Vee, that was fun! I got 9 out of 9.

I tried to take a couple more of the Shakespeare quizzes with links on that page, but was informed that I wasn't "allowed" to play because I'm not in the UK. :-(

I hesitate to admit this to a community of readers, but I just never have learned to enjoy Shakespeare ... at all. This flaw in my reading taste has been a constant irritant to me, since Shakespeare references abound in other things that I read. And if Shakespeare comes up as "trivia night" topic, I'm no use at all to my team.

Kathy, I haven't read Shakespeare, either, except what I was made to read in school. :) I know the basic storyline of the more famous plays, but that's about it.

Come to think of it, I haven't enjoyed reading any plays. I gritted my teeth through "Death of a Salesman" and "The Glass Menagerie", too.

Donna

I got 7 of 9 but I guessed on most of them. I enjoy seeing and hearing Shakespeare, but I absolutely can't read the plays like I read books -- the words jumble together and I either give up in frustration or fall asleep. To hear it spoken out loud makes all the difference. Most recently I saw Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet streamed live from a London theater and it was magnificent.

Vee, your GGG Aunt was quite the entrepreneur! How did you discover her activities? I was in Stratford-on-Avon once (maybe 1988?) and visited the birthplace house and Anne Hathaway's house. I still have the photos somewhere.

I came back to take the quiz. I got 4 right out of 9, but honestly, I didn't know a single answer. Shameful!

I think reading Shakespeare is probably the worst way to enjoy/understand his work, plus having to 'study' set works at school as we have to do in English classes. Dissecting each scene, doing 'character studies', looking up the meaning of many of the words; it is enough to put you off for life. I remember having to learn long passages of 'The Merchant of Venice' some of which have stayed with me all these years later!

Is this what happens in schools where you live?

Watching a performance in a theatre or on film and just letting the language flow over you is probably the best way take it in.

For me the absolute best film/movie is the original 1945 Henry V with Laurence Olivier. I think the whole concept was brilliant, starting off behind the scenes at the Globe and then turning into the 'real thing' when the army reaches France (Ireland had to be used as a 'stand in' as bombs were falling in England) and then back to the Globe at the very end . . . did anyone get an Oscar for that production?

Well, here I go being perverse again. I adore reading Shakespeare, although I prefer watching -- or at least listening to -- performances of the plays. There aren't many audio performances of the sonnets, however. Are there any to your knowledge, Vee?

I like reading WS with a study guide alongside.

I took several wonderful Shakespeare classes at university. The best covered the tragedies. Like you, Vee, I learned long passages of the plays and some of the sonnets. I can still recite the first forty-something lines of Richard III.

My mother gave me the bug for Shakespeare since she was always quoting something from him.

Yeah, Vee, I had to memorize Portia's "Mercy Speech" from MOV in junior high school. I remember the first line, and that's it! If we were made to memorize other literature I've forgotten about it.

Donna

Sheri, here is one of the oldest photos of the Birthplace probably taken in the very late 1840's when the building had been bought for restoration. The half-timbered building was divided into two, on the left was the butcher's shop and on the right a pub 'The Lamb' (sign over the door). Notice the shutters propped up against the wall on the right.

The building seems to have got considerably bigger since then! The brick-built houses either side were also bought and pulled down to lessen the fire-risk.

I was able to find out some information using the 'Ancestry' site where people are able to get in touch with possible 'connections' and a chap wrote that he was also distantly related to this branch of my family and reminded me of the butchers shop.

I am also able to connect with the BNA (National Newspaper Archive) which is photocopying hundreds of papers from the British Isles (with many more to come on line) and just this morning I typed in the name of GGG Aunt Phebe but drew a blank so wrote her husband's name Leonard Court and up came an article from 1847 headed Suicide " a lamentable case of self-destruction of a 'respectable butcher'" . . . he shot himself because of money problems . . . and a verdict of "temporary derangement" was given.

The family had moved from the place pictured above by that time.

I really do find this 'stuff' interesting.

Vee, that's wonderful -- not the suicide part, of course -- but being able to find additional information to support family stories and to help your ancestors become 'real people' and not just names and dates. I'm still looking for the photo album that included the trip to Stratford on Avon. That's a great picture!

I clicked on the Shakespeare quiz link, but it took me with a page that had a multitude of Shakespeare-related quizzes. Which one are we doing?

Rosefolly/Paula it is the Bard v Bible quiz, but of course you can have a go at all of them if they are 'accessible' to you.

I only got 7 out of 9 and that was mostly by guessing. ;-(

Frieda, my Father used to quote 'snippets' from Shakespeare. I imagine he had sat through his fair-share of play-related English lessons. And as a pupil at King Edward VI's school (the grammar school WS attended) he had to walk in the procession through the streets of the town carrying a posy of flowers to be laid on the Bard's grave on WS's birthday (April 23) not something a sporty, non-academic teenage boy would willingly do. ;-)

I did that quiz and got 8 out of 9. Like you, I was mostly by guessing which one seemed likelier. I don't remember actually knowing any of them, Well, maybe one.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

That's what I remember from high school senior English. It did make me recognize the Faulkner book title.

I got 8 out of 9 on the quiz; I know the Bible better than Shakespeare. My last college English professor talked about how much better watching the performances are than reading the plays. And then there was a teacher who had us write our own story based on one of the plays. I did Romeo and Juliet in a Western movie setting.