A Rose By Another Name by Robert

A Rose By Another Name by Robert - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

When I was a child books were awesome. The weight of them, their supple pages, the smell of the binding. They never failed to conjure great flourishes of imagination. However, the words that filled them I found shrouded in metaphor, simile, allegory, and a host of other terms that teachers told me authors employed to craft fantastic tales. Plots were simple enough to follow, but I often whizzed through feeling as though I’d missed something. What did the author mean when they put that word before that one? Why was the character named the way they were? What does it mean when a comma goes there, but not there? My aptitude in enjoying books was hobbled by this obsessive academic need to “get it.”
So I stumbled through, asserting that I understood particular turns of phrase and artistic flourishes from various writers. Reflecting upon my reading career at that time, I did understand what I was talking about, but there was a fundamental disconnection between the words I read and myself. Just like a kindergartener reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, I heard the words, but their value was empty.
When I reached twenty years of age, I acted in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Just as I had been reading most of my life, so too had I been acting with largely superficial intent and understanding. For some reason, the planets aligned as I memorized my lines and read the play over and over. The mysteries and pretension surrounding Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter, his metaphor, his allegory—it all fell away. The words that had been written four-hundred years ago became conversational, even contemporary to me. The dust and debris of academia that had been piled on top of the play began to fall away like melting snow, and I found myself truly able to read.
Since reading that play at that time, literature isn’t daunting or academic. The beauty of the things I read is taken at face value, without any unnecessary baggage. I still see the tools the authors use, but they are no longer weighted with fantastic intent or artistry—they’re just there! Shakespeare taught me that simple things can be said in beautiful ways, and it’s okay if you don’t necessarily “get it” because whatever you hear will be what you hear and that is just fine.