Not a Poem guy

I realised I don't enjoy the poetry-heavy plays (e.g. Midsummer Night's) as much as I do the prose-oriented ones (e.g. Hamlet). Somehow reading pages and pages of poems turns me off - but a sexy rhyme inserted here and there? Now that's magic.

My next NoFear purchases:

• Julius Caesar
• Othello
• Merchant of Venice (though I'm rewatching the movie)

Hath not a Jew dimensions?!

I loved Al Pacino's rendition of Shylock; made me almost think of him as the 'hero' of the play. A top-quality scene of course was the one with the dark bluish background, where he was screaming:

Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,

dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with

the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject

to the same diseases, healed by the same means,

warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as

a Christian is? 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? If we are like you in the rest, we will

resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian,

what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian

wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by

Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you

teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I

will better the instruction.

Titania's Inconvenient (but very articulate) Truth

Shakespeare on climate problems?:

Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,

As in revenge, have suck'd up from the sea

Contagious fogs; which falling in the land

Have every pelting river made so proud

That they have overborne their continents:

The ox hath therefore stretch'd his yoke in vain,

The ploughman lost his sweat, and the green corn

Hath rotted ere his youth attain'd a beard;

The fold stands empty in the drowned field,

And crows are fatted with the murrion flock;

The nine men's morris is fill'd up with mud,

And the quaint mazes in the wanton green

For lack of tread are undistinguishable:

The human mortals want their winter here;

No night is now with hymn or carol blest:

Therefore the moon, the governess of floods,

Pale in her anger, washes all the air,

That rheumatic diseases do abound:

And thorough this distemperature we see

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

Far in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

And on old Hiems' thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set: the spring, the summer,

The childing autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted liveries, and the mazed world,

By their increase, now knows not which is which:

To Be or Not to Be

I wanted to quote Hamlet's famous soliloquy today in a mass email whilst hyper-linking key words to some postings on my department's blog.

Seriously, why isn't Shakespeare used more often in Malaysian speeches and formal communication?

Shakespeare on political darkness?

In light of recent political repression in Malaysia, is there anything the good Bard can say to us? I recall some activists warning the incumbent government to, "Beware the tides of March"! What other plays can help give voice to the present political plight in the country?

Beginner's Resources

1. A parallel text (e.g. No Fear Shakespeare)


2. CliffNotes - love the explanations at the end of each scene and the exercises at the back


3. Cambridge School - great pics and lots of ideas if you're planning a performance
   
4. Arden Shakespeare - good scholastic introductions
   
5. A contemporary movie! To get the full passionate flavour out!

Ariel's words

I used 'flamed amazement' in an 'official' email today. How cool is that? :)