Illusions of Clarity - Part II

While I am having illusions of clarity I may as well as go all the way. Another of my writing goals is to write a book about Shakespeare's history plays. A book that would be thoroughly researched, but not an academic book - a book that would try to explain why we should care about these plays. My thought is to write about the plays in the order Shakespeare wrote them so as to focus on how Shakespeare's thinking about kingship develops over time. I say kingship, but I really mean leadership because that is where I think the lasting importance of these plays lies - especially Henry V.

The other day Carol got a phone call that the adult school Shakespeare class that she had signed up for had been canceled. For some reason that gave me a thought - teach an adult school class on the history plays over a multi-year period. Teaching the class would motivate me to do the research that I would need to do anyway to write the book. Doing this over a multi-year period would allow it to be done gradually while I am working on other things.

The first step is to write a proposal and see if it is accepted. If not (and I think that highly probable) I could try other adult schools or perhaps a private high school where they do enrichment courses over the summer. It is at least worth a try. Of course all I have to do now is find the time to write the proposal. The main thing though is that there is a clarity that feels good - let's hope it stay that way.