Do You Ever Read Or Watch Shakespeare's plays ?
Although it's probably not true, it seems to me that the internet era has diminished the effect of people like Shakespeare, and other historical figures of literature, art, and music. Today everyone is into the now. Our interests are in what we saw a half an hour ago, not 400 years ago.
Shakespeare is considered by many as the greatest playwright of all time, and his characters and stories have become models and stereotypes for much of the world literature that has followed. Here is a partial list of common words Shakespeare either created or changed the usual meaning of.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SHAKESPEARE PLAYS AND CHARACTERS ?
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Where is the list, John?
NT removed it . I re -did it from a different image
Polonius’ Advice to Laertes
Hamlet I, iii, 55-81
LORD POLONIUS
Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay’d for. There; my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear’t that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
I've only ever read Romeo and Juliet, MacBeth, and Hamlet. I like the witches in MacBeth the best
It is somewhat difficult for the modern ear to absorb all of Shakespeares language. There is a website I saw once where they post the plays but with the language Shakespeare used changed into modern words and sentence structure. Kind of defeats the purpose of reading the world's greatest writer though.
I started watching King Lear on Amazon but it was hard for to understand the language. I could finish it and get the gist of it, tho
Yes, John, he is in a category all his own.
Always relevant, to this very day!:
"Things without all remedy should be without regard: What's done is done and Give me your hand."
I am sure you are familiar with this speech, considered one of the greatest inspirational speeches in all of literature.
Also coined the term "band of brothers"
HENRY V, ST CRISPINS DAY SPEECH - William Shakespeare
When I majored in English Literature to get my B.A., one of my courses was all Shakespeare, but it included other writings besides plays. However, my favourite line from all of Shakepeare is from Henry VIII, Part 2 "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." In High School we did theatre, and I was Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. "For Andrew, should he have so much blood in his liver as would clog the foot of a flea, I'd eat the rest of the anatomy." As for watching a Shakespeare play acted out on stage, the most memorable one was watching Richard Burton as Hamlet at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. Elizabeth Taylor sat about 2 rows directly in front of me, and during a break she turned around and looked directly at me, and I fell in love all over again.