Yeah I read but the simplified one. It is so hard to understand the plays of Shakespeare unless you are sort of Shakespeare expert. Thanks for accepting me in this club, Rose.

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Will be going to London on March of the 30th

id like to jion.

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New Account: Khaleesi

You're welcome!
I'm reading the original version of Macbeth and I'm going to write a test about it next week. Of course it's quite hard, but I love the play so much that it's worth the effort...




to the club, Eldarwen!

Which is your favourite play by William Shakespeare?

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~The Dreamy A-U Gentlewoman~


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[Sorry for the double post! ]

Okay, it's time for a new discussion topic!

What makes Shakespeare's plays or his works in general so special in your opinion?

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I'd love to join!!! My favourite play is Macbeth, I prefer plays to sonnets and he is so great, because he can be funny or dramatic or sad or romantic or everything at once.

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Formerly Arawn
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to the club, Arawn!

I already thought this club died somehow, as I've posted three or four different discussion topics, but no one posted here anymore. I'm glad to have a new member!
*goes to add you to the member list*

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Ooh, thank you!! Can I add a new discussion thing?? Ok, what's your favourite soliloqy (is that how you spell it?)

My favourite one is Hecate's speech from Macbeth. Sadly it's often left out, because it doesn't really have a big importance

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Mae hen wlad fy nhadau ...

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Formerly Arawn
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Thanks for posting a new topic, Valenta Aillard!

Well, my favourite soliloquy is the famous dagger scene from Macbeth. I have seen various interpretations of it and I loved most ways that were chosen to depict it. It indicates Macbeth's nearing madness, but doesn't reveal it completely yet...

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May I join possibly? *tilt*

^Sure, you can join! I'm happy to have a new member, as this club as been so inactive lately.

, Aliana Dawne! *goes to add you to the member list*

Which is your favourite Shakespeare play? Or do you prefer his sonnets?

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I love his sonnets, but it's been a while since I've read them. Unfortunately the Complete Works book I have on hand only numbers the sonnets and doesn't name them, but I adore #56.

Sweet love, renew thy force; be it not said
Thy edge should blunter be than appetite
Which but today by feeding is allay'd
Tomorrow sharpen'd in his former might
So, love, be thou; although today thou fill
Thy hungry eyes even till they wink with fullness
Tomorrow see again, and do not kill
The spirit of love with a perpetual dullness
Let this sad int'rim like the ocean be
Which parts the shore, where two contacted new
Come daily to the banks, that, when they see
Return of love, more blest may be the view;
Or call it winter, which, being full of care
Makes summer's welcome thrice more wisht,
more rare.

^_^ I have most of them memorized, but I still like reading them.

My favorite play by him is most definitely Midsummer Night's Dream. I memorized Helena's monologue in the middle for auditions a while back and fell in love with the entire premise. A couple years ago I was actually cast in the play as Mustardseed with some of the most wonderful people I've ever met. We did it in plainclothes[with a twist] in a city park open-air. It was so much fun.

^_______^;;

Anyone else want to build a time machine simply to go back and meet Shakespeare?

Yes, I love his sonnets as well. My absolute favourite is No 18. I had to learn it by heart some time ago for my English class and since then I really love it.

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:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

My favourite play is Macbeth. That's maybe because we discussed it in class as well.
You do some acting in your leisure time. That must be fun.

And yes, I'd be the person who would travel with you in the Time Machine. I'm really fascinated by Shakespeare and by the whole Elizabethan Era. I'd simply love to meet Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth I. That would be so great.

Have you ever been to the "Globe"?

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No, I haven't, but I'd absolutely love to one day. I plan on it...>.> My boyfriend thinks I'm insane. I've started constructing a time machine. ~_^ We'll have to stop by France and visit Marie Antionette and Louis XIV before they go all party-child on Paris and spend all the money. Haha.

i can't believe i haven't joined this club before. may i join now?

and to answer some of the questions asked...

probably the most obvious thing that makes shakespeare special is his use of language, which can be enjoyed on so many levels - even if you don't know what it means, the rhythm/rhyme/phonology etc make it sound incredibly beautiful; and if you do understand what it means, you realise that the way he plays with language, constructing double layers of meaning and creating wonderful images, is nothing short of genius.

for me though, what really makes shakespeare practically unique is the incredibly deep way in which he understood human nature, and that shows in the way he constructed characters - his characters are rarely simple and always believable. when a character in a shakespeare play does something stupid, i never say "why did shakespeare write that?"; i say "why did that character do that?" - his characters are so well written that they seem real.

as such my favourite of his plays is macbeth - i think it has some wonderful characters. the development of the characters of macbeth and lady macbeth is clearly fascinating, but i also like that shakespeare didn't restrict all of the interest to the lead characters. macduff is very interesting because of the seeming contrdadictions in his character - while the fact that he kills macbeth in revenge for the murders of his wife and kids makes him seem like a heroic figure, his wife's speeches imply that he's actually a bit of a jerk. i'm also intrigued by ross - there seems to be something a little dodgy about him, which several productions have picked up on, but i can't quite figure out what it is. and as someone interested in directing, i love the witches - there are a million and one ways in which they could be represented, which is a director's dream as it provides a great deal of scope for putting your own stamp on the play.

i also love shakespeare's sonnets because they are so surprising and unconvential - stylistically they are traditional sonnets; but in terms of content, they are often very subversive. for example, this one turns the traditional love sonnet on its head by insulting rather than praising its subject, and even questions the truth of traditional love sonnets when it talks about "false compare":
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

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Haha, I was just discussing that sonnet with my boyfriend last night. Reading through some of the poetry and such in a book I picked up from a library and on various websites, I kept seeing a repetition of love poetry or similar things. When I came across that one I busted out laughing because I remember people in my Freshman class saying that it was a beauitful love poem or whatnot...It makes me wonder how much Shakespeare's misinterpreted by people if a sonnet about how someone's NOT beautiful can be passed for a love poem.

interpretation of the poem largely rests on which way you take the word 'rare' - if it means unique, then he's saying "i think she's as ugly as the women in other sonnets are supposedly beautiful"; but if it means 'precious', then he's saying "i think she's ugly, but i still value/love her as much as other sonneteers value/love their beautiful women".

anyway, my point is that i can see how people can say it's a love poem if they go with the second interpretation that i suggested. personally, i find the former interpretation quite amusing; but i also kind of like to think of it as a love poem - the fact that he loves her even though he knows she's not beautiful suggests that his love for her is far deeper than the shallow love of sonneteers like petrarch who loved women for their beauty alone.

even if you do see it as a love poem, there's still a sting in the tail - the way in which the speaker expresses his love is still highly unconventional; and he still satirises the tradition of praising the object of desire; and it's actually even more scathing as it suggests that traditional sonneteers love superficially.

of course, the beauty of shakespeare is that both interpretations are equally valid and neither is necessarily right or wrong. he could just think his mistress is incredibly ugly.

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