Sonnet 18
Sonnet 18 is one of the best-known of the 154 sonnets written by the English playwright and poet William Shakespeare.
Reputation of William Shakespeare
Clearly there were some exceptions to the official approval of Shakespeare, and the great patriotic plays, most notably "Henry V" were shelved. The reception of "The Merchant of Venice" was at best lukewarm (Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta" was suggested as a possible alternative) because it was not anti-Semitic enough for Nazi taste (the play's conclusion, in which the daughter of the Jewish antagonist converts to Christianity and marries one of the Gentile protagonists, particularly violated Nazi notions of racial purity). So "Hamlet" was by far the most popular play, along with "Macbeth" and "Richard III".
Given the popularity of Shakespeare in Russia, there were film versions of Shakespeare that often differed from western interpretations, usually emphasizing a humanist message that implicitly criticized the Soviet regime. "Othello" (1955) by Sergei Yutkevich celebrated Desdemona's love for Othello as a triumph of love over racial hatred. "Hamlet" (1964) by Grigori Kozintsev portrayed 16th century Denmark as a dark, gloomy and oppressive place with recurring images of imprisonment marking the film from the focus on the portcullis of Elsinore to the iron corset Ophelia is forced to wear as she goes insane. The tyranny of Claudius resembled the tyranny of Stalin with gigantic portraits and bursts of Claudius being prominent in the background of the film, suggesting that Claudius has engaged in a "cult of personality". Given the emphasis on images of imprisonment, Hamlet's decision to revenge his father becomes almost subsidiary to his struggle for freedom as he challenges the Stalin-like tyranny of Claudius. Hamlet in this film resembles a Soviet dissident who despite his own hesitation, fears and doubts, can no longer stand the moral rot around him. The film was based on a script written by the novelist Boris Pasternak, who had been persecuted under Stalin. The 1971 version of "King Lear", also directed by Kozintsev presented the play as a "Tolstoyan panorama of bestiality and courage" as Lear finds his moral redemption amongst the common people.