Uncover the intricate dance of love and beauty in Shakespeare's sonnets with Austin Shakespeare's Justin Scalise and Ann Cicolella. As Justin's voice breathes life into Sonnets 18 and 49, we embark on a journey through the complexities of romantic entanglement and the raw emotions that make us quintessentially human. Together, we celebrate the Bard's unrivaled ability to capture the fleeting moments of love, the insecurities that shadow our relationships, and the vivid imagery that remains as poignant today as it was in Elizabethan times.
Step into a world where poetry meets the precision of mathematics, and discover how understanding analogies and comparisons can unlock the deepest meanings of Shakespeare's works. This episode isn't just an auditory experience; it's a masterclass in interpretation, where the elegance of metaphor and the Petrarchan sonnet form come together to reveal insights into intelligence and creativity. As we draw parallels with modern thinkers, we see how the Bard's timeless words can still tap into our collective consciousness.
Finally, join us as we reflect on the transformative power of Shakespeare's sonnets within our personal lives and the theatre community. We delve into the intimate bond between the poet and the Earl of Southampton, finding our own connections across the centuries. We leave you with an enthusiastic appreciation for the sonnets' enduring relevance, encouraged to explore them in the quiet corners of your world or through the voices of actors who continue to bring these works to life. Stay tuned for more poetic adventures that promise to enrich your appreciation for Shakespeare's legacy.
Uncover the intricate dance of love and beauty in Shakespeare's sonnets with Austin Shakespeare's Justin Scalise and Ann Cicolella. As Justin's voice breathes life into Sonnets 18 and 49, we embark on a journey through the complexities of romantic entanglement and the raw emotions that make us quintessentially human. Together, we celebrate the Bard's unrivaled ability to capture the fleeting moments of love, the insecurities that shadow our relationships, and the vivid imagery that remains as poignant today as it was in Elizabethan times.
Step into a world where poetry meets the precision of mathematics, and discover how understanding analogies and comparisons can unlock the deepest meanings of Shakespeare's works. This episode isn't just an auditory experience; it's a masterclass in interpretation, where the elegance of metaphor and the Petrarchan sonnet form come together to reveal insights into intelligence and creativity. As we draw parallels with modern thinkers, we see how the Bard's timeless words can still tap into our collective consciousness.
Finally, join us as we reflect on the transformative power of Shakespeare's sonnets within our personal lives and the theatre community. We delve into the intimate bond between the poet and the Earl of Southampton, finding our own connections across the centuries. We leave you with an enthusiastic appreciation for the sonnets' enduring relevance, encouraged to explore them in the quiet corners of your world or through the voices of actors who continue to bring these works to life. Stay tuned for more poetic adventures that promise to enrich your appreciation for Shakespeare's legacy.
Welcome to Troubadour Talks, and today we're going to be reading and discussing some Shakespeare love sonnets, and I have Justin Scalise and Anne Chakalala of Austin Shakespeare on with me To one. Justin is gonna read a couple of these Shakespeare sonnets and then Anne and I will discuss and help you get more out of them, and hopefully you can share this with your Valentine this year. Okay, so why don't we hop right into a reading, if you don't mind? Justin and everybody just listen, and then we'll discuss a little bit later. So we're gonna be doing sonnet 18 first. Is that correct, justin?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go into sonnet 18. I'm gonna move this to speaker.
Speaker 2:Okay, whenever you're ready sir Justin Shall, I compare thee to a summer's day. Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May and summer's lease hath all too short a date, sometimes too hot. The eye of heaven shines, and often is his gold complexion dimmed, and every fair from fair sometime declines by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed. But thy eternal summer shall not fade, nor lose possession of that fair, thou o'est. Nor shall death brag. Thou wanderst in his shade when, in eternal lines to time, thou growest. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee Beautiful all right, thank you.
Speaker 1:So everybody who's listening again or watching, that's sonnet 18 and we're gonna read one more. Justin is gonna read one more for us, which is, I believe, sonnet 49. And then stick around, because Ann and I will help you unlock these. So if they didn't quite make sense the first time I mean, I've read these many, many times and I'm still always like finding new things so if it's the first time hearing it, totally understandable. Just, you know, like I said, stick around for a few minutes and we will discuss them. But we had a professional actor willing to read this for us so we couldn't pass up that opportunity. So, justin, if you don't mind, that was beautiful, let's hear the next one, which is sonnet 49.
