Sir Patrick Stewart’s ‘A Sonnet A Day’ helps self-isolate

Unless you are a wanker, you are probably self-isolating right now. Well, Sir Patrick Stewart is here to help the boredom by reading a Shakespearean sonnet every day. As someone who writes for a living and then spends his downtime writing more, reading, gaming and watching films / TV, self-isolation is pretty much something I do anyway. Although I do miss the pub. But some are struggling. The great thing is, now is a chance to make yourself a better human being. Get edumacated. Embiggen that noggin, as Shakespeare once said.

One way to do that is obviously to embrace literature and a decent sonnet. In case you didn’t know, a sonnet is a poem of 14 lines. It has a couple of different rhyming schemes but that isn’t all that important – the main thing is that a good sonnet is short and powerful. My absolutely favourite sonnet is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelly. As we all have time on our hands, here it is:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Awesome right? Well, this won’t come as any surprise but Shakespeare turned out some pretty fine sonnets and if I was going to have someone read one of his to me, then Sir Patrick Stewart would be that man. With a couple by Sir Ian McKellen and Brian Blessed too, just to mix it up.

This is a new thing but I really hope he keeps it up. It is a minute or two a day and I love it. Here is the first one:

Sir P is reading one sonnet a day on his Twitter and is worth checking out. If this isn’t your cup of tea and you are more into, say, country music, then check out Sir Patrick singing country and western. More of a traveller? Then here he is reading out hilarious 1-star reviews of travel destinations.

Whatever Coronavirus self-isolating needs require, Sir Patrick Stewart is there to help. Be safe people and stay inside! By the way, if you fancy reading more yourself, the book he is reading from is called Shakespeare’s Sonnets and Poems. That guy was pretty good.