Post Shakespeare: Is That All There Is?

Life is but a dream?

If in dreams we be constantly reinventing and reimagining who we are.

The truly amazing thing about Shakespeare's texts is their capaciousness: like a large soul, the works embody and hint at the mysteries of our human experiences in ways that constantly invite us to reinterpret this literary tradition--the one we call Shakespeare.

Dreams, the classics, jazz, theater, religion--allow me to suggest all are ways we meditate on, explore, and reinvent our human traditions: both as communities and individuals. They provide the shared metaphors for our lives, as well as the practices needed to interpret them.

And when it comes to capaciousness of metaphor--a size and generosity of story which allow reinterpretation over centuries--perhaps the only rivals to Shakespeare's in our western cultures are the Greeks and, yes, the Bible. This weekend's readings in our local Episcopal church were the familiar stories of David and Goliath: when I was very young, we watched a Sunday morning cartoon based on these stories. I've known this story all my life, and every time I hear it I understand it differently--now, for instance, most particularly in the ways we understand the histories of the middle east. And so we tell the same stories, over and over, in different ways: constantly transforming our understandings of who we might be, constantly remaking our worlds--hopefully for the better.

Thus there is no "post-Shakespeare"--in Stonington or elsewhere. Our experiences of wrestling with metaphor, through art and religion, are central to our humanity; and there just aren't enough opportunities or time for this work and pleasure. So we are going to let our ShakeStonington blog live on, and hope you will continue to bring to it your ideas, thoughts, and questions: about Shakespeare, about metaphor, about theater, spirituality, life--because ultimately, in the dream we call our lives, this IS all there is.