Shakespeare Meme

[mari4212]

Saw this one on mamadeb's journal, and thought I'd continue it.

When you see a Shakespeare quote on lj, post a quote of your own.

Sonnet 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

This is my absolute favorite of Shakespeare's sonnets. I love it because the woman is not perfect. She has faults, and the narrator loves her for who she is, not an idealized version of her. Someday, I want a man to love me like that.

Comments

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is beautiful. Encouraging for a plain Jane like me, too. ;)

Thank you; you have renewed my faith in heretofore-regarded-as-evil sonnets!

So, you post any quote? From any work?

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, what I love best about Shakespeare's sonnets is his playing with/subverting/undercutting/etc. the audience's expectations.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Any quote from any work. I quoted this one because I read it this afternoon while I was shelf-reading.

Whenever I get discouraged about things like that, I remember one of the better backwards compliments I got from a guy. I was mentioning the fact that I never got asked to the dances, and a guy in my homeroom turns around and says, "Guys are stupid." Made my day. It is nice to know there are guys like that out there.

Some of the sonnets are great. But they're more fun when you read them by yourself than in class.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. I loved him bucking the trends with his work. Always fun, especially if you know the background well.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I definitely don't know the background to Shakespeare's writings much at all.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

I don't know much, but we did discuss backgrounds in class when we read a few of the plays and sonnets.

Like the fact that in Shakespeare's day, blonds were considered beautiful, not brunettes. So not only is he not exactly complimenting her through this poem, the woman would also not be considered beautiful by society's standards, yet he loves her anyway.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Aww! That's so sweet. I love it when guys say stuff like that.

But they're more fun when you read them by yourself than in class.

Oh, for sure. But I do have to say this for English class, it forces me to read things I've wanted to read but couldn't summon enough motivation to. I would probably not have ever picked up a book of poetry off the shelf but after reading these sonnets in English, I might consider it. (10th grade English got me into Tennyson the same way.)

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Yeah, he was an absolute sweety.

Yeah, English class can do that for you. Actually though, some of the best parts of that class was when the rest of the class was struggling to understand something, and you flipped to a section they weren't covering and read that instead. I got some of Donne's poetry, Pygmilion, and Twelve Angry Men that way.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Whoa, that's kind of...weird...

The past few weeks in English when I've been bored, I've flipped through my book and read the Donne meditations. (I might add that you, once again, got me hooked on those!) I don't think we have Pygmalion in our book, but there's plenty of other stuff.

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

Twin moment? Does your book have the Holy Sonnets as well? I loved Sonnet ten, "Death be not proud, though some have called thee mighty..." Nice imagry and I liked how I got introduced to it.

I wanted to read Pygmalion because I wanted to know what they changed when they made it into My Fair Lady.

[heylittleriver.livejournal.com]

That sonnet is... really sweet.

Someday, I want a man to love me like that.

*smiles* Same here.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

Yes, Sonnet 10! I love that one. How did you get introduced to it?

I should have read "Pygmalion" for my last six-weeks outside reading thing, but I chose "Waiting for Godot" instead. I loved "My Fair Lady" and I'd like to see what they changed, too. Hmm, maybe I'll have to pick it up for pleasure...imagine that, what a hardship! ;)

[mari4212.livejournal.com]

I was on a conference, National Student Leadership Conference on Health and Medicine, and we watched a movie, because it was about a theme in medicine that we were focusing on at the time.

It was presented as a college english teacher's struggle with cancer. She had focused on the works of Donne, and on the Holy Sonnets in particular, and that was the one she kept returning to as her body failed her.

Oh yes, the horrors of reading George Bernard Shaw. Actually, not much was changed when they made it into a musical. Some scenes were arranged slightly differently, but nothing much. The only thing that's changed is the implications for what happened afterwards. Shaw didn't believe that a strong man and a strong woman should be in a relationship together, so he assumed that Eliza married Freddy. Today, we've got a different belief about relationship dynamics, and we tend to assume that Eliza would end up with Henry Higgins.

[ljmckay.livejournal.com]

It was presented as a college english teacher's struggle with cancer.

Oh, wow. That would be powerful.

Donne's another one people quote all the time without usually knowing the source. I mean, I've heard "Death be not proud" and "No man is an island" as long as I can remember but never knew they were Donne quotes.

he assumed that Eliza married Freddy

Freddy? Heavens! Was he portrayed differently in the play, because from what I remember of the musical, he was an idiot! Or maybe that was just my impression.

Shaw's probably got a bit of a point; it can be difficult for two strong personalities to get along. But it can work with some effort and a little compromise on both sides -- and besides, it's romantic. ;)