Just watched To Kill a King about the English civil war, Oliver Cromwell, and the execution of Charles I. It was very good. But while that's a fascinating period of history, I can't get as excited about it as I do about the Renaissance and Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare. It's just not sexy. It's a bunch of Puritans deposing kings and talking about the Magna Carta and the purview of kings and yada yada. But the Renaissance? It's sexy. First off, there's the original dirty old bastard, Shakespeare, followed closely by Elizabeth, who was one sassy broad, if ever there was one.
But I sort of hate that I favor the Renaissance, 'cause it feels like I'm taking the easy intellectual route out. It's history's pop culture. If I were actually smart, I'd like some small, esoteric, unknown period, like the reign of Canute in 985.
This is sort of like an, "Everyone's wearing blue, so I'm going to wear red" thing. If everyone likes the Renaissance then I should like Canute. Or Cromwell. But I don't. I like Shakespeare. And a little part of me hates the fact that I like what everyone else does, too. If they started making movies about Aethelred the Unready would I all of a sudden be like, "Ooo-ooh, Aethelred! I totally love him! Let's go see Justin Timberlake would be like, such, the perfect Aethelred." (Okay, so I actually do like him.) (Aethelred, not Timberlake.) I guess what I'm saying is, I think I'm a fly-by-night history geek. I'm succumbing to historical peer pressure.
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