In Defense of Goneril

After reading Shakespeare for more than half my life—taking time out for meals, of course—I finally went, last year, to his birthplace. I am not one for shrines, particularly when they are rumored to be thick with tourists and expensive souvenir stands. But I happened to be in England, and my wife coaxed me, for my own good, to go.

Once there, I was immediately glad, and soon I was overcome with an emotion I still can’t name. I wept. Even Dr. Johnson’s house had no such effect on me. But here I was, in the very rooms where Shakespeare was born, toddled, grew; here he lived as a schoolboy, struggling with Ovid at an age when I was already reading A. C. Bradley.

JS

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Joseph Sobran

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After reading Shakespeare for more than half my life—taking time out for meals, of course—I finally went, last year, to his birthplace. I am not one for shrines, particularly when they are rumored to be thick with tourists and expensive souvenir stands. But I happened to be in England, and my wife coaxed me, for my own good, to go.

Once there, I was immediately glad, and soon I was overcome with an emotion I still can’t name. I wept. Even Dr. Johnson’s house had no such effect on me. But here I was, in the very rooms where Shakespeare was born, toddled, grew; here he lived as a schoolboy, struggling with Ovid at an age when I was already reading A. C. Bradley.