I'm told that today, THIS day is the anniversary of 400 years since the passing of William Shakespeare. Also, his writings are much popular among those not of his national origin.
Cool beans.
The brilliant English poet and playwright William Shakespeare passed away on this date in 1616, which is exactly 400 years ago. Humphrey Bogart admired Shakespeare, and could recite over 1,000 of his classic lines. In fact, the iconic last line from The Maltese Falcon ("The, uh, stuff that dreams are made of") comes from Shakespeare's The Tempest and was included in the film at Bogart's suggestion. It was one of the very few times that the film diverged from Dashiell Hammett's book. The Tempest was one of Shakespeare's last plays, and it was in part a meditation on the fleeting nature of both life and art:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yeah, all that it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
as dreams are made on; and our little life
is rounded with a sleep.
