We have all heard it a million times before. It is etched in our brains. The beauty, the confusion, the controversy; whether we want it or not it will always have a place in our lives. It is universally acknowledged. It is loved worldwide, yet it is hated within each of us when we cannot understand it. When our ideas match those the footnotes spit out however, we emerge shining and triumphant from our labors. Every time one mentions "assasination", or "skim milk", or 1700 other privately coined phrases, suffixes, and prefixes, we acknowledge its influence.
It is Shakespeare; the Great and Immortal Bard of English literature. 154 sonnets, 37 plays, 13 suicides, and countless loves later, we are still puzzling over this man. My conclusion? Genius.
Sheer, undeniable, perfect, absolute, bona fide genius.
While strolling through Shakespeare's works, I have selected my favorite quotes, thoughts, and facts.
In As You Like It: Because of the obscurities of gender and the fact that women were not allowed to act on stage, Rosalind would have been played by a man, playing a woman. In the play Rosalind emerges as a man who pretends to be a woman who pretends to be a man who pretends to be a woman to win the love of a man.
Romeo and Juliet: "Thou small grey coated gnat."
"Beauty starv'd with your severity
Cuts beauty off from all posterity."
Hamlet: "Thou vicious mole of nature!"
"If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry."
"Go, ye giddy goose."
Henry IV: "Thou leathern-jerkin, crystal-button, knot-pated, agatering, puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish pouch!"
"You are as rheumatic as two dry toasts."
"Peace, good pintpot, peace, good tickle-brain."
Macbeth: "By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."
Call me a nerd. But until you learn to appreciate Shakespeare for its gorgeousness, your insults mean nothing to me, you cockered fly-bitten pumpion!
"All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts."
8 comments:
sweetie, once again, you never cease to amaze me with ur most witty and fluent writing abilities. It flows like sweet butter on my tongue (wonder what that tastes like) hahahaha
all I have to say after that is
buh... buh.... buh...
booty... GHETTO BOOTY!!!!!
You are a nerd.
um... excuse me.. who's the nerd? are you talking to brittany? me, or jos? pick on someone ur own size, come on man!
I called Joslynn a nerd because she said to in her blog. I believe that we are the same height, so that would make us the same size. So there, miss queen of kitties.
Actually Britt, you're a good three inches taller than the Queen.
An unfair match in every respect.
Sweet. Did you know he came up with the phrase, "eyes green with jealousy"? Have you ever heard those rumors that Shakespeare totally plagarized someone else's works? Well, my reply to that is this: "A rose called by any other name would smell as sweet." (or something like that.) My point? I don't care who wrote it. It's great! (Did that make sense?)
Yes!
And how grateful I am to you that I have finally got someone to understand me.
Brittanica...
Hey, I don't have anything against Shakespeare. I just don't have the patience for him sometimes. But when I understand what the man was saying (or plagarizing apparently) then it's not so bad.
Ok then. Final verdict: I like Shakespeare. He's not my favorite, but I'll read his stuff.
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