Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
I'm supposed to be packing and moving to a new apartment this weekend, which of course makes it imperative that I adjudicate a poetry-quotation contest on Ricochet. Obviously this is an urgent issue of shared Anglo-Saxon cultural heritage, so it must take priority over readying my apartment for the movers. My cultural heritage needs me.
The rules: Choose a quotation, a stanza or a scene. Then explain, as you would to a bright teenager, why it's an example of Shakespeare's genius.
My father has volunteered to be the first contestant. Here is his entry, concerning The Phoenix and the Turtle:
About The Phoenix and the Turtle (Dove -- not reptile). This relatively short poem contains so many extraordinary examples of linguistic virtuosity that it might take a book to explicate them all. It is, of course, a superbly nuanced celebration of love; it contains, as every critic has noted, a remarkable anticipation of the metaphysical poets to come; but above all it is an example of how by setting the very tightest formal constraints on rhyme and meter, a poem can use them to splendid effects, thus suggesting an important principle of art itself.
Consider just the first stanza: Let the bird/ of loudest lay/ on the sole/ Arabian tree/ Herald sad/ and trumpet be/ To whose sound/Chaste wings obey. The word 'lay' in this context functions as a noun: It means a song, in this case, a threnody. But it also functions as a verb, and so introduces a play on words in the very first line. Both the metrical and the rhyme scheme are very tight. The rhyme scheme is ABBA and it is executed perfectly. LAY-OBEY; TREE-BE.
Now the meter is plainly trochaic, and I suppose the trochees are counted by stress: Let the BIRD/ of loudest LAY/ on the SOLE/ Arabian TREE/ Herald SAD/and trumpet BE/To whose SOUND/chaste wings OBEY. But when read this way, the poem has a wooden quality,and no one would want to read it this way. In fact, when the poem is scanned syllabically, as it would be in French, the meter changes dramatically. Let the bird -- three syllables. Of loudest lay -- four syllables. Shakespeare has stressed his poem in trochees, but he has introduced subtle variations in syllabification to break up the meter by varying the length of his phrases after the initial trochee of each line. The only exception is the last line, which contains only three syllables, and neatly returns the end of the stanza to its first line.
It would be extremely difficult for you or me -- or anyone -- to write four lines that made sense, and that exhibit the ABBA rhyme scheme, and that are expressed in trochaic form, and that contain the syllabic pattern of 3-4, 3-4, 3-4, 3-3. Just try it. To do this while expressing a vivid account of love, devotion, fate and at the same time expressing a subtle analysis of the nature of number, personality and division in nature, is nothing short of a miracle.
To make sure the fix isn't in, I'm hereby disqualifying my father. Truth be told, no one can beat him when it comes to Shakespeare--or poetry quotation in general. So the contest is wide open.
What else can I do to avoid packing, I wonder? You know, I've never really mastered the details of irrigation and water resource management in Ottoman Egypt. It seems quite important. Off I go!
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Jun '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Richard III, Act 1, Scene i
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well‑spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
When we think Shakespeare we go to his poems on love or his musings on time. We often forget the keen insight he had into his characters. In the above excerpt we see that Shakespeare would have understood alienation in any age and in any society, even in a modern high school. Young people live in mirrors no more or less then Richard III lived in his own shadow.
Edited on Nov 13, 2010 at 2:26amRe: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Aug '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Strike flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, all germens spill at once
That make ingrateful man!"
- William Shakespeare, King Lear, 3.2.1
This proves that, centuries before Al Gore, Shakespeare saw the dangers of climate change. Cruelly, he never gets the credit for his foresight. Tragically for the planet like so many prophets in their own time, no-one listened to him.
Aug '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
"Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful!
Into her womb convey sterility!
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen; that it may live,
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her!
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks;
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt; that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child! Away, away!"
— William Shakespeare
This passage illustrates what the world was like before Roe v Wade and also some medieval, pre-freudian analysis of the parent-child relationship.
Nov '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v
When Romeo (disguised) crashes the Capulet party, he is recognized by Tybalt, who intends to do murder, but is interrupted by his uncle, Old Capulet.
Capulet: Why, how now, kinsman? Wherefore storm you so?
Tybalt: Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe...
Capulet: Young Romeo is it?
Tybalt: 'Tis he, that villain Romeo.
Capulet: Content thee, gentle coz, let him alone.
'A bears him like a portly gentleman,
And, to say truth, Verona brags of him
To be a virtuous and well-govern'd youth.
I would not for the wealth of all this town
Here in my house do him disparagement...
Tybalt stomps off, but makes it clear that things are just heating up.
Tybalt: ...I will withdraw; but this intrusion shall,
Now seeming sweet, convert to bitt'rest gall.
