Born on this day in 1564
(Or maybe yesterday–we only know
When he was christened), Shakespeare still remains
The universally acknowledged king
Of English poetry. To honor him
We ask that Musers posting on this thread
Attempt to write all of their messages
In iambs (the poetic “foot” that goes
Ta-DAH), five to a line–in other words,
Pentameter. True, that will take some work,
But pretty soon you’ll get the hang of it:
Ta-DAH, ta-DAH, ta-DAH, ta-DAH, ta-DAH,
Just like this introduction. So, good luck!
Maybe Paul Baker will drop by. (For all
We know, he talks in sonnets all the time.)
84 thoughts on “Shakespeare’s Birthday”
Comments are closed.
Happyith Birthdayith!
o why, o why, am I , trying to write this way?
Happy B-day, only he cant hear it.
Excuseth me? Iambic pentameter? Marry, that is something thou canst not ask me to do. I mean, my poetry’s bad enough, you want sonnets?? not gonna happen *ahem* But soft, i shall speak in Elizabethan if thou wishes it, for the whole of the day. Good enough? Zounds, it’ll have to be. I can barely even scan the stuff, much less write it.
Happy b-day!!!
is this the real shakespears b-day or the bloggers?
anywho
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
read the first line of the descriotion
Zoe (4),
I don’t think any bloggers have that name.
Ebeth (3),
We didn’t say you had to make it rhyme.
Just count the syllables. It isn’t hard,
Or shouldn’t be for Musers on this blog.
But if the prospect scares you, we’ll accept
Elizabethan English posts instead.
Just watch those verbs (thou wishest, not thou wishes).
Robert (7),
im not zoe, im the pink stalking penguin of penzance A.K.AZoe
zoe is mi real name though
O.K., O.K., O.K., O.K., O.K.
To write an iamibic pentameter
You must count the syllables in each line
Make sure they had up to the number ten
Lucky for you, it doesn’t have to rhyme
In school we’re studying about Shakespeare
We had to write one of these for English
Mine’s not very good, but I’ll post it here (if I can find it)
And you guys can judge it for yourselves
We’re going to have a Shakespeare festival
For it my grade is putting on a good play
It’s called The Tempest by William Shakespeare
I play an advisor named Gonzalo
I have to pretend to be an old man
Which isn’t very easy; please wish me some luck!
Wow, that’s annoying.
I havest done a project on thy Life, Oh, Shakespear
It was hard, I addmitith, but I succeded
I am not very experienced in talking this way
Or shouldeth I say, writing
How thine work turned out so excelent,
It is forever a mystery; thou shall not reveal
I only plead that oneday I mayeth stop
Amd talk normally ontheth again
Horrible, but the greatheth I may do
Hay, you caneth say “okayeth” in thy shakespear era
It was not invented, nor should it haveth been
Happy Birthday, Shakespeare, though thou art dead!
Iambic pentameter be not hard.
Thinkest thou that these lines do fit the beat?
Marry, on second thought, ’tis diffulcult.
Shakespeare, we wishest thou
Were here to teacheth Us
The propereth waye to writest a Sonnet
Or maybe we’ll settleth for Paule Baker insteadeth.
Ouch. Where to start? We wish, thou wert, to teach,
The proper waye to write, we’ll settle, and
Instead. If Shakespeare were alive today,
This thread would kill him all over again.
Okay. First off, the endings go on verbs—
Not nouns, not adjectives. –est goes with thou.
–eth goes with he or she or it (that is,
Pronouns that nowadays take –s). The rest
(I, you, we, they) are just like verbs today.
Just memorize a few irregulars
(I have, thou hast, she hath; I am, thou art;
I was, thou wast or wert), and thou art done.
It’s pretty easy, and worth doing well.
Writing in Iambic Pentameter
is a great chore, you see you see you see.
I am very bad at it, as you see,
But I will attempt at it anyway
This is actually really funny
For it is taking up lots of time – ness.
Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare, oh yes!
