I read a New York Times business section Q&A piece recently where a CEO criticized the use of the term “goal” versus “commitment.” A “goal” is something to work towards, he said, but it doesn’t carry the same psychological weight as a commitment. A commitment implies that you will do whatever it takes to get a task done.

I started the Shakespeare Year (originally, in 2010) as a goal and not a commitment, but this meant that the reading (and writing) was too easily compromised. So I have made a commitment to myself in 2013. I have even invited my family into it, almost like a 12-step pledge.

My commitment: I’m going to read all 39 of Shakespeare’s plays in roughly chronological order (39 being the number of plays agreed upon by several scholars as the canonical Shakespeare set of plays) and the poetry. And, for an important part of the commitment, I plan to write every week about my experience of reading Shakespeare in a year. I want to explore the social side of the reading. I want to see who will join in, whether online or in my family and community.

I’m starting now –I started already, actually — in August of 2013 and plan to wrap up in August of 2014. I’ll post my reading plan in a few days so that some of you can read along with me. I’ll plot it out month by month so I don’t end up with 20 plays to go in the final weeks.

It really won’t be too much (I think), so I’m also including a number of secondary works, including Marjorie Garber’s Shakespeare After All and Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human as my major critical guideposts and bibliography drivers. I’ve just read Garber’s introduction and am now reading her take on Two Gentlemen of Verona to gear up for the first play reading this week.

I’m also going to view as many plays as I can during the year, both in local and regional productions and in film. I’ll attend lectures, where available, and I’ll watch Ms. Garber’s Harvard online series on Shakespeare’s Later Plays.

My wife has suggested we experiment with some readings too. We’ll have friends over for dinner one night and read a play all together. I think we’ll draw our parts from a hat. We have a mix of teenagers (the kind of well-read, cool-nerdy teenagers like my daughter) who we think will join in and ham it up. I’ll let you know how that goes, including both the menu and the performance highlights.

As time permits, I’ll branch out into history books and other primary sources — particularly other Elizabethan playwrights. Though I have a literature degree, I’m not a Shakespeare expert by any means. By dipping into the larger Elizabethan world, I’m hoping I’ll end up competent enough in a year to talk with some confidence about Shakespeare, his plays, and his world.

But I think I’m starting to over-commit, so I’ll stop there.

Except I have a couple of last requests as part of my commitments:
1. I am hoping some other folks will join in with me, read along, and post their own experiences with the plays.
2. I am planning to attend the Ashland Shakespeare Festival in Oregon next year (2014) to cap it all off. I’m hoping some of the folks who end up reading (and writing) along through the year will meet up with me there. They’ll be putting on a production of Two Gentlemen of Verona then.

Can you commit?

When I decided to start this blog, I did a quick search for other, similar projects. I was hoping, of course, that I would be the first person to blog about reading Shakespeare’s work in one year.  My hope was hubris. When I found a few other writers and readers who had already started their Shakespeare projects I was discouraged and considered leaving aside the idea. I had to put aside my Julia & Julia dreams that I would be forging a new path and would channel an untapped community of Shakespeare fans who would flock to my blog.

But I decided to forge ahead once I examined my motivations more deeply. Life is short. I’m in my 40s, and reading all of Shakespeare is a worthy project in a human life. If I’m going to be shaped by what I consume (literarily speaking), then I want my reading to be the good stuff. I’ve had my fill of poorly executed films and depressing and pointless Booker Prize novels (not to mention some truly lousy video games). At the same time, I don’t want to surrender to something like Harold Bloom’s Wester Canon reading list. This isn’t about living up to someone else’s expectations about what the “right” books are. I know from my own experience that Shakespeare excites my intellect and inspires me with the achievements of a remarkable human lifetime. I feel like a better person when I’ve been reading Shakespeare.

In time I was encouraged that other bloggers were similarly inspired to write about their Shakespeare experiences. We form a small community across the Web, each of us motivated by something in our lives to pursue the avocation of Shakespeare. That’s a good thing. I’m eager to learn about these other amateur Shakespeare scholars. Hopefully, we can encourage each other to keep moving forward. One of my early discoveries was that a few “year of Shakespeare” projects have been cut off, either by personal difficulties or flagging motivation. I already started on this effort myself once, but for lack of a good plan and with some of my own personal difficulties, I stopped short

This time, I’m forging ahead with a commitment to have read all 39 Shakespeare’s plays–and a number of other books associated with Shakespeare’s world–by August of 2014. This will be just in time for me (and hopefully other Shakespeare readers who join in a year of Shakespeare) to meet up in Ashland, Oregon for the Shakespeare festival.

Shakespeare died at age 52. By the standards of the age he was an old man. In London, the majority of people died in their forties, if they made it past the high infant mortality rates and waves of plague as they grew (like the one that swept Stratford in Shakespeare’s youth). Queen Elizabeth was anomalous in many respects — surviving until age 69 (avoiding child birth certainly helped).

1592, according to Peter Ackroyd, is the year of Shakespeare’s London theatrical debut. His first works may have been composed as early as 1589. Given that Shakespeare’s last play was probably written in 1613 (he died in 1616), that means that the whole body of his work was composed in something like 24 years. He was living in a period where pamphlets and books where more readily available than every before, and he had had the good fortune of an early education and exposure to Latin and (perhaps) Greek literature. But, still, he does not seem to have ready many books. He probably didn’t have the opportunity. He was mocked by university-educated wits like Thomas Nashe and Robert Greene for his lack of erudition. But he kept on writing, acting, and succeeding.

When I consider that I can access Shakespeare’s complete works (not to mention millions of other texts) on my phone, and that my personal library, when considering these resources, eclipses that of all of the Elizabethan playwrights and poets put together, I’m a bit ashamed of what I’ve read and written so far. I’ve absolutely suffered from what Bloom called the “anxiety of influence.”

So the time is now to get started. Tempus fugit. Memento mori.

Incidentally, I did join a CrossFit gym, and I feel much healthier for it. I’m hoping my Shakespeare “workouts” will have the same kind of benefit for my mind.