Bill.  I can clearly recall the excitement I felt when Mrs. Rukavina announced that we would finally dive into Bill's literature and I could nerd-out on his lofty prose without fear of actually being labeled a nerd.  Although we read the tragedy and I became familiar with the lingo, in my 14 year old brain the real tragedy was that Mrs. R only allowed boys to act out the characters...in order to be more realistic of course.


What else do I know about Bill?  I know that the more you know about him the more calendar trivia questions you can answer correctly to earn a free drink at the Town Club in Three Forks.  Shakespearean references flood pop culture, but many of us (the human race) are too clueless to acknowledge them and understand their reference.  So yes, I've seen Bill around.  I've payed attention to him at times and have even been engrossed with his majesty for a few moments during a read through of King Lear.  For instance, I recall the following lines and the emotions I felt while reading them and imagining them spoke aloud by Lear carrying Cordelia's body from prison:

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives;
She’s dead as earth.

It was an ending that I just didn't see coming because the reader expects a happy-ending and not a near-dead man crying over the death of his youngest daughter.

King Lear with the body of Cordelia
illustration by Friedrich Pecht
in Shakespeare-Galerie, 1876

Some day I will teach squirrelly high school students about Shakespeare and I hope to give them a better opinion of him than the collective one of my classmates and other peers.  I'm not sure what it is, but during this class I am seeking to find a connection I can make with Bill that will not only forge a stronger bond between us, but a connection that I can share with others in order to help them see just how wonderful a life with Bill can be.