Sunday 16 March 2014

Shakespearean Lovers

About two and a half years ago now, I posted a piece on my favourite literary couples (http://ravingsofanalien.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-favourite-literary-couples.html). I have read a few more books since then and have met with some more interesting couples.

For the last 4 months or so, due to fandom and Twitter (here's looking at you, Tom Hiddleston and @HollowCrownFans) I have been reading more of the Bard and have come across some new couples.
So, thus far, these are my favourites...

1. Benedict and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing - these two make use of my favourite thing as foreplay...humour :))

2. Henry V and Katharine - Act 5 Scene 2. I need not say anything else. This entire scene is one of the most romantic I have ever read. But I leave you with the following quote...
"You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate. And there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French Council. And they should sooner persuade Harry of England, than a general petition of monarchs."

3. Marcius and Virgilia - Coriolanus. Okay, so this is a very bloody piece of drama from Shakespeare. It deals with politics and war and deception...and the stubbornness of the title character's character...
Caius Marcius Coriolanus is an absolute snob. He has been reared with a epic dislike and prejudice against any person who is not of the nobility and without the ability to mask it, or any of his true feelings on any subject. He cannot pretend.  "He would not flatter Neptune for his trident, Or Jove for ’s power to thunder." (3.1.321)
But with his wife, Virgilia...the beautiful names he calls her (My Gracious Silence, Best of my flesh), his gentle manner of speaking and dealing with her...we see a side that only comes out with her, a complete antithesis of the soldier he is in the rest of the play. 

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