Tuesday, May 09, 2006

To swell a progress

Another day, another epiphany.

For a little over a week now, I've been posting some of my favourite Shakespeare pieces on Poi-tre (now also on Wordpress). Looking back over these posts, I suddenly realised how many of the pieces I picked were speeches by 'supporting' characters. Bottom, Mercutio, Feste, Jacques, the Three Witches, Puck and (obviously) Falstaff are all represented, but except for one speech by Macbeth and another by Prospero, all the other leading roles don't put in an appearance - no Lear, no Hamlet, no Romeo, not even Richard III.

I swear this is not deliberate. I didn't plan it this way - I simply picked the pieces that appealed the most to me and that I felt the most comfortable reading, so that the fact that I ended up picking neither the great heroes nor the great villains, but rather the fools, says a lot about who I am and how I see myself.

At the risk of being accused of plagiarism by JAP:

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or to
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous---
Almost, at times, the Fool.

-
T. S. Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'
P.S. Yes, I'm back. Was helping a friend move over the weekend (which sounds like it should have involved sweat and straining muscles, I know, but actually consisted of me sitting in an empty house waiting for the movers to show up so I could let them into the house and then stand out of the way while they did all the work) and didn't have access to the Internet for ONE WHOLE DAY. Regular blogging resumes now.


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14 comments:

Veena said...

Welcome back. Congrats on the brownstone. I suppose the key is in your custody :)

ether said...

Ah, good to see you back. :)

drifting leaf said...

:) hey! you were missed!

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah! You were missed! Glad that you're back!! :)

Anonymous said...

hey,

More crap from falstaff. How do you manage, buddy? Do you wake up every morning and say 'now how can I mention Shakespeare and make my little blogger friends think highly of me'? do you? you poor, poor dimwit.

Anonymous said...

hey,

More crap from falstaff. How do you manage, buddy? Do you wake up every morning and say 'now how can I mention Shakespeare and make my little blogger friends think highly of me'? do you? you poor, poor dimwit.

Anonymous said...

hey,

More crap from falstaff. How do you manage, buddy? Do you wake up every morning and say 'now how can I mention Shakespeare and make my little blogger friends think highly of me'? do you? you poor, poor dimwit.

J. Alfred Prufrock said...

The risk is very real, my friend. Hands off my my MY most personal passage in poetry!

This lady Gauri - methinks she's a bureaucrat, hence the filing in triplicate. Perhaps she is also riled by your appropriating our (as in all babudom's) passage?

J.A.P.

Anonymous said...

oh, look, a J Alfred Prufrock commenting on a Falstaff blog. Sounds like another bong moron desperately trying to show us he's read Eliot. hehe. you guys are hilarious :) also, do you realise that you keep commenting on each others posts, like dimwitted children? no one else reads your crap. hehe :) and i'm certainly not coming back.

venkat said...

Huh?! What's with the morons all over the place? If you don't want to read, *avoid* this blog..easy, no?

Falstaff said...

Veena: Thanks. No actually. Apparently in order to be deserving of the key you have to change lightbulbs or something. I don't know where women get these ideas from

fingers / leaf / pointblank: Thanks

Gauri: Nice. Feel free to repeat yourself as often as you like. Eventually you might actually convince yourself.

Priyanka: No fear of that, I assure you. I always think it's a good idea to let gnomes have their say. It's the easiest way of making them look ridiculous.

Also, just so I know, what does a Gauri sound like?

JAP: oh, come on. Just because you managed to register yourself as Prufrock four months before me doesn't mean you can now lay claim to the entire love song.

anon: "i'm certainly not coming back". SO heartbroken about that.

venkat: Yes, the idiots are certainly blooming aren't they? Maybe it's the spring.

MockTurtle said...

Hey "gauri" and anon, if you want to flame a guy on his blog, at least do so under your own names. There's a principle involved. When you write under an assumed name it usually means that you lack the conviction or the courage to have your opinions taken seriously.

Anonymous said...

hey 'MockTurtle'

grow up. and stop taking your little 'blog' so seriously. get a life. have children, if you can. what're you? another migrant bengali dick from delhi, like this 'falstaff' clown?

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