Ladydale Diary
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In last week’s Ladydale Diary, “Chesterton in Kentucky”, I spoke of my time at the Memoria College Conference in Louisville in which, amongst other things, I gave a lecture on “Chesterton and Education”. This week, I’m not speaking but writing and my topic is not Chesterton but Shakespeare. I’m writing because I’m away from home and away from my computer and would find it difficult to film and post video content from my hotel or from the campus of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts at which I’m teaching a high school summer program. I am, therefore, reverting to the writing of the “diary” until I find myself back on an even keel at home.

The reason that my topic is Shakespeare is that the week’s teaching to the high school students has been on Shakespeare’s plays. I have, therefore, been bringing a little slice of Old England to New England; or, to be more precise and more pedantic, a little slice of Early Modern England to New England.

Monday’s class was on “Shakespeare: The Man and His Times”. This was focused on Shakespeare’s life and the perilous anti-Catholic times in which he lived. Its purpose was to give the students the necessary historical context to approach the plays in the light of Shakespeare’s experience of religion and politics and his response to such experience made manifest in his work.

Tuesday’s class won on “Love, Lust and Reason: Romeo and Juliet & Antony and Cleopatra“; Wednesday’s was “Homo Viator versus Homo Superbus: Hamlet versus Macbeth”; and today’s class was “Reason and Madness: King Lear“. Tomorrow’s concluding class will be on “Shakespeare and Thomas More” and will explore Shakespeare’s role in the writing of a mysterious play on the life of the saint.

In addition, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I taught an online class for Homeschool Connections on Romeo and Juliet.

You can see, therefore, that this has been a “Bardcentric” week in which Shakespeare has taken centre stage, a veritable Shakespeare Festival during which we’ve been feasting on wisdom.

The daily teaching schedule has concluded at 2pm which has afforded a little time for writing. I’ve written my weekly essay for the Imaginative Conservative, entitled “Reading in the Shadows”, and have written another essay entitled “Liberty and Literature” for a journal which I will refrain from naming at this stage.

Since hotel rooms are not the most exciting of places, I’ve dined out every evening, feasting on fine foods as I’ve been feasting on fine literature during the day. I’ve been clamouring for clams, devouring clam chowder, calm pasta, and clam and lobster bisque. I’ve also indulged my passion for escargots and mussels, as well as wine, ales and cocktails.

On Sunday, as I was flying here from home, the English Premier League football team that I’ve followed passionately ever since I’ve been a child, Chelsea FC, became Club World Champions by beating the reigning European Champions Paris Saint Germaine (PSG) in the FIFA Club World Cup Final. PSG are widely considered to be the best team in the world which made Chelsea’s victory unlikely prior to the event and something of a real shock in the event, and a cause for real celebration after the event! I duly celebrated!

All in all, a very satisfactory week, or as the Bard might say, all’s well that ends well!