So, I haven't yet followed through on my promise to practice creative writing based on my GRE preparation. I spent a good bit of time messing about with the character of Jocasta from Oedipus Rex and intended to write a monologue or poem or something, but it hasn't quite come together. I'm on to Shakespeare now (rather fast-paced through to the Renaissance. It slows down from here). Wednesday, I had the joy of reviewing King Lear. I didn't have time to re-read the entire play, but I did get to review a few of the major monologues, and they're absolutely magnificent. Consider these lines of Lear's, after he and Cordelia are taken captive in the conclusion of the play:
"Come, let's away to prison;
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laughAt gilded butterflies, and hear poor roguesTalk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out; —And take upon's the mystery of things,As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great onesThat ebb and flow by the moon."
The delicate profundity of the humbled king's vision of future happiness reflects the qualities that make Shakespeare unmatchable. It just makes me instantly joyful.
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