Category: Shakespeare Challenge

Shakespeare Challenge Update

Hello!

I’m still working on my Shakespeare challenge and I think I will try to read a play before the end of the year maybe The Winter’s Tale for over Christmas. My most recent read has been the Shakespeare’s Sonnets. So here is my updated list. Click on the crossed off titles to be taken to the review.

Plays

  • All’s Well That Ends Well
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • As You Like It
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Coriolanus
  • Cymbeline
  • Hamlet
  • 1 Henry IV
  • 2 Henry IV
  • Henry V
  • 1 Henry VI
  • 2 Henry VI
  • 3 Henry VI
  • Henry VIII
  • Julius Caesar
  • King John
  • King Lear
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Macbeth
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Othello
  • Pericles
  • Richard II
  • Richard III
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Tempest
  • Timon of Athens
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Troilus and Cressida
  • Twelfth Night
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Winter’s Tale

Non Plays

I would love to hear if you have any reading challenges. Please drop a comment for a chat.

Sonnets by William Shakespeare (Review)

Sonnets by William Shakespeare 

Blurb

‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate . . .’ Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets contain some of the most exquisite and haunting poetry ever written, dealing with eternal themes such as love and infidelity, memory and mortality, and the destruction wreaked by time. This new edition collects them in a pocket-sized volume, perfect for gifting. William Shakespeare was born some time in late April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.

Review

I’ve read some of Shakespeare’s sonnets in the past as our Drama teacher used to make us memorise them and then recite them on stage but that was a long time ago. So being as I am trying to read all of Shakespeare’s works I decided to read his sonnets next.

This little book has been perfect to dip into when I have a few minutes free and I will be honest I have been reading it when waiting for my next student to appear on Zoom. 

I really enjoyed reading this little book and although the sonnets are mainly love sonnets there are also sonnets on the seasons and other things. Some are a bit similar in my opinion but they are still enjoyable to read and really show the talent of Shakespeare.

A highly recommended little edition that literally just gives you the sonnets and is perfect to just dip in and out of when the mood takes you. I give this book 4 out of 5 Dragons and I will leave you with one of my favourites.

116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments; love is not love

Which alters when alteration finds, 

Or bands with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.

Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle’s compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor to man ever loved.

🐲🐲🐲🐲

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About the author

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely known as the greatest writer in the English language and is often called England’s national poet and the “Bard of Avon”.

A New Challenge: Shakespeare

So I have decided a new challenge is in order and that challenge is Shakespeare. I will be honest I have only ever read Shakespeare for school but this year I have read Twelfth Night and Venus and Adonis for fun and really enjoyed them so I have decided to read everything by Shakespeare. I’m discrediting the ones I read for school and I plan on reading them again without the pressure of having to write an essay on them.

So here is the list. (If you click the crossed out ones you will go to the review)

Plays

  • All’s Well That Ends Well
  • Antony and Cleopatra
  • As You Like It
  • The Comedy of Errors
  • Coriolanus
  • Cymbeline
  • Hamlet
  • 1 Henry IV
  • 2 Henry IV
  • Henry V
  • 1 Henry VI
  • 2 Henry VI
  • 3 Henry VI
  • Henry VIII
  • Julius Caesar
  • King John
  • King Lear
  • Love’s Labour’s Lost
  • Macbeth
  • Measure for Measure
  • The Merchant of Venice
  • The Merry Wives of Windsor
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
  • Much Ado About Nothing
  • Othello
  • Pericles
  • Richard II
  • Richard III
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • The Taming of the Shrew
  • The Tempest
  • Timon of Athens
  • Titus Andronicus
  • Troilus and Cressida
  • Twelfth Night
  • The Two Gentlemen of Verona
  • The Winter’s Tale

 

Non Plays

  • Sonnets
  • Venus and Adonis
  • Lover’s Complaints
  • Passionate Pilgrim
  • Phoenix and the Turtle
  • Rape of Lucrece

 

I’m not setting a time limit on the challenge because I have a lot of studying to do this year and next so I’m not sure just how much reading I will get done. I am rather excited to get going on this challenge.

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