Re-reading books...HAMLET

It has been a pretty long time since I last read HAMLET.  I almost felt like I was reading it for the first time this time through.  I know the story, but there were so many details that really stood out for me this time that I just didn't remember. 

I love that about re-reading books, though.  (BTW:  Samuel was telling me the same thing earlier.  Maybe that's why this blog is going in that direction, but it was on my mind, honestly, prior to his telling me that ever time he re-reads a book or re-watches a movie, he sees new things, new details that he didn't see before which makes it worth re-reading books or re-watching movies.  He wants to re-read the HARRY POTTER series.  I'm so excited that he wants to read them all again!!!) 

Anyway, over the years, because of my job, I've re-read quite a few things and I've almost never minded re-reading anything.  Of course, I've re-read A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM that if I have to read it one more time, I'm going to scream, which is why my students are reading HAMLET this semester rather than the other!  UGH!  I still love BEOWULF, GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, THE CANTERBURY TALES, FRANKENSTEIN, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY, and the list goes on and on!!!  Every reading brings out new things for me as well as reminds me of why and how much I loved the books in the first place!

As you know, I've been re-reading the TWILIGHT series--for about the 5th or 6th time, I've lost count by now.  And every time they're just as much fun to read as the first time!  It's the same way with the HARRY POTTER books and so many others!  Even though I can remember so many details (including character names a lot of the time) from the vast majority of the books I've read over my almost 40 years of reading, I am awed by how much I love reading a book again and again--and by how much I can love the book just as much with the 5th reading as with the first!

HAMLET is not my favorite Shakespearean play by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, I definitely enjoyed the re-read.  I have a new appreciation for the man Hamlet than ever before.  I feel his pain so much deeper now after everything I've been through.  I understand his deep frustration with his mother more than ever before.  I can even get his hesitation in acting on his knowledge of his father's murder.  I can also so many inferences to so many other stories, especially other plays by Shakespeare.  It's just fascinating.