Published 2013 (audio version, the one I’ve used; print
edition published 2012).
Imagine yourself at the Globe to
see a Shakespeare play, preferably Hamlet (my favourite…). Keep on imagining
standing among the crowd, quite near the stage, on a rainy evening. You look around and see people from all walks
of life, from different countries and cultures, all mesmerized by the Bard's
words...almost 400 hundred years later. Imagine laughing so heartily with the rest of
the audience, practically falling off your wooden chair. The actors are
absolutely amazed and unbelieving at the rapturous applause they receive. You cheer them to the rafters. You start to have an inkling of how audiences of
Shakespeare's own time must have received his plays. My reading of Shakespeare makes
me “re-live” stuff like these. I feel his writing will allow me to deepen my own
self-knowledge as well.
Just like water heated to 50º
degrees does not increase the caloric intake, human thought peaks, in certain
Men, to the highest intensity. Shakespeare, Rilke, Hölderlin, Celan, Kafka, Bach, Heine
represent the 50º degrees of genius. In each century two or three undertake the
ascension. From down below, we attempt the daunting task of following them.
These Men climb the mountain with great difficulty, they penetrate the clouds,
they vanish, and they reappear. They’re spied upon by us mere mortals.
What they do is was so very, very
good at doing what they did, and they did so much of it so well that it really
is quite unbelievable. Their work is so
good that many people do not believe that they were not touched by the Gods
themselves. This is particularly true with Shakespeare. Some do not believe he
alone wrote all the plays that are attributed to him, but the fact is that
he almost certainly did do so, as hard as it can be to believe when you study
Shakespeare. Potter’s intertextual
reading of his works shows that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Some creative people
have been so far beyond their own time that they haven't always been
completely understood during the years that they lived. Bach, for instance, was a person like
this. His work just sounds finished in a
way that other works are not. It's difficult to describe, but even people who
don't know much about music recognize that there is something special about
what Bach did. You can feel it in your
bones. Shakespeare works the same way.
The fact that the language has changed a good deal since Shakespeare's time
makes it more difficult for me to see that at first, but with
some pointers, I can clear away the confusion caused by that to
recognize that his work is finished and special in that same way. Shakespeare holds up a literary
mirror to the face of humanity and has forced us all to stare into its reality. That's what special about Shakespeare. For
those of us who like
to dabble in writing stuff, Shakespeare shows what genius
can do with words and characters and situations. His works are just overflowing with
fantastic little titbits laying around to enjoy, but
it does
require that I know what it is that I’m looking at, and for that, sometimes
I need the guidance of someone who already knows how
to do it. And that’s where Potter’s glimpse into the mind of Shakespeare comes
in. What a wonderful “read” it was. How fortunate I am, and how grateful, that I was able to find this book. Potter was able to open up some of the most
profound thoughts and meditations on Being that have ever seen/heard recorded
regarding Shakespeare. Once again, that most comforting and energising
feeling that "I am not alone" when I read (or listen to) Shakespeare. Potter
draws upon prior texts, genres and discourses on Shakespeare, Marlowe, Johnson that
I didn’t even knew existed! In this regard, Potter’s book needs several
re-readings. There are textual, intertextual, and sub-textual references
aplenty that will take me more than one reading to fully understand. This meant go rabbit-holing which I did...The outputs of these wonderful adventures tapped into my understanding of Shakespeare. Go figure...
I’ve read quite a big amount of
books on Shakespeare. Being able to write a biography of a figure at once so
well-known and so little documented must have been a challenge. His chapter “The Strong’st and Surest Way to Get: Histories” was quite a revelation
[I’m (re-)reading the Histories at the moment) as well as Potter’s insights
into the relation between Shakespeare, Thomas Middleton and Jonson. And when I thought I knew everything was there to know about
Shakespeare, Potter comes along and rehashes old stuff into strikingly new ways.
Oh my.
It was a pleasure to travel
alongside Potter on this wonderful adventure!
