The Story of the Love for Shakespeare

This is a story of the influence that a grandparent can have on a child. It is a story of love; love for a children, love for literature, love for a country. My grandmother was born in England in the late 1800’s. She met and fell in love with a farmer, my grandfather. They married and had 6 fine sons who grew up on a farm outside of Geneva, New York. She became a naturalize citizen before she married, but she never lost the love of the country of her birth.

After my grandfather died, she lived a part of the year with each son. The summers were the time that Grandmother lived with us. I loved my grandmother and she quickly realized the amount of responsibility I had. To counteract this responsibility; she would spend hours talking to me. She did not talk of her life, but she talked about England and their history. It was from her that I learned about the kings and queens of England past. She told me of the historical events of England history, about Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. She would mentioned that Elizabeth I and myself share a common birthday. Actually they were days apart but close enough to inspire a young girl. Along with tales of Elizabethan England, she taught me about Shakespeare. Many Sunday afternoons, when Dad and my sisters went to the races, I stayed with Grandma. At these times there would be a movie for one of Shakespeare’ plays. I fell in love with “Hamlet” with Sir Lawrence Oliver, “Macbeth”, “As You Like It”, “Midsummer’s Night Dream”, “The Merchant of Venice”, and many others. We would discuss the history behind the play and reasons for why Shakespeare wrote the way he did. By the time I entered high school, I already knew a great deal about the subject and I couldn’t wait till the subject of Shakespeare would be part of the English curriculum.

I had just entered high school. Christmas was approaching and my parents asked myself and my sisters what we wanted for Christmas. My bike was getting too small for me, so they expected me to say a new bicycle, but I surprised them. I had seen the “Complete Works of Shakespeare” in the stationary shop downtown. I was memorized by the book, but it was very expensive. So that is what I asked for. My dad had left school before the 8th grade. My mom had graduated from high school, but she never liked or understood Shakespeare. My parents couldn’t understand why I wanted this book more than anything else. But that was all I wanted. I got the book and believed or not, I still have it. It is one of my most treasured possessions. In fact is the 2nd best Christmas of my life. The 1st best is another story.

By the time I graduated from High School in 1965, I had read most of the plays and all of the sonnets. I had read and saw "Hamlet" so many times, that I had become a sort of expert on the play. In fact when I returned to college in the 80’s, this knowledge served me well. As a student in the Honor Society, the professors would use the Honor Student to proctor their classes. We would assist the professors, assist in testing, and even instruct at study classes before exams. My English professor had a doctor’s appointment and would be unable to conduct a study class before the final. The final would include questions on 3 works of literature. Of the three works, I knew two of them, one of which was “Hamlet”. She informed me that another professor would come in later in the class to instruct on the one piece of literature I didn’t know, but I would be the instructor of the other two. We had finished going over the first and started on “Hamlet”.

A frequently asked question was to identify the three times that Hamlet could have killed his uncle and step-father and why he did not commit the act. The most famous time was when the uncle was in the chapel praying. That is the time when Hamlet recites one of Shakespeare's most famous speeches “To Be or Not To Be”. But what is not so common knowledge was the reason why Hamlet did not kill his uncle at the time and why the “To Be or Not To Be” speech was created in the first place. The reason for not killing the uncle dates back to the time of England’s Henry II and the reason that Chaucer wrote the “Canterbury Tales”. (If the reader is learning the real reason behind this action and speech, drop me a line and I will gladly inform you.) During this explanation, the substitute professor arrived. When I finished, I started to leave and let him take over. He stopped me and told me that he never knew the reason and he was impressed on my knowledge on the subject. I later learned that this question was on the test and all the students answered it correctly. My professor told me that this was a question that she expected the students to miss and it was set up as an extra credit question. She was also impressed with my knowledge and congratulated me on making the subject interesting for her students. She had asked her student where they learnt this information and they told her it was me. They also told her that they now felt that they go could enjoy Shakespeare, not only for the literature but for the history behind it.

Morale: Allow your children to converse freely with their grandparent. Let them listen to their stories. There are lesson that only the grandparent can give that could be carried with them the rest of their lives.