My sister, Taiwan Hippo Fan, loves you.
she competes in a monologue contest
that is based entirely on you! YAY!
This is the end of my difficult post
adios, adios adios, bye!
I love Shakespeare–I am a Shakespeare fan
You’re right–his birthday is unknown spare that
We know when he was christened–but unlike
You,
I think his birthday was the twenty-third
Or the twenty-fourth,we are not sure which.
I apoligize for my words–Shakespeare
Would be apalled–of this I’m pretty sure
My meter is not perfect, I admit
A lesson or two could be taught to me.
I work on Shakespeare monologues each year
So I can perform in a competition
(Sorry about the meter in that line)
I have competed twice but never won
But I don’t care–I do it for the fun!
(The rhyme was accidental–that is true)
To be or not be happy about Shakespeares birthday…
My top five favorite Shakespeare lines are these:
5. “O, I am slain!”
4. “Take thy face hence.”
3. “What, you egg! / Young fry of treachery!”
2. “Lord, what fools these mortals be.”
1. “I am not yet so low / but that my nails can reach unto thine eyes!”
Instead of saying, “so I can perform
in a competition”, you could just say
“so I could perform in competition”
I can’t believe I kept the meter too!
My favorite Shakespeare line is “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”
I have never tried to write in this form
But I do love Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets
Now let’s try this in Shakespearean,
Shakespeare, thou wert brilliant, and your work does (dost?)
Live on in modern day society,
Just look at all the films they never had
To write plots for, that must have made it nice
For all those tired movie making people!
Oh dear, I seem to have lost the language,
Who cares, this is lots of fun even though
It’s really hard, and just so you are sure
That second verse was just a joke!
*sweatsweat, sweatsweat, sweatsweat, sweatsweat, sweatsweat*
GAPA, I apologise. As thou wishest, I shall try my best to remember the verbs.
And no, it doesn’t have to rhyme, but ’tis enough. ’twill suffice. Bonus bunny points if you know the quote. I shall content myself with prose. Albeit Elizabethan prose.
I think my favourite Shakespeare like is this:
“I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!”
It does have quite a catchy ring to it.
**line
Happy Birthday Mister Shakespeare today
this is my attempt at that rhyme
one of my favorite lines is “i think his understanding his bereft”. don’t know why i like it but i do. HAPPY B_DAY TO SHAKSPEARE AND MY FRIEND WHOSE B_DAY IS TODAY AND IS ONE OF SHAKESPEARES BIGGEST FANS! no joke. my friend is as obbssesed with shakspeare as she is with newsies and that is saying alooooooooooooooooooooooooot.
I had to write a sonnet for LA
It drove me crazy for almost a week
The whole thing had to make some sort of sense
And really nothing even rhymes with week
I will see if I can find it for you
I must have buried it ten feet straight down
Digging it up will be a pain, that’s true
And reading it will just make me frown
But even that sonnet was not the worst
This one is more horrible than the first.
God, that was bad.
Oops. That was only 10 lines. Take out the last two lines, and put these six in instead.
Now we go back to the point of this thread
To wish Shakespeare a happy birth day
For though we all know that he is well dead
It still really is a nice thing to say.
And now you shall suffer no more, my friend
I am bringing this sonnet to an end.
My friends, comrades in acts of lunacy!
Pray, what happened to your sense of meter?
It’s not that hard, and you may find it fun,
For once you start it’s hard to stop, so try!
Counting syllables is a great way too
Avoid that nasty math homework, you see.
Dear Musers, loseth not thy hearts valiant
Iambic pentameter is quite fun.
Shakespeare was a classick master of words
And is still inflicted on innocents
The galaxy through, to their chagrin and
Despair at quite such an arduous task.
In Kiador, the fair country I rule,
We speak in IP and have a good time.
And sometimes, on clear nights, we can even
Understand what we are even saying.
Needless to say, the embassies are full.
i don’t do any of the math homework.
I do have a life, i will have you know.
