William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)
English playwright and poet, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language.
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.
What needs my Shakespeare for his honored bones
The labors of an age in piled stones?
Or that his hallowed reliques should be hid
Under a starre-y-pointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thyself a livelong monument.
Then to the well-trod stage anon
If Jonson's learned sock be on,
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native woodnotes wild.
He was not of an age, but for all time!
This Booke
When Brasse and Marble fade, shall make thee looke
Fresh to all Ages.
As merry as the day is long.
Burgess's Shakespeare is not a patient empire builder or visionary, but rather an unhappy man caught in an unenviable position, at the midlife crisis age of forty-six. … Burgess's point may well be that literary quality is not always recognized during one's lifetime … due to an ill-advised display of his wit in the presence of the king, Shakespeare is currently out of favor. … Particularly ingenious in Burgess's story is the way Shakepeare even hides his name in the text of the psalm. As he is forty-six years of age, he chooses Psalm 46; he counts to the forty-sixth word, replaces it by "shake"' then he starts at the end, counts forty-six words backwards (leaving out of the account the cadential "selah"), and changes that word into "speare." The surprising thing is, that the evidence shoring up this highly unlikely scenario is in itself authentic: in Psalm 46 AV, the forty-sixth word really is "shake", the forty-sixth word from the end (not counting "selah") being spear.
Although Burgess's Shakespeare revises the psalm for wholly selfish ends, out of defiance and sinful pride, he does not thereby lose our sympathy. Unlike Kiping's self-confident sahib, he is not a superman that can lead nations; rather, in his everyday struggle with political realities, an unhappy marriage, and uncomprehending neighbors, he is a modern antihero whom we cannot begrudge his one moment of triumph. … For Burgess, art is the result of suffering between the hammer of what is and the anvil of what should be. He projects that vision on Shakespeare, whose drive for self-realization, impeded by his surroundings, finds an outlet in this act of creativity.
Shakespeare is a savage with sparks of genius which shine in a horrible night.
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Time's glory is to command contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.
EDMUND (sits down opposite his father - contemptuously). Yes, facts don't mean a thing, do they? What you want to believe, that's the only truth! (Derisively.) Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic, for example.
TYRONE (stubbornly). So he was. The proof is in his plays.
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE's wit.
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;
Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
Shakespeare's drama, where ideal women walk
in worship, and the baser sort find sympathy.
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
The verbal poetical texture of Shakespeare is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays.
Shakespeare led a life of Allegory; his works are the comments on it.
I remember, the players have often mentioned it as an honour to Shakespeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been, would he had blotted a thousand.
To be or not to be, that is the question.