The Mission

I am on a mission to read everything that William Shakespeare ever wrote. The more I look into it, the less sure I am exactly how much material that is, but more on that later. The Shakespeare project has been a major focus of mine since this past September, though it actually began a few months before that, and had been something I kind of had in mind for several years now. I’m not counting anything before March of last year, when I read and taught Julius Caesar (neither for the first time). Since then, I have read twenty-two of Shakespeare's thirty-eight canonical plays - more on the canon later too, if you’re wondering.

It started simply enough: I graduated college in 2006 with a Bachelor’s in English and my teaching certification, but what I didn’t have was the feeling that I was terribly well-read. My college had an excellent English program, but for every classic work of literature I did study, I realized that there were dozens more that I hadn’t. Throughout my first four years in education, I’ve become more and more driven to become the best teacher I can be. I may not ever be able to actually know it all (despite my occasional attitude suggesting the contrary), but I am determined to constantly learn as much as I can. I feel very strongly that every book or play that I read helps make me a better English teacher, and – in the well-rounded, man of the world sense – a better person.

I figured that if I was going to expand my knowledge of literature that there was no better place to start than at the top – and that meant Shakespeare. For many people, Shakespeare is the greatest challenge they face as readers. If I could crack that code, I thought, if I could know everything there was to know about Shakespeare, then I could look in the mirror and know that I truly belonged in front of an English classroom.

Operating on the very best of advice (my amazing fiancée’s), I’m going to share my Shakespeare experience here on this blog in a variety of forms. The mission has been going so well, and has really surprised me in that this is no longer simply an item on my long-term to-do-list, instead it is a full-fledged passion, and one I hope might become interactive and interpersonal in this new medium. I appreciate your interest, and I would love to receive your comments, questions, reactions, personal experiences and reviews, or anything else you can think of.

In my next post, I plan to share the details of what I have under my belt so far, what is on my plate right now, and my plan of attack for the rest of Shakespeare’s catalogue.

Until then, best wishes!

Shawn