William Shakespeare (1564-1616), one of the world’s greatest poets and dramatists, was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. He became a leading member of an acting company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, which later became the King’s Men. He wrote plays for his group and also played small roles in those performed by it. The range of his plays is vast. Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Henry V. Measure for Measure, The Tempest are some of his most well-known plays. His poetical works include the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece, and the much-admired sequence of 154 sonnets (1609).
The following piece is from his tragedy, Hamlet. It is a speech made by the hero of the play, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. He is speaking to two friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. These declamatory speeches are often made by characters in Elizabethan plays. Shakespeare frequently adopts this practice in his plays.
What a piece of work is a man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god-the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?
Notes
- piece of work: a work of artistic creation.
- faculty: quality.
- express: clearly and definitely stated.
- apprehension: intelligence.
- paragon: height of excellence; the greatest.
- quintessence of dust: dust in its most essential character. A human being, however great, turns into dust after death.
EXERCISE A
- Rewrite the text in ten simple sentences.
EXERCISE B
- Fill in the blanks with appropriate articles and prepositions:________man is admirable because ________ his reason. This is the faculty that makes him ________ paragon________animals.
Fill in the blanks with appropriate forms of the given words:
| Noun | Verb | Adjectiv | Adverb |
| man | |||
| noble | |||
| admirable |
THE NIGHT THE GHOST GOT IN – James Thurber (1894-1962)