Our Guilty Goddess

I know we all have a “guilty goddess,” just as our Bard did. We have a play or sonnet that we particularly like but which most people just don’t get. We have our secret work of his that fills us with pleasure unalloyed and that brings us to the brink of understanding. We love that which most don’t love.

My secret pleasure, the work that I read as if with a flashlight in a tent when everyone else has gone to sleep, is Antony and Cleopatra. I have a copy of this play in a beautifully (albeit decrepit) bound volume that fills me with great pleasure just by the sensuous pleasure of touching it.

The play is unperformable. I have never heard of, let alone seen, a production of this monstrosity, yet it has lines that absolutely thrill me beyond the here and now.

One of these days, I will share with you my thoughts on this neglected masterpiece (which, I know, some of you would rather not be a part of our Bard’s cannon). I have never seen it performed, and I doubt that I ever shall. But it is my favorite work of our Bard, bar none.

I thought all of you might like to share your guilty pleasures with us, those works that most overlook but which you find as compelling as catnip. Go at it, my lads and lasses! Tell us of your “guilty goddesses.”