Soldan High School - Scrip Yearbook (St Louis, MO)

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-A, . . 45.7 ,L -,i , But Shakespeare said: Mine enerny's dog, Though he had bit me, should have stood that night, Against my Fire . With this personal touch it is no wonder that he is so widely quot- ed. His greatness is shown in other ways, however, for instance, as Mrs. Cowden Clark tells us, Shakespeare has paraphrased some of our commonest proverbs in his own choice and elegant diction , thus: Make hay while the sun shinesf, is to him, The sun shines hot and if we use delay Cold biting winter mars our hoped for hay. In Henry VI , Many drops pierce the stone, becomes, Much rain wears marble. And in another place he tells how the noble Duke of York was slain: Environed he was with many foes, And stood against them as the hope of Troy Against the Greeks, that would have entered Troy, But Hercules himself must yield to oddsg And many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest timber'd oak. Instead of, A snake lies hidden in the grass , Lady Macbeth says to her husband, H Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under 't. And Juliet says, Speak, heart, hid with a flowering face. Be ol? while your shoes are goodn is in Shakespeare. You may be jogging while your boots are green , and, Every dog hath his day and every man his hour , is alluded to by Hamlet in saying, The cat will mew and dog will have his day . These few proverbs will serve to show you how Shakespeare has elevated some of our most commonplace sayings from the commonplace. It is said by some that although Shakespeare is widely quoted in the popular English of to-day, he was unknown to his contemporaries. In 1600, however, England's Parnassus was published, containing over ninety extracts from Shakespeare. England's Helicon , in 1600, and The Garden of Muses also contain poetry by him as well as by Jonson, Greene, Spenser, Chapman and others of that time. As early as 1595, john Weaver published a book of poems containing a sonnet to Shakespeare. In 1598 Francis Meres edited Witts Treasury in which no

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- - ,- -V A ..-s-.,,- - 7' V -, . , --1 I- 2- -e-:Lf- -1- , 1 - ' Shakespeare in Popular English mmm X HE greatest of all debts which the English speaking people There 1S no doubt that Shakespeare is quoted oftener and by more people of all social ranks than any other f English writer. Quotations from Shakespeare are heard in almost every conversation, no matter what the subject may be. Not that people try to show a great knowledge of Shakes- peare by continually repeating his phrases, but so many popular proverbs and sayings are taken from his works that he is always being quoted even by those who have never read any of his works and who do not know they are repeating his lines. A p ' owe to Shakespeare is, perhaps, the linguistic debt. In reading Hamlet,', one of Shakespeare's most widely known plays, one comes across sentences and phrases continually, which he has heard before, or even has repeated himself, without knowing what author or work he was quoting. There is a well known saying that if you hear anything quoted which is the least proverbial, it is safe to .guessfthat it is taken either from ,'fHamletf'.. or .the Bible.. . In our Eng- lish class we were told the story of the elderly lady, who, after seeing Hamlet played, said she did not like it, that it was too full of quota- tions. If we are agreed that Shakespeare is the most widely quoted Eng- lish writer, the question arises, Why is he so widely quoted? It is because Shakespeare is the great master of the human heart and has the power -to read the thoughts which naturally arise from the heart. Shakespeare was not original. He was content to borrow the foundations and often more than the foundations of his plays from oth-ers. He imitated his contemporaries in style even. Yet in his most imitative writings there is a certain note, found in no works save those of Shakespeare. This is true to such an extent that he has never had any rival. Shakespeare won his position of supreme poet and interpret- er of human life through this personal elementg his knowledge of the human heart and his development of real live characters. This example of Shakespeare's greatness will show you something of what I mean by Shakespeare,s,personal touch . When Cordelia, in King Lear , puts her hand on her father's head and speaks of the night and the storm, an ordinary poet might have said: On such a night, a dog Should have stood against my Bren. A very great poet might have said: On such a night mine lenemy's dog Should have stood against my Fire . 109

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Y-E -3- - We-7, .-, fi - -f -af , Y v ' ,,-sn, -4, -,. - V. W Y - : ,,.. Y Y V ,-YY ,A he compares ancient and modern poets. Here he mentions Shakes- peare. In speaking of Horace he says, as the soul of Euphorbus was thought to live in Pythagorus, so the sweet witted soul of Ovid lives in the melliiluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare , and again he says, If the muses could speak English they would do it in Shakespea1'e's phrase . With such recognition in his own time, is it any wonder that Shakes- peare is considered the greatest of poets? What Greece and Rome pro- duced were great until his time. Lions make leopards tame ! Shakespeare is quoted, too, because he was the greatest of philoso- phers. He knew the relations that men sustain to each otherg he knew that the soul lives in an invisible world and that 'fThere,s no art To find the mind's construction in the face. He knew that judgment should rule courage, and that When valor preys on reason It eats the sword it fights with. Through his great knowledge of the human heart he knew the hopes, fears, passions and ambitions that sway the mind of man and knowing these, he said: , t Love is not love that alters When it alteration Ends. Do you wonder that Shakespeare, the master of the human heart, and mind, the greatest poet, the great philosopher, the man who beau- tified so many of our homely proverbs with his own personal touch, do you wonder he is so widely quoted? --Robert M. Cutter. Shalgespeareis Plays as a Mirror of Nature m, N HERE are some men whose names are written on the page f 4-v of history, as it were, in large type, who, nevertheless, in their own day, were not perceived to be of more than or- dinary size. Columbus died in ignorance that he had discovered a new world, so possessed was he with the idea that he had touched the outlying coasts of Asia. Shakespeare died in ignorance of the fact that he had made himself the foremost man in literature, so far apart in his thought and in the thought of his time, were plays and lit- erature. Yet to-day he occupies a place unparalleled in history. Men of every nation, of every rank, are captivated by him. People of foreign nations are so much interested in him that they learn English merely to 111 1- 11 T i