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Cobbe Portrait of William Shakespeare
Monthly Archives: November 2012
“This is, unambiguously, the happiest of Shakespeare’s comedies.”
As You Like It An Introduction By Dennis Abrams ——————————- Although written during the roughly the same period as Twelfth Night (the play following our next play, Hamlet), As You Like It has little of the obvious darkness of Shakespeare’s … Continue reading
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Tagged As You Like It, Celia, Comedy, drama, entertainment, Introduction, language, literature, Orlando, pastoral, renaissance humanism, Rosalind, Shakespeare, society, Touchstone, william hazlitt, William Shakespeare
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“All this the world well knows; yet none knows well/To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.”
Shakespeare Sonnet #129 SONNET 129 The expense of spirit in a waste of shame Is lust in action; and till action, lust Is perjured, murderous, bloody, full of blame, Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust; Enjoy’d no sooner but … Continue reading
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Tagged Elizabethan poetry, elizabethan sonnets, John Gielgud, language, literature, lust, politics, Ralph Fiennes, renaissance humanism, Rufus Wainwright, Shakespeare, shakespeare sonnet, Shakespeare Sonnet #129, Sian Phillips, society, sonnet, William Shakespeare, writing
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“Caesar, now be still,/I killed not thee with half so good a will.”
Julius Caesar Act Five By Dennis Abrams —————————– Act Five: As news reaches Antony and Octavius that the enemy is approaching, the two men quarrel. As the battle commences, Brutus attacks Octavius’s troops but Cassius, believing that his own forces … Continue reading
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Tagged Act Five, Bolingbroke, Brutus, Calpurnia, Cassius, Falstaff, human-rights, Ides of March, Julius Caesar, language, literature, politics, Portia, renaissance humanism, Roman history, Roman play, Rome, Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare, tyrannicide, William Shakespeare, writing
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“The strings, my lord, are false.”
Julius Caesar Act Four By Dennis Abrams —————————— Act Four: Antony, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus have assumed the leadership of Rome. Meanwhile, Antony and Cassius combine their forces at Sardis, but the two men quarrel when Brutus accuses Cassius of … Continue reading
“But Brutus says he was ambitious,/And Brutus is an honourable man.”
Julius Caesar Act Three By Dennis Abrams —————————- Act Three: At the Capitol, Caesar rejects Artemidorus’s letter but instead listens to a petition requesting that the banishment of Metellus’s brother be repealed. When he refuses, the conspirators stab him to … Continue reading
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Tagged Act Three, Brutus, Calpurnia, Cassius, drama, history, history play, human-rights, Julius Caesar, king henry v, language, literature, Mark Antony, politics, Portia, religion, renaissance humanism, Roman history, Roman play, Rome, Shakespeare, William Shakespeare
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“And since the quarrel/Will hear no colour for the thing he is,/Fashion it thus…”
Julius Caesar Act Two By Dennis Abrams ————————– Act Two: Brutus privately concludes that Caesar’s ambition means he must die. Joined by Cassius and other conspirators, he agrees to kill Caesar, but Brutus vetoes the suggestion that Antony should also … Continue reading
“Indeed, it is a strange-disposed time:/But men may construe things after their fashion,/Clean from the purpose of the things themselves.”
Julius Caesar Act One, Part Two By Dennis Abrams ———————————- I’m struck by a couple of things: 1. The number of well-known lines and phrases, even just from Act One: “Beware the ides of March,” “Men at some time are … Continue reading
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Tagged act one, Brutus, Cassius, drama, history, history play, Julius Caesar, language, literature, Mark Antony, philosophy, Plutarch, Plutarch's Lives, politics, religion, renaissance humanism, Roman history, Roman play, Shakespeare, The ides of March, William Shakespeare
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“Beware the ides of March.”
Julius Caesar Act One By Dennis Abrams ———————- Major Characters Julius Caesar (later a Ghost) Calpurnia, Caesar’s wife The conspirators against Caesar: Marcus Brutus, Caius Cassius, Casca, Trebonius, Decius Brutus, Metellus Cimber, Cinna and Caius Ligarius Portia, Brutus’s wife Lucius, … Continue reading
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Tagged act one, Antony, Brutus, Cassius, drama, Faulconbridge, Henry IV, Henry V, Ides of March, Julius Caesar, king henry iv, language, literature, politics, renaissance humanism, Roman play, Shakespeare, tragedy, William Shakespeare
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“O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet!/Thy spirit walks abroad, and turns our swords/In our own proper entrails.”
Julius Caesar An Introduction By Dennis Abrams ————————— Just in time for you to get your post-election political fix (if you’re American of course) we’re on to our next play, Shakespeare’s tautest study of political intrigue, Julius Caesar. It is … Continue reading
“Were ‘t aught to me I bore the canopy,/With my extern the outward honouring,/Or laid great bases for eternity,/Which prove more short than waste or ruining?”
William Shakespeare Sonnet #125 —————- SONNET 125 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=le1OvIqDf0cWere ‘t aught to me I bore the canopy, With my extern the outward honouring, Or laid great bases for eternity, Which proves more short than waste or ruining? Have I not seen … Continue reading
The Play's The Thing 