After reading this, did you return to Shakespeare?

[Angie]

Practically the first thing I did after reading this book was to download a free copy of Shakespeare's complete works from gutenberg.org. On again and off again I've read various plays, such as the Merchant of Venice when the Al Pacino movie came out, but this book has really inspired me to make Shakespeare a habit, even if in just little doses.

[Evelyn]

My interest was piqued after reading this book, but I still can't get past the language of the plays. Reading Shakespeare feels like playing the piano with numb fingers. The disconnect leaves me with no personal impact. If I don't understand what's going on, how can I be effected?

I'd be really interested to read Larry's workbooks, but I don't imagine they'd be made available to folks outside of his intended audience. Certainly not to a domestic housewife in New Zealand whose nearest brush with prison was when she accidentally crashed her car into one.

[Angie]

Evelyn wrote: "My interest was piqued after reading this book, but I still can't get past the language of the plays. Reading Shakespeare feels like playing the piano with numb fingers. The disconnect leaves me wi..."

lol! Evelyn, that's hilarious. I also have difficulty with the language. I read it out loud, and listen to it on audio/video. Sometimes, like learning a new language, you have to immerse yourself to pick up the rhythms, accept that you're gonna be lost for while and then one day comprehension just turns on.

I agree that access to the workbooks would be ideal. I've read other books about prison populations and teaching the poor with classical education and I think that the more that mainstream society actually has access to those populations' experiences and perceptions of the world, the better we'll be able to empathize and support them.

best!

[Mark]

Over the years I have listened to Great Courses lecture series on Shakespeare's plays. In college I read many of them. Now when I want my Shakespeare fix, I rent 2 or three performances of them spaced about a decade apart of the same play from Netflix. Then I watch them over one weekend. It is a fun way to see the plays performed in different ways and interpretations. We continue to do that.

[Marguerite]

Having worked as a teacher in a prison, what struck me with this book, was not that the teacher used Shakespeare to talk to inmates (criminals, if you will), but that Shakespeare's plays had enough in them to prompt the inmates to think about their own lives. Think about the gap in time and culture that this represents. It shows how clearly Shakespeare knew people and the cleverness of the teacher in using this format to help inmates look carefully at their own lives. I felt sad that the star inmate, even though he is obviously very smart, was still denied parole. (I think he was, I read this a while ago.)