It's All About the Grammar

Today I took a moment to read my Google Alerts on both Shakespeare and Grammar. I looked through the Shakespeare ones, and I was as surprised as always to see so much Shakespeare activity in just one day--all the updates on productions, the Supreme Court quoting a line from King Henry IV, and a review on Shakespeare in Love. I opened my second email from Google Alerts about the fascinating facets of participles and participle phrases--I really do find them fascinating by the way--and, wait a second...I just read that article in my Shakespeare Google Alerts! I loved that my alerts for Teaching Grammar and Shakespeare have something in common! The article discusses Shakespeare's genius use of grammar in his writing, and how he doesn't just use commas to follow the rules, but each pause, semicolon and adjective are important to the analysis of Shakespeare.

Now to connect this even further! While listening to Hamlet's famous "To Be, or Not To Be" soliloquy, I realized I have been reading those lines wrong for so many years. It is not read "To die to sleep to sleep perchance to dream ay there's the rub." No, no, no! "To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;" Each comma, semicolon and colon are important. They give the words meaning and substance.

I love grammar, but it wasn't until Google alerted me that it is the grammar in Hamlet's speech that made me love the sound of his voice ringing through my room this morning as I put on my mascara.