In my early days I first fell in love with Shakespeare's tetralogy Richard II, Henry IV, part 1, Henry IV, part 2, and Henry V when I viewed the BBC production of Richard II on my parents' television. Derek Jacobi played the lyrical, indulgent Richard and brought the role to life brilliantly. I followed the story of the practical Bolingbroke's ascendency that paralled his cousin's tragic fall, and in me grew the very feelings for literature that would foster my desire to study it and then teach it in later years. I watched the subsequent plays as PBS aired the BBC productions.   

Then again, I fell in love with these same plays when I read them as an undergraduate and learned all about the intricacies of Falstaff and Hotspur and Hal and the working metaphors of the plays. Again I was infused with a sort of zeal about literature that led me to seek a career teaching it. There remains something remarkable about the intertexuality ot these plays that delights me, but I had not read nor taught any of the them in the last several years. That's changed thanks to a colleague's vibrant discussion of one of these plays in his class.

Somewhat recently I took the opportunity to visit a colleague's classroom. Clay Gahan, a member of the English Department, had overnight assigned some early scenes in Shakespeare's Henry IV, part 1for his ninth grade honors class to read. While focusing on the development of Henry's young son, Prince Hal, and the development of something of the concept of a nation state, England, both the teacher and students had me hooked. It amazes me what a good teacher can do with excellent students. They did what we always hope to do in the English classroom; they brought the text to life. The facility with which Clay helped the students make the requisite connections inspired me to think once more about the richness of the play, something I first discovered when I was near these students' age. When Clay read a  famous speech by Hal and had the students write a response explication, he emphasized for me the particlar resonance that speech had once more. I remembered my early fondness for the play and its companion plays, so I thought I would re-read them. The extent to which Clay and his students re-ignited my excitement for the plays was the length to which I would now go to rediscover them myself.

Subsequently, I hunted up Shakespeare's entire tetralogy that tells the story of Henry and Hal. I hunted up, that is to say, both the texts on the English Department bookshelves and the available DVDs in Mercersburg's Lenfest Library. The DVDs turned out to be the BBC productions of the plays from the late 1970's, the same ones I first fell in love with (and they hold up very well).  So, I sat down to re-read the plays, and I viewed the BBC productions via these DVDs. I immersed myself in Shakespeare in a way that I haven't done in a long time and it felt terrific. It fired in me the passion for literature that I certainly have but that at times is only smoldering and needs some fanning of the flames.  It is expressly important to recognize that this time around, my colleague and his students inspired me to re-kindle this joy.

Many avenues to renewal exist; some we tred upon by happenstance. It is extremely valuable to fall in love with a piece of literature for the first time, like for these ninth graders and as I did long ago, but it is equally important to come back to it again and again to explore and re-create one's passion for it. I think it would be naive to think a passion never requires re-invigorating; as Shakespeare would say, however, "it feeds upon itself." -->

Posted by Matthew Kearney at January 25, 2007 7:12 AM

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