That’s all i have to say but you see-erk
i need to finish up this bad poem-oh
Oh dear, I do believe that fair Queenie
Has showed me up with her mad meter skills
Curses! Oh well, I still have lots of fun
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Good Musers all, I now your pardon crave,
For I have been of late much absent, so it seems,
From this great Forum, which methought
(considering the size to which ’tis grown)
Could very well go on at its own pace,
Requiring nor desiring no base scrawl
That cometh from this paltry author’s pen.
Yet, lo! I am dug out from that foul hole
Wherin in idleness I’m wont to sit.
For Mistress Ebeth hath this even found
A certain means to plague me where I lie,
That, unlike Museblog, cannot be ignor’d.
Wherefore, at her imperious behest,
Behold! I’m come! to cast upon this page
Such idle musings as, at this late hour,
From out my curfew’d mind may stolen be.
I greet you all, in haste; and so, to bed.
For here, ’tis past the fateful witching hour.
Upon the morrow, I do straitly swear
Again upon this page I shall appear,
Unless my fancy lighteth on some word
As lyeth on another nearby page.
But, howsoe’er it goeth, I’ll be here,
To give you all my mind’s most ripen’d fruit;
Which, though ’tis like to gripe your tender brains,
And hinder the digestion of your thoughts,
Yet shall I pour it forth in quantity,
And if you look in rage for one to blame,
She lurketh much; and Ebeth is her name.
(always good to rhyme the last two lines. Nighty-night.)
*applause*
Hello. I shall now attempt Elizabethan iambic pentameter. Ergh. *mutters* Ebeth better have those pies she promised.
All across ye threade Lunaticks are founde
Brethrene I’ Insannitee to mete
Take ye Pinke Staulk’ng Panguine for Instanse
And herr Highness Queen Juleetaynee
Or Skippur Nansee if thou doth pleaseth
Alle creetures worthie of Ophelia
Suche is theyr uttere lunacies an’ madness
But iff thou doth cravest sheere zanynesse,
‘Tis our belov’d GAPAes ye muste turnne to
Thay werre madd to bee A’ministraytorrs
The Endeth
Hooray for Ebeth! She got PB&J to come!
Oh, wait, I’m supposed to be posting in iamnic pentameter
Err… well now I don’t really have anything to say…
37- INDEED!
Shakespeare, I applaud thee! I can’t imagine writing so much, so eloquently! He truly was a genious. I think I’m just going to step back and let the professional or at least somewhat talented museblogger poets write the sonnets this time. I’m horrible at maintaining proper meter and rhyme scheme, and I don’t want to mangle such a beautiful form as the sonnet with my blunders, lol.
YAY Paul Baker!! You amaze us so much!
How dare anyone write in anything
but iambic pentameter! so there
Me favvy Shakespeare quote is as follows:
(See, ten syllables are imminent. Heh)
“Frailty, thy name is woman!”
Because The AHHH! does not know what it means.
O! happy birthday d’ Will.
You may have been quite a pill.
You caused quite a strife,impregnating your wife,
three months before nuptuals.
You may have been agreeable as poo,
But I will make not an ado;
For I never met thee, I only knew your plays,
and they are more betterer than J’s Grammar.
(hahahahahahahahaha)
(Ayce gang should get this!)
I have just re-read my posting of last night.
Line 2 is in hexameter.
Line 3 is in quadrameter.
That is unconscionable.
I hereby demote myself two Shakespeare points.
My only excuse is that I was half asleep.
Meanwhile, Happy Birthday to the Great Man. How he managed to be simultaneously a playwright, successful farmer, and secret agent, I’ll never know. Some people just get to do everything.
PB&J is cometh! Sqee!
What time zone are you in? (don’t give me a name, i won’t know it. I mean how menny hours are you ahead of the MB?)
W’e’re having a shakespeare party in english today. Fun fun!
British time is usually MuseBlog time plus six hours. It can be an hour more or less around changes to or from Daylight Saving Time (which the Brits call Summer Time), because we change on different days.
Happy Birthday, dead guy!Hey GAPA: Why is your name a link to nowhere?
GAPA: You still ain’t answered my question.
