30 Days of Shakespeare, Day 13
Because I completely forgot to post Day 12 yesterday, you get two today. Lucky you! ;)
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene - As You Like It, Act IV, Scene I
I was complaining to rosamund that my favourite romantic bits of Shakespeare are inevitably sandwiched between events of sheer awfulness, i.e. Desdemona's first speeches about Othello or the final scene between Margaret and Suffolk in 2 Henry VI, which didn't really grab me until I saw it performed and I realised just how sexy it was. Also I have such a weak spot for incredibly twisted Richard III/Lady Anne, but that isn't even in the same universe as a 'romantic scene'. And I am saving my favourite bit of Romeo and Juliet for Day 17.
So, I am turning to comedies instead. :)
As You Like It Act IV, Scene I - I just love everything about this scene. Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede trying to teach Orlando how to seduce her even though he thinks she's a boy and still attracted to her -- it's enough to tie my brain in knots, but Rosalind is just so brilliant that she makes it work. I love that she's clearly in charge, that she's leading the conversation, that she's turning him into the lover she wants, grounding all his high-flying Petrarchan rhetoric in a firmly realistic base. I love that this is what the relationship between Romeo and Juliet could have been if they'd just had more time. And THIS SPEECH:
No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person,
videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
I love how clever she is, and how she throws out literary and historical references like they're nothing at all, and how he's clearly completely mad about her. This couple just makes me happy.
I do also love Act II, Scene IV from Twelfth Night, which takes a more melancholy approach to a similar situation, and just about any scene between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado, but there's just something about the dynamic between Rosalind and Orlando that works for me.
Day #1: Your favourite play - Othello and Richard III
Day #2: Your favourite character - Lady Elizabeth Grey in 3 Henry VI and Richard III
Day #3: Your favourite hero - Othello
Day #4: Your favourite heroine - Juliet from Romeo and Juliet and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing
Day #5: Your favorite villain - Richard of Gloucester
Day #6: Your favourite villainess female villain - Joan la Pucelle
Day #7: Your favourite clown - Feste from Twelfth Night
Day #8: Your favourite comedy - Much Ado About Nothing
Day #9: Your favourite tragedy - King Lear
Day #10: Your favourite history - The Henry VI trilogy
Day #11: Your least favourite play - The Taming of the Shrew
Day #12: Your favourite scene - selections from Richard III, Othello, Much Ado, and 3 Henry VI
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favourite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favourite speech
Day #18: Your favourite dialogue
Day #19: Your favourite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favourite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favourite couple
Day #27: Your favourite couplet
Day #28: Your favourite joke
Day #29: Your favourite sonnet
Day #30: Your favourite single line
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene - As You Like It, Act IV, Scene I
I was complaining to rosamund that my favourite romantic bits of Shakespeare are inevitably sandwiched between events of sheer awfulness, i.e. Desdemona's first speeches about Othello or the final scene between Margaret and Suffolk in 2 Henry VI, which didn't really grab me until I saw it performed and I realised just how sexy it was. Also I have such a weak spot for incredibly twisted Richard III/Lady Anne, but that isn't even in the same universe as a 'romantic scene'. And I am saving my favourite bit of Romeo and Juliet for Day 17.
So, I am turning to comedies instead. :)
As You Like It Act IV, Scene I - I just love everything about this scene. Rosalind pretending to be Ganymede trying to teach Orlando how to seduce her even though he thinks she's a boy and still attracted to her -- it's enough to tie my brain in knots, but Rosalind is just so brilliant that she makes it work. I love that she's clearly in charge, that she's leading the conversation, that she's turning him into the lover she wants, grounding all his high-flying Petrarchan rhetoric in a firmly realistic base. I love that this is what the relationship between Romeo and Juliet could have been if they'd just had more time. And THIS SPEECH:
No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is
almost six thousand years old, and in all this time
there was not any man died in his own person,
videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains
dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he
could to die before, and he is one of the patterns
of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair
year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been
for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went
but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being
taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish
coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.'
But these are all lies: men have died from time to
time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
I love how clever she is, and how she throws out literary and historical references like they're nothing at all, and how he's clearly completely mad about her. This couple just makes me happy.
I do also love Act II, Scene IV from Twelfth Night, which takes a more melancholy approach to a similar situation, and just about any scene between Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado, but there's just something about the dynamic between Rosalind and Orlando that works for me.
Day #1: Your favourite play - Othello and Richard III
Day #2: Your favourite character - Lady Elizabeth Grey in 3 Henry VI and Richard III
Day #3: Your favourite hero - Othello
Day #4: Your favourite heroine - Juliet from Romeo and Juliet and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing
Day #5: Your favorite villain - Richard of Gloucester
Day #6: Your favourite villainess female villain - Joan la Pucelle
Day #7: Your favourite clown - Feste from Twelfth Night
Day #8: Your favourite comedy - Much Ado About Nothing
Day #9: Your favourite tragedy - King Lear
Day #10: Your favourite history - The Henry VI trilogy
Day #11: Your least favourite play - The Taming of the Shrew
Day #12: Your favourite scene - selections from Richard III, Othello, Much Ado, and 3 Henry VI
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene
Day #14: Your favourite fight scene
Day #15: The first play you read
Day #16: Your first play you saw
Day #17: Your favourite speech
Day #18: Your favourite dialogue
Day #19: Your favourite movie version of a play
Day #20: Your favourite movie adaptation of a play
Day #21: An overrated play
Day #22: An underrated play
Day #23: A role you've never played but would love to play
Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role
Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff?
Day #26: Your favourite couple
Day #27: Your favourite couplet
Day #28: Your favourite joke
Day #29: Your favourite sonnet
Day #30: Your favourite single line