Yup, Greenblatt is a Shakespeare junkie. There is always a road back to the Bard. How, you ask? Romeo and Juliet is an exploration or Petrarchan love themes, especially in the way they speak to each other in (and complete each other‘s) sonnets.
#youknowyoureanerdwhen #shakespeare #petrarch #stephengreenblatt #theswerve
GingerAntics @readinginthedark @merelybookish has the #shakespearereadalong read R&J yet? lol I wrote a paper on this once. I could be unintentionally insufferable. It might save everyone if that happened before I came along. lol 6y
merelybookish @GingerAntics I don't think we've read it, but Hannah has the master list. 6y
GingerAntics @merelybookish oh there‘s a master list. That sounds fancy and very secret society. (Clearly I‘ve been reading too much of the swerve already) 😂 I want to say I remember it being mentioned at some point, but I can‘t remember if someone wanted to read it or if someone was saying it had already been read. I guess we‘ll have to wait and see what Hannah says. 🤷🏼♀️ 6y
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merelybookish @GingerAntics Yes, we are very secret. Hence our use of social media. ? I think it has been floated as a possibility, but it's never been picked. Maybe because everyone has some familiarity with it already. But I think the goal is to eventually read them all, so if you said "Let's read R&J!" People would be one board. 6y
GingerAntics @merelybookish don‘t forget our use of secret, coded hashtags!!! 😂 That could be it. It probably makes sense to put that more toward the end of the plays we read since it‘s almost a cliche high school reading assignment at this point. 6y
readinginthedark @GingerAntics @merelybookish ? You two are so funny! The "master list" is just me flipping through my list of books I've read in the last couple of years. But no, we haven't read Romeo and Juliet yet. To be honest, I've been avoiding it because I hated that one in high school. But maybe I'd enjoy it more so long as no one's trying to convince me it's the perfect love story? I do love Mercutio! 6y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark I generally hate how it‘s made out to be a fable for what happens when teenagers don‘t listen to their parents. 🙄 I had A LOT of fun with this in grad school when we spend 40 minutes picking apart Romeo and how he was a total flake!!! 😏 I think it‘s better when you avoid the cliches. I did learn some interesting things about the sonnets in this play for my final paper, too. 🤷🏼♀️ 6y
readinginthedark That's cool! I love the sonnets. We might have to read those, too, when we get through all the plays...in five years. 😅 6y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark I would love a group read of the narrative poems. I read the sonnets, but got tipped up on the narrative poems. There aren‘t natural stopping points (scenes, acts) like the plays, so I felt like I needed to read the whole thing at once which is of course impossible with their length. R&J has a bunch of sonnets as dialogue between R&J, where they complete each other‘s couplets and things. The form hails back to Petrarch. 6y
readinginthedark Yeah, I watched one of those Great Courses lectures on when Shakespeare uses poetry versus prose in his plays--pretty fascinating stuff, although I'm not sure I could quote any of it! 6y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark I couldn‘t either. I remember writing the paper. I remember giving a presentation. For the life of me I can‘t find the bloody paper. 6y
readinginthedark 😆 Isn't that always how it goes? 6y
GingerAntics @readinginthedark sadly, yes. I know it where somewhere. I kept all my papers as instructed. (Never know what you‘re going to need a writing sample.) 6y
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