Speaker 2:Against that time, if ever that time come, when I shall see thee frown on my defects, when, as thy love hath cast his utmost sum, called to that audit by advised respects. Against that time when thou shalt strangely pass and scarcely greet me with that sun thine eye, when love converted from the thing it was, shall reasons find of settled gravity. Against that time do I ensconce me here within the knowledge of my own dessert, and this my hand against myself uprear to guard the lawful reasons on thy part to leave poor me. Thou hast the strength of laws. Since why to love? I can allege no cause.
Speaker 1:All right, wonderful, cool. Thank you so much, justin. I just had a curiosity which you know, before you leave which of those two do you prefer? Do you have one?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, they're both fantastic, aren't they? The first I've had in my brain and my heart for many years, so that has a special place with me, and it's perhaps Shakespeare's most famous sonnet, isn't it? The second is maybe a little less familiar to most people, but it's such a pitiful sonnet, but in such a beautiful way. It's so sweet, and I love them both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I'm with you on that one. So the first one, 18, is probably the most famous one. I first learned about sonnets that I read and heard and studied. So yeah, it's more a comment.
Speaker 3:But OK, thank you for doing that. Thank you so much, Justin. It was so great to share that with you. Thank you, Justin.
Speaker 1:All right, see you later, see you next time, ok, everybody. So we are Ann and I are going to discuss 18. So, ann, I'll get started by asking so I think we should do 18 and then 49, because it's in that order and that's how we listen to it. But before we do that, I'd be curious what your favorite one was of those two. Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3:Well, you know, I've always loved against that time. So when we talked about doing this today, I thought I know it's not the happiest Valentine's on it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's definitely more reflective for me personally, my time in life right now.
Speaker 3:But I think it is so touching. I think Shakespeare is speaking so truthfully. Yeah, and every. Well, I don't know about everybody, but many people have experienced concern that, yeah, the person loves me today, but in the future are they going to love me the same way? And there's a little bit of like, if you really know me, or if I mess up or something, then then you won't love me the way you love me today. So it's that. I guess it's really insecurity, but it's very truthful.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of lovers, even confident people, feel a little bit of insecurity. So we'll talk about that specifically when we get to it, but I I agree with you that one is very touching and powerful. I do have a special preference for 18 because that's when I that's one of the. I took a course a long time ago where they talked about poetry and this is one of the first ones they did, and it really helped me to understand what poetry is and what poetic thinking is, and I think it's a really good example of starting and discussing or understanding the value of poetry in our everyday lives and in our thinking.
Speaker 3:So I'm glad to hear you say that. I mean, I was thinking about just poetry, big picture today, and part of the reason why these poems are so beautiful is because they have the analogy to images, right. And one of the things I thought about was you know, here we are in Austin, texas, but some are in England is really quite spectacular because of the contrast, because you're waiting. You're waiting for the summer and it's cold for so long, and some people in other parts of the country probably know that. So you, you just have that up for a second. But shake the darling buds of May. You know the wind shakes the buds. I mean that's so great and and summer is short, right, summers lease has all too short a date in Austin Texas. A summer has all too long a day.
Speaker 3:We have summer till the end of over something. Yeah but what? What would you like to say, kirk?
Speaker 1:No, I agree wholeheartedly with that. I think the thing that I learned from this poem and so that, to the audience, one of the things we want to accomplish today is to help you unlock this poem and the other poem, which I think will help you unlock all poems and the thing and the all Shakespeare's poem and I think, and the thing you were focusing on In the analogies is really helpful. So that's how. That's how I started unlocking. It is like trying to understand what are, what is he comparing? Because poetry, when it's to me at its best, is About comparisons primarily. It's. It could be a trait, an idea, something, but you're comparing two different or maybe even three or four different things, but you're comparing different things and you're you're kind of combining them in ways that you wouldn't normally think to combine them. So let me pop this up here for a minute again.
