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I'm reminded of doing Shakespeare in English, and the "rutting" thing reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird, but I'll stop right there.

Anyway, I never thought I could feel such idiocy emanate from my classmates (no offense if you can't read Shakespeare out loud, I'm just referring to people whose lack of intelligence was exemplified in my class). Every day we spoke the lines out loud was filled with slow and choppy sentences and agonizing pronunciation. It really threw off his poems' rhythm. My personal least favorite was the one who disregarded all punctuation and would throw random pauses anywhere he pleased. Half of the time, he showed no indication of one sentence beginning and another ending.

:(

(Edited for spelling/grammar mistakes)

LOL Sampson, I've had similar experiences. I LOVE Shakespeare. My second favorite has to be Hamlet, but when we read it out loud in class I was like "OMFG did you guys NEVER learn to read?!!" I can understand people not getting words like ne'er or reading in a monotone (who really wants to read out loud anyway) but *shudders* for someone to read the "To Be or not to be" soliloquy and to just STUMBLE through it >_< I wanted to scream "WHAT THE FUCK?! ARE YOU SOME KIND OF RETARD?! Words like "perchance" "'tis" and hell even "outrageous" were so fudged up. It's not wonder they couldn't understand the meaning in what was being said.

Meaning is easy to grasp in Shakespeare if you take the time to read the lines appropriately, not be afraid to look up the occassional word, and understand that some phrases like "wherefore" don't mean exactly "where are you" but "why".

Some people just get nervous reading out loud or are terrible at reading something they see for the first time.

[spoiler]And some people are just dumb.

How the fuck do you fuck up 'tis?![/spoiler]

I guess I was blessed with English classes with people capable of reading as never really had any issue, barring bored sounding reading. I never got the point, though, as it took forever to read through it this way compared to reading on my own and everyone reading out loud clearly didn't want to so it lacked any sort of extra experience on top.

The people in my lit class were all right at reading Shakespeare outloud, nothing special, though there was this one guy who just spoke in a complete monotone voice and every sentence literally. sounded. like. this. Even in other works. It was hilarious.

I didn't like Shakespeare before (I still don't, really) because I found his writing confusing and stories rather dull (i.e. A Midsummer Night's Dream, R+J, and Macbeth). Though the confusion lies in the meaning of some of his descriptions, which can be hard at times without any footnotes. My Othello copy was pretty dumb, though. It gave me footnotes on things I could figure out, not on the meanings I could not understand. >_____>

But Othello wasn't too bad, though. And I wish last year we got to read Hamlet instead of Macbeth since I hear it's his best work.

Which reminds me:

If you want to hear/see Shakespeare done correctly and maybe even begin to enjoy it you really need to watch the BBC productions which often feature Anthony Hopkins. If there is anyone who understands how to deliver iambic pentameter on stage it's him.

Uwaaaa my lack of internet or video games has allowed me to power through another Dark Tower book, and now I am well into number 5. So awesome why is it not super famous argh

Reading into Soul of the Fire.

:\ Kinda worried about this book. oO Last night I actually got BORED reading. WTH? But then, it was some really long and tedious narration about some Dalton person. Personally, I find his wife more interesting than him as a villain.

Fitch... I have a feeling he's going to quickly become another favorite character. Though for some reason I can't seem to keep a firm mental image of him. For some reason every time I start attempting to imagine him I think of one of those little servant elves from Harry Potter o_O WTF?!

[spoiler]I almost wanted to get mad for a while there with Zed 'cause I thought he was going to cheat on Adie.[/spoiler]

Ah, yes.

Soul of the Fire...

You enjoy that.