Mostly Shakespeare

Having a bit of a Shakespeare fest at the moment with one module dedicated to the great man and studying Hamlet in the other.

Having re read Hamlet I still don't like it but this time had much more fun as I imagined David Tennant as Hamlet :) I do think that it would be much more enjoyable if it had been written as a comedy instead of tragedy. Gertrude is a bit of a cow frankly, not becuase she remarries so soon after her husbands death - that bit is more understandable - she would have lost everything if she had not - but she is rubbish at Mothering; calling Hamlet 'fat', not even recognising him in the scene with the gravediggers and also she basically drive Ophelia to suicide and is unfeeling. Just after Hamlet kills Polonius her and Claudius are just like 'oh well'. Also all the 'alas I am dead' makes me giggle. I can imagine my last words 'alas I have been hit by a bus' or 'alas I should have worn my seat belt' - the first one being more likely!!

King Lear on the other hand is much more enjoyable as a tragedy (although I have awful visions of the time I saw a RSC performance with a nude Gandalf!). Although I feel that he is mean - calling his daughter Goneril!! He also has a bit of a Gollum complex - with frequant uses of 'our' in relation to himself.

I also would like to sing the praises of my local library and world cat. Worldcat.org is a database of all books in publication and lists every library that holds a copy. Very useful for tracking books for my dissertation - seems like I will be doing a fair bit of inter library loaning!! However several of the books I were keen to get hold of apparently are in my local library - I wasn't even sure they had much other than Jackie Collins books!