March 21

Today we will finish continue reading the play Twelfth Night.  As you read, find significant quotes to memorize.  Each one of you will have to write 5 lines from memory on Wednesday, April 3rd (10 points).  +5 extra credit for memorizing an extra 10 lines.  
Find quotes at the following site: Twelfth Night Quotes

Today you will also write a 1/2 page journal explaining what Shakespeare is saying (and why he's saying it)in one of the following quotes:
1. What is love? Tis not hereafter; 
Present mirth hath present laughter:
What’s to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty; 
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty:
Youth’s a stuff will not endure. – Feste, 2.3.43-8)
[love now; you might not have the opportunity later]
2. I hate ingratitude more in a man
Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness,
Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption
Inhabits our frail blood (3.4.354-357)
[Ingratitude is the worst problem a person can have]
3.
This fellow is wise enough to play the fool
And to do that well craves a kind of wit (3.1.60-61)
[you have to be really wise to make the kind of Jokes that Feste makes.  She implies that he's not at all foolish.  Viola goes on to say that when most people say foolish things, it's because they're stupid and they just become more stupid]



I hope you're enjoying the play and that you can see that it's a comedy.  Maybe not exactly a SNL kind of comedy, but funny in that everyone is even more mixed up and messed up in their relationships than we are.  That's the point of Shakespearean comedy.  It helps us laugh at ourselves and not take our problems too seriously.

NO FEAR SHAKESPEARE version of TWELFTH NIGHT on Sparknotes.com
Sparknotes summary of Twelfth Night 

Here's a fun Xtranormal animated discussion between Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth:
Shakespeare as hip dude talking to Queen Elizabeth II
Shakespeare, an Actor Preparing--Hugh Laurie and Stephen Frye
Kid meets Shakespeare in the Forbidden Forest (sort of)
Shakespearean Language
Shakespearean Insults
Black Adder Shakespeare
Shakespeare History of the English Language