'HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SHAKESPEARE!!!

London SE1 ^ | 23 April 2005 | James Hatts

[bannie]

St George's Day and Shakespeare's Birthday were celebrated in Southwark with a range of events centred around Shakespeare's Globe.

[bannie]

I know that this must have been posted in SOME form today; but I couldn't find anything in my search.

BTW: It's also the anniversary of the day he died in 1616--when he was 52. He died of a "feaver of unknown origin."

[Sans-Culotte]

Glad to see someone besides myself observes this day. I also believe Will wrote his own material.

[Carolinamom]

Thanks for this post. While many people today consider Shakespear high brow, he was actually a man of the people.....even the uneducated paid a penny just to stand in the pit and see his plays! "Those were the days...."

[bannie]

He was a great writer, actor and business man! And all of this with a "grammar school" education cut short by his father's loss of position.

:) He's second only to Chaucer!

[goldstategop]

Greatest Writer Of All Time Bump!

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[goldstategop]

Err... Shakespeare is the greatest English writer and the greatest writer in world literature. Every one else lives in his shadow.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[LauraleeBraswell]

William Shake spear is ridiculously over rated. Many of his plays had sexual innuendo that at the time people could pick up on and laugh at. But old English is not our language. It's outdated and not contemporary.

[Crazieman]

Old english is just terribly unusued.

If you read the KJV bible enough, you pick up on definitions and meanings.

[Crazieman]

*unused

[Old Sarge]

St George's Day and Shakespeare's Birthday were celebrated in Southwark

I need a new prescription on my trifocals. I thought it said, "SouthPARK"...

[goldstategop]

Isaac Asimov wrote that one of the reasons English still reads like a 16th language is that modernizing it too radically would mean we could no longer comprehend Shakespeare. So he acted as a brake on the development of English. This is striking since by Shakespeare's day, Chaucer's Middle English was already obsolete. No one today understands Chaucer without translation but everyone "gets" Shakespeare even if the meanings of some words have changed with the passage of time. Next to the KJB, the greatest cultural and literary influence on the thought of English-speaking peoples has been Shakespeare's plays and sonnets. They have a universality that defy their time and place.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[bannie]

It's not Old English: It's Early Modern English. Chaucer is Middle English. Old English is way out of my arena!

Shakespeare, however, is as plain as artistic poetry. After studying the story, 9th-graders should be able understand the meaning of Romeo and Juliet, as it is acted out. It takes work; but it's beauty is worth it! (I don't think he's overrated!)

[gingerky]

I hope you are joking.

[Old Sarge]

"Get thee back to the scullery, and preparest thou some pie!"

[ASA Vet]

Many of his plays had sexual

It must run in the family.

[bannie]

(English majors can understand Canterbury Tales)

Methinks that, like anything else, things you don't understand are not interesting. Once you take the time to understand it, it can be delightful! AND it can open up many new interests.

[gingerky]

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

My favorite lines from Sonnet 18.

[formercalifornian]

I think the date is actually his baptismal date. He could have been born then since some were baptised at birth, but we don't know.

[bannie]

AND Shakespeare coined many of our every-day words!