Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Poetry in motion

Being a pure bred product of the science stream no doubt has resulted in me being a non-lover of the arts and literature. I do love a good read from time to time, and have composed some poems back in my younger days, but the sublime beauty of poetry has some how eluded me.

It was not until I came across Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 that I began to start appreciating these works of art. And guess where I saw it? In an LRT train, no kidding! I confess that I've never read any of Shakespeare's plays...though the modern film industry has given us some interpretations of its concepts.

Romeo and Juliet makes me think of a young Jack Dawson fast forwarded into the future speaking even cheesier lines than he had in Titanic. A Midsummer Night's Dream reminds me of an elfish Stanley Tucci. And did anyone know "10 Things I Hate About You" was an adaptation of The Taming of The Shrew? Or "She's The Man" was originally adapted from Twelfth Night?

My my, dear Shakespeare would be proud (or turning in his grave, depending on the situation) to know that his works are so influential even today. Even Bollywood has it's own adaptation of Macbeth.

Here's a reproduction of the famous Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare.

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 owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

I actually missed my station because I was too absorbed in reading the sonnet. Kudos to the people who sponsored the ads, I for one have enjoyed it.

Technorati tags: shakespeare, sonnet

thought completed at 12:32 AM | 2 comments

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