"By my troth, 'tis so! " I Have Been Shakespeared. Again.

Hello friends, how are you on this fine day of May? Celebrating the end of WW2 ? :)

I dare to presume that you have noticed that this year marks the 450th birthday of one William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all human history. Have you indulged in a bit of drama to celebrate good ol' Will's birthday? I certainly did!

Czech Television could not stay behind all the celebrations and the new art channel offered, among other things, a BBC series titled The Hollow Crown, which comprises one of Shakespeare's tetralogies of historical plays: Richard II, Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and finally Henry V. The executive producer of the series was Sam Mendes (yes, the Sam Mendes) and  it was released as a part of 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

starring: Ben Whishaw (Richard II), Jeremy Irons (Henry IV), Tom Hiddleston (Henry V)  img source

Honestly, just reading the list of names involved in this project made me ridiculously excited, because with people like Rory Kinnear, David Suchet, Patrick Stewart, David Morrisey, Jeremy Irons, Tom Hiddleston, Julie Walters, Maxine Peake, Richard Griffiths and John Hurt... (That's just me listing the names that I recognized first off. ) There was no way this could be bad. And indeed it was the very opposite of bad.

Of course, I should not fail to mention Ben Whishaw and Simon Russel Beale who have won BAFTA awards for theit marvellous performances. The thing is, it was all marvellous. I loved every bit of acting, be it the main characters or one the tiny circumstantial parts, I loved the cinematography, I loved the music...

I cannot say more. Words escape me. I cannot possibly try to review the quality of screen adaptations or analyze the plays. Thousands of essays have been written on those and my essay-writing days are over.

All I can say is that I think they did Shakespeare justice.

On the whole, if you get a chance to see The Hollow Crown on the telly, or if you want to invest and buy the DVDs (I believe they are available on Amazon), I heartily recomment watching. Even if you and Shakespeare didn't get off to a good start because he gave you grief in school, give him a second chance. Having some Shakespeare in your life can only do you good. Never the opposite. 

img source

Watching these plays, listening to the iambic pentameter,... I just love the sound of it, even if I don't understand the words. Let's face it, for an ESL person (as good as one may be), Shakespearean language is difficult. There is a percentage of the text that I just don't catch the first time I see/hear it. And even if I do, catching what the words are is not quite the same as understanding what the poet meant to say. Taking all of this into account, when I turn off the TV, I am left with the rhythm of the verse engraved in my mind and out of the blue I find myself speaking in iambs. And I love that. I love that even if I don't understand exactly what it says, the rhythm and the phonetics of english sound like sweet music to me. One that I could listen to for ever and ever and ever.

So there I was, reconnected to my dark literary past, ridiculously excited over a couple of historical plays (and increasingly more excited as there was more Tom Hiddleston on screen ;) I even ended up looking through my old notes and essays from university, which wasn't the best thing to do... But I don't want to get into that now. Anyway...

All of this resulted in me going to the library and bringing half of it home. (Ok, not quite ;) But it looks like I might be getting my reading mojo back. Hopefully :)

As you can see most of my prey consists of Shakespeare: either in English or in Czech or in a bi-lingual mirror edition, translated and commented by Mr Martin Hilský (a reknowned professor of English Literature, whom I had the honour of being taught by for a year or two, long time ago.) Currently I'm getting through the Henry's, i.e. reading the original and cross referencing with the translation if necessary, or if I just feel curious and want to know how Mr Hilský interpreted a particular scene.

I threw in a little cheeky Curious Incident of the Dog on top of that pile just for fun. Don't you just love the feeling of bringing home lots of books and building a lovely pile on your nightstand? :) 

What about you? Are you on friendly terms with the Bard or do you avoid him as much as you can? :) Tell me in comments, I'm excited to read your opinions.

I will see you shortly, with a very exciting announcement :)  x