Tragedies get all the Attention

But isn't that life? We'll get back to that.

Last Saturday, I attended the Fifth Annual Mango Writers Conference and most of the titles of the lecture were Shakespearean references. I loved it! Who was the most tragic? Lear, Othello, Macbeth? He performed from Othello and it was excellent. By the time we were at Terse Verse, even more quotes from Shakespeare such as Midsummer Night's Dream. Yet, I failed to hear my favorite quote:

If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken and so die. --

The opening speech of Twelfth Night is the most beautiful for me. It was a comedy and love story. I knew about it the same way that I learnt Midsummer Night's Dream through my high school in Jamaica, Wolmer's Girls High School, as we spent the second year with Midsummer Night's Dream and the third year with Twelfth Night. I read some of my sister's plays, Merchant of Venice and Macbeth. (Yet I digress...)

Let's go back to last Saturday where I learnt a lot such as some of the later writers and movies quote Shakespeare. I learnt about Tolkien and Lewis Carroll quoting Shakespeare. I even found out about Star Trek too. So move over Simpsons (who quoted the poet Poe) as Shakespeare seems to be the most quoted writer in the world.

Now let's get back to that!

Do tragedies really get all the attention? I didn't know much about Othello nor Lear, who they held as dear as Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet but the tragic reigned supreme last weekend. Although A Midsummer Night's Dream was mentioned, there wasn't any The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew or Twelfth Night. The focus was mainly the tragedies especially the villains. As an audience, we seem to pay attention to villains. But isn't that life? So we claim when we viewers watch reality shows and give higher ratings to those who act badly.

Maybe the audience needs someone to root against, I don't know but what plays of Shakespeare do you like? Also, do you root for or against the villain? Let me know and place your comments below.

 In the meantime, here's three poems from my upcoming book, Seventieth Avenue: