I visited the Folger Shakespeare Library on Monday. Its been a long week, though, and this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and reflect on the experience. It was a great trip; we left together on a bus about 7:45 in the morning and didn’t get back until after eleven in the evening. It wasn’t necessarily a productive trip; I wasn’t able to do any actual reading or writing at the library, but it was still exciting to be so close to so many rare and important books in the scholarship of Shakespeare.
The highlight of the visit was seeing a couple of first folios of Shakespeare, the most important rare book in the English languare. Sadly, though, we weren’t allowed to touch these priceless treasures. And we especially were not allowed to sit and page through one and read them as scholars in the reading room are allowed to do. That got me thinking about how very much I would like to just sit down with a first folio and read through a favorite play, probably “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. To just sit there and read for two hours and work through one of my favorite plays. I’m not sure that is really a scholarly thing to do. But I can’t imagine a more satisfying way to spend a Saturday morning than with such an amazing book filled with so much history and power.
I really want to do this. I’m looking into what it will take to officially become a reader and I think I have the qualifications needed to do so. You’re just required to get letters of recommendation from two scholars and either hold a PhD or be working in a program towards your PhD. That’s me! So why not? Right? I’ll let you know how it turns out!
