I was a student at Northwestern University in the late 1970s, and disco was at its peak. I loved what Alec R. Costandinos did: an uptempo rendition of Romeo and Juliet, as only that era could produce. Much of the album was disco instrumental, but I found myself particularly drawn to two passages. I searched our student bookstore for the play, and learned that these passages were exactly the opening sonnets for Act I and Act II. I bought the plays, I enrolled in Shakespeare, and the rest is history. It's been an enduring love affair since.
This week I talk about the three main things I find so compelling about Shakespeare.
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| mystery |
In What poetry is... to me, I mentioned three things: music, brevity and mystery. Shakespeare adds a fourth: form and meter. I cut my teeth on iambic pentameter from him. I have a bent toward poetic thought and spirit, so his plays spoke to me because it was poetry. The hundreds of poems I have written now are predominantly in metered poetry, and I taught myself how to write in a range of forms: from the Shakespearean (English) sonnet as a springboard, to the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet, to the villanelle and sestina, and even ballade.
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