I’ve heard it a thousand times, “Shakespeare wasn’t meant to be read. He’s meant to be performed.” And sure, yes, go see Shakespeare. I’d never say don’t do that. But that doesn’t mean reading Shakespeare is a lesser experience. In fact, I’d say the opposite.

There’s an opportunity for depth in reading Shakespeare that live performance can’t offer. Theatre is ephemeral. Blink and you’ll miss something important – a gesture, a line, an inflection choice. You can’t pause a stage play. You can’t rewind. But the text? The text is always there, waiting for you to come back to it.

Why Reading Shakespeare Might Be Better Than Watching It

Reading Shakespeare invites close reading in a way most literature doesn’t. Even the longest play, Hamlet, is only about 30,000 words – less than half the size of a typical novel. Caught up in the “oh, the language is so hard and archaic” argument, people miss how powerful this can be. There’s a lot of blank space in Shakespeare. Room for interpretation, Filling in your own thoughts on what he didn’t say, in a way that flows seamlessly with what he did. Was Ophelia pregnant? Whose idea was it to kill Duncan – Macbeth’s, or his wife’s?

When you read a novel, how often do you flip back through 70,000+ words to find a clue? I can’t be the only reader out there who has had that experience of realizing on some random page, “My mind was wandering, I don’t think I remember what happened over the last three pages.”

And with audiobooks, forget it. I love audiobooks, that’s all I listen to in the car. But I can’t tell you how often I’ll be struck with a thought and think, “Wait, what? Hold on, back up …” but you can’t do that. You know how, on a video streaming service, when you try to rewind (or fast forward), some show you the video and some don’t? And how that makes all the difference in being able nail exactly where you want to be? Audiobooks don’t have any of that. Trust me, I’ve often brainstormed my idea of the perfect audiobook app that would somehow keep a transcription going while you listened, allowing you to shout “Bookmark!” at any point and remember where you were for later. (I confess, I’ve sometimes been known to go grab the ebook version of an audiobook when I really, really want to know exactly what I missed.)

With Shakespeare, it’s all right there. I mean, it’s literally public domain, you can grab the text from dozens of sources, for free, whenever and however suits you. And then you can go straight to a scene, pick apart the dialogue, literally examining each word. For extra credit you can even look at multiple editions and compare different decisions that were made. You decide how to interpret what’s said, and more importantly, not said. You become part of the process.

Sure, some of the language will be unfamiliar. But that’s part of the reward. Read slowly. Use online glossaries. Let the context guide you. You’ll be amazed how much meaning unfolds when you stop trying to rush through and instead sit with the words. Half the time, it made no sense only because it went by so fast during that precious live performance that you didn’t have any time to stop and think about it. Now you do, as much as you need.

Shakespeare should be seen, absolutely. Go to the theatre, watch the films, enjoy the performances. But reading Shakespeare is what gives you ownership. It’s what stays with you. Not just “I liked the Fassbender Macbeth,” but “Here’s what I think Shakespeare was really saying.” And if you really want it to stay with you, get your hands on an “annotation copy” that’s intended for you to write down exactly what you feel about individual scenes.

That’s the joy. Not just watching, but thinking. Not just hearing the lines, but developing your own personal relationship with them. Make Shakespeare your own.

My kids are the age where they followed Taylor Swift’s last tour pretty religiously. Every couple of weeks (days?), they’d come screaming into the room about which mystery guest she’s brought on stage, or how a certain guest was expected, but they got somebody else. That was part of the experience. The music was basically going to be the same at every tour stop, so it was the “What makes each show different?” element that made it the kind of event that you could look forward to every day.

The 2025 Glastonbury Festival is going on right now, and somebody called Scissor Sisters, who I don’t know, brought out SIR IAN MCKELLEN, who I very much do. I showed the video to my daughter and said, “I would have died. Ok? Died. I may die just watching the video.”

You know that thing where people say, “He could read the phonebook and people would pay to hear it?” This. I have a clip of Judi Dench reciting Sonnet 29 on the Graham Norton show that I go back and play periodically just because of how beautiful her voice sounds when she says “lark.” I don’t even know what Sir Ian is saying in this song. And I don’t care. Whatever he’s shouting for us to do, I’m going to run up a mountain to do it.

I heard this story because the crowd started chanting his name, and he burst into tears. I’m looking for a video of that, but I’m well aware that it may have the same effect on me.

Until then, enjoy the show. He shows up at about 3:30 if you want to skip. Or you can pretend you’re in the audience, and anticipate the big finish. Either way, I’ll be over here, dead.

I may have mentioned that I have a lot of Shakespeare stuff. T-shirts, jigsaw puzzles, keychains, laptop skins … got it all. So much, in fact, that my family’s taken to creating wholly original items! I was definitely not expecting this for Father’s Day 2025:

I love it! A few months back, my oldest had found a service that would do this for your pet using a number of standard templates – king, queen, princess. Without telling me they scoured the site looking for a Shakespeare template, but alas it didn’t exist.

