And Turn His Sleep To Wake

      Alas, Reading Week is over, and Doctor J has return to the grind of teaching. Yes, the grind. I find I'm getting less and less patient, less and less, well, motivated as time passes. This isn't the fault of my class this year, but I do find the lustre is wearing off, especially as I often feel, perhaps all too arrogantly, that my skills are not really being put to their fullest potential. That doesn't mean things are bad, either. I don't know. Just tending toward a kind of blase feeling. Probably just the gathering years. Or the fact of being in the same place for too long. All in all, though, the result is a lack of inspiration, at least by my own standards.

      But tomorrow, tomorrow King Lear is on the docket, known to several of my previous students as "[my] play." Certain profs/teachers/etc. have certain texts they come to possess more than they do others; for reasons quite beyond my immediate explanation, Lear is mine, probably because the play remains to me a treasure trove of ideas and possibilities (unlike, say, Hamlet, which lost its lustre for me years ago). This despite having lectured on the play several times. This despite having taught the play goodness knows how many times, and reading it what must now be in the area of a hundred times. Yes, this is the point in the year at which Dr J really starts firing on all cylinders; or usually it is (I should know better than to predict, shouldn't I? Oy vey...), because it's the text in Shakespeare at which all of the loose strands of the year really start to come together; they approach one another tentatively in Hamlet, but the finally copulate in Lear. Frankly, I'm hoping the play invigorates me. Oh, there's so much to do, so much to impart, so many ideas with which I can floor my wee laddies and lassies--- the misconceptions of Albany, the issues of absence, the problems of treason and sedition, the implied albatross, those pelican daughters, sense and nonsense verse, madness as consciousness and consciousness as madness, and on and on and on. I've often said that I could do an entire term just on Lear without having to think twice about it. So much, so much... Maybe one of these days, I'll come staggeering into class, a young volunteer in my arms, in full bloody howl. ;-) No, of course not. I don't have the beard right now that could make that work. And I'd probably put myself into traction.

      Well, I guess we'll see what happens, if I can energize myself, especially given the doggedly draining nature of things this year and my own innate lethargy. Does anyone out there remember when I was energetic??? Nah, I didn't think so... Anyway, we shall see if Doctor J can get his (real) groove back. (Did I ever have one? Well, not that one, you perverts... Zelda, don't say a thing.) Until probably Wednesday... (Oy: I can just imagine the comments that'll be here by the time I get back.... *shakes head*)