Today it was 400 years since Shakespeare died. Since he is still one of the most played dramatists, if not the most played, that is a sure sign of immortality. I like his dramas but i think his comedies are more eaten by time than his tragedies and historical plays. They are often interesting to watch still. That is if they are treated properly with good actors in the parts. I have seen american movies where they only cared about getting good actors for the leads which is not enough for Shakespeare. I remember a Hamlet movie that had Robin Williams and Billy Crystal as the grave diggers that shall bury Ofelia. That movie had understood that it takes good actors also in the small parts.
And then there are his sonettes.... Still some of the best poetry written in my opinion
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 ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
And then there are his sonettes.... Still some of the best poetry written in my opinion
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 ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.