Memorizing Shakespeare
Ken Ludwig
Why Shakespeare?
Not only do Shakespeare’s plays themselves contain the finest writing of the past 450 years, but most of the best novels, plays, poetry, and films in the English language produced since Shakespeare’s death in 1616—from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens, from Ulysses to The Godfather—are heavily influenced by Shakespeare’s stories, characters, language, and themes.
As Falstaff says in Henry IV, Part 2: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
Shakespeare is not only creative in himself—he is the cause of creativity in others.
Not only do Shakespeare’s plays themselves contain the finest writing of the past 450 years, but most of the best novels, plays, poetry, and films in the English language produced since Shakespeare’s death in 1616—from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens, from Ulysses to The Godfather—are heavily influenced by Shakespeare’s stories, characters, language, and themes.
As Falstaff says in Henry IV, Part 2: I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.
Shakespeare is not only creative in himself—he is the cause of creativity in others.
One of the mysteries of literature is how simple words on a page can get us thinking about our humanity across time and space: how a story written in the sixteenth century can be as inspiring and relevant as if it were written yesterday. Similarly, one of the mysteries of the theater is how words spoken on a stage can transport us to other worlds, convincing us that we are partaking of other lives playing out in front of us, all the while knowing that those lives are being portrayed by actors.
Like language itself, theater is always operating on two levels:
1. the level where we are convinced we are seeing what the play says we’re seeing, like a battle on a field in France, and
2. the level where we know full well that we are in a room called a theater watching five actors pretending to be a whole army.
Why Memorize It?
Memorization unlocks the whole world of Shakespeare in a unique way.
In order to memorize something, you have to be very specific and very honest with yourself.
You have to work slowly, and you have to understand every word of what you’re memorizing.
There was a time not long ago when memorization was considered to be one of the basic tools of an academic education. Students were expected to learn hundreds of lines from the Greek and Roman classics, then, later, from poetry in their native tongues. This tradition has faded from our lives, and something powerful has been lost.
Memorization unlocks the whole world of Shakespeare in a unique way.
In order to memorize something, you have to be very specific and very honest with yourself.
You have to work slowly, and you have to understand every word of what you’re memorizing.
There was a time not long ago when memorization was considered to be one of the basic tools of an academic education. Students were expected to learn hundreds of lines from the Greek and Roman classics, then, later, from poetry in their native tongues. This tradition has faded from our lives, and something powerful has been lost.
How Do I Memorize It?
Shakespeare can be difficult to read, let alone memorize, without some help.
Shakespeare’s sentence structure often sounds odd to our ears. This is partly because Shakespeare wrote his plays more than four hundred years ago and partly because a substantial portion of his plays are in poetry. Thus he’s frequently saying things like "Conceal me what I am," instead of “Disguise me.”
Shakespeare frequently writes in metaphors. His mind was so lively and cunning, so profound and imaginative, that he was always telling us how something was like something else, and it often takes some effort to puzzle out his meaning.
Best Tip Ever: You’ll use it again and again during your study of Shakespeare.
USE THE NATURAL RHYTHM OF THE LINES TO HELP MEMORIZE THEM.
The thing to be aware of is that Shakespeare pulls linguistic tricks all the time to give the actor a sort of playbook on how to say his poetry aloud. He uses his vowels and consonants with enormous care, creating sounds that can slow you down, speed you up, make you pause at the right place, or add an emotion that you didn’t see coming.
1.Define the difficult words and talk about imagery;
2. Learn how the rhythm of the words makes them easier to memorize (remember: Shakespeare wrote with memorization in mind);
3. Use the Quotation Pages, with their easy print and spacing,
4. Say the lines aloud, using the recordings of others with greater experience, and
5. Repeat them again and again. The repetition will pay off.
The Quotation Pages and Audio Clips are located at the linked website:
Shakespeare can be difficult to read, let alone memorize, without some help.
Shakespeare’s sentence structure often sounds odd to our ears. This is partly because Shakespeare wrote his plays more than four hundred years ago and partly because a substantial portion of his plays are in poetry. Thus he’s frequently saying things like "Conceal me what I am," instead of “Disguise me.”
Shakespeare frequently writes in metaphors. His mind was so lively and cunning, so profound and imaginative, that he was always telling us how something was like something else, and it often takes some effort to puzzle out his meaning.
Best Tip Ever: You’ll use it again and again during your study of Shakespeare.
USE THE NATURAL RHYTHM OF THE LINES TO HELP MEMORIZE THEM.
The thing to be aware of is that Shakespeare pulls linguistic tricks all the time to give the actor a sort of playbook on how to say his poetry aloud. He uses his vowels and consonants with enormous care, creating sounds that can slow you down, speed you up, make you pause at the right place, or add an emotion that you didn’t see coming.
1.Define the difficult words and talk about imagery;
2. Learn how the rhythm of the words makes them easier to memorize (remember: Shakespeare wrote with memorization in mind);
3. Use the Quotation Pages, with their easy print and spacing,
4. Say the lines aloud, using the recordings of others with greater experience, and
5. Repeat them again and again. The repetition will pay off.
The Quotation Pages and Audio Clips are located at the linked website:
Speaking Shakespeare
For many English-speakers, the following phrases are familiar enough to be considered common expressions, proverbs, and/or clichés. All of them originated with or were popularized by Shakespeare.
