Write a review of what you enjoyed most, learned most from today’s visit to the Shakespeare resources at the State Library!


Unfortunately I was unable to attend the State Library tour. However I have been to the library before and I did listen to the online recordings. Prior to this, I was unaware that Mr Arthur Bentfield’s stained glass windows in the Shakespeare room; depict Jacques’s Seven Ages of Man speech from scene two, act seven of As You Like It. Additionally, beyond the windows, Shakespeare’s statue with the quote from act four, scene one in The Tempest, “We are such stuff. As dreams are made on; and our little life. Is rounded with a sleep” for me, brought together one of the core themes in many of the works we have studied in unit ENGL210; time. The Seven Ages of Man speech describes a cycle where the person ends up back where they started. The quote from The Tempest also reminds us of the cycle of life, whereby everyone will die and return to the dark from which they came. This cycle reminds me of the continuity of life (whether or not we are alive or dead), in a pattern that every living creature on Earth is vulnerable to. Personally, Shakespeare reminds me of how short, frightening, relentless and exciting life is.