I just had to have a long name for once. Don’t worry, I’ll get rid of it.
I like long names.
[Please do. –Admin.]
HEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CUT MY NAME IN HALF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I DEMAND that the GAPAs Post my name ‘Cause Its FUNNY!!!
A world without fences
Where can run free
And be with real dogs who bring the real dog out in MEEEEEEEEEEEEE
*gets pied*
GAPA:
ANSWER ME!The blog software makes it that way because Rosanne and I won’t tell it our Web address. We don’t tell it our Web address because our Web address is here, and you’re already here and don’t need a link to get here. Hence, a link to nowhere.
Otzi who may or may not be the general for the musers side in the pie war thread but if she is’nt she will be a spy and take out an e-mail account for the general blog and use it to send virtual pies to highlights, and does not believe in the monarchy, since eveyone on her mom’s side has been reveloutionaries for more than 200 years, except for on her dad’s side there’s Napoleon, but we don’t talk about him,’cause he was short and looked like a pregnant man, so she won’t be dead because Kokopelli#13 is the king of deadness, ’cause he is a usurper and a tyrant, so there. Monty Python is awesome, and so is my cat, whose name is Max and who is senselessly violent. Otzi is also the Future President of the United States, and is worried that it might affect her political platform if she marries a man of a different race, because there are still bigots out there, even though Cello Girl says its okay, Otzi can marry a Hot Japanese Boy if she wants to, even if he doesn’t speak English. Not that I’m considering marriage, I’m only 13. Jeez.
That’s it. The longest name in Museblog History.
The GAPA apparently have to log in to gain control of their special GAPA powers, which includes a linky. But they have no linky cuz they’re so froody that they follow their own rules.
See the q. marks? There used to be a url box under name and email. That’s where people put their websites in, but the GAPA banned this after a while. Then they took it out.
And that is the story of the Links To Nowhere.
whenever you make green colored font, I think it always looks like a link:
this should turn blue when you put your mouse over it, but it isn’t a link!
38-Oh behold, I am a true model
Of insanity, and my name is
Spelled completely and entirely wrong.
And this thread is not really getting long.
OMGOMGOMGOMG who’s seen shakespeare condensed? We watched the Romeo+Juliet one today in english and it was SOOO FUNNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Especially the part where she(/he) takes the potion thingy and staggers around pretending to puke on people for a while and then she(/he) goes back on the stage and yells “JUST SAY NO!” and keels over. That was HILARIOUS! Was laughing SO HARD! OMGOMGOMG!!!!!! Must…buy….video…if….it…exists….
My class is in a Shakespeare theme,
We’re doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
We’ve gotten all the way to the fourth act,
And now I’m giving up on the rhyme scheme.
But anyway, it’s quite the funny play,
We’re reading it and watching videos,
One by BBC and one more modern.
I hope I got the pentameter right,
It’s lots of work doing a post like this!
Rhyme is pretty much impossible though.
Oh, well. Why isn’t anybody else
Making poetic effort anymore?
62-Shaddup. Must everyone rub this in my face?
Huh? Did I?
Poetry in iambic pentameter (the basis of sonnets) isn’t impossible. It’s just expletive difficult.
It’s a bit like doing a jigsaw, but it’s more creative. You come up with a really good phrase, but it doesn’t quite fit. The meter isn’t quite right, the rhyme isn’t quite right, it has too many syllables. But it’s such a great line, you have to leave it in.
NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT.
The meter MUST be perfect, and so must the rhyme. It’s an exercise in discipline. If you can’t rewrite that brilliant phrase to fit the scheme, you bin it. It’s painful and depressing. But if you slave at it long enough, you have 14 lines that really constitute a work of art.
Shakespeare was so good at it that he made it look easy. He manages to make phrases and ideas flow ACROSS the structure, so that it doesn’t feel rigid. That’s genius level, and it’s what we all aspire to. Quick quote, in case you haven’t seen one of his :
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
C’mon then. New topic, please, Master Robert. Sonnet Challenge. Let’s make it easier, and say you only need to write 4 lines, and it doesn’t need to be in Elizabethan. It can even be in Amercan. But :
Each line MUST be in perfect Iambic Pentameter.
