Love Shakespeare
"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once."
From 'Julius Caesar'
From 'Julius Caesar'
I can help students overcome their anxiety and fear of William Shakespeare's texts. Instead of resistance, I can encourage an appreciation of his wit and beautiful imagery.
Why do we still study Shakespeare's plays and read his poems? Shakespeare will always be on the syllabus because of his incisive and expressive use of language exploring the human condition from the depths of despair to the heights of ecstasy, while sifting through every universal theme in between! These themes are very much still relevant today. I like to encourage a love of imagery and higher thinking that comes with the study of Shakespeare's works.
William Shakespeare invented words and put common words together to make up phrases new to the English language. Many of these phrases are still commonly used today:
- all that glitters isn’t gold
- barefaced
- be all and end all
- break the ice
- breathe one’s last
- brevity is the soul of wit
- catch a cold
- clothes make the man
- disgraceful conduct
- dog will have his day
- eat out of house and home
- elbow room
- fair play
- fancy-free
- flaming youth
- foregone conclusion
- give the devil his due
- green eyed monster
- heart of gold
- heartsick
- hot-blooded
- housekeeping
- it’s Greek to me
- lacklustre
- leapfrog
- live long day
- long-haired
- method in his madness
- mind’s eye
- more sinned against than sinning
- naked truth
- neither a borrower nor a lender be
- one fell swoop
- pitched battle
- strange bedfellows
- the course of true love never did run smooth
- the lady doth protest too much
- the milk of human kindness
- to thine own self be true
- too much of a good thing
- towering passion
- wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve
- witching time of the night
Shakespeare tells the tales of real Kings like Richard III - whose remains have recently been found in a Leicester car park. Have a listen to the Reduced Shakespeare Company's clever rhyming version of this play.