Why would one recommend Shakespeare's poetry?


Les



Post Edited (02-13-05 15:48)

I think that his exploration of the human psyche is best followed through these little window glass exhibitions of paradox, precision and humour.

Peter



Post Edited (02-12-05 22:10)

he writes good

Les....You've actually asked two very different questions. I've never studied Shakespere as a poet or as anything else, but wouldn't mind doing so. I think studying his life would be equally as satisfying and augment the study of his poetry.

I enjoy seeing how language was used, and how people expressed their thoughts years ago. Different strokes for different folks, however, so I guess one wouldn't recommend it to everyone.

I will await the answers of you....the teacher, and the many other studied folks here to either convince or disuade me from the study of Shakespeare's poetry.

He also knew what he was doing.

Like Hilary Clinton said "Because it's there"

CLOTHED in radiant armour, and authorized by titles sure and manifold, as a poet, Shakspeare came forward to demand the throne of fame, as the dramatic poet of England. His excellencies compelled even his contemporaries to seat him on that throne, although there were giants in those days contending for the same honor. Hereafter I would fain endeavour to make out the title of the English drama as created by, and existing in, Shakspeare, and its right to the supremacy of dramatic excellence in general. But he had shown himself a poet, previously to his appearance as a dramatic poet; and had no Lear, no Othello, no Henry IV., no Twelfth Night ever appeared, we must have admitted that Shakspeare possessed the chief, if not every, requisite of a poet,- deep feeling and exquisite sense of beauty, both as exhibited to the eye in the combinations of form, and to the ear in sweet and appropriate melody; that these feelings were under the command of his own will; that in his very first productions he projected his mind out of his own particular being, and felt, and made others feel, on subjects no way connected with himself, except by force of contemplation and that sublime faculty by which a great mind becomes that, on which it meditates. To this must be added that affectionate love of nature and natural objects, without which no man could have observed so steadily, or painted so truly and passionately, the very minutest beauties of the external world:-

---Samuel Taylor Coleridge


Les

Because his work is enjoyable- he was great at that difficult game of fitting a message into the strict form of a sonnet.

pam

Pam, many who study the author's works as a playwright completely overlook his wonderful use of language within the plays. Anyone have some examples from either the poems, or plays which show the novel way in which he used the language?


Les

Wow, do the taxpayers of your state know you're using their computer to spam this website?

[www.maricopa.gov] />

Les



Post Edited (02-14-05 13:13)

"...hoisted on his own petard," always does it for me.

JoeT

I was always waiting for Q to make a pun about "hoisted on his own Picard", but he never did

same like Homey the Clown never said he was going to practice some Homeyopathy

Because of all the great typos.

"We are such stuff
As dreams are made on and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep..."

--From The Tempest (IV, i, 156-157)

"If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."

--From Twelfth Night (I, i,1-3)

No legacy is so rich as honesty.

--- William Shakespeare, "All's Well that Ends Well", Act 3 scene 5

God forgive us all !"
Macbeth, Act v, Sc.1

"Brevity is the soul of wit".

Hamlet - (Act II, Scene II).

That it should come to this!". - Hamlet Act I, Scene II

Go thither; and, with unattainted eye,
Compare her face with some that I shall show,
And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

(Romeo and Juliet 1.2.88-90)

It is like a barber's chair that fits all buttocks,
the pin-buttock, the quatch-buttock, the brawn
buttock, or any buttock.

All's Well That Ends Well Act 2 Scene 2

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Hamlet, Act 3 Scene IV


Les

You never spoke what did become you less
The Winter's Tale Act I, Scene 2

Old fashions please me best.

--Tempest , III,i,78

God bless thee; and put meekness in thy mind, Love, charity, obedience,
and true duty!

Richard III: Act 2 Page 3

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."

--From Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)

the quatch-buttock


Is that what you have when you get butox injections?

God be prais'd, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
--Henry VI Act 2, Sc. 1

Hugh,
I think it's what you get when stepped on by a snow monster.

Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.

–Hamlet, Act III, Scene I.

I am not bound to please thee with my answers.

The Merchant Of Venice Act 4 Scene 1

Do you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?

As You Like It Act 3 Scene 3

Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere.

–Twelfth Night: Act III, Scene I.

There 's nothing serious in mortality
Macbeth Act 2 Scene 3

the heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous smiling.

Love's Labour's Lost Act 3 Scene 1

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

--Richard II, V, 5.


Les

Let's teach ourselves that honorable stop,
Not to outsport discretion.


Othello -- II. 3.

to expostulate what majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.

Hamlet Act 2 Scene 2

To wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.
King Henry IV, part 2 Act 1 Scene 2

Hence! I am qualmish at the smell of leek.

--Henry V, Act V. Scene 1.



Post Edited (02-17-05 14:31)

Indeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose
All's Well That Ends Well Act 5 Scene 2

Let us make an honourable retreat.

---As You Like It. Act iii. Sc. 2.

These violent delights have violent ends
Romeo and Juliet Act 2 Scene 6

And my ending is despair
The Tempest Act 5 Scene 1

O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Othello Act 2 Scene 1

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

--Measure for Measure , II, ii)

Would we had so ended! but you, sir, altered that
Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 1

'Tis not the many oaths that make the truth;
But the plain single vow, that is vow'd true.

--All's Well That Ends Well, Act IV, ii

 <br />
A)  Having a conversation<br />

Practicing for the contest

C) Studying Shakespere

D) All of the above

E) None of the above

F) A combination of some of the above

BUZZZZZZZZZZ.........Who is....no wait.....What are Les and Johnny doing?

