DO YOU DARE SHAKESPEARE? THE BARD IS COOL!!!
Have you ever imagined that such a historical 4igure as Shakespeare can be cool and fun
nowadays? Do you dare to approach Shakespeare four centuries after his death and still
regard him as a contemporary writer? Undoubtedly, we have enjoyed the talks about
Shakespeare held in our school as a tribute to our English bard whose fourth century
anniversary is celebrated this year. Some curious facts to point out are that Shakespeare died
on his birthday, aged 52, on April 23rd, 1616, on the same date when our genius Cervantes
also died! Did you know that Shakespeare was such an eager writer and so proli4ic that he is
thought to have written 38 plays and 154 sonnets?
It has been most rewarding and pedagogical to count on an expert who has broadened
our students´ horizons and has shared his knowledge about our greatest English playwright,
who enriched by far the English vocabulary and invented so many new words and compound
nouns, such as bedroom, gossip, blanket, luggage, champion, eyeball, scarecrow,
breakfast…!!!Another curious fact is that he married at the tender age of eighteen and his
wife Anne Hathaway was eight years older than him! Apparently he had to “tie the Knot” (get
married) on a “shotgun wedding” and Anne became a “cradle snatcher”!!! It was hilarious to
discover that on Shakespeare´s death will he left Anne his “second best bed” as inheritance!!!
We have been bewitched by his wit and tantalized by his sharp pen to bring Shakespeare upto-date with his humor and quotations, since we owe Shakespeare such a great deal of
expressions coined by him: Have you ever been "in a pickle" or have you had "too much of a
good thing"? Perhaps friends have "eaten you out of house and home" or had you "in
stitches" over a joke. As his quotation goes “All's well that ends well", and we have certainly
enjoyed indulging ourselves in his master piece of work!!! Long live Shakespeare!!!
Talk on Shakespeare on 26th February, 2016.
Elena Valiente. Head of English Department.
59