I finished reading (and listening to) Shakespeare’s As You Like It yesterday, and enjoyed it immensely. I got lost occasionally in the jargon and old idioms of his language, but there were scenes that were positively brilliant. My favorites were the scenes written in blank verse, the lovely flowing five-beat lines that Shakespeare was a master at. Those are scenes I could (and did) read over and over again.
I have also done some serious reading in Wordsworth this summer. While in England, I read almost the complete Prelude, plus many other poems, and fell completely under the spell of his musical lines, but also his visionary outlook on reality. He was a Buddhist, a Taoist, and a true follower of Jesus, without even realizing it.
Dombey and Son is also coming along nicely. I have averaged a chapter per day this summer, doing a few annotations as I go. It’s a strange story (as all Dickens novels are), filled with great light and very deep darkness, but I know the light will win out. (It always does in his books. He and Wordsworth would have had much in common, had they met and talked about philosophical and spiritual matters.)
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