The Bar and the Bard
“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”
Welcome to the one hundredth post of the Bard of the Bar! In honor of this moment, I’d like to discuss what motivates this blog.
I recently got to play King Henry in a pop-up performance of Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. Not only did I have a great time chewing those words with some consummate professional actors, I also found myself reflecting on how I chose “The Bard of the Bar” as a title for this blog.
Why do I love Shakespeare so? Let me count the ways. I was besotted ever since I discovered and began devouring Shakespeare’s work at eighteen. (Yes, there was a girl involved! It was a production of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream….) So deep was my enchantment with the Bard of Avon, that I pursued an acting career and founded a company devoted to his work. In the process, I also found a life in the law.
So why, specifically as an attorney, do I delight in this most influential of writers? Ours is a profession of words, particularly, in our hemisphere, of English words. No writer to date has had such a profound impact on the English language. Shakespeare is credited with coining over 1,700 words in English. You’ve probably used some of them: assassination, bedazzled, belongings, eventful, eyeball. You also have Shakespeare to thank if you, having a “heart of gold,” have ever “broken the ice” and ended a “wild-goose chase.”
Ours is also a profession rooted in philosophy. There are at least 10 to15 major trial scenes in Shakespeare’s plays, far more if you count mock trials, accusations, and sentencing scenes. The relationship between the Playwright of Playwrights and the philosophy of law gets richer if you include legal commentary and references. Themes germane to our efforts include the law and morality, the role of revenge in litigation, lawyers’ place in social structure, and what it means to think like a lawyer. That would explain why Shakespeare has been cited or quoted in more American judicial opinions than any other author. Lawyers have so much insight to glean from Shakespeare that it just makes sense to reach into his oeuvre for understanding and persuasion.
I could go on, but the main point is that reading, performing, watching, and producing Shakespeare’s work has made me a better writer, speaker, and thinker. I think that speaks to his writing.
All hail the Bard of Avon and many more posts from the Bard of the Bar! I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am.
