Tags
Adopting Shakespeare, Autumn, Love, Mortality, Quotation contest, Robin Williams, Sonnet 73, The Shakespeare Papers
April is National Poetry Month. Not only that, it’s the BIRTHDAY month of the great English poet and playwright, William Shakespeare. For me, it means ADOPTING SHAKESPEARE- HIS LANGUAGE, HIS PLAYS, HIS SONNETS, and you’re invited to join in. On Wednesday, the Sweet Swan of Avon (who lived from April 23, 1564-April 23, 1616) turns 453! To celebrate Shakespeare’s Birthday, please send favorite quotations, thereby entering my annual Shakespeare contest. Tweet them, using my twitter name @TheGoodbyeBaby. Quotation competition takes place during the month of April. The prize, a set of “The Shakespeare Papers” by PhD Shakespearean scholar Robin Williams, will be sent to the top contributor via snail mail. Past winners include poet/memoirist Luanne Castle (@writersitetweet).
Shakespeare’s language takes Elaine to the heights!
Sonnet 73 is one of my favorites in the Bard’s magnificent canon. The narrator speaks of the ravages of time on one’s physical well-being and the mental anguish associated with moving further from youth and closer to death. The “death,” point out critics, may be not may be the end of life but rather, the demise of youth and passion. Beginning when I first read this poem in a college literature class, I’ve appreciated it more each year. Sometimes I focus on the narrator’s sadness, other occasions on the tenderness and love. Read Sonnet 73 aloud and see what resonates with you.
SONNET 73
That time of year thou may’st in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum’d with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
-William Shakespeare
At the end of April, copies of brilliant Shakespeare scholar Robin Williams’ “The Shakespeare Papers” will be mailed to the four best entries. So, as the song goes, “Brush up on your Shakespeare…start quoting him now!”
On April 23rd, William Shakespeare turns 453 years old!
