WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
English poet-dramatist William Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564. He died
on the same date, 23rd April, in 1616. He was a peerless
genius. Most of the literary judgements regard
him as not only a great poet and dramatist of England
but of the whole world. He is rightly claimed to be not of any one age or
country, but of all the ages and of all the countries. He is both universal and
eternal. The whole world has adopted him not merely as a supreme
poet-philosopher but translated as well most of his works into their native languages.
Shakespeare’s literary output comprises 39 plays, 154 sonnets
and three long poems. In all of them, he has presented the eternal truths of the human
heart.
Long back in 1890, Anna Buckland, wrote in The Story of English Literature (Cassell & Company Limited, London) a play of Shakespeare’s is so full and many-sided
that we may read it at different times in our lives and in different moods,
again and again, and still find it as fresh as ever. There is always the
bright, charming story, fascinating to a child; there is the true picture of
life, full of interest to all healthy minds at all times; there is the fine
delineation of character and the sound
expression of feeling through which we learn to understand better both
ourselves and others; there is
the genial spirit of love and the lesson of moral truth to guide us in
action, the philosophic thought which helps us to understand why things are
as they are, the clear sight which sees
with hope the end to which things are
working, and above all the faith in God
which strengthens our own. And on the surface of the play lie the neat little
sayings in which great truths are so wrapped that we can use them as household
words, while in the text itself the grammarian and the student of language find
a field in which they may work again and again.
To justify all that
has been said above , here are a few most quotable examples from Shakespeare’s plays and a sonnet:
“What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite
in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an
angel! In apprehension how like a god!
the beauty of the world! The paragon of animals!
Hamlet, Act 2, Sc.2.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Sonnet
CXIX
Out, out, brief candle!
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.
Macbeth,
Act 5, Sc.3
The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
It blesseth him that
gives and him that takes:
‘T is the mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kinds;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself,
An earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
Merchant
of Venice, Act 4, Sc.1
And finally, a short stanza on human ingratitude:
Blow, blow, thou winter
wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude.
Thy tooth is not so
keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
As
You Like It, Act 2, Sc.7.”
********
23 April
2022 G.R.KANWAL
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