Off By Heart - Shakespeare
Links
Contest Downloads
Regional Heat Guest Judges (22KB)
External links
Poetry archive
Set Speech List
At the regional heats students must perform one of the 18 speeches from the set list below. Click on the links to see films of well-known people, past and present, performing the speeches.
For each speech you can download the text and read some notes and suggestions written by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Note: There are many different versions of Shakespeare's plays, please learn the speech text as published here. They come from the Cambridge University Press editions of the plays.
Macbeth
Spoken by: Lady Macbeth
The raven himself is hoarse
Spoken by: Macbeth
Is this a dagger which I see before me
Spoken by: Macbeth
She should have died hereafter
Romeo and Juliet
Spoken by: Romeo
But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
Spoken by: Juliet
Blistered be thy tongue
Spoken by: Mercutio
No, 'tis not so deep as a well
Spoken by: Capulet
Hang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!
Hamlet
Spoken by: Hamlet
O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Spoken by: Hamlet
To be, or not to be, that is the question
Spoken by: Hamlet
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying
The Merchant of Venice
Spoken by: Shylock
To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else
Spoken by: Portia
The quality of mercy is not strained
Julius Caesar
Spoken by: Mark Antony
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!
Spoken by: Brutus
Romans, countrymen, and lovers!
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Spoken by: Helena
Lo, she is one of this confederacy!
Spoken by: Titania
Out of this wood do not desire to go
As You Like It
Spoken by: Jaques
All the world's a stage
Twelfth Night
Spoken by: Orsino
If music be the food of love, play on