Speaker 3:I guess I want to say something about. When I asked the question to myself to explore what is intelligence, the answer that I ultimately came up with was it was seeing similar things and something that seems dissimilar. So you're comparing a person to a time of year, right yeah, and really thinking. You know Shakespeare really thinks about it. So I find that fantastic. What were you gonna say, kirk?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean. So I was gonna bring that up as well. So I think we're on the same page, which is awesome, because I remember watching an interview with Elon Musk and he talked about two different types of fundamental intelligence, which I think the first one was first principles, and it's the idea of being able to basically think philosophically and really get down like Dig away with what's inessential to this thing and what's the most important first principle to build something on. But the other kind he I think he mentions this as well is analogistic, or analogistic thinking, where you're thinking in analogies, because that's exactly what you're talking about, and I find that there's really smart people who can. They have the more scientific, logic based Mind, they can cut away and think in first principles, but unfortunately they do tend to be terrible at metaphors and Figurative language and, in other words, integration, which is really critical for actual thinking.
Speaker 1:I don't think you're thinking if you're not finding similarities between dissimilar, seemingly dissimilar things. What's this? What's the similarity between a man and loneliness and a cloud? And there's a poem I wanted lonely as a cloud that only a poet can do that, and you need to think like that. And here we have a Woman comparing a woman to a summer's day, and he has all these different things that he's breaking it down to. So he said and this poem is so great for this example of Analogies, of metaphors, because it starts off with a question, which is how I think a lot of thinking begins shall I compare the you to a summer's day? Okay, well, he's gonna do it. And he says you are more lovely and more temperate. So, okay, so you're. He's already saying you like, you are better and you're more temp, like your temperature, your weather, your, your system is better than a summer's day. Now, and you pointed this out and this is very critical you have to think not Texas summer day, that would, because when I hear this in Texas I'm like you go buff, like get out of here. No way, this is terrible, because I hate Texas summers and there's very few people I know who love them.
Speaker 1:And then you know he goes on rough winds do shake the barling darling buds of May and summer's lease have to all too short a date and this. So again he's using his comparisons of Elise, which you know. Again, you sign a contract for Elise, like on a rental unit, and he's saying it's not long enough and Rough winds do. So he's actually what is he doing here? He's Criticizing a beautiful summer, right, he's saying like you're more lovely. And then he goes into like here's what summer. It has problems with it. And so he also says sometimes it's too hot in summer, right, and often is this goal, it dims like it's. Things are dying in the summer, right, and every fair from fair sometimes it's always declining in the summer by chance or nature is changing course, untrimmed. And then he says but thy each, then he says, your eternal summer shall not one of the things I wanted to make sure we emphasize today.
Speaker 3:Kirk was the mathematical construction of every sonnet.
Speaker 3:So, Shakespeare is writing here in a, in what's called the protrusions style, which is 14 lines. So every sonnet is 14 lines, and then it breaks into eight lines, four lines and two lines. So the first eight lines is sort of setting up the issue, as as Kirk explained. But the second Four are gonna be doing the exception. But your eternal summer will not fade. So that's that second four. Nor lose possession of that fair, thou o'est, nor shall death brag, thou wand'rous. So death isn't gonna brag when you die, because when an eternal lines to time thou growest. So this idea of if I write a sonnet for you, that's good enough, it's going to make you live forever.
Speaker 3:And this was not original with Shakespeare. This was very much in the Elizabethan period and that idea that the poem would be the way in which you would live. But I do also want to say these were personal poems, right, it was Shakespeare in the beginning writing to the story of a young man. And then we have that indentation, so the last couplet, we get a rhyme, c and V, and we get the so long, so long as men shall breathe, their eyes can see, so long lives. This, the poem, and this gives life to thee. So it's great also with I amic pentameter, which is how this is written. To look at the last words in line. So you can really get sort of day, temperate, may, date, shines, dimmed, declines, untrimmed, bade, oast that's like oest oast, shade grossed, get grossed, and oest and C and V. So that's kind of fun, but I want to make sure we got that.
