SENIOR ENGLISH 243:
WEBSITE:
Shakespeare
http://www.alanreinstein.com
Name:
email: alan_reinstein@newton.k12.ma.us
NEWTON SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL IS A COMMUNITY OF STUDENTS, FAMILIES, FACULTY AND STAFF WHO BELIEVE
THAT ALL STUDENTS CAN REACH HIGH LEVELS OF SUCCESS WHEN THEY (1) KNOW THEY ARE SAFE, VALUED, AND RESPECTED BY TEACHERS AND PEERS; (2) ARE GIVEN EQUITABLE ACCESS TO
LEARNING RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES; (3) ARE CONNECTED TO AND SUPPORTED BY A COMMUNITY OF STUDENT AND ADULT LEARNERS; (4) ARE GUIDED BY ADULTS WHO WORK
COLLABORATIVELY TOWARD A COMMON PURPOSE; (5) ARE MOTIVATED, CHALLENGED AND INSPIRED BY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN THE CLASSROOM AND THE WORLD; (6) DEMONSTRATE A STRONG
WORK ETHIC, A SPIRIT OF INQUIRY, AND A PASSION FOR LEARNING; (7) MAINTAIN A BALANCED, HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.
Memorizing Shakespeare
By the end of each term, you will be expected to memorize (reciting is an extra credit option)
between 28 and 35 lines of Shakespearean text. This assignment is intended to have the
long-term effect of keeping some of Shakespeare’s great lines and passages with you for many
years after the class is finished.
Term
Term
Term
Term
1:
2:
3:
4:
Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy
memorize any two sonnets (or 28+ lines from anywhere else)
Performance—30+ lines in Hamlet group dramatic performance
Optional—for extra credit
Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” Soliloquy (his
third soliloquy in the play)
3.1.64-96
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
What a piece of work is man (16 lines)
(Hamlet, 2.2.290-307)
I have of late—but wherefore I know not--lost all my
mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it
goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly
frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory,
this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this
brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof
fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other
thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation
of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how
noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and
moving how express and admirable! in action how
like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the
beauty of theworld! the paragon of animals! And
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man
delights not me: no, nor woman neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
Polonius to Laertes (from Hamlet) (23 lines)
(1.3.60-87)
Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledged comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,
Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man,
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!
Hamlet to Horatio
6 lines (5.2.233-38)
We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to
come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves
knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.
The Seven Ages of Man—Jaques the Melacholy
in As You Like It (28 lines)
2.7.142-169
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow—
Macbeth (12 lines)
(5.5.17-28)
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players,
They have their exits and entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then, the whining schoolboy with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden, and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation.
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice
In fair round belly, with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws, and modern instances,
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side,
His youthful hose well sav'd, a world too wide,
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again towards childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
Friends, Romans, countrymen—Marc Antony
in Julius Caesar (35 lines)
(3.2.)
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.
Falstaff on Honor (5.1.125-140) (16 lines)
'Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay Him before
His day. What need I be so forward with Him that
calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter. Honour pricks
me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I
come on? How then? Can honor set to a leg? no. Or
an arm? no. Or take away the grief of a wound? No.
Honor hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is
honor? A word. What is in that word “honor”? What
is that “honor”? Air. A trim reckoning. Who hath it?
He that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No.
Doth he hear it? No. 'Tis insensible, then? Yea, to
the dead. But will it not live with the living? No.
Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore, I’ll
none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon. And so ends
my catechism.