Shakespeare Thursday, May 24, 2007
On this week's programme we discussed Yinan's favourite quote from a Shakespeare play, which you can read in the language section.
Tell us your favourite quote from Shakespeare's works. Explain any difficult or old words and tell us why you like the passage so much. Remember to keep your entry to under 300 words (not including the quote itself!)
This competition has now closed. Thank you for your entries
The Winner
We had several excellent entries this week, but one clear winner: Farnoosh Pirayesh from Iran. Congratulations Farnoosh! Farnoosh also made use of our new uploading tool to send us an audio recording of her reading her favourite Shakespeare speech.
You can see our comments underneath Farnoosh's entry, below:
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. 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."
— Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-27 of Macbeth)
Listen to Farnoosh reading this speech (mp3 - 145 KB)
Well, if I want to think of any reason that I suggest2 this piece, I have no way but to confess3 that in these lines4 along with every where5in his writings6, Shakespeare injected life7in between the lines8, one can find the true life9 in his lines, he knew how to give life and vigor10 to words because as he said " All I am doing is dressing old words new".
Anyway, I really liked to add my own comment on this piece but the fact is that when it comes to Master Shakespeare I am speechless11 and I don't dare to spoil the beauty of his words by my ordinary writing.
Our comments
Farnoosh, you read this passage with all the vigour that you ascribe to Shakespeare's own writing. It's interesting that you picked a quote which contains the same metaphor that we find in the speech from As You Like It ('All the world's a stage'). Here, Shakespeare writes, 'Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,/
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage'.
1: A good, formal word, meaning disappointment at the way something has happened.
2: A more natural opening might be, 'If I were to give a reason for choosing...' or 'If I had to say why I've chosen...'
3: More natural English might be: 'I can only say...'
4: Good choice of words here - we often say 'these lines' when we are discussing poetry.
5: everywhere
6: Good - 'writing' is usually a non-count noun, but 'writings' means all the published work of a person.
7: 'Injecting life' into writing is a nice image, Farnoosh. Used like this, 'life' can mean energy or liveliness.
8: 'in-between' has a hyphen. You've used an interesting phrase here, Farnoosh. We sometimes talk about 'reading between the lines', e.g.:
'She said that this would be a very difficult year, financially... Reading between the lines, I think there will be job cuts'.
So, it normally means to guess at the true nature of something, based on words which just hint at that situation. Possibly, you mean that Shakespeare's scenes have a power which is greater than the words he uses: it's hard to see exactly what makes them powerful, so it is 'between the lines'. But I think you mean that Shakespeare injected life into his actual writing... A simple way of saying this is, 'There is so much life in his lines'.
9: With 'life' in an abstract sense (rather than 'his life' or 'my life') it doesn't take an article. So you can say 'one can find true life...'
10: This is a terrific word, meaning energy and strength. You've used the U.S. spelling; in Britain it is 'vigour'.
11: A nice use of this word, which can also mean to be so shocked or angry that you are 'without words'.
Well done!
You can also hear Antonio Temprano read his favourite Shakespeare quote:
O, how this spring of love resembleth
The uncertain glory of an April day
Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,
And by and by a cloud takes all away!
— Proteus (Act I, Scene III of The Two Gentlemen of Verona )
Listen to Antonio reading this speech (mp3 - 208 KB)