Speaker 3:14 lines eight, four and two, and we'll see that at our next poem as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's important and I think also the when in eternal lines to time thou growest. You said that was an Elizabethan. I think that's just a writer's conceit, like a great writer's conceit, cause Homer says the same kind of thing Like yeah, there are. So there's just something about like I'm Homer is gonna. The reason we know about Achilles and Odysseus is because of Homer and even I think he kind of knows that and I think Shakespeare recognizes his own greatness and he's kind of almost transferring it to the beautiful woman and in a sense it's let's think about time here, when Homer's a Greek and he's writing in the classical sort of Greek theory.
Speaker 1:He's writing really early.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 11th century BC 11th century, no no 8th century.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry he's writing about the 11th century in the 8th century BC.
Speaker 3:So Great, so that's closer.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Closer to the AD of BC, but this is going to be say about 1600 AD.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So poems and poets really believe that they're gonna live through time. You know, we're dealing with a time where people are winning the Grammy Awards and some of that music may live. Will it live that long?
Speaker 1:400 years? I doubt it. I don't believe so. I'm sorry, I don't think so.
Speaker 3:Somebody's gotta do something, but this is an amazing poem.
Speaker 1:We'll find out.
Speaker 3:So thank you, Kirk, for having it, putting it up and letting us talk about it today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, thank you. I mean I think so just for the listener. Hopefully you had enough to kind of unlock a little bit. The key is to just kind of read through it more over and over again and get a feel for it. But it's really a beautiful love poem, so it's one that you'll find on any list of great love poems. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day. It's almost a cliche, but I would say because it's so popular. But I would say that you can't go wrong with reading this to your lover or sending it to them in a little note.
Speaker 3:Right, so you can send it as an email, send it as a text message, but sending it in your handwriting. You don't have to make the lead if you wrote it. But there's something special about your handwriting, as long as they understand what they're reading. And if you have the courage to either make a little video of yourself or maybe do a voice, a dictation, audio, that's an even more intimate way to do it, and it takes courage to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's, I mean this is. I think I'm in love with being in love to Cinder Creek, because I do love doing that kind of thing writing little love notes, little love songs and sonnets and things like that to your lover, and I think that for Valentine's Day even if you're not the type of person who could do this regularly, but it's a time when you can have a good excuse to give it a shot. And if you wanna look even better to your lover, then I would say maybe even add after you say it, after you read, just give it to them or recite it, or, before bed, even have a printed just kind of whatever, right. However, you wanna figure out how to do it and then even have like a one or two line like thing that you can say about what you think it means and why that means that this person means that, that you think this person is more lovely than the Darling Buds of May being shaken by, and maybe you can shake some Darling Buds of May after that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that's great and I you know it's always difficult what to get somebody for Valentine's Day, and you know roses, or you know that's when they're on sale and everybody's spending a lot of money on roses. But if you got something like roses and added this, that would make a big difference. That wouldn't be typical. So, kirk, you were saying you don't think it's hard to get a Valentine's.
Speaker 1:Day. No, I'm just being silly, but I think it is silly that it's so difficult for people to find something. You know it's not that difficult, like no, you just need to know your person and listen to them and, you know, find creative ways in to express your love for that person, which means you have to actually think about what you love about that person. Right, like I don't know. I've never found it. I understand people feel I'm kind of joking. I understand people do find this difficult. I've just never found it difficult. I find it fun and enjoyable. But that's just me. What are you?
Speaker 3:gonna do Well. Shall we go from the bright to the dark?
Speaker 1:Yes, which you know well. Yeah, I'll just say this is one that definitely touched me right now, against that time, if ever that time come oh man, often that time does seem to come. Hopefully it doesn't come this Valentine's Day for you. Hopefully this is something that doesn't happen. But there is a feeling I think most you know you said this a lot of people would feel this way, but maybe not everybody. You had like a kind of restraint in that, but I would.
