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War

Richard, Romeo, Juliet and the Sonnet

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Two of Shakespeare’s earliest playsRichard III and Romeo and Juliet, open with sonnets and then employ variations on the sonnet’s structure for dramatic and poetic effect, which is not surprising. At this point in Shakespeare’s life he seems to have had dual career goals. First, he wanted to make money, which he could accomplish through theatre.
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Video: St. Crispin’s Day Speech, Mark Rylance at the Globe

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Mark Rylance at the Globe as Henry V

 
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Richard III and the Sonnet

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“Now is the winter of our discontent” is nearly as familiar as Hamlet’s, “To be, or not to be” and Mark Antony’s, “Friends, Romans, countrymen”. Not one of these three passages is a dramatic dialogue. Mark Antony addresses a large Roman crowd in an extended speech. Hamlet muses to himself in a soliloquy while we the audience listen in.
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In Troy there lies the scene

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Enter the Prologue in armor.

In Troy there lies the scene.Hyperbaton From isles of Greece
The princes orgulousAnastrophe, their high blood chafed,
Have to the port of Athens sent their shipsHyperbaton
Fraught with the ministers and instruments
Of cruel war. Sixty and nine,
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Source:
Act 1
Line Prologue

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Now is the winter of our discontent

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NowHyperbaton is the winter of our discontentMetaphor
Made glorious summerMetaphor by this son of York,Paronomasia
And all the clouds that louredMetaphor upon our houseMetonymy
In the deep bosom of the ocean MetaphorburiedHyperbaton & Ellipsis.
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Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

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Though yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death
MetaphorThe memory be green, and that it us befitted
To bear our hearts in grief, and Personificationour whole kingdom
To be contracted in one brow of woe,
PersonificationYet so far hath discretion fought with nature
That we with wisest sorrow think on him
Together with remembrance of ourselves.

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Source:
Act 1
Scene 2
Line 1

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O my good lord, why are you thus alone?

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O my good lord, why are you thus alone?
For what offense have I this fortnight been
A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?
Tell me, sweet lord, what is ‘t that takes from thee
Thy stomach, pleasure, and thy golden sleep?
Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth
And start so often when thou sit’st alone?
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 3
Line 39

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Connected Notes:
Wives and Troubled Husbands

This battle fares like to the morning’s war

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This battle fares like to the morning’s war,
When dying clouds contend with growing light,
What time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,
Can neither call it perfect day nor night.

Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so,
For what is in this world but grief and woe?

Simile, Anaphora & IsocolonNow sways it this way,
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Source:
Act 2
Scene 5
Line 1

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O, that we now had here But one ten thousand

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Westmoreland
O, that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work today.

All things are ready if our minds be so.

King Henry
What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin.
If we are marked to die, we are enough
To do our country loss;
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Well, My peace we will begin

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Cymbeline
Well,
My peace we will begin. And, Caius Lucius,
Although the victor, we submit to Caesar
And to the Roman Empire, promising
To pay our wonted tribute, from the which
We were dissuaded by our wicked queen,
Whom heavens in justice both on her and hers
Have laid most heavy hand.

The fingers of the powers above do tune
The harmony of this peace.
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Source:
Act 5
Scene 5
Line 558

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Connected Notes:
Love and Water