Muggle Studies Discussion Class – Muggle of the Fortnight 2

Yay! I post first! lol XD

Well, anyway, I think that William Shakespeare was most renowned for his tragedies like Hamlet and Macbeth. I think that he was a literary genius and I really like his plays, although I can't completely ignore the rumors that say that some of his work might have been stolen from other playwrights. I love many of his plays, and so I have many favorites, but I think that one of my favorites is Macbeth. We're studying that right now in my Language Arts class, so I have come to appreciate it more than I did before. I know that Shakespeare wrote some of his plays during the reign of King James I of England, and James loved superstition/witchcraft. well not loved persay... more like obssessed... So maybe Shakespeare wrote Macbeth to 'suck up' to the King... you know with the three witches "Bubble bubble, toil and trouble". After all, James WAS the one who wrote Shakespeare's paycheck! lol XD anyway, that's all for my first post!

Yeah, he's knwon of both tragedy and comedy playwrights. Beside playwrights, he wrote poems and sonnets, too. And usually, writers - or artists in common - become popular and well-known only AFTER their death, but Shakespeare was one of the popular writers even during his own lifetime. Quite amazing - if you compare to Picasso and so on :D Even today, Shakespeare lives among us through quotations and neologisms.

Two of my favourite tragedies written by Shakespeare:

- Romeo and Juliet
- Hamlet

Romeo and Juliet is known by everyone - maybe as the greatest love story ever. Two families live in hate, and then the young Romeo of the Montague family falls in love with Juliet Capulet - a love written to be doomed.

The most famous quote from Hamlet is maybe "To be or not to be, that is the question!" Hamlet is about a young Prince - Hamlet - whose father has recently died, and the throne is taken over by Hamlet's uncle Claudius, who wants to claim Hamlet's mother, Gertrude, as his own. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest and best-known play. It's also the most-quoted play in the English language.

William Shakespeare had a great effect on the English language, and his works have been translated into many languages around the whole world. Eventhough, people like to read his work on its original language.

Yes, I love Romeo and Juliet as well... I've never read Hamlet though. I read somewhere that in those days of Shakespeare's time, people thought that it was a person's ability at using/stretching the English language that divided them from being human or an 'animal'. And since Shakespeare was a literary genius, he must have been pretty high up there :laugh:.

I also really enjoy one of his plays called Twelfth Night. I thought it was really funny how people kept falling in love with the wrong people and all the cross dressing and how Sebastien and Violetta looked so much alike that everybody thought they were one and the same. I liked the plot of that one...

Yep, Twelfth Night is good too Another proof of how popular Shakespeare is in our time, is the fact that many of his plays have been made into movies. She's the man, Romeo + Juliet... um... and some others I can't remember xD

(that was lame, BUT WHATEVER :D)

I've never seen She's the Man... I want to though... another play I really like (like all of them! lol XD) is AS You Like It. It's one of his comedies and I LOVE it... once again, it has crossdressing and stuff but I thought it was funny how everyone fell in love with the wrong people. Actually, As you Like it is pretty similar to twelfth Night... *just realized that*. One of my favorite parts of AS you Like it is where Jaques has this famous speech:

"All the world's a stage,
And the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At fits the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like a furnace, with woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. THen a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the ustice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts into the lean and slippered pantaloon
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

I just think its really witty and cool lol XD... I memorized it in 6th grade, but unfortunately, I have forgotten it...

One of my favorites of Shakespeare's is Much Ado About Nothing, which falls into his comedies, but has some tragic twists and turns. The main character, Benedict and Beatrice are two of my favorite characters of all time, and they have a great snarky relationship. I also love his sonnets, and my favorite one, the one I actually have memorized, is this one:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I really love Much Ado About Nothing as well... meh, it seems that i love all of his plays except for some other tragedies like King Lear, kinda-sorta Hamlet, and... other tragedies... lol XD. I like the Taming of the Shrew as well. meh... this is a lame post... sorry lol XD

I'm in between loving and hating Romeo & Juliet. For some odd reason. I find it... too romantic, I guess :D But then again, it's a great plot. Sad, and... stuff