Have you ever been angry or frustrated
with another person?
Have you ever wished you could
adequately express your frustration
towards this person?
Shakespearean Insults
I do desire we may be better
strangers.
As You Like It (3.2.248)
They lie deadly that tell you
you have good faces.
Coriolanus (2.1.59)
More of your conversation would
infect my brain.
Coriolanus (2.1.91)
Frailty, thy name is woman!
Hamlet (1.2.147)
They have a plentiful lack of wit.
Hamlet (2.2.198)
I wonder that you will still be talking.
Nobody marks you.
Much Ado About Nothing (1.1.104)
I shall laugh myself to death at
this puppy-headed monster!
The Tempest (2.2.155)
knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; base,
proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundredpound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lilylivered, action-taking knave….one that wouldst
be a bawd, in way of good service, and art
nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar,
coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a
mongrel: one whom I will beat into clamorous
whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy
addition.
King Lear (2.2.14-24)
You’re a lowlife, a rascal who eats leftover
scraps. You’re an ignoble, arrogant, shallow,
vulgar, pretentious, conceited, filthy thirdrate servant who thinks he’s something
special. You’re a cowardly lawyer-loving
bastard; a vain, brown-nosing, prissy
scoundrel who’d pimp himself out to
advance his career; a bag lady. You’re
nothing but a lowlife, a beggar, a coward,
and a pimp, the son and heir of a mutt bitch.
I’ll beat you until you whine and cry if you
deny the least bit of this.
Your mission…
• Using the Shakespearean Insult
handout, create 10 Shakespearean
insults.
• Pair up with a partner.
• Using the 20 insults you and your
partner came up with, write a 30-line
skit.
Your skit must…
•Have 2 characters
•Depict a disagreement or fight where the
characters insult each other. Come up with a
back story for your skit. Otherwise, if you
and your partner are just calling each other
names, it gets super boring. (Examples)
•Include all 20 of your insults.
(Continued) Your skit must…
•Be set in a school appropriate setting
•Be written in as close to Shakespearean
English as you can get (tips on back of the
Insult handout)
•You will be performing these skits in front of
the class, so think about some readily
available props you could use to aid your
performance. Also, you will hand in your
scripts after you perform, so make them easy
to read!
On the day of presentations, you will turn in
the following:
•10 Shakespearean Insult lines (packet).
•A copy of your typed script. This should be
labeled with the correct heading and “script”
at the top.
•Your back story. Please label this “back
story”