At the beginning of the year I decided to read all comedies by Shakespeare.
Shakespeare wrote approximately 14 comedies.
I say approximately because scholars are not agreed upon the category to which certain plays belong.
I also decided to read books by authors who wrote during the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th century in England.
I also wanted to read all the poems by Sylvia Plath in the book Ariel and write about each poem.
In addition, I also uploaded reading lists of PhD programs in English literature from a few universities.
If I were to reflect on my path I would say I read four comedies by Shakespeare and I wrote a few essays about the characters in each play and also other themes in each play.
The first play I read was The Merry Wives of Windsor. I read the play and wrote one essay about the story of the play.
The other plays I read were Merchant of Venice, All's well that end's well, and A Winters Tale.
I wrote character sketches of Portia, and Shylock and an essay on the theme of Anti Semitism.
After reading the play A Winter's Tale I wrote character sketches of Perdita, the Shepherd and Shepherd's son.
I wanted to write about the theme of class consciousness in this play but did not.
I wanted to write about the theme of supernaturalism but did not. Not sure if supernaturalism is a word.
I made a speech in Toastmasters club about how to read a play by Shakespeare.
While preparing this speech I realized that I went on several tangential, small, intellectual journeys lead by curiosity and interest in a topic or author.
The first journey was caused by an interest in reading scholarly studies about each play in addition to the text of the play.
I was so immersed in the world of Shakespeare and the plays are so rich in characters, themes and plots that I really wanted to know about a more scholarly point of view on each play.
In each book I read, there was an essay which was about some aspects of the play titled --A modern Perspective.
I read the Modern Perspective essays on each play.
Yet I wished I could read a book by some great author on Shakespeare.
That is when I stumbled upon an author known as Samuel Johnson.
He had written a book about Shakespeare.
In addition, he belonged to the 18th century.
His perspective would be so valuable, I thought.
I could not find the book written by Samuel Johnson on Shakespeare.
Reading plays by Shakespeare helped me understand Greek mythological characters and ideas more.
I made a list or mental note of every allusion to Greek mythology and googled the references to greek mythological characters or concepts so my knowledge grew in this area. Another small journey.
One day, I was just browsing the library shelves and came across an author called Francine prose.
The name was familiar.
She was an author who was featured in a book about women writers given to me by my parents.
She is a contemporary author so does not belong to the 15th through 18th century British authors.
But I borrowed a book by her.
The title of this book is Reading like a Writer.
In this book I rediscovered the concept of Close Reading which is the title of the first chapter of her book.
The best part was when I tried to find more info about close reading from the internet and I found lots of ideas on close reading by school children. Yet another journey.
Close Reading helps you to optimize the benefits that can accrue to you through reading.
Discovering the book by Francine Prose launched me into yet another journey.
I realized that I had read the book given to me by my parents diligently but had not read the works of the authors featured in the book.
So I decided to read at least one book by each author included in the book featuring women writers.
This gave me a ready made reading list.
Last week I visited a bookstore and ordered a book written by an author featured in that book.
The name of the author is Nancy Willard.
I finished reading all the poems in the book Ariel but did not write about all of them.
I looked up the PhD program reading lists but did not follow up on that.
In conclusion I would like to say that my reading journey has been extremely rewarding.
I grew in wisdom.
I increased my knowledge base.
My mental horizons broadened.
My reading generated speech topics.
Thank You!
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