I love this scene for its economical storytelling and psychological insight. With swift, sure strokes of the playwright's brush, Shakespeare establishes that Romeo is reckless, Tybalt is hotheaded, and Old Capulet is reasonable – even willing to extend hospitality to an enemy who behaves himself. And Tybalt tops the whole thing off by dropping a huge Anvil of Foreshadowing. Very nicely done.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Kingjanaka, you say that this idea characterizes early Shakespeare, but wouldn't you say this theme is expressed quite consistently? Late Shakespeare, too? Sonnet 130, 141?
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Cas Balicki:Shakespeare would have understood alienation in any age and in any society, even in a modern high school. Young people live in mirrors no more or less then Richard III lived in his own shadow. · Nov 13 at 2:25am
Edited on Nov 13 at 02:26 am
Especially in a modern high school, I'd say. Richard III seems to have walked right out of one.
Oct '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Scene I
Katharina (to Petruchio): "Asses are made to bear, and so are you."
Shakespeare was a master of sharp dialogue. I wonder if that functioned as a double-entendre in Elizabethan England as it does presently.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Hi Claire. I wouldn't disagree. It's just that there's real uncertainty about when Sh. wrote the sonnets, a few having been published as early as 1599, and Sh. having "circulated them among his private friends" even before that, according to a contemporary. I was thinking mainly MND, LLL and the narrative poems.
But wait, you accept a non-romantic reading of R&J? Does your father too? That's awesome if so, as scholars are nearly unanimous in seeing it as the ultimate love story.
Nov '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
For high school and college students navigating today's hook-up culture, Sonnet 129 pretty much sums up why there's not likely to be a phone call/text/email/ping/poke the next morning:
Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murdr'ous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Made in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe,
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Mike LaRoche: The Taming of the Shrew, Act 2, Scene I
Katharina (to Petruchio): "Asses are made to bear, and so are you."
Shakespeare was a master of sharp dialogue. I wonder if that functioned as a double-entendre in Elizabethan England as it does presently. · Nov 13 at 5:37am
I'm sure it did.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
kingjanaka
But wait, you accept a non-romantic reading of R&J? Does your father too? That's awesome if so, as scholars are nearly unanimous in seeing it as the ultimate love story. · Nov 13 at 5:46am
Are they really unanimous? I'm not up-to-date on the scholarship, though the more I look at everything I still need to pack, the more I think it's very important that I bring myself up to speed. Honestly, I always took R&J as a bit tongue-in-cheek. I had no idea scholars took it that seriously.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Ann: For high school and college students navigating today's hook-up culture, Sonnet 129 pretty much sums up why there's not likely to be a phone call/text/email/ping/poke the next morning:
Th'expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and, till action, lust
Is perjured, murdr'ous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoyed no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted, and no sooner had,
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Made in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and proved, a very woe,
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows, yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell. · Nov 13 at 5:49am
This may well be the greatest of the sonnets. Anyone have a better candidate?
Oct '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Tangentially related to the topic: Shakespeare in the original pronunciation
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
May '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Act V The Tempest
ARIEL
...They cannot budge till your release. The king,
His brother and yours, abide all three distracted
And the remainder mourning over them,
Brimful of sorrow and dismay; but chiefly
Him that you term'd, sir, 'The good old lord Gonzalo;'
His tears run down his beard, like winter's drops
From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works 'em
That if you now beheld them, your affections
Would become tender.
PROSPERO
Dost thou think so, spirit?
ARIEL
Mine would, sir, were I human.
PROSPERO
And mine shall.
Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling
Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,
One of their kind, that relish all as sharply,
Passion as they, be kindlier moved than thou art?
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel:
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.
A_beautiful_appeal_to our better nature of forgiveness
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
I'm so curious to see this, but can't get the video to load--is it just me?
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
David Kube:
Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason 'gaitist my fury
Do I take part: the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent,
The sole drift of my purpose doth extend
Not a frown further. Go release them, Ariel:
My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore,
And they shall be themselves.
A_beautiful_appeal_to our better nature of forgiveness · Nov 13 at 7:00am
It is beautiful, and the spirit of this is so alien in Turkey. In the Islamic world as a whole, I suppose. The nobility of forgiveness seems so morally obvious (if difficult to achieve) to anyone deeply influenced by Christian culture--of which this is clearly an example--and yet it simply isn't obvious to those who haven't been.
Oct '10
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
Sonnet 29
My parent's relationship was one of the great love affairs of all time, though my father had had a very difficult time of it before he met her. This was his favorite sonnet (to him it was her sonnet), and is mine also.
No other poet has ever condensed into so few verses the human condition as it relates to the redemptive power of love.
Re: Saturday Morning Shakespeare Quotation Contest
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
You have to wonder, reading this--did he realize he was Shakespeare? Did it ever occur to him that every man before or after him might have cause at some point to feel envy of another man's art and scope, but he did not?