We Love Shakespeare Week -- Giveaway WINNERS!

The Rafflecopter widget has spoken!  Here are the lucky winners of the We Love Shakespeare Week Giveaway!

"Though she be but little..." bookmark -- Laura
"Though she be but little..." boomark -- Kendra
Sayings We Owe Shakespeare bookmark -- Sarah
Twelve Shakespeare bookmarks -- Eva
Love word cloud sticker -- MovieCritic
"Love all..." sticker -- MovieCritic
Heart word cloud sticker -- MovieCritic
William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays in One Sitting -- John Smith
Brush Up Your Shakespeare! -- Quiggy
A Brief Guide to William Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits -- Anna Holmberg
Romeo and Juliet:  A Coloring Classic -- Ivy Miranda

(You'll notice that two people are getting a "Though she be but little, she is fierce" bookmark, and that is because I have discovered that I had bought TWO of those.  Huh.  So two people are getting those, and one person is getting all the stickers.)

I'll be emailing all the winners this afternoon to ask for shipping addresses and such, so check your email for those, okay?

Thanks for joining the fun, everyone!  We're up to 25 contributed posts right now, so if you haven't read all of those yet, check out the ones you've missed via the links here.

Shakespeare or Not Quiz -- Answers

Here are the answers to the Shakespeare or Not? quiz!  Basically, numbers 3, 5, 7, and 11 were NOT by Shakespeare.  Scores below!

Scores

Movie Critic -- 10

Eva -- 9

Jessica Prescott -- 6

Ivy Miranda -- 5

Classic Couples Quiz -- Answers

Here are the answers to the Classic Couples Quiz!  And everyone's scores are below.

Scores

Ivy Miranda -- 12 

Kirsty -- 12

Movie Critic -- 9

Thanks for playing, everyone!

We Love Shakespeare Week -- Shakespeare or Not?

Time for our second game!  This one is pretty simple -- you just have to tell me if the famous line about love in each Valentine was written by Shakespeare... or not.  You don't have to tell me who else wrote the ones he didn't, or which play or sonnet his are from, just whether or not they were written by Shakespeare.

Put your answers in the comments, and I'll reveal the answers and your scores at the end of the week!

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We Love Shakespeare Week -- Classic Couples Quiz

William Shakespeare wrote dozens of love stories.  I'm not going to include all of them here.  But I feel like I've hit the highlights AND included some that will test your knowledge of his stories just a bit.

Your job?  Match up the couples.  For example, and I'm giving you this one because duh, everyone knows it...  Romeo + Juliet

Put your guesses in the comments and I'll post the answers and everyone's scores at the end of the week!

The Guys

The Girls

We Love Shakespeare Week -- Master Post

Gentlefolk!  I welcome thee!  Come hither now, and lend thine ears to these directions, prithee.

To simplify matters, we're going to use this one link-up widget for everyone's posts. All the posts. Whether they're tags, blogathon posts, games you've thought up, whatever! All your posts go here:


PLEASE put the links to your We Love Shakespeare Week posts in that widget and don't leave me a zillion comments with the links in them. I'll be putting comments on moderation when I post games soon, so that way you will all be able to access each others' posts without needing me to hit "publish" on your comments first.

If you're just joining us now and want to quick contribute something this week, but wondering what movies/shows/topics have been claimed already, the list is here.

And now, good friends, thou hast my leave to enter in my giveaway, fill out yon blog tag, and share thy posts as thou hast time to complete them! For lo, there will be games anon, so check'st thou back all week!

We Love Shakespeare Week -- The Giveaway

Behold!  Before thy very eyes thou seest the prizes which, most verily, I do intend to give away to ten most lucky winners!

This giveaway is open WORLD-WIDE! Here are all the pertinent details about the various prizes, along with close-up photos and so on.

There are THREE bookmark prizes, one each to three winners.  Two of those are single, sturdy bookmarks; one says "Though she be but little, she is fierce," and one has a collection of common sayings that we owe to Shakespeare.  The third bookmark prize is a booklet of twelve Shakespeare bookmarks, each depicting a scene from a play with a famous line on the back.

There are THREE small sticker prizes, one each to three winners.  One is a word cloud of lines from Shakespeare that involve love, one is a heart-shaped word cloud of words about Shakespeare, and one is a lot of pretty flowers with the line, "Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none" on it.

ONE tiny book called William Shakespeare: The Complete Plays in One Sitting.  This is adorable, and a fun, fast overview of his plays.

TWO other books, one each to two winners.

Brush Up Your Shakespeare! by Michael Macrone is hardcover, but lacks a dust jacket.  I bought it used, but it's in very nice shape.  It's all about famous phrases from Shakespeare, common and uncommon words he coined, things we misattribute to him, and even titles of other books borrowed from his works.  I have a copy of this book myself, and it's lots of fun.  It's a charming reference work, but also enjoyable to simply read through.

A Brief Guide to William Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits by Peter Ackroyd is just what it sounds like -- a brief explanation and exploration of each of his plays, with character lists and history behind their writing and performances.

