William Shakespeare is the most famous playwright (剧作家). Although he died in 1616, people still go to see his plays. Among the most popular are Ｒｏｍｅｏ ａｎｄ Ｊｕｌｉｅｔ, Ａ Ｍｉｄｓｕｍｍｅｒ Ｎｉｇｈｔ’ｓ Ｄｒｅａｍ and Ｈａｍｌｅｔ — the story of a prince who struggles to respond to the crimes around him.
Shakespeare, who was born in 1564, was an actor as well as a writer. Most of his ideas for plays were taken from history, people’s conversation, ancient stories, and also from other writers. He wrote not only about kings and queens and princes, but also about friends and ordinary people. He wrote about the cruelty of war and the bravery of heroes, as well as about jealousy, joy, hate, ambition and love. His stories live on. The tragedy Ｒｏｍｅｏ ａｎｄ Ｊｕｌｉｅｔ was reborn as the musical Ｗｅｓｔ Ｓｉｄｅ Ｓｔｏｒｙ and more recently as the movie Ｒｏｍｅｏ ａｎｄ Ｊｕｌｉｅｔ with the wonderful performance of Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes.
He invented a number of great characters: powerful magicians, thrilling witches, smart women and both wise and wicked men. He also invented some great phrases. If you’ve ever said, “Oh, for goodness sake!” you can thank Shakespeare for that. “To be, or not to be: that is the question,” Hamlet says. “Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it is morrow,” says Juliet to her Romeo.
Don’t be surprised if you don’t understand everything when reading Shakespeare or watching one of his plays because the meanings of many words have changed over the years. And Shakespeare’s characters speak in poetry, so their speeches can be complicated.
It does help to find out a little bit about the story before reading a Shakespeare play. It’s worth the effort. As Shakespeare wrote, “All the world is a stage.” And in his plays you’ll find that an entire world is waiting for you.
小题1:Shakespeare created the following characters EXCEPT ________.
A．Juliet
B．Hamlet
C．Claire Danes
D．Romeo小题2:From Paragraph 3 we can learn that ________.
A．most of the characters created by Shakespeare were negative ones
B．most of the phrases used today were invented by Shakespeare
C．“Oh, for goodness sake!” is what Juliet says to Romeo
D．Shakespeare contributed greatly to the development of English小题3:Which of the following is a reason why it’s difficult to understand some of Shakespeare’s plays?
A．There are many new words in his plays.
B．He wrote his plays using uncommon words.
C．The characters in his plays speak in poetry.
D．Most of the words in his plays are outdated.小题4:We can infer from the passage that ______.
A．most of Shakespeare’s plays have been made into films
B．language changes with the development of society
C．Shakespeare made lots of money from his works
D．it is more useful to read Shakespeare’s works than to watch them
