This personal anthology is my choice of speeches from Shakespeare that I enjoy reading (that I would like to have had by heart years ago!) and that seem to me to illustrate his unsurpassed use of language. He was a man who seemed to know everything about human nature and as Orson Welles said "he speaks to everyone and we all claim him". I know that it has been said that "it is impossible to be a great Shakespearian actor without an idiosyncratic and extraordinary voice" and this may be so, but that does not preclude ordinary mortals from reading, hearing and enjoying Shakespeare.
