I hate Shakespeare.

The above statement is in reality very untrue, but I put it there for A) a little inside humor for any in my class who find it to be such, and B) by putting that as my first statement, I've lowered expectations of what you will find in this lovely blog. Although I just kind of ruined it.

While I could jump right into what I find interesting in the works of Shakespeare, I should give a little history so that obvious influences can be made known, and thus you'll have a higher tolerance of my clear biases--what I without effort find awesome and what I have had to learn to love. My earliest conscious memory/experience of a full Shakespearean play is Henry V. I was a bit of a shadow to one of my older brothers, and he happened to be in AP English when I was in my later elementary school years. He rented the Kenneth Branagh version (superb, although I don't have much to compare it to) from the library, and I of course ended up watching it with him. More than once. At the time (and by at the time I mean I still do) I very much enjoyed medieval anything, so an inspirational story of ragtag British knights overcoming a larger, better armored French army naturally caught my interest. Of course I had exposure to general story lines and main characters of other Shakespeare plays (i.e. Romeo and Juliet), but until I saw Henry V, I thought his plays were naught but popular stories.

Skipping basically all detail and many years, I come to now. I thoroughly enjoy Shakespeare (when I'm up to reading it, I should add). Whether it be his crassy material, loaded-with-punnery insults or the monologue-ical moral inquiries (forgive me for making words up), there is good to be found in all of what I am familiar with, and I am certain with those I haven't read yet.