I visited England for the first time in the summer of 1997. I was changing jobs, moving from CT to San Francisco, and thus, free for a three week vacation with my parents to visit our relatives near Birmingham.
About an hour from my my mom's eldest sister and family is Stratford-upon-Avon, famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare. The "Shakespearience" is a trip back to sixteenth-century Tudor England with a visit to the house on Henley Street where Shakespeare was born and the Holy Trinity Church where he married Anne Hathaway. In the recreated village, many of Shakespeare's fictional characters stroll through the house and grounds and act out beloved scenes. Although touristy, the experience gives insight into what life was like when the famous bard was a child. I hope to go back someday with my family.
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I did not fully appreciate the influence of Shakespeare when I visited. I'd struggled through a few plays in high school, such as Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. Shakespeare is not easy! I'd watched a few movie versions, such as Hamlet and Roman Polanski's interpretation of Macbeth (umm, nude Lady Macbeth?). But, since the days of high school, I've gained a high regard for not only Shakespeare's high brow wit and still relevant prose, but also, the profundity of his impact on people of all walks of life. Who hasn't quoted a line from Shakespeare, whether knowingly or unknowingly? The man affected theater, literature, and the English language. Not to mention his influence on novelists and poets and movie scripts. The extent of his genius is admirable, especially to an aspiring writer.
FYI...My college friend W schooled me on the grammar rule regarding quotation marks adjacent to periods and commas:
- American style: commas and periods are almost always placed inside closing quotation marks.
- British style: include within quotation marks punctuation marks that appeared in the quoted material, but otherwise to place punctuation outside the closing quotation marks.
Sonnet 18
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date".
Hamlet
To be, or not to be: that is the question". - (Act III, Scene I).
"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry". - (Act I, Scene III).
"This above all: to thine own self be true". - (Act I, Scene III).
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks". - (Act III, Scene II).
"A little more than kin, and less than kind". - (Act I, Scene II).
"Brevity is the soul of wit". - (Act II, Scene II).
As You Like It
"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 II, Scene VII).
"Can one desire too much of a good thing?" - (Act IV, Scene I).
"How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!" - (Act V, Scene II).
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool". - (Act V, Scene I).
King Richard III
"Now is the winter of our discontent". - (Act I, Scene I).
"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" - (Act V, Scene IV).
"Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe". - (Act V, Scene III).
"So wise so young, they say, do never live long". - (Act III, Scene I).
"Off with his head!" - (Act III, Scene IV).
Romeo and Juliet
"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?" - (Act II, Scene II).
"It is the east, and Juliet is the sun". - (Act II, Scene II).
"Good Night, Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow." - (Act II, Scene II).
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet". - (Act II, Scene II).
"O that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" - (Act II, Scene II).
The Merchant of Venice
"But love is blind, and lovers cannot see".
"If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" - (Act III, Scene I).
The Merry Wives of Windsor
"Why, then the world 's mine oyster" - (Act II, Scene II).
"This is the short and the long of it". - (Act II, Scene II).
Measure for Measure
"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt". - (Act I, Scene IV).
"Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall". - (Act II, Scene I).
"The miserable have no other medicine but only hope". - (Act III, Scene I).
King Henry IV, Part I
"He will give the devil his due". - (Act I, Scene II).
"The better part of valour is discretion". - (Act V, Scene IV).
King Henry IV, Part II
"He hath eaten me out of house and home". - (Act II, Scene I).
King Henry IV, Part III
"The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on". - (Act II, Scene II).
King Henry the Sixth, Part I
"Delays have dangerous ends". - (Act III, Scene II).
"Of all base passions, fear is the most accursed". - (Act V, Scene II).
King Henry the Sixth, Part II
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers". - (Act IV, Scene II).
King Henry the Sixth, Part III
"Having nothing, nothing can he lose".- (Act III, Scene III).
Timon of Athens
"We have seen better days". - (Act IV, Scene II).
Julius Caesar
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him". - (Act III, Scene II).
"But, for my own part, it was Greek to me". - (Act I, Scene II).
"Et tu, Brute!" - (Act III, Scene I).
Macbeth
"There 's daggers in men's smiles". - (Act II, Scene III).
"what 's done is done".- (Act III, Scene II).
"I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none". - (Act I, Scene VII).
"Fair is foul, and foul is fair". - (Act I, Scene I).
"I bear a charmed life". - (Act V, Scene VIII).
"Yet do I fear thy nature; It is too full o' the milk of human kindness." - (Act I, Scene V).
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red" - (Act II, Scene II).
"Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble." - (Act IV, Scene I).
"Out, damned spot! out, I say!" - (Act V, Scene I)..
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand." - (Act V, Scene I).
"Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under 't." - (Act I, Scene V).
"Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand?" - (Act II, Scene I).
"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 V, Scene V).
King Lear
"My love's more richer than my tongue". - (Act I, Scene I).
"Nothing will come of nothing." - (Act I, Scene I).
"Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest". - (Act I, Scene IV).
Othello
"‘T’is neither here nor there." - (Act IV, Scene III).
"The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief". - (Act I, Scene III).
Antony and Cleopatra
"My salad days, when I was green in judgment." - (Act I, Scene V).
Cymbeline
"The game is up." - (Act III, Scene III).
Twelfth Night
"Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them". - (Act II, Scene V).
"Love sought is good, but giv'n unsought is better" . - (Act III, Scene I).
The Tempest
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep".
King Henry the Fifth
"Men of few words are the best men". - (Act III, Scene II).
A Midsummer Night's Dream
"The course of true love never did run smooth". - (Act I, Scene I).
Much Ado About Nothing
"Everyone can master a grief but he that has it". - (Act III, Scene II).
Titus Andronicus
"These words are razors to my wounded heart". - (Act I, Scene I).
Taming of the Shrew
"Out of the jaws of death". - (Act III, Scene IV).
