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Thread: Shakespeare

  1. #1
    Administrator sodascouts's Avatar
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    Default Shakespeare

    This came up in another topic, and as I love talking about Shakespeare, I figured I'd start a thread for him!

    What are you favorite sonnets, your favorite plays?

    My personal favorite sonnet is 130. Here's how it goes:

    My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
    Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
    If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
    If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
    I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
    But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
    And in some perfumes is there more delight
    Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
    I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
    That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
    I grant I never saw a goddess go,
    My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
    And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
    As any she belied with false compare.

    - I love how he looks beyond appearances and says that while the one he loves may not be perfect or a traditional beauty, his love for her is as powerful as those with the most beautiful girlfriends in the world.

    My favorite comedy is Much Ado About Nothing. I love the sparring between the two leads, Beatrice and Benedick - and I love that unlike some plays, the female star is just as clever as the male star. The romantic in me also loves that they get together in the end - the thin line between love and hate, eh?

    My favorite drama is Hamlet. I know it's the one everybody has to study in school and to some it may be old hat, but there's a reason why students have to study it again and again. It is BRILLIANT. Hamlet's speeches are riveting, and the plot is compelling yet still has moments of joy (unlike some of his other tragedies). I can't get enough of this play.

    My favorite history play is Henry V. It is excellent. The Saint Crispin's Day speech makes me choke up every time. The odds are 5 to 1, yet the English still pummel the French because they are the ones with heart. If only it worked like that in the real world! We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...

    So, what are other people's favorites? Feel free to chime in!

    Always in our hearts, Never forgotten

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    Soda, I will chime in, but your education & teaching experience will put you at a great advantage when describing what you like. I can do a bit of academic analysis but not to the extent that you can. Also I will have to get out my Complete Works in order to contribute properly (it's downstairs).

    You started with a sonnet and I have to say I have not studied them in depth, but I also like 130 and the one my mother recited at our wedding, 116, which of course is:

    Let me not to the marriage of true minds
    Admit impediments. Love is not love
    Which alters when it alteration finds,
    Or bends with the remover to remove:
    O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
    That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
    It is the star to every wandering bark,
    Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
    Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
    Within his bending sickle's compass come:
    Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
    But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
    If this be error and upon me proved,
    I never writ, nor no man ever loved.


    Is it a cliche to have this said at your wedding? It wasn't for me, because it's true.

    At the other extreme you have 129:

    The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
    Is lust in action; and till action, lust
    Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
    Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
    Enjoy'd no sooner but despised straight;
    Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
    Past reason hated, as a swallowed bait,
    On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
    Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
    Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
    A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe;
    Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
    All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
    To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

    He could do wide eyed romanticism & he could also do cold eyed cynicism.

    My favourite play is Macbeth. The 'tomorrow & tomorrow' soliloquy is my favourite passage of literature. My second favourite play is King Lear & then Hamlet.

    I would say my favourite comedy is Tweltfh Night because it is so bittersweet. Although I named my daughter Rosalind, to be honest I don't know As You Like It that well.

    All the English history plays are great but I don't really have a favourite. Of the Roman history plays it has to be Antony & Cleopatra.

  3. #3
    Moderator Glennsallnighter's Avatar
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    I didn't study much Shakespeare in school but I do remember my favourite sonnet going something like (and please bear with me. I haven't seen this one since 1985. I have No idea what number it is). We had to stude about 8 sonnets for our Leaving Certificate. Nancys was included in the 8.



    Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
    Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;
    But you shall shine more bright in these contents
    Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.
    When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
    And broils root out the work of masonry,
    Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn
    The living record of your memory.
    'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
    Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
    Even in the eyes of all posterity
    That wear this world out to the ending doom.
    So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
    You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

    ok, I googled it! It was easier, tho I did remember a fair bit. Even at 15 I loved the idea that a poem could survive while great monuments buildings and inventions might not. I had this image in my mind of a piece of parchment with words on it floating above a ruined city!

    As regards plays, the only ones I have read and am in any way familiar with are the Merchant of venice and King Lear. Both were interesting but I probably would have understood the Merchant better!

    Very interesting topic Soda! I'll be interested to hear what other Borderers have to say!
    'I must be leaving soon... its your world now'
    Glenn Frey 1948-2016 RIP

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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    That is Number 55 and it sums up how Shakespeare's work will survivie forever.

  5. #5
    Stuck on the Border Henley Honey's Avatar
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    I have to be honest. It was mandatory that I take a Shakespeare class in high school. It was at a snooty "Academy" for fine young ladies where I learned lots of stuff (bad, fun stuff) -- but not a lot about Shakespeare. Honestly? I don't get it! BA-HOR-RA-HING. Sorry ladies, I know that's blasphemous. It goes right over my pointy little head. Whoopsie!

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    Well, I would give you some suggestions for where to start so that you wouldn't find it boring, but if you're not interested I guess it wouldn't make a difference. There's nothing worse than being 'forced' to study Shakespeare and developing a lifelong dislike for his work as a result. And sadly, I think that happens to many people.

    I think the first play I studied was Midsummer Night's Dream and I still love the fairytale ambience of the language, plus it also has the comedy of the 'rude mechanicals' which makes it fairly accessible.

  7. #7
    Administrator sodascouts's Avatar
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    Have you ever seen Shakespeare performed, HH? His plays were meant to be acted, and sometimes people have such trouble reading the language it turns them off. That's not the case when you see it performed and it all comes together. While it's not 100% true to the text, I recommend watching Kenneth Branagah's Much Ado About Nothing for an entertaining adaption. I am betting it will make you laugh!

    However, even if he's not to your tastes, literature - and even the English language - owes him a great deal.

    Check out this list of words and phrases he invented - I think you'll be surprised! For instance, did you know Shakespeare coined the word "zany"?

    http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm

    Always in our hearts, Never forgotten

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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    And then there were those Eagles related phrases:

    The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers

    - Henry VI Part 2, Act 4, Scene 2

    Oh brave new world,
    That has such people in 't!

    - The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1

    Although the phrase Brave New World was also used as the title of Aldous Huxley's novel of the 'future'.

  9. #9
    Administrator sodascouts's Avatar
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    Also, possibly, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more" from Macbeth might have inspired the line "Peacocks prance and strut upon the stage" from "Waiting in the Weeds."

    Always in our hearts, Never forgotten

  10. #10
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    Default Re: Shakespeare

    Quote Originally Posted by sodascouts View Post
    Also, possibly, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more" from Macbeth might have inspired the line "Peacocks prance and strut upon the stage" from "Waiting in the Weeds."
    Do you think so?!

    As I said above, that is my favourite piece of literature. I would also say 'possibly'.

    Another interesting reference is in Don's song Building The Perfect Beast where he sings 'sharper than a serpent's tongue'.

    The lines from King Lear are:

    How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
    To have a thankless child (Act 1, Scene 4)

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