Sunday, October 21, 2007

Dead Rhythm - 11/95

My dearest Shakespeare, you've been dead so long.
And though Othello does astonish me,
I wish that it was dead too, and I wish
your sonnets weren't quite so prevalent
among my English teachers in high school.
If I'd been taught about John Keats instead,
perhaps these lines could be free, not blank verse.

I don't mean to be rude, for I enjoy
your work a lot. I simply mean that I
cannot believe your popularity,
for all this time has passed, and still you're taught.
The language of Macbeth so out of date,
we need a translator, and now they can't
be sure that it was even your own work.

This was an assignment as well, but I always liked the joke involved. I really do like Shakespeare, but what is it that makes him so important?

1 comment:

Edward said...

I still don't really know what makes Shakespeare so important. Maybe the shear size of his oeuvre. Keats, Shelley, and Byron have always been more touching and "spoken" to me, to pun a bit.