Four on Shakespeare
www.biography.com The one thing I know with absolute certainty about Wm. Shakespeare is that he writes gooder than me. Much, much gooder. Joking aside, reading his plays and sonnets is both a pleasure and a chore. It's not just the 500 year old language and usage, it's the way he manipulates words and sentences. It makes you think, and, according to an EEG study of people reading Shakespeare, it causes changes in the way the brain functions. Take the phrase, 'he godded me’ from the tragedy of Coriolanus. God is a noun and a proper noun depending on usage. How do you "god" someone? Put them on a pedestal ? Perhaps. Did he mean it sarcastically? It turns out that EEG studies show that readers get it even before they think about possible meanings. In these studies, researchers report on compiling a psychological profile of Shakespeare, how the brain changes while reading his work, a study of Richard III that concludes he wasn't...