Via Nobelprize.org

Seamus (SHAY-mus) Heaney is to date the last English-language poet to win the Nobel Prize. (The last poet in any language was Tomas Tranströmer in 2011.) He had gained a sizable international audience even before his win; his literary celebrity earned him the nickname “Famous Seamus” in his native Ireland.

On his death in 2013, the New York Times noted that he “was often called the greatest Irish poet since Yeats,” adding:

A Roman Catholic native of Northern Ireland, Mr. Heaney was renowned for work that powerfully evoked the beauty and blood that together have come to define the modern Irish condition. The author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, as well as critical essays and works for the stage, he repeatedly explored the strife and uncertainties that have afflicted his homeland, while managing simultaneously to steer clear of polemic.

Harold Pinter (1930-2008)

Widely recognized as one of the most distinguished twentieth-century playwrights in English (or any language), Pinter first achieved notoriety with The Birthday Party (1957) and gained commercial success with The Caretaker (1960). His other famous plays include The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978). He also wrote some notable adapted screenplays, including The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981).

In his later years he became increasingly politically outspoken. His Nobel lecture, for example, contains a full-throated denunciation of U.S. President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair:

How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they’re interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH96tuRA3L0

be perverse…nay: be unreasonable and refuse you.

so thou wilt woo: so that you’ll keep wooing (and I won’t lose my chance with you).

Juliet means that she’ll play hard to get if that’s what Romeo wants, but otherwise, she won’t do it for all the world.

Commenting on Rosalind from As You Like It in 1896, the playwright George Bernard Shaw argued that Shakespeare’s heroines have remained popular in part due to their frankness in embracing their own sexuality:

…she makes love to the man instead of waiting for the man to make love to her–a piece of natural history which has kept Shakespeare’s heroines alive, whilst generations of properly governessed young ladies, taught to say “No” three times at least, have miserably perished.

Riverside Shakespeare glosses (2nd ed., p. 1114):

Fain: gladly.

dwell on form: maintain formal behavior.

In other words, Juliet would like to revert to proper behavior and deny what Romeo has heard her saying, but she knows she can’t. In a sort of to-hell-with-it moment, she says goodbye to “compliment” (formality).

Juliet: Who told you where I lived, anyway?

Romeo: LOVE.

Romeo’s lines here can be played as either earnest or teasing (his “merchandise” metaphor suggests the second). Either way, he deflects the question.

Counsel here means advice, as opposed to Juliet’s sense of “private thoughts” above.