ONE copy of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: A Coloring Classic, which has gorgeous pictures to color.  Here are two examples of its interior:

This giveaway runs through the end of Saturday, February 16, 2019. I will choose the winners on Sunday, Feb. 17 and post them here, as well as notify the winners via the email addresses you provide to the giveaway widgets when you enter.

Please make sure you use an email address you check often. If I don't hear back from you by Sunday, February 24, I will disqualify you and pick a different winner for what was to have been your prize. 

The widget will ask you to leave a comment with your choices of prizes. I do not guarantee that, if you win, you will receive one of the prizes you chose. I try to match people up with things they want the best I can, but sometimes I just can't do it. If there's anything you DO NOT WANT, PLEASE SAY SO in your comment as well.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to fill out the blog tag and check out the master post for all the different posts people are contributing all week!  I'll be providing a couple of games over the next few days, so check back now and then to see what's new!

We Love Shakespeare Week -- The Tag

How dost thou this many a day?  Welcome all to this, my party that doth celebrate he whom we often call simply The Bard.  Come, join me now in answering these questions -- copy them upon thine own blog or website and therein inscribe thy thoughts and judgements.  Then link with haste thine answers to yon linky widget in this party's master post.

1. When and how did you first encounter Shakespeare's plays?

2.  What are your favorite Shakespeare plays?  (Go ahead and list as many as you like!)

3.  Who are some of your favorite characters in his plays?  (Again, list however many suits you.)

4.  Have you seen any of his plays performed, whether live or on film?

5.  Have you read any of his plays?

6.  Share a dream cast for one of your favorite Shakespeare plays.

7.  What draws you to Shakespeare's plays?  (Language, themes, characters, the fact that they're famous, whatever!)

8.  Do you have any cool Shakespeare-themed merchandise, like t-shirts or mugs or bookmarks, etc?  Share pictures if you can!

9.  How do you go about understanding his language?  (Do you prefer copies with translation notes, look things up online, or just read so much stuff written in Elizabethan English that you totally know what everyone's saying?)

10.  What are some of your favorite lines from Shakespeare?  (Maybe limit yourself to like ten, okay?)

Once you've filled out your tag, don't forget to come back and add a link to it on the party's master post here! And then follow the links to other peoples' tags and other posts to make new friends or see what current friends have to say about Shakespeare.

If you want to add a cool button to your post, here are a few more for you, or you can get one from the giveaway or master post too.

Announcing We Love Shakespeare Week

Time to reveal this year's February blog party subject!  This year, we're going to celebrate all things Shakespeare for a whole week long.

Like last year's Superhero party, or 2017's Jane Austen party, this party needs YOU in order to be fun!  Oh sure, I'll post some games.  I'll host a giveaway.  And I'll provide a tag for people to fill out on their own blogs.  But it's all the blogathon-style posts contributed by all the participants that make these shindigs so extra-fun.

What kind of posts can you contribute?  Anything involving Shakespeare and his writing!  Movie reviews!  Top-ten lists of favorites!  An introspective discussion of why one particular play or character fascinates you!  A cool bit of history or trivia!  Whatever strikes your fancy.

Because there are SO MANY movie adaptations of Shakespeare's plays, I do ask that there be no duplicates of individual films.  And because Shakespeare himself wrote so many plays, I also ask that there be no duplicates of reviews of his written plays either.  Now, you can focus more narrowly on a character, or a theme -- for instance, if someone has already spoken for the play Hamlet, and someone else is already reviewing your favorite adaptation of Hamlet, you could still write a post about why the character Hamlet fascinates you.

If you need inspiration, here's a list on Wikipedia of all the filmed adaptations of his plays.  Plenty to choose from!

Once you know how you want to contribute to We Love Shakespeare Week, comment on this post with your chosen topic and a link to your blog, and I'll add you to the official roster below.

And of course, please use these buttons to spread the news of this week on your blogs and other social media platforms.  Invite your friends!  The more, the merrier.

Contributed posts:

+ Hamlette's Soliloquy -- review of Hamlet (1948), review of Quotes from Shakespeare coloring book
+ I'm Charles Baker Harris (And I Can Read) -- A Winter's Tale (play)
+ Sarcastic Scribblings -- mini-reviews of the 5 Shakespeare plays I've read
+ Movies Meet Their Match -- Gnomeo and Juliet (2011) and Strange Magic (2015)
+ Coffee, Classics, and Craziness -- studying Macbeth with my grandfather
+ The Content Reader -- review of The Taming of the Shrew (play)
+ Sidewalk Crossings -- Macbeth (2015)
+ Bookends and Bwopper Eels -- review of Othello (play), focusing on Iago
+ Revealed in Time -- review of Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb, The Hollow Crown (2012), and Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
+ The Midnite Drive-in -- Twilight Zone episode "The Bard"
+ Stanley Wheeler -- undecided
+ Miss Elizabeth -- Gilligan's Island episode "The Producer"
+ You're next!