I started in on a piece about the closing of Willamette Rep, and I planned to begin with that famous line we all know from “Julius Caesar.” Marc Antony begins his funeral speech with “I come not to bury Caesar, but the praise him,” right? Well, no. He pulls a fast one on Brutus by starting from the opposite end. The actual line is “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” He then talks about what noble men Brutus and his ilk are, yet by the end of the speech, the crowd has fallen back in love with Caesar and want the blood of Brutus. Neat trick. But it ruined my lede for the essay. What to do? I don’t dare misquote the passage, even though most of us have now remembered it differently. But to use the quote directly would require adapting at least a dozen lines. I thought I would just start over and ditch the concept, but my fingers thought differently. (This happens quite often.) Before I knew it, I had written the entire essay in blank verse, or thereabouts. Drop in a forsooth here, a knave there, bingo — hackneyed Shakespeare. I had a good time writing it. I hope the Register-Guard’s copy editors don’t fashion a voodoo doll of me for revenge. (Editors hate making poetry fit where prose should go.)
RG20 an English major’s dilemma
May 15th, 2008 · No Comments
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