Line 1 must rhyme with line 3
Line 2 must rhyme with line 4.
PB&J will be really harsh, and criticise unmercifully anything that’s sub-standard.
That’ll give you lot something to think about
*evil cackle*
I don’t geteth this.
Whateth the pointeth.
And whyeth doeseth a loteth of theseeth wordeths endeth ineth etheth?
If anyone can foolow that, I admire them.
I’lll work on it, and have one here for you,m poetic and all, in a week.
Hey! That reminds me: when I was 14 or 15, I wrote a pastiche of the very sonnet that PB&J just quoted! I think I posted it on the blog a few months ago. Let’s see if I can remember it again. I was pretending that my friend Holly (still my friend) was angry with me–something I don’t think she has ever been:
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art more lowering and tempestuous.
Compounded clouds can block the bravest light,
Leaving despair and dark distress to us.
They fear the lightning who might well be struck;
Not so the one for whom the bolt performs.
Clouds may be omens to those ruled by luck,
But I have striven with the god of storms.
Thy withering winter-blasts I wish to slay,
Thy clouds to clear away, perchance to find
The fickle glint of dawning, and the day
That lay, deaf to my beckoning, behind.
Upon the stars we mariners depend,
And we would have the heavens as a friend.
(I was particularly proud of that “tempestuous”/”distress to us” rhyme. I wonder whether I’d have the nerve to do that today. Also, lightning storms are summer weather in the Washington area, but never mind.)
You wrote that at the young age of fourteen?
I have myself that same number of years,
and yet, I am not so skilled with words,
I feel rather unacomlished indeed
I must practice this noble skill,
Though if, I may, make this humble excuse,
I do compose sonnets in my free time,
why just today I found my self without
a key to my back-door, and so I had
To wait for my dear sisters sweet return
to pass the time I thought up a sonnet
But, it was so sweet that I forgot it
The moment that I put my pen to page.
I am tired, for I have played lacrosse
till my feet hurt errrrrrrr…. alot.
My poetry sucks, now won’t you please
leave me in peace to blog and eat cheese
It was the only thing that rhymed…
Happy birthday to Shakespeare. I had to read Romeo and Juliet for English last school year. It was really boring, and confusing, and did you know Juliet was only almost 13, or maybe she was 13? Anyway…
Zounds, didst thou not hear me before? Iambic pentameter is something that i must regretfully skip out on. Or perhaps not so regretfully…
Ok we’re watching Shakespeare In Love in english. It is extremely questionable and soboring…we sit there and watch them have sex and he gets inspiration from it and writes the play.
Since i’m incredibly bored, i’m gonna give you all a special treat!!! Go you! Or not much of a treat, depending on how you look at it…either way, randomness ensuing. This was my happy b-day shakespeare entry on xanga…
Random Person #1: Prithee, dost thou know the day?
Random Person #2: ‘Tis the 23rd of April good sir.
Random Person #1: PAR-TAY!
Random Person #2: What, hast thou gone mad?
Random Person #1: Nay! I party because…what? Dost thou truly not know?
Random Person #1: Marry, I confess myself ignorant.
Random Person #2: Thou hast insulted me. Draw knave!
Random Person #1: Prithee, in what way have i insulted thee?
Random Person #2: Thou knowest not the day?
Random Person #1: I knowest not.
Random Person #2: That is insult enough.
Random Person #1: Zounds, what cause have you to fight me?
Random Person #2: Thou knowest the name of Shakespeare?
Random Person #1: Indeed, ’tis a name well known to me. But soft, what hath he to do with our quarrel here?
Random Person #2: Zounds, thou knowest and yet art thou in such ignorance? Today is his birthday!
Random Person #1: Marry! This i knew not of. Thankee friend. Sheath thy sword, i shall go celebrate with thee.
Random Person #2: Then hi! Away to the festivities! Where we shall act as drunken fools and be merry!
