A long time ago, I was getting frustrated with a project. I was working on something that was important but it also felt like the field was saturated – everyone else seemed to be working on the same thing.
Complaining to a mentor, he reminded me that when you buy a Jeep you’ll quickly notice how many people have Jeeps.
As I’ve just started this journey, I’m primed to notice anything Shakespeare-related, so I clicked through to this Henry Oliver podcast with Tyler Cowen who writes at Marginal Revolution.
I’m not sure where I first came across Marginal Revolution, but it has often led me to other interesting places and now has a permanent space in my feedly queue.
The podcast is question and answer style, and the Shakespeare focus starts at about the 17:00 minute mark.
It’s an interesting conversation, with lots of references to other authors and works that I’m thus far unfamiliar with. It reminds me of what it feels like to jump into a popular online game years after its launch.
Very intimidating.
One key takeaway here is that among Shakespeare people (fans?) it seems common to read and re-read Shakespeare all the time – the title of the post being one of the quotes from Tyler.
This podcast also led me to Harold Bloom who is known for his work on Shakespeare – I just ordered his book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.
I have a feeling that returning to this podcast in a year will be a lot more interesting to me.
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