Royal Shakespeare Company, March,2017
Everything you have heard is true:
the story has a lovely princess
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Who can understand Shakespeare better than you...i'm awed by your knowledge n understanding of Shakespeare. This poem is so rich in meaning that it takes many readings to extract from it the maximum. There is an island which could be paradise....good literature must give us this hope, this fantasy that something exists that is too good to be true. Let it exist in our mind only if not in real, for that would make living easier. A good writer has the power to make the reader believe in magical things n places. A profound piece of writing deserving top marks.
You are so right that we need a niche in our minds where wonders are commonplace and the imagination produces miracles. If nothing else, we can laugh in delight that the human mind can create such wild poetry. I love what you say about magic and literature in the second half of your message. How far apart so we live? 20,000 miles? But when it comes to poetry, we share the love of poets and poems. We are just next door neighbors in our high regard for it!
There is a desirable island you can only reach by a storm at sea; there must be a history of grief you carry within; there must be a willingness in you to make friends for life. But the hardest thing you must do alone: to read deeply in Prospero's book, - - - - - - - - - - Reading good literature gives us insight into life.This stanza sums up your view of the the great Shakespearean play.
You share the harvest of many communings with the Bard, allowing us to glean it in the space of one reading. Your poem reads like one of the whispers in the air over that ISLE OF NOISES, or a chart guiding readers to the treasure within a charmed tale.