All the World's a Stage

All the world's a stage.

What many people do not know (and what I did not know until very recently), was that this poem supposedly bringing so many people inspiration, is about death. Well, according to my English teacher that is. But I seriously doubt his wisdom, he seems to be wrong a lot.

But it makes sense. The whole poem is building up to a single climax where, in the end, we all die. A nice thought to think about in the middle of summer, no? Okay, so, you may be wondering why I want to bring up this poem and here is why: I used to hate this poem.

If you've ever watched Kenneth Branagh's version of As You Like It, you may understand what I mean. When Jacques (Jake-es? Jacque-ui? Let's ponder over this for a while...) so eloquently reads this poem, it took nearly ten minutes. The sun could have set and risen again in that amount of time. I'm sure that good actors will take their time, but by the end, I was really getting very impatient.

But that was just the movie. When I actually read As You Like It, "All the World's a Stage" and the "Epilogue" was about as much of the play that I liked. So why did I suddenly like this tenminutelongforJacquestoreaditaloud poem? Well, maybe it was the idea that Shakespeare wrote it, or maybe it was the fact that it didn't take ten minutes to read.

My dear bloggers, today, find a poem you thought you always hated and read it again. Try to find the beauty in it, maybe you will.

Today's picture:


Campaign: Bergdorf Goodman
Photographer: Candace Meyer

Last time I used a rather dark photographer and I was just about to use another one with that same tone when I stumbled across this bright little picture. I am guessing that this flower is a lotus? But, me being unschooled in the world of flowers, I am not sure at all.

I think that the reason why I chose this picture is very self-explanatory. It's beautiful and simplistic. Just seeing that one flower rising out of the water with dozens of lily pads (lilypads?) floating around it makes me wonder at how this little flower can be so inspirational. But it is. And it doesn't hurt that this one picture has beautiful lighting.