The film Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorites. Not just because it features Judi Dench. Not just because it tells the story of William Shakespeare and his love affair with a beautiful woman who is destined to be the bride of another. Not just because the tragedy of love is so highlighted within the plot of the movie and the plot of the plays that Shakespeare writes.
But because the topic, love, is so readily and brazenly addressed, it is at different times in the movie equally exalted, mocked, embraced, disparaged, applauded and ultimately left unsatisfied. It recognizes in equal measure the power, tragedy, romance, strength and yes, even the bittersweet aftertaste that love possesses.
Love Shakespeare or hate him, the movie Shakespeare in Love speaks to the very soul of love. It speaks to why love confounds us, confuses us, bewitches us, entangles us and leaves us both weak and powerful in the same instant. Love does not care whether we like, nor dislike, love does not care what we hate or despise – love exists and when it is unrequited it is painful enough, but when it is requited and doomed – the pain is enough to make you treasure that which you have found in your own life.
We often wonder why we do not have love in such measure as we see in stories or movies like Shakespeare in Love. But I would offer challenge that each of us knows the intimacy of love in its raw form. That which we see on film or read about in books is laid bare for us to view, while we are not so quick to bare ourselves to us, much less the world.
I would hazard that all of us have known love in one form or another whether it is the bittersweet mourning of love extinguished, the barren grief of love lost or the warmth of love held close to the heart. If you were to strip your marriage naked and bare of artifice, you would find the love in its rawness as that which is coveted after in a book or a film or a song.
The love you have in your marriage is nestled tight and close, but perhaps a peek at the rawness of it now and again is enough to remind you that no matter how wrapped up we become in the costuming of life on our stage of reality — the love beneath should not be forgotten nor dismissed nor diminished for being hidden beneath a floppy hat, a wooly cloak or even an old leather jacket.
And if for my tale you have remained, I thank you graciously and bid you a warm and wonderful Saturday!