Speaker 1:I believe it's true it doesn't happen with everybody, but this feeling would happen to any true lover, any true lover who really loves somebody. No matter how confident you are, there has to be a moment, a sliver of a second, that a dream that happens at some point in your relationship, when you start to think, wow, if you're actually with somebody you should be with, which is somebody who's you love and you're not settling or compromising or something like that, like it's someone you really are striving for and it's an outstretched arm type of love, then this is a natural thing to feel. I was like, oh my God, what is this person with me? I'm gonna lose this person. What do I gotta do to? And I think, how we react to that what we do is really important.
Speaker 3:That's another thing. So tell us about frown on my defects. How does that mean to you, frown on my defects?
Speaker 1:I shall see the frown. So, yeah, there's an idea or there's something with, I can't remember the old proverb off the top of my head I wish I had it like proximity breeds disdain, or something like that, and the idea that the closer you get to somebody, the more reality that there is in it, the more easily it is to see their defects. So often at the beginning part of a relationship, you're kind of romanticizing, you have this glowy image of the person and then you're sleeping with them and I mean that in all terms. You're spending day and night with them and you're like this person is doing this is really annoying. This person breeds really heavily.
Speaker 1:When they're eating and they're just all these things, you're like, ah, and then it just it's a weird feeling and sometimes you can even make it like, oh, that's very cute the way they do that at first, but then it gets annoying and when you are in your own head as a person, you can feel those defects yourself, you can recognize them and then you can see how does this person not see me as gross right now, and someday they will, because I see myself as kind of gross at them. What does it mean to you?
Speaker 3:Well, when you first go with a person, you usually with them for short periods of time. Similarly to what you were thinking, you go on a date, you go to dinner, you go to the movies and then you start to spend that first time that you just don't wanna let go.
Speaker 3:So you're spending the night together, you're spending the weekend together, and then eventually, you may spend longer periods of time together when it doesn't seem so special, and maybe it's a week, or in the beginning it is very special and then eventually you might, as you say, see some things or hear something that it's just like, hmm, that's not the greatest, so, but there's a profoundness in this poem. I mean, it's really like losing that person. It's not just a little thing that's annoying. It's there. You're gonna walk by them. They're not even gonna look at you.
Speaker 1:Yeah and well so okay. So first off, let's look at the poem in the way that you mentioned it earlier. So you said what is it? 842? Right is the breakdown 842.
Speaker 1:So in the first eight lines, we have one, two, three, four, five. So it stops with the when love, right, Let me pop this up. So what is he saying here in this whole section? So, yeah, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Shao Shao reasons find. So he's talking about so auditing. I'm seeing things about auditing, which is, I think, what you're saying so like. The question is, how do you get to the point where they walk past you without looking at you, right? So it's like an accounting and it's like, oh, you've come up overdue and you're all in the red, you're out of here, right, but called to that audit by advised respects. So it's like you're advising yourself, your lover advises themself like this is not the person I wanna be with Against that time. And now Shao strangely passed and scarcely greet me with the sun, dianna, this is sad when love converted from that. But, like Shao, reasons find of settled gravity, so it'll become so settled. That's why I'm here. Like this will become so solidified.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's done, it's serious. And notice we get three against the time that's so harsh, those three parallel structures. And the third one is on that change. He says now I do, and sconce me, here I'm putting my hand up. Some people think this is swearing, which I think it is, because you get to guard that lawful and it's like look, you have every right to walk past me, but I don't know why you love me. I mean that like I don't know why you love me.
Speaker 1:That's the heartbreaking but since you're talking about the last line.
Speaker 3:It's why, to love, I can't allege no cause.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah. So yeah, I mean this, this one is very sad, but it's so one, you know, sticking with the settled gravity, I think that's a feeling, of feeling that a lot of us have had. I definitely have had it where it's like OK, you, it's when you really start to solidify in your mind that this is done, done, like it's done, so done.
Speaker 3:Or they're done with you.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean by done yes, like they're done with you. Yeah, so it could be where you're done with them. But I think that's a different feeling, that's a different experience than this. This is when you're on the other side. This is this guy is expecting to get broken up with, not doing the breaking up. That's what to say.
Speaker 1:Breaking up is easy to do, the breaking up for whatever reasons, because you still might lingering feelings, but this is a different feeling. This is the feeling of I've been deserted. I'm in which, I'm also in the desert. So it's loneliness. I'm all by myself. There's no oasis, there's no water. I'm starving, you know, dying of thirst out here.
