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Shakespeare? I ain’t never heard of him. He’s not in no ratings. I suppose he’s one of dem foreign heavyweights. They’re all lousy. Sure as hell I’ll moider dat bum!’ Tony Galento, boxer
To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding. Peter Ackroyd
It was for William Ireland the strangest sensation – to be in the house where William Shakespeare was reputed to be born, to be sitting in a room through which he had walked a thousand times, to see in the face of this butcher some lineaments of his illustrious family. And yet to feel nothing, to sense no familiar presence, to be stripped of all enchantment – that was the most mysterious of all. Peter Ackroyd, The Lambs of London p37
I have good reason to be content, for thank God I can read and perhaps understand Shakespeare to his depths. John Keats, letter to John Taylor 27th February 1818
I remember your saying that you had notions of a good Genius presiding over you. I have of late had the same thought – for things which I do half at Random are afterwards confirmed by my judgment in a dozen features of Propriety. Is it too daring to fancy Shakespeare this Presider? John Keats, letter to B R Haydon May 1817
I thought I’d begin by reading a poem by Shakespeare, but then I thought, why should I? He never reads any of mine. Spike Milligan
Lister: Have you ever actually read any of it? [Shakespeare]
Rimmer: I’ve seen West Side Story. Red Dwarf s3e2: Marooned, BBC 1989
Data, you’re here to learn about the human condition and there is no better way of doing that than by embracing Shakespeare. Star Trek: The Next Generation s3e10: The Defector, Picard
London’s most successful playwright William Shakespeare is preparing for a royal premiere. The British III: Revolution, Sky Atlantic 2012
On 19th May 1930 on this very stage Paul Robeson, the African-American singer and actor, came to play Othello here in Britain. George Alagiah, Mixed Britannia 1/3: 1910-1939, BBC 2011
This figure that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare cut,
Wherein the graver had a strife
With Nature, to out-do the life:
O could he but have drawn his wit
As well in brass, as he has hit
His face; the print would then surpass
All that was ever writ in brass:
But since he cannot, reader, look
Not on his picture but his book. Ben Jonson, On the portrait of Shakespeare
Soul of the Age!
The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! Ben Jonson, ‘To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr William Shakespeare’
And tell how far thou didst our Lyly outshine,
Or sporting Kyd, or Marlowe’s mighty line.
And although thou hast small Latin, and less Greek.
From thence to honour thee, I would not seek
For names. ibid.
He was not of an age, but for all time! ibid.
Sweet Swan of Avon! What a sight it were
To see thee in our waters yet appear,
And make those flights upon the banks of Thames
That so did take Eliza, and our James! ibid.
Honey-tongued Shakespeare, when I saw thine issue
I swore Apollo got them, and none other,
Their rosy-tainted features clothed in tissue,
Some heaven-born goddess said to be their mother.
Rose-cheeked Adonis with his amber tresses,
Fair fire-hot Venus charming him to love her,
Chaste Lucretia virgin-like her dresses
Proud lust-stung Tarquin seeking still to prove her ... John Weever, Ad Gultelmum Shakespeare, Epigrams 1599
He was a handsome, well-shaped man, very good company, and of a very ready and pleasant smooth wit. John Aubrey
Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works, thy works by which outlive
Thy tomb thy name must; when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy Stratford monument ... Leonard Digges, in Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, 1623
We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went’st so soon
From the world’s stage to the grave’s tiring-room
We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth
Tells thy spectators that thou went’st but forth ... James Mabbe, in ‘Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies’, 1623
William Shakespeare went into a pub. The landlord said, ‘Get out! You’re barred!’ Peter Kay
You know Shakespeare? At school. Well I have the complete works here. Yes, they are very well bound. They’re embossed in gold ... Of course they’re not something you can actually read. Play for Today: Abigail’s Party, written and directed Mike Leigh, starring Alison Steadman ***** Laurence to Tony, BBC 1977
In 1980 Miller accepted the role of producing the BBC Television Shakespeare. Arena: Jonathan Miller, BBC 2012
Since the invention of cinema over a century ago, Shakespeare’s plays have often been adapted for the big screen. But it took fifty years for his work to be turned into a truly cinematic experience. Arena: All the World’s a Screen: Shakespeare on Film, BBC 2016
Henry V 1944: Olivier used the camera’s eye to take us from a deliberately stylised world of medieval sets to the glorious cinematic reality of the fields of Agincourt, on location and with a cast of hundreds and film in rich Technicolor … Shakespeare V was a massive success bringing Shakespeare to people who had never seen his plays in the theatre. Olivier was encouraged to follow it with the first feature film of Hamlet. ibid.
Hamlet [1948] was a box office success and the first British production to win the Oscar for best picture. In the same year across the Atlantic the precocious actor and director Orson Welles made a dark savage version of Macbeth. ibid.
More than 400 silent films were adapted from Shakespeare. ibid.
If there really is such a thing as turning in one’s grave, Shakespeare must get a lot of exercise. George Orwell, All Art is Propaganda: Critical Essays
This is the story of an extraordinary group of young actors who are setting out to tackle the world’s most famous play ... Growing Up Downs, BBC 2014
Tommy surprised us all. He became the first actor with Downs Syndrome to star in a TV drama. That was six years ago. ibid.
Let me stop there, but my God, how beautiful Shakespeare is, who else is as mysterious as he is; his language and method are like a brush trembling with excitement and ecstasy. But one must learn to read, just as one must learn to see and learn to live. Vincent van Gogh
I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. Charles Darwin