SHAKESPEAREEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

I. Love. Shakepeare. Pure and Simple. In class, we read selections from the sonnet and Twelfth Night. LOVE. There is also King Lear in our anthology....which is giving me ideas for a reread...

If you aren't familiar with the basic plot of Twelfth Night (comedy, by the way), it's veryvery simple.

FIRST. Viola and Sebastian (twins) shipwreck off the coast of Illyria and get separated and fervently hope the other isn't dead. Sebastian wanders around for 3 months while Viola (sensible, right?) decides to lay low and turn into a man for a while so she can get a job as a page while she waits for Sebastian to show up. Duke Orsino (her master fellow) is in love with Olivia (fair maid) who's sworn of guys while Sir Toby Belch (her uncle) tries to clear things up by marrying her off to Sir Andrew (fair courter). While she's rejecting Andy, they make fun of Malvolio (the Puritan Steward) with the help of Maria (wily chamber maid) 'cause he's in love with Olivia. Feste (fair clown figure) weaves in, out, and everywhere. Here's the catch: Viola (AKA Cesario) has to wooooo Olivia for Orsino, meanwhile falling in love with Orsino her/himself. While wooing, Olivia flashes eyes at Viola/Cesario and decides that maybe celibacy isn't so awesome. Several yellow, cross-gartered stockings later, Sebastian shows up and starts getting punched. And then wooed. Or was that Viola/Cesario????

Got it?

Good.

While you are figuring that out, read the sonnet I memorized for my midterm:

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then in the blazon of sweet beauty's best

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have expressed

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they looked but with divining eyes

Had not worth enough your praise to sing,

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

I love Shakespeare. (Oh, and btw, I have fresh defenses against the claim that Shakespeare was gay. So don't even start with me.)