Speaker 1:And then I, like what you said, I didn't think about that, the like. You do have a right. I'll defend you and your right to do this, even though I don't agree with it and it makes me sad. And I'm here but to guard the lawful reasons on your part, like, I will guard those and they are lawful reasons. So it's your law that you've come up with. I, even though I don't want this, this is, I'll defend it. And then you know I do. Yeah, that last line is something that, again, any lover has felt is like any lover. Again, I want to stress to me that the idea of the lover, of being with someone who is a stretch for you which I think we should all be with someone like that in our minds right, someone that you it's it's not a going down in the muck to find a lover, it's going up into someone. That's that makes you become a better person.
Speaker 3:Very poetic. I think you might consider a poem that that effect. That's really good. Um, I guess I did want to say today I don't want to blow anybody's, you know, thoughts of using this poem for themselves. Yeah, I did want to say when Shakespeare writes the sonnets and he writes the sonnets to be read, you know I'm a Shakespeare play person, so I always think, always writing the plays to be said, yeah, the poems he's writing to be read and they're not for the public, they're for one person.
Speaker 3:And one of the things here is the approximate ages here is he's in his late 20s, 28, 29, 30, through the poems and the the we think Southampton who he wrote them for is 18, 19, 20. So that makes your mind a little crazy. You're like trying to picture that works out. But I do think it's wonderful to do what we're doing, which is to really look at them personally. For us, but it's also fascinating because sometimes when I'm reading the sonnets, I picture Shakespeare so much older. You know, you have that image of him balding and he has the long hair at the sides and you know, I think of him as 40, 50, and he's not I mean. But of course, as we know, time was different and lifespans were different and so on. Yeah, but he's writing to a beautiful young man, at least for the first. You know 127 poems, 127 poems. And then he switches to this dark lady of the sonnets and we don't know who she is.
Speaker 3:So maybe another time, even around Valentine's, we can kind of look at some of the dark lady sonnets. Well, I'd love to go through all the sonnet.
Speaker 1:They're fascinating. I think it's definitely a worthwhile project for you, a listener, to go through these. But I think, and what you're saying, that all stress is just the idea For me of art is, you know, you could study it and read it and enjoy it from a almost an academic standpoint. But these are not meant to be academic hondorings. There is something very real and that's what I'm trying to stress with bringing my own personality and my own personal experiences with it where I've definitely felt this and I bet you have too and when you read it to yourself, it's and it's meant to be read that way.
Speaker 1:It's not meant to be necessarily done on stage, like you're saying, anne, where it's you, there's a stage, people walk in, they maybe have some wine throughout the audience and then everyone hushes and then they read this, they hear this like private saying now, those could be fun, but just for the most part, this is something you're supposed to just sit in your room, you know, sit in your house somewhere and just kind of read to yourself.
Speaker 1:Just just could think read it, preferably out loud, but even in your head, it doesn't matter, but just kind of read it a couple of times and really sit with this idea over and over again and think about how it applies to you and, I think, for me. One of the reasons it's interesting to learn about the historical aspect is to see, even if it's, even though it's applied, what six, 500 something years ago from a 30 year old man to an 18 year old kid, you know, guy, that it still applies to me, a 38 year old man and a 34 year old woman. It's the same type of thing at this, exact same experience, and just a different format, and it's that's what makes it universal and that's what makes it so powerful.
Speaker 3:Another thing I'd like to suggest I don't know if you seen them, but there's lots of YouTube videos really good ones, there are some not so good ones, but of people reading the poems. And Ian McKellen during COVID yeah, Every day read a sonnet. Wait, wait, wait. Patrick Stewart Was it Patrick Stewart. Yeah, it was. Yeah, not even McKellen, although, ian.
Speaker 1:McKellen. I'm sure he's read some of these before Right. I'm sure there's recording. There are women reading them as well. You know wonderful actors.