Random Person #1: Drunken sounds good.
*Random Person #1 and Random Person #2 go off and celebrate and get drunk*
Random Reader: Why does getting drunk have anything to do with it?
Author: Why dost getting drunk have anything to do with it.
Random Reader: *rolls eyes*
Author: Because I said so.
Harriet: DRUNKEN PIRATES! *Does Jack Sparrow imitation*
Author: *facepalm* Shakespeare! Shakespeare!
Harriet: DRUNKEN SHAKESPEARE! BREAK OUT THE RUM!!! *sings* we’re devils, we’re black sheep, we’re really bad eggs…
Author: Zounds, I would do better to leave her out of it.
*Author has a long, drawn-out, flashy swordfight with Harriet, and ends up killing her dramatically, as it so happens right over a large cliff for her to fall down in slow motion*
*The Author’s comp spontaneously combusts*
Hey, i was bored ok?
*so SPACE boring not soboring.
69- Robert you were talented at age 14 and 15!
Thanks! I wish Muse and the blog had existed back then.
I’ve recently found some other things I wrote when I was Muser-aged. Maybe I’ll post them on the blog sometime when things are slow.
You could make a thread!
“Robert’s Flamablamablous Pomes and suchlike”
Or something like that.
I’m bored…
I should probably go do my hw…
I have a paper on romeo+juliet due mon. (she switched it back. Yesssss…) but she wants more on the planning sheet now. Eeeergh…
cheeeeeeese
Good heavens! How could I have missed this thread?
It is more witty and more literate
(Though there ARE others I was fitter at)
Than almost any other I have read.
And yet my lateness, all that being said,
Is really nothing to be bitter at.
There’s so much here for us to titter at,
And we’re still adding posts: It’s not yet dead.
Okay, I’m starting to run out of steam.
Sonnets are hard. They’re fun to write, but tiring,
They have to rhyme and scan and still make sense.
That’s harder to achieve than it can seem.
I’m sorry that this one’s so uninspiring.
I also wish it weren’t quite so dense.
Am I correct in thinking what follows:
iambic pentameter is to rhyme
five feet of word in pretty little rows
making certain that the stress is on time
(end REALLY bad poem)
with every other syllable, starting off with unstressed? Ooo. That was awful.
Close. It has nothing to do with rhyme. It’s about the number of syllables and the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (alternating unstressed and stressed). Since ancient Greece, the two-syllable pattern unstressed-stressed (da-DUM) has been called an iamb. “Iambic pentameter” means lines made of five iambs each.
Unrhymed iambic pentameter is known as “blank verse.” A classic example is Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s book-length retelling of the King Arthur legend, Idylls of the King, which starts like this:
LEODOGRAN, the king of Cameliard,
Had one fair daughter, and none other child;
And she was fairest of all flesh on earth,
Guinevere, and in her his one delight.
Notice that in the last line, the word “Guinevere” violates the unstressed-stressed rule. (To make it start with an iamb, you’d have to pronounce it something like “Whenever.”) Poets will sometimes break the meter for effect–in this case, to draw attention to the name of the most beautiful woman in the world, whose tragic love is going to cause so much trouble later in the story. But Tennyson didn’t throw out the rules; the number of syllables in the line stays the same, and the meter recovers immediately.
Thanks. With that information, I can right hideous attempts at poetry correctly.
Here’s something that might be of interest to Shakespeare fans with AOL instant messenger (AIM). If you add SmarterChild to your buddy list and talk to it, you can use it to read Shakespeare! Just type in something about “library” and a menu should appear. Choose the number for “Shakespeare” and you should be able to choose and read a number of Shakespeare’s plays on IM.
Oh no…NOT Smarterchild. I HATE that stupid robot!!! Grr! Although randomly insulting him is fun. And quite pathetic. But whatev.
I have only seen 2 of Shakespeare’s works, and one of them was She’s the Man, which doesn’t really count.
PS I’m kiki_the_great. Really.
PPS I lurve pseudonyms.