So my son actually made this! I think it came out really good, I love it. Her face is huge, you really get that feeling that you’re being stared at.

Unfortunately (there’s never a good way to drop this into the conversation!), our dog passed away between the time they made these presents, and Father’s Day. Awkward? Not as bad as you’d think. I think we were all happy for the remembrance. We’ve all been looking through our hundreds of pictures anyway, so it was nice to see a creative surprise.

But I am going to attach something to this post to mark the occasion. In times of grief, I’ve always gone back to Constance’s speech in King John, and I wondered if it could be made relevant here. With a little help from AI, I think the answer is yes, it certainly can. Thank you, Shakespeare. Flights of angels, Belle. See you again someday.

Grief fills up the room of my sweet girl:
Lies in her bed, walks up and down with me,
Carries her leash, drops her worn-out toy,
Noses the door, waits where she used to wait—
She haunts the silence. I am not myself;
I am the echo of a happy life
That padded soft behind me on four paws.

O, that my arms were long enough to reach
Into the quiet place where good dogs go—
I’d pull her back by her velvet-soft ears
And feel her heartbeat warm against my chest.
You tell me time will soften what I feel,
But time is cruel—it will not lick my tears,
Nor lay her head across my feet at night.

Grief is not madness, though you call it so.
I am not raving—I am only empty.
She was my shadow, soul, my loyal girl.
Don’t bid me be at peace. She was my dog.

I almost missed Sonnet Day.

May 20, the anniversary of the first publication of Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Thomas Thorpe in 1609. Over four centuries later, these 154 little poems still manage to capture the full range of human emotion—love, jealousy, beauty, time, mortality—and yet somehow, I nearly let the day slip by without notice.

We Should Celebrate Sonnet Day More

It’s easy to celebrate Sonnet Day — just recite a sonnet. Over the years I’ve seen a number of projects (including Sir Patrick Stewart, during the pandemic) recite all the sonnets. I’m way too much the introvert to ever pull off something like that.

The closest I ever came was at my wedding, where I “recited” Sonnet 17:

Who will believe my verse in time to come
If it were filled with your most high deserts?
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb
4Which hides your life and shows not half your parts.
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say “This poet lies;
8Such heavenly touches ne’er touched earthly faces.”
So should my papers, yellowed with their age,
Be scorned, like old men of less truth than tongue,
And your true rights be termed a poet’s rage
12And stretchèd meter of an antique song.
 But were some child of yours alive that time,
 You should live twice—in it and in my rhyme.

And by “recite” in this case I don’t mean “Stood up with a microphone in front of everybody,” I mean, “Whispered it in her ear during our first dance.” See earlier note about life as an introvert.

It’s funny, though — that was 25 years ago. Now, in the context of just talking about Shakespeare, I’ll knock out a sonnet at the drop of a hat. I don’t have that many of them memorized that I can do the whole thing, but I’m usually good for at least an 18 or a 29. I think that raising my kids on Shakespeare, literally singing Sonnet 18 to them for years, probably had something to do with that.

Singing it? Oh my, yes. David Gilmour’s rendition used to be my ringtone.

Truthfully, I hadn’t listened to that version in years. I’m glad I took the time to write this post and find it, I’ve got it playing in the background now and it’s quite the trip down memory lane.

Everybody knows 18, though, so when it comes time to get down and discuss favorites I head for 29. I do love a good sonnet set to music, so for something really different from the above enjoy Rufus Wainwright’s version:

Love love love it.

To wrap this post up, however, I think we’ll leave the last word to the living legend herself, Dame Judi Dench. On a recent episode of the Graham Norton Show, she pulled off an impromptu Sonnet 29 that still stops me in my tracks when I hear it. Seriously, you could dissect it in a classroom. The pause on “thee”. The way she says “lark”. Seriously, chills. Every time.

Happy Sonnet Day, everybody. Shakespeare makes life better.

Is it that time again already? I think I’ve been celebrating Shakespeare’s Birthday almost as long as I’ve been celebrating my own children’s birthdays. Luckily, I don’t spend as much on gifts for him 🙂

It’s going to be a quiet year for us. In past years, I’ve had days dedicated to Shakespeare, where I’ve done marathon posting or spent the day on social media. But, as long-time readers know, I’ve been out of work for 8 months and only recently started a new job! So, naturally, my focus is now (and has been, for the last few weeks) on that. I hope I’ll be forgiven.

That doesn’t mean I’ll let the day go unmarked, though. I’ve got a few ideas for posts. I’ll keep an eye on social media and stay as active as I can.

What’s everybody else doing? Who’s got big plans??