{"id":3677,"date":"2018-09-06T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2018-09-06T14:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/?p=3677"},"modified":"2018-09-06T09:31:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-06T14:31:15","slug":"summer-with-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/2018\/09\/06\/summer-with-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer with Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the summer, I made it a point to read as much as I could. I had a goal in mind before I started school: to read some of Shakespeare’s most popular works. I bought about five of his plays from Amazon; specifically, I read the SparkNotes’ “No Fear Shakespeare” versions (if you want to read Shakespeare and have a hard time understanding the language, I\u00a0highly<\/em> recommend this, because it puts an easy-to-read translation of the original text right beside each other, and you don’t have to spend fifteen minutes trying to understand what each word means).<\/p>\n

I read\u00a0Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Much Ado About Nothing.\u00a0<\/em>My expectations for these plays were low: I didn’t expect myself to be able to understand what was happening the first time I read through them. However, I ended up exceeding my expectations. I enjoyed reading these plays, and I was quickly able to understand them entirely.<\/p>\n

I read most of these plays while I was on a mission trip to Honduras, because I had a lot of time to read when I wasn’t doing bible school or doing a water run to one of the nearby villages. And just like that, I was enraptured by the worlds that these plays contained. I often found myself whisked away so much that I would sometimes miss the call that dinner was ready until someone pulled me away.<\/p>\n

My favorite, by far, was\u00a0Hamlet.\u00a0<\/em>I know that sounds like a somewhat stereotypical thing to say, but it’s the complete truth of the matter. My mind was enraptured by the story. I made it a point to myself to try to memorize his “To be, or not to be” monologue- I never succeeded, but I got pretty far.<\/p>\n

I started to find that, over time, those plays gave me a new outlook on my creative nature. They turned on the creative switch in my mind, and I was all for it. I wrote as much as I could in that week, and I found myself making some pretty decent progress in my world-building efforts. Through these hundred year old stories, I found a new spark of energy.<\/p>\n

I think I’ll keep reading more and more of his works. Maybe I can read some of the historical plays, or find more of his comedies. I feel like his words would definitely help as I go on this journey to find my true creative spark- but a little boost from Shakespeare wouldn’t hurt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the summer, I made it a point to read as much as I could. I had a goal in mind before I started school: to read some of Shakespeare’s most popular works. I bought about five of his plays from Amazon; specifically, I read the SparkNotes’ “No Fear Shakespeare” versions (if you want to … Continue reading “Summer with Shakespeare”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3677"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3787,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3677\/revisions\/3787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.msabrookhaven.org\/literary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}