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Shakespeare Fever!

A platform to express and share your enthusiasm and passion for poetry. What are your treasured poems and poets? Don't hesitate to showcase the poems you've penned yourself!
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bleachededen

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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There's a Lolcat for everything!!


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oblivion

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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I've commenced the Shakespeare course this week and was thrilled--enthralled-to find out the professor is David Tolley!!! We're beginning with "MacBeth". I'll keep you posted (literally)....maybe much to your chagrin ;).
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
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Penelope

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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The Scottish Play!!

Well, 'Break a Leg'!! I don't know whether that is sour grapes or superstition!!

Do, do keep us informed. Please....
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
bleachededen

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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Agreed, Penelope. Keep us informed, oblivion, and don't spare any of the gory details! ;)

Penelope, I think it's only bad superstition to say "Macbeth" in a theater, especially if you are performing it. I have no idea how that superstition came into being. I think I'll have to look that up...

in the meantime...here's a bit of fun absurdity from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Tom Stoppard's lovely existentialist play about Hamlet's traitorous friends, who are stuck in a reality they don't recognize and can't remember anything, even their own names. In this clip they are playing a game of questions, the way you would play tennis, and if you can follow it at all, it is wonderfully hysterical. I absolutely love this film, and pretty much anything else Tom Stoppard writes (but you can see my dearer love for this play because of its close relationship to Hamlet, one of my favorite Shakespeare plays).

Questions and Answers Tennis from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-Sx4W2cKlU

Repetition, match point! ;)
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oblivion

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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Interesting course! The questions today were concerned with the soliloquy in Act 1 and what the significance is of his beginning without naming what it is he plans.
We're also dealing with neologisms as the OED says this is the first recorded use of the word ‘assassination’ , so we're discussing how that might that be expressive of Macbeth’s thought processes, and how it may have affected early contemporary audiences. We're focussing on the rhythm of the language and how the language itself--in an auditory sense--gives clues to the plot and coming-up action. I am curious as to why the prof picked this play to begin with. And I am curious if Macbeth's role was played with a Scottish accent.
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
bleachededen

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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Is the soliloquy, oblivion? Perhaps we could discuss it with you. :)

from Macbeth, Act I, scene vii

MACBETH: If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here;
that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor:
this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredience of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on th'other.
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oblivion

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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This is it!
Gods and spirits are parasitic--Pascal Boyer

Religion is the only force in the world that lets a person have his prejudice or hatred and feel good about it --S C Hitchcock

Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it. --André Gide

Reading is a majority skill but a minority art. --Julian Barnes
bleachededen

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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I'm a good guesser. ;)
bleachededen

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Re: Shakespeare Fever!

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It's beautiful outside, boasting a blue sky dotted with fluffy drifting clouds and a gentle breeze, and I can't think of any lovelier day to post this most famous sonnet.

***

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

***
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Penelope

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The Spring often makes me feel restless:
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,

Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,

Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,

The flat unraised spirits that have dared

On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth

So great an object: can this cockpit hold

The vasty fields of France? or may we cram

Within this wooden O the very casques

That did affright the air at Agincourt?

O, pardon! since a crooked figure may

Attest in little place a million;

And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,

On your imaginary forces work.

Suppose within the girdle of these walls

Are now confined two mighty monarchies,

Whose high upreared and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:

Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;

Into a thousand parts divide on man,

And make imaginary puissance;

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;

For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,

Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,

Turning the accomplishment of many years

Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,

Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.
[Exit]
Only those become weary of angling who bring nothing to it but the idea of catching fish.

He was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad....

Rafael Sabatini
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