The very best of William Shakespeare

[George Hannah]

I stand corrected. :(

" 'Tis better than to lie uncorrected.."

 

[Iantaff]

Can only speak for my own experience.
But not many schools in Manchester did
Willie Shakespeare.to be honest.never mind trying to understand the fker.

Lots of schools in Manchester did Shakespear, I’d be tempted to say the ones that didn’t were the exception.

 

[Iantaff]

Thought it might be fun to ask fellow Mooners what their favourite Shakespeare play and quote are. My favourite play is Macbeth. Very difficult to choose a quote as there are so many good ones that are still as relevant today as when they were written:

• "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."
  'Act 2, Scene 7 As you like it

• "The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool."
  Act 5, Scene 1 A you like it

• "Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Act 5 Scene 5 Macbeth

‘The Tempest’
“Hell is empty and all the devils are here”

 

[KS55]

For god's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of Kings...

Said Phil Brown.

 

[Saddleworth2]

“Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.”

Romeo and Juliet

 

[Saddleworth2]

I bite my thumb at you lot.

"Did you bite your thumb at us sir?"

Get to the Brexit thread if you want to start a fight :-)

 

[Saddleworth2]

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! Make thick my blood,
Stop up th' access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murd'ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry "Hold, hold"

Lady Macbeth, Macbeth.

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

For those that find Shakespeare a little boring, I recommend this Baz Luhrmann adaption of Romeo and Juliet. Magical with a top notch cast.

Seen it and it's awful.

For me, I just got unlucky with Shakespeare and think it was just too much for us youngsters at school. Bard luck, I guess.

When having to study his text and decipher it all, it's like one long cryptic crossword, and when you consider he (or they) were writing during a period of huge illiteracy and just making words up (he couldn't even spell his own name consistently), I just don't get the constant requirement to deem him the epitome of English story writing.

 

[Kennedy_probably_has]

“Two households, both alike in dignity
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.”

Romeo and Juliet

Bit of a spoiler though isn’t it to put it right at the start of the book. Makes reading it a bit of a waste of time

 

[Saddleworth2]

Seen it and it's awful.

For me, I just got unlucky with Shakespeare and think it was just too much for us youngsters at school. Bard luck, I guess.

When having to study his text and decipher it all, it's like one long cryptic crossword, and when you consider he (or they) were writing during a period of huge illiteracy and just making words up (he couldn't even spell his own name consistently), I just don't get the constant requirement to deem him the epitome of English story writing.

Its not for everyone but the fact that so many of his phrases still exist in everyday english indicates he was pretty special. We got it force fed at school but once I got into it I genuinely enjoyed it and still read some of his plays once in a while just to remind me.

 

[Saddleworth2]

Bit of a spoiler though isn’t it to put it right at the start of the book. Makes reading it a bit of a waste of time

he was ahead of his time. Bit like a Christopher Nolan film.

 

[Kennedy_probably_has]

he was ahead of his time. Bit like a Christopher Nolan film.

Well I’m glad he didn’t write The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects

 

[Saddleworth2]

Well I’m glad he didn’t write The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects

who? Christopher Nolan or William Shakespeare? ;-)

 

[TheRemainsOfTheDave]

Its not for everyone but the fact that so many of his phrases still exist in everyday english indicates he was pretty special. We got it force fed at school but once I got into it I genuinely enjoyed it and still read some of his plays once in a while just to remind me.

How do we know he invented them? At a time of huge control over the printed word and little standardized education there is likely to be a rich, diverse and complex spoken culture across the country and if he did write all these plays, for a man who appears never to have travelled out of England, he must have borrowed tales from others, so probably did the same with words and phrases. Some of what we deem created by him would have been well used phrases of the day among the ordinary people but not the intellectuals who did not mix with them, but whose writings survive. The relaxation of censorship rules not long after his death, the popularity of the King James bible and increase of printed material set his place in history.

 

[BrianW]

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

Richard II

 

[Lovebitesandeveryfing]

I bite my thumb at you lot.

A turd i' your teeth, sir!

(Not Shakespeare but Ben Jonson. Jonson's insults are better than Bill's. Not surprising that he once stabbed someone to death, really)

 

[crazyg]

Blackadder had it right!

 

[Sir peace frog]

classic Shakespeare

my friend billy had a ten foot willy so he showed it to the neighbour next door
she thought it was a snake ,so she hit it with a rake
and now its only 5ft 4

 

[Stoned Rose]

‘Lovebites and everyfink’ was his finest hour.

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

I preferred his fishing stuff.