The big news in publishing today may be The Link (see earlier post), but the big news 400 years ago was a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Well, sort of.
As Clinton Heylin writes in So Long As Men Can Breathe—reviewed in the June issue of BookPage by poet Diann Blakely—the Sonnets were originally published as a bootleg on May 20, 1609. Actually, Heylin calls that early folio a “bookleg,” in a nod to the unscrupulous publishing practices of the Elizabethan world.
Bootlegging gives Heylin license to make extensive comparisons between the Bard and Bob Dylan, who has also written a poem or two. (It’s also a logical leap for Heylin, whose previous books include Behind the Shades, a Dylan biography.)
So, what does Heylin say about the Sonnets, works that have delighted readers and confounded scholars for centuries? Pick up the June issue of BookPage to find out. But wait, you also get a chance to win a copy of So Long As Men Can Breathe. Just submit a comment including your favorite line from Shakespeare (sonnet or play) by Friday, May 22.
UPDATE: This contest has now ended.
“Brevity is the soul of wit.” –Hamlet
“How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!” -Hamlet
“Out, damn’d spot! Out, I say!” – Macbeth
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
Julius Caesar
“For where thou art, there is the world itself…and where thou are not, desolation.” –Henry VI, Part II
“He thinks too much; such men are dangerous” – Julius Caesar
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and
some have greatness thrust upon ‘em.” -Malvolio in Twelfth Night
Seems, madam, Nay, it is. I know not ‘seems.’ (Hamlet Act I, Scene II)
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts
Ophelia in Hamlet Act 4, Scene 5
Only one….. That is impossible, I must say.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
From:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. 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, scene 5, 19–28
———————————–
or…
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.”
From:
Helena:
“Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I, i, 234)
———————————–
or…
What a piece of work is a man,
From:
Hamlet:
What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, 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—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me—
nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.
Rosencrantz:
My lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.
Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 303–312
———————————–
or…
“How poor are they that have not patience!
From:
Iago:
“How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know’st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time.”
Othello (II, iii, 376-379)
” In sooth I know not why I am so sad:/It wearies me; you say it wearies you;” Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene I
“Your tale, sir, could cure deafness” — Miranda, The Tempest
“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
–Shakespeare, “Hamlet”
I like this one, too. also: “alas, poor Yorick. I knew him well.” what can I say, I’m a sucker for Hamlet.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. 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.