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Passages from literature, poetry, drama (Read 4551 times)
bogarde73
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Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Sep 7th, 2016 at 9:47am
 
That you remember, have just discovered, affect you somewhat or profoundly, soften the travails of life or sound the depths of your despair.

Cop this young 'arry!

“To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
. . . . . .

You vill commit zis to der memory by neunzehn hundert hours. Schnell!!
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #1 - Sep 7th, 2016 at 9:50am
 
How is a junior secondary student expected to appreciate the soul-searching meaning of the above?
Then why do they inflict it upon them? I suppose they still do.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #2 - Sep 8th, 2016 at 11:27am
 
But stay, I feel some more Shakespeare coming on:

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.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #3 - Sep 8th, 2016 at 11:28am
 
When you stop to read it closely, it is amazing stuff. No wonder it's been around for 500 years.
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #4 - Sep 9th, 2016 at 8:33am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Sep 7th, 2016 at 9:50am:
How is a junior secondary student expected to appreciate the soul-searching meaning of the above?
Then why do they inflict it upon them? I suppose they still do.


I suppose it depends on the teacher's approach, and their ability to make it accessible to the mind of the inexperienced. When I read Shakespeare at that age, or saw a famous painting, they were flat, one dimensional and I didn't particularly care if they had anything to say', if it could only be found through analysis. Your quotes have far greater meaning for me today, but I still find Midsummers Night Dream tedious.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #5 - Sep 9th, 2016 at 10:40am
 
I forgot to add Ann Hathaway's reply:

"Shift tha' fat arse Will Shakespeare and muck out thon pigs. Words and fol-de-rols don't feed folks do 'ee"
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Gordon
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #6 - Sep 12th, 2016 at 5:27pm
 
My daughter's reciting William Blake's The Tyger in class tomorrow. Was one of my boyhood favs
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #7 - Sep 13th, 2016 at 4:17am
 
bogarde73 wrote on Sep 8th, 2016 at 11:27am:
But stay, I feel some more Shakespeare coming on:

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.


Martin Clunes' version is much more pithy:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Or simply whop it up thee straight away?
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #8 - Oct 22nd, 2016 at 1:04pm
 
Gordon wrote on Sep 12th, 2016 at 5:27pm:
My daughter's reciting William Blake's The Tyger in class tomorrow. Was one of my boyhood favs


How did that go? It's such a painful trial for most of them isn't it, even getting up in front of their own class.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #9 - Apr 2nd, 2017 at 3:44pm
 
Not necessarily the funniest passage from the Matchmaker of Perigord but one that amused me today. As I mentioned I'm re-reading it after about 9 years:

'So let me get this right' said Yves Leveque [to the Matchmaker] . . .'I could pay you a small fortune and opt for the Unrivalled Bronze Service to be advised on such matters as clipping my nails regularly. Or I could pay you an even bigger fortune and choose the Unrivalled Silver Service and you'll match me up with myself, as things stand [the Matchmaker having no other clients on his books]. Or, thirdly, I could plump for the Unrivalled Gold Service and pay you an unsightly fortune for you to sidle up to someone and tell them that I fancy them'

. . .'Yves, the fact that there is currently no one else on our books is a mere formality. . . .'

(I'm enjoying this book again like a fine tipple. Not guzzling it but taking a very small glass from time to time.)
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #10 - Apr 4th, 2017 at 9:35pm
 
From The Inn of the Two Witches, by Joseph Conrad:

"Sixty is not a bad age - unless in perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with mixed feelings. It is a calm age; the game is practically over by then; and standing aside one begins to remember with a certain vividness what a fine fellow one used to be."

"I have observed that, by an amiable attention to Providence, most people at sixty begin to take a romantic view of themselves. Their very failures exhale a charm of peculiar potency. And indeed the hopes of the future are a fine company to live with, exquisite forms, fascinating if you like, but - so to speak - naked, stripped for a run. The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the immovable past which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, under the gathering shadows. "
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #11 - Apr 5th, 2017 at 11:17am
 
This could be an even more interesting thread than What you are reading currently, because it gives us a view on the writing that impressed you.

Of course it can be tedious to copy it out unless your cutting from an ebook.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #12 - May 6th, 2017 at 3:01pm
 
Apropos something:

Richard II, Act 2 Scene 1

". . .This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, . . .

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!"
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #13 - May 12th, 2017 at 12:02pm
 
That's a great piece, Boge. Willy would have voted for Brexit.
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bogarde73
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Re: Passages from literature, poetry, drama
Reply #14 - May 12th, 2017 at 12:17pm
 
Yeah I've always loved the first part. Sheer magic of writing.
But when I copied it I noticed the second part which, when you pick out the key words, could almost be prophetic.
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