Speaker 3:I, during COVID, I got three of my sonnet books out that have an annotation on them, so they tell you about them and so on. So I suggest that you consider doing that. The sonnets, as we said, are only 14 lines long, but they're really rich and they will. They will make your life richer.
Speaker 1:Well, they'll make your love richer too as well, like your life, especially your love. And I think you know I try to always make this argument to people who aren't romantic, literary people or they don't see themselves that way that Okay, so fine, you don't have to spend as much time as I, or and would spend with these, but Valentine's Day is a great excuse to do it. Just once a year, read one or two of these sonnets Once a year. And now again I want to stress, read it like five, six, seven, eight, nine times. Get a dictionary out, get one of those books and just bust it out once a year. And just read a new one with your lover once a year, and if you don't have a lover, read it by yourself.
Speaker 1:Read a sad one like this about you not having a lover. This is the one I'll be reading. So that's what you need to do. Just to add a little bit of this, because it will enhance your life and your experience, so much it takes you on and a journey that you can't get any other way. There's just no other way than the literary journey, and that's the value of it, and I think, especially if you're a first principles, logical thinker. This is a great thing to to expand your abilities to be a better thinker overall. You need to have both first principles and metaphoric thinking.
Speaker 1:So, anything else on these poems.
Speaker 3:The only thing I wanted to say before we leave is behind me I put up the projection of the curtain theater. So there are eleven replicas of a Shakespeare theater in America. One is in, like Odessa, texas, but we have one in Austin, and what you're looking at in this image is actually the audience. But the audience sits in these galleries and they look at the Actors. And we are gonna do two shows there this summer One for teenagers, with the teenagers will an actress in the third and the other will be a free production of Romeo and Juliet. So there's nothing more romantic or sad.
Speaker 1:Depending on how you look at it. I guess like the journey when you walk out or something, feel I don't want to see this ending and just enjoy the whole.
Speaker 3:Enjoy the love Talk about Romeo and Juliet as a comedy in the first half and it's kind of crazy. Yeah, then of course it takes a Time yeah, although no spoilers, just kidding.
Speaker 1:If you don't know that then you should. But yeah, so I've been to the this theater, the curtain theater, several times. It's gorgeous even in the summer, so I know summer gets hot, but one of the nice things about this is like it's right on the lake so you do actually get a nice summer breeze. So it tends to be a little cool, like slightly cooler in that area, but it's. It's such a great experience to be in that that scene, to walk around. They have like a little medieval glass wine, yeah, I'll have a glass of
Speaker 1:wine, have fun with your friends. But you know I've first time I went to this I think I brought like 35 people and we came and saw one and just kind of sit up in the audience Hang out. It's. It's a really fun experience and I'm looking forward to it. And I just want to make a pitch for the young Shakespeare one thing I've seen. I'm going to that as one. I think you'd be surprised the quality. I know you think young Shakespeare the amateurs, it's true, but they're, they're working very hard. That's a good performance. And if you have kids, especially little kids I don't have any kids, but just seeing little kids there, they pay attention because it's kids. So it's a great way to expose your children To Shakespeare because and then you can have a conversation with them about Shakespeare. Maybe buy a you know, I don't know if Anne has recommendations for like a child kids Shakespeare book or something that you can go home and read. Richard the third.
Speaker 3:Richard the third is yeah, it's Richard the third. But I will say have you ever read the Charles and Mary lamb Hales from Shakespeare? Oh yeah, love it.
Speaker 3:Okay so they're a brother and sister, charles and Mary lamb, late 19th century, and they wrote many Shakespeare. I don't know if there's 20 something. The place in prose. Okay, a little bit of a project, but it's. They're very well done and that's how I got to be interested in Shakespeare in grammar school. I think I must have been maybe sixth grade or it's somewhere in there but that's how tales from Shakespeare, charles and Mary lamb.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, put it in the comments, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tales from Shakespeare, charles and Mary lamb. Okay, I'll check it out.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, this was so much fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think, you.
Speaker 1:Of course. It's always fun and hopefully we'll do a whole bunch. Maybe one day I can convince you to do a series. We'll start with one and we'll do it in person and we'll just All right, everybody. Thank you so much for joining in and we'll see you next time. Bye.