- All our yesterdays (Macbeth)
- All that glitters is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)
- All's well that ends well (title)
- As good luck would have it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- As merry as the day is long (Much Ado About Nothing / King John)
- Bated breath (The Merchant of Venice)
- Bag and baggage (As You Like It / Winter's Tale)
- Bear a charmed life (Macbeth)
- Be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)
- Beggar all description (Antony and Cleopatra)
- Better foot before ("best foot forward") (King John)
- The better part of valor is discretion (I Henry IV)
- In a better world than this (As You Like It)
- Neither a borrower nor a lender be (Hamlet)
- Brave new world (The Tempest)
- Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)
- Breathed his last (3 Henry VI)
- Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)
- Refuse to budge an inch (Measure for Measure / Taming of the Shrew)
- Cold comfort (The Taming of the Shrew / King John)
- Conscience does make cowards of us all (Hamlet)
- Come what come may ("come what may") (Macbeth)
- Comparisons are odious (Much Ado about Nothing)
- Crack of doom (Macbeth)
- Dead as a doornail (2 Henry VI)
- A dish fit for the gods (Julius Caesar)
- Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war (Julius Caesar)
- Dog will have his day (Hamlet)
- Devil incarnate (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)
- Eaten me out of house and home (2 Henry IV)
- Elbow room (King John)
- Farewell to all my greatness (Henry VIII)
- Faint hearted (I Henry VI)
- Fancy-free (Midsummer Night's Dream)
- Fight till the last gasp (I Henry VI)
- Forever and a day (As You Like It)
- For goodness' sake (Henry VIII)
- Foregone conclusion (Othello)
- Full circle (King Lear)
- The game is afoot (I Henry IV)
- The game is up (Cymbeline)
- Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)
- Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida)
- Jealousy is the green-eyed monster (Othello)
- It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)
- Heart of gold (Henry V)
- Her infinite variety (Antony and Cleopatra)
- 'Tis high time (The Comedy of Errors)
- Hoist with his own petard (Hamlet)
- Household words (Henry V)
- A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse! (Richard III)
- Ill wind which blows no man to good (2 Henry IV)
- Improbable fiction (Twelfth Night)
- In a pickle (The Tempest)
- In my heart of hearts (Hamlet)
- In my mind's eye (Hamlet)
- Infinite space (Hamlet)
- Infirm of purpose (Macbeth)
- In my book of memory (I Henry VI)
- It is but so-so (As You Like It)
- It smells to heaven (Hamlet)
- Itching palm (Julius Caesar)
- Kill with kindness (Taming of the Shrew)
- Killing frost (Henry VIII)
- Knit brow (The Rape of Lucrece)
- Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth)
- Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)
- Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- Laugh yourself into stitches (Twelfth Night)
- Lean and hungry look (Julius Caesar)
- Lie low (Much Ado about Nothing)
- Live long day (Julius Caesar)
- Love is blind (Merchant of Venice)
- Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water (Henry VIII)
- Melted into thin air (The Tempest)
- Though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("There's a method to my madness") (Hamlet)
- Make a virtue of necessity (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
- Milk of human kindness (Macbeth)
- Ministering angel (Hamlet)
- Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows (The Tempest)
- More honored in the breach than in the observance (Hamlet)
- More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)
- More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)
- Much Ado About Nothing (title)
- Murder most foul (Hamlet)
- Neither rhyme nor reason (As You Like It)
- Not slept one wink (Cymbeline)
- Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it (Macbeth)
- [Obvious] as a nose on a man's face (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)
- Once more into the breach (Henry V)
- One fell swoop (Macbeth)
- One that loved not wisely but too well (Othello)
- Time is out of joint (Hamlet)
- Out of the jaws of death (Twelfth Night)
- Own flesh and blood (Hamlet)
- Star-crossed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)
- Parting is such sweet sorrow (Romeo and Juliet)
- What's past is prologue (The Tempest)
- [What] a piece of work [is man] (Hamlet)
- Pitched battle (Taming of the Shrew)
- A plague on both your houses (Romeo and Juliet)
- Play fast and loose (King John)
- Pomp and circumstance (Othello)
- [A poor] thing, but mine own (As You Like It)
- Pound of flesh (The Merchant of Venice)
- Primrose path (Hamlet)
- Quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice)
- Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)
- Sea change (The Tempest)
- Seen better days (As You Like It? Timon of Athens?)
- Send packing (I Henry IV)
- How sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child (King Lear)
- Shall I compare thee to a summer's day (Sonnets)
- Make short shrift (Richard III)
- Sick at heart (Hamlet)
- Snail paced (Troilus and Cressida)
- Something in the wind (The Comedy of Errors)
- Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth)
- A sorry sight (Macbeth)
- Sound and fury (Macbeth)
- Spotless reputation (Richard II)
- Stony hearted (I Henry IV)
- Such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)
- Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep ("Still waters run deep") (2 Henry VI)
- The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- Sweet are the uses of adversity (As You Like It)
- Sweets to the sweet (Hamlet)
- Swift as a shadow (A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Tedious as a twice-told tale (King John)
- Set my teeth on edge (I Henry IV)
- Tell truth and shame the devil (1 Henry IV)
- Thereby hangs a tale (Othello)
- There's no such thing (Macbeth)
- There's the rub (Hamlet)
- This mortal coil (Hamlet)
- To gild refined gold, to paint the lily ("to gild the lily") (King John)
- To thine own self be true (Hamlet)
- Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)
- Tower of strength (Richard III)
- Towering passion (Hamlet)
- Trippingly on the tongue (Hamlet)
- Truth will out (The Merchant of Venice)
- Violent delights have violent ends (Romeo and Juliet)
- Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)
- What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- What's done is done (Macbeth)
- What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo and Juliet)
- What fools these mortals be (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
- What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
- Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)
- Wish is father to that thought (2 Henry IV)
- Witching time of night (Hamlet)
- Working-day world (As You Like It)
- The world's my oyster (Merry Wives of Windsor)