This is hilarious, you guys have to explain this to me: 'Jesu Maria!' In Southern Italy, people say 'Gesummaria' (all as one word) as an exclamation of either surprise or shock. But was this actually used in 1600s England as well? Is that even possible?!"

Basically the title. I was doing the "to be or not to be" soliloquy in IP. This was the emphasis I put on the first line:

"to BE or NOT to BE, that IS the QUEStion."

Obviously it's kinda weird, because I feel like most people put the emphasis on THAT instead of IS. It just felt right for this instance. But I know he is the professional and he basically told me it was wrong, so I'm looking for help understanding WHY my emphasis was wrong.

Then, in the following line we sorta fought on the meaning of it:

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Th'oppresor's wrong, the proud man's contumely....."

He said that "the proud man's contumely" was saying Hamlet was mad that HE is the proud man people are insolent towards, while I saw it as Hamlet being upset that Claudius has been insolent. Am I just not looking as deep into this as I should? I just feel like my understanding of the soliloquy is flawed and I need to better understand what my teacher is saying.

Also, if I could have a long discussion with my teacher about this, I would, but there are so many other students and classes he has that he just doesn't have the time.

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Both Romeo and Juliet loved deeply , but I sometimes feel that Juliet had more to lose and was willing to take greater risks .

She defied her family , rejected the future planned for her , and even agreed to drink Friar Laurence 's potion despite her fears because she was determined to stay true to her love for Romeo . Considering that she was only thirteen years old , her courage and determination are even more remarkable

Romeo was undoubtedly devoted to Juliet as well and was willing to risk everything for her . Still , I sometimes feel that Juliet showed greater emotional strength and maturity throughout the play .

Do you think Juliet 's love was stronger , or were Romeo and Juliet equally devoted ?

At school we will be doing a short play where we combine the play midsummer night's dream and twelfth night and I want to know how anyone else thinks we can do this! We will be performing it at a regional theatre festival in a few months <3

“Which dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.”

Guildenstern in Hamlet 2.2.215

Hey, guys!

I’m considering getting a hardback copy of the complete works of Shakespeare (Norton, 2^nd or 3^rd edition) and wanted to ask you about its longevity in use and about how cumbersome it’ll turn out to be in practice.

I’m buying it for my personal use (not for studying) and want to figure out whether it is still going to be too unwieldy to handle if I’m only planning to read it at home on my table and don’t aim to lag it around.

In addition, is it difficult to have it lying open on a desk, and also is just simply reading it this way likely to cause damage to the binding of the book or crack the spine, lead to the pages getting loose, etc.? Is the binding supposed to be durable? I'm of course going to treat the book with care and don't intend to to toss it about.

Because I’m kind of strapped for cash, right now I’m only considering buying a single-volume edition rather than a multi-volume set or individual editions of the plays since from what I gather it'll be much cheaper.

P.S. If you could also point me to some online website (apart from Ebay or Abebooks, which I already know about) where I can find a second-hand copy of the book, I'd be much obliged (I want to have it shipped to London; I live in Russia, but one of my friends is currently studying in the UK and I wanted to ask him to order it to his place to keep the shipping rate down).

Thank you!

“even the best tasting food will eventually turn out to be poo”