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag --
It's so elegant
So intelligent

--Jimmy Cagney

I will be free, even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

-- The Taming of the Shrew, Act IV, Sc. iii

That lady is not now living, or this gentleman's
opinion by this worn out.
Cymbeline Act 1, scene 4

To me, the most compelling reason to study Shakespeare as a poet is that he was a very good one. The iambic pentameter lines of his plays are examples themselves of blank verse. I suspect he trained himself to think in IP early on in his career. Poetry is also mixed in with the plays, such as the witches' sequences in Macbeth.

Consider this one, sometimes said to be the best example of a 'winter' poem in the language:


When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail [flute? fingernails?],
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipped, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring-owl,
Tu-whit, tu-who--a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth [cool] keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw [platitude],
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs [crabapples] hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit, tu-who--a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.


An example of iambic tetrameter, each stanza rhyming abab cc ee, with the last three lines repeated in the 2nd stanza. Does/did bowl rhyme with owl? Possibly not - an example of an eye rhyme. Note/pot? Dunno. The first line seems to be out of kilter, though. Does it not seem anapestic trimeter?

When I-cicles HANG by the WALL

Surely he could not have intended we hear,

when IciCLES hang BY the WALL

Still, it has eight syllables, so perhaps he thought that was ok. He also puts in a couple of 'doth's' to pad out the meter, which today is thought a fault. Many poets did such padding way back when, so we will likely have to forgive it.

One must confess he captures the bleak mood of winter, no? The owl's song brings in a merry note, but the rest of the imagery is shivery. This one (again) is from Love's Labour's Lost. Who were Dick, Tom, Marian and Joan? I am not sure. Simple peasant names, mebbe. Why would Joan be greasy? Could be from lack of bathing, but the fact that the Winter one is companioned with this one gives me pause:


When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silver-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo; Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!


Here, cuckoo is meant to symbolize cuckoldry. Does that mean that greasy Joan keeling the pot was a similar pun?

Thanks, Hugh, for your discussion.

----------What are iambic pentameter and anapestic trimeter?

When I-cicles HANG by the WALL

Surely he could not have intended we hear,

when IciCLES hang BY the WALL

If capitals suggest stress, I would read line one as:

When Icicles hang by the wall

It is intersting looking at both poems you presented here, each with a bird's song......mocking? And I agree with your question about Joan being greasy. I know there is the debate about Shakespere being homosexual. Was he ever married? It would seem that he has an opinion about the plight of a married man. No?

Here's a thumbnail sketch of Shakespeare's life.

[absoluteshakespeare.com] />

Les

Here's a picture of Shakespeare's thumb.

[www.whatisleft.org] />

----------What are iambic pentameter and anapestic trimeter?

IP = five beats/stresses/booms per line, accenting every 2nd syllable.

Example:

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

the CURfew TOLLS the KNELL of PARTing DAY

AP = three stresses, accenting every 3rd syllable.

Example:

Mata Hari, by threading her spies,
Wove a network of numerous eyes
To snoop on the French,
So they murdered the wench,
But not before spreading her thighs.

The first line is stressed,

mata HAri, by THREADing her SPIES

But speaking of Shakespeare's riddles, could his epitaph be one?

Good friend, for Jesus´ sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed here!
Blest be ye man that spares thes stones
And curst be he that moues my bones.

Some say he wrote those words to ensure that his wife would not be interred with him there. Perhaps there is another message hidden within, but I have not found it. Shouldn't Jesus' sake be Jesus's, if gramatically correct? Maybe grammar has changed in 400 years, as the spelling of digg and thes and curst has done. And why is it 'ye man' instead of 'the man'. Didn't ye mean you?

I can never remember which is which, but "th" used to be a letter in its own right. Well two letters for the hard and soft sounds, known as eth and thorn. One has dropped out of use completely, the other looked like y so survives in things like "ye olde tea shoppe"

Les and Johnny,

I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior
Benedick: nobody marks you.

Much Ado About Nothing, Act !, Scene 1

pam

Hugh,

The "ye" [with the superior 'e'] for "the" was a common usage, the "y" reperesenting the sound "th" -- so both would be pronounced the same.

So 'ye olde' and 'the old' sound identical.

Pyles, The Origins and Development of the English Languange, 2nd. Ed.

Peter

Thanks. One also sees other variations, such as:

Good Friend for Jesus sake forbeare
To digg the dust enclosed heare:
Blest be ye man yt spares thes stones
And curst be he yet moves my bones

Here the 'yt' appears to suggest 'that'. Where is that web site dedicated to 'where famous people are buried'? There should be a picture of the inscription there, unless it possibly has been changed because of deterioration.

I've lost track of the site you refered to, but there's a picture of the tombstone here:-
[www.allshakespeare.com]

Where is the tomb located, Linda?

Les

If they followed his instructions, the Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-On-Avon. I seem to remember someone wanted to move it to Westminster Abbey, but was dissuaded by the inscription thereon.

Thanks for the picture, Linda. I could not read it via my browser, but saving it to disk and opening it with Vueprint worked fine, once I increased the brightness.

Looks like 'blest be the man' is made with a small e inserted into the crook of the capital Y for 'the' = ye, and the two 'that's' are (possibly) done with a small 't' inserted into the big Y.

'Thes' stones looks like the T and the H are run together, like the A+E in Æsop.

It is still in Holy Trinity, Stratford on Avon.

It's hard to fix typos when stonecutting.

pam

That's why there are so many errata on those packets of cuneiform writings.

Hammurabi's Cod

Piece.

A la Yogi, that's a fine piece you got there,
but guns aren't everything.


Les

yeah, Mugsy, curtains !

He was not of an age, but of all time. -- Ben Jonson.

Here's to Ben....Be Polite !
Frank Booth - Blue Velvet

Why study Shakespear's poertry?

You do not want to get me "started"...

E.