It Sufficeth Me to Say...

I absolutely loved The Tempest. There some parts in it, that were, I thought, quite beautiful. For example, in the beginning when Prospero is explaining how much of a blessing Miranda has been in his life:

"Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile

 Infused with a fortitude from heaven."

Really. How precious is that. 

I particularly like the theme of forgiveness in the play. Prospero's character, at the beginning, seemed bitter of his situation. But as the play develops, you see that he realizes he's been blessed to raise his daughter away from the court life, but also his grudge against his brother, the king, etc. has deteriorated over time. I love that character progression. It shows humanity. Looking past all the extravagance, the sorcery, the romanticism of it all, there is a life lesson. Compared to the other plays I've read of Shakespeare, which is actually a limited number AND was back in high school, I never really got that much out of it. I fell in love with Romeo and Juliet by watching Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet. And it wasn't really because of the story. It was because of the way it was portrayed.

But actually reading this play on its own, without a visual interpretation, was a new experience. One that I thoroughly enjoyed.

On a side note, as I was reading this, a lot of pop culture references popped up into my head. And they didn't really relate, but I'm going to share one of them with you anyways. I thought of it when I read one of Ariel's songs, in Act I, Scene II. He says:

"The watchdogs bark."

"Bow-wow."

So when I first read that, I immediately thought of Brian Regan. I don't know whether Shakespeare is the reason why we use "Bow-wow" to describe a dog's bark, but I like to think that he did.

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, here's the video. :]