Brisbane actress Lauren Jackson was first introduced to Shakespeare in her early teens. What started as an English assignment very quickly became a love. She tells us why she found his work so immensely profound in those formative years.
Although we are here some 400 years later, one of the major discoveries for me was there are innate things within our human condition that history hasn’t changed. His ability to articulate the extremity of each of these conditions is wondrous, comforting and disconcerting all at the same time.
Exploring his work is like a conversation with the wisest, wittiest person you know. Not to mention how he has influenced the English language. Think the term 'heartthrob' came from 90210? Think again! I could rabble on for ages. Instead, here are my top five (enormously difficult to narrow down) most influential Shakepseare quotes, from my 13-year-old teenage self until now.
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1. "This above all: to thine own self be true."
— 'Hamlet'
2. "I say there is no darkness but ignorance. "
— 'Twelfth Night'
3. "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages."
— 'As You Like It'
4. "When we are born, we cry that we are come. To this great stage of fools."
— 'King Lear'
5. "When he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine That all the world will be in love with night And pay no worship to the garish sun."
— 'Romeo And Juliet'
