Last night a friend of mine remarked on how amazing she found the fact that I loved Shakespeare despite English not being my first language. It got me to thinking about how this great affection for Shakespeare had begun. I was lucky that the first couple of works of his that I had been introduced to, at the time when I knew next to nothing about literature, were some of the works that today I still cherish as some of his best: "Twelfth Night," "Much Ado About Nothing," and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona." These are all comedies, and I like them because they show off what I consider to be what Shakespeare does best: clever dialogues, lively characters, and compelling love stories.
My least favorite of Shakespeare plays were ones about war and conspiracy. Two months ago I read "The Merchant of Venice" and it reminded me why I had ever started liking him in the first place--the comedies always have a higher place in my heart. This month I read "The Winter's Tale" which was categorized as a "Romance," along with "Pericles," "Cymbeline," and "The Tempest." It was written later in his career, and was consistently entertaining. The story is about a jealous king who accuses his queen of having an affair with his friend, ending up destroying that friendship and losing his wife and child. The main themes are guilt and forgiveness--can a man be cleansed of his crime if he washed it with guilt, and is it ever too late to forgive others and to forgive oneself?
Nothing extremely tragic really happens in this play. It is a beautiful little tale, rather lighthearted. While I don't consider it once of the Bard's best, I found it a great fun to read. It also seems like a good play to see on stage. There are very few of Shakespeare plays that I don't think people have to read before going to see it, and this is one of them. What a joy it would be to sit back and watch this story unfold in front of you--somebody produce this in Portland soon, please!
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