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Can you quote Shakespeare from memory?

I can't..  My daughter chats to a lot of Americans, (hmm so do I) and one of her American friends asked if we were proper Brits. The criteria apparently was if we could answer maths questions and quote Shakespeare.. I fail on both those counts because I can only quote a line or two here and there.. My older son saved the day by quoting a long speech but I think it's probably fairly unusual that anyone can quote Shakespeare? 

Posted - August 25, 2018
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Responses


  • 44619
    I can't, but I'm sure numerous actors and scholars can. I was never interested and could never understand it in English class.
      August 25, 2018 7:49 AM MDT
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  • 6477
    They make us study at least one play for the English literature qualification that everyone takes.. I had Macbeth.. Having to study it in minute detail -  it's enough to turn a person off for life!
      August 25, 2018 9:38 AM MDT
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  • 2219
    2B or not 2B that is the question. 
      August 25, 2018 7:58 AM MDT
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  • 6477
    That's one of the only one's I knew.. And 'Alas poor Yorik, I knew him, Horatio' & 'Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer...... ' and that's i! 
      August 25, 2018 9:36 AM MDT
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  • 5391
    Bits and pieces. Though I’ve read some of his works, Shakespeare’s dated lexicon is difficult to absorb, I can’t recite any of his long passages. 

    I wouldn’t consider that ability as meaningful to one’s “proper” standing as a Brit; no more than I could consider reciting Revelations as a qualifier of being a “proper” Christian.  
      August 25, 2018 8:02 AM MDT
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  • 6477
    Thank goodness for that :) I must confess, I have never been the biggest fan of Shakespeare - that's probably my own lack of having really paid it all much attention. The words, as you say, are sometimes a bit much.. But then again, when I think about it, I don't remember many lines and speeches from films either.. So perhaps I shouldn't mind that I can't recite Shakespeare. 
      August 25, 2018 9:33 AM MDT
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  • 3523
    I memorized this from Hamlet and had it as my screen saver at work during the height of the harassment we spoke of.

    " "So shall you hear
    Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
    Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
    Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
    And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
    Fall'n on th' inventors' heads."

    I don't think it helped my cause.
      August 25, 2018 2:22 PM MDT
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  • 10642
    Jeez!  I aint THAT old!  Contrary to popular belief I was not alive when Shakespeare performed.  Therefore, I can't quote him.  Besides, want he a hooligan?  Going around breaking windows and then blaming it on sickly women!


    But soft!  What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.  (sure, break a window and blame it on a chick)
    Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon (stooping to murder for a broken window?),
    Who is already sick and pale with grief (and murdering a sickly person at that)
    That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she (well, of course... she's sick)
    Be not her maid, since she is envious (a threesome?).
    Her vestal livery is but sick and green (now that's just nasty!) 
    And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. (Gross!  Get it away! Get it away!  Germs!!)

      August 25, 2018 2:50 PM MDT
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  • 53509

      Nope. I can do a mean rendition of Poe's "The Raven" though. 
    ~
      August 25, 2018 11:24 PM MDT
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  • 22891
    no
      September 8, 2018 5:45 PM MDT
    0