Shakespeare For Humans

A PIECE OF WORK

Man, what a piece of work -
Less the sage, more the jerk.

Noble in reason;
But felled by emotion.

In action, an angel:
The two inexplicable.

In comprehension, a god:
Yet so often a clod.

In movement admirable;
But next to an animal -
Sluggish and graceless.

And only a paragon
To the foolish, the witless.


THE IMAGINAL

                   1

A stage, actors, the pretence of people,
A King, a Bottom, a play risible,
A tragic comic, comic tragic farce
Where King exchanges Kingdom for an arse:
'An arse, an arse, my kingdom for an arse!'

                  11

Amazed at the marvellous dictation,
Players will forgo their given function
To produce pen and paper and to note
The words from fellow players one could quote,
Pausing to repeat and check what they wrote.

                  111

Pretence of things upon an empty stage.
How nebulous the notion of 'an age',
And still more preposterous 'for all time',
The everlasting place of the Sublime,
Where persons conjure synonyms for rhyme.

Reviews

[Ken e Bujold]

The bard revisited. Reminds me of the Coles notes we all used in school to make it seemed we'd actually read the fellow

[John]

Yes exactly. A third to a half of what he wrote remains under an interpretative cloud, say camille paglia, rather generously.