How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[gumboot]

I'm not sure why you felt the need for the Orlando Bloom swipe - I don't even particularly like him - but thanks for the rest of your post.

Orlando Bloom is known for playing the sort of heroic characters I was referring to.

I would respectfully disagree that having 'all' your characters being 'deeply flawed' is necessarily good writing as not all people in real life are 'deeply flawed'.

Yes, all people in real life are deeply flawed.

In fact I'd argue that giving 'all characters' deep flaws would make the work unrealistic.

It make the work very realistic.

Your point about MacBeth may explain my perception on male / female roles in Shakespeare though, as I explained I have only read that and Merchant of Venice so, whilst I'm sure you are correct that strong female roles are rare even in Shakespeare's work, they are present in 'all' the work of his I've read - hence the perception, reinforced by my teacher's views.

I think the real problem seems to be your teachers. A teacher's approach to a subject can have a profound impact on your perception of it. Your teacher sounds like she was trying to exploit Shakespeare to grind her own axe.

It is hard to think of a stronger female role than Portia (I think it was Portia in MofV wasn't it?) - I'm also struggling to think of her 'deep flaws'.

I'm thinking you don't understand what "flaw" or "strong" means when it comes to characterisation. Lady Macbeth is an extremely strong character and yet also deeply flawed.

As for Portia, she's indeed strong, but she's also ruthless, immensely unjust, and cruel towards Shylock.

As you say, maybe that's because it's a 'comedy' (I use quotes because I certainly didn't find it funny - either reading it, or seeing it on the stage).

"Comedy" did not originally mean "funny". Comedy in the Shakespearean context is a type of drama (the other being tragedy). In it's most basic understanding, tragedy has a sad ending and comedy has a happy ending (hence the sad and happy faces used to depict the facets of drama). This itself derived from Greek theatre where Tragedy recounted the downfall of a hero undone by a single flaw (Achilles being the most famous), and Comedy recounted the plight of individuals tangled up in complex events at the hands of the Gods or Fate).

Still, each to his own. It's not my thing and I still think it's over-rated but I am happy to have my mis-perception of strong female and pathetic or villainous males corrected. Thank you.

Everyone is of course allowed their own opinion.

 

[gumboot]

So how many books / works of an author do you feel you need to read before deciding whether you like them or not?

Well to begin with you shouldn't be reading Shakespeare, you should be watching it. Shakespeare is live performance. The problem is it's often done very poorly. The question should be

"how many good performances do you feel you need to watch before deciding whether you like them or not?"

After all, if someone recommends a film to you, do you go out and read the screenplay, or do you watch the film?

 

[Aitch]

"Comedy" did not originally mean "funny". Comedy in the Shakespearean context is a type of drama (the other being tragedy). In it's most basic understanding, tragedy has a sad ending and comedy has a happy ending (hence the sad and happy faces used to depict the facets of drama). This itself derived from Greek theatre where Tragedy recounted the downfall of a hero undone by a single flaw (Achilles being the most famous), and Comedy recounted the plight of individuals tangled up in complex events at the hands of the Gods or Fate).

However, Shakespeare's stuff, in the Oxford edition at least, gets divided into three categories - Tragedies, Comedies and Histories. Which imparts a certain, possibly spurious, accuracy to some of his works.

Well to begin with you shouldn't be reading Shakespeare, you should be watching it.

With the possible exception of the sonnets and other poems.

After all, if someone recommends a film to you, do you go out and read the screenplay, or do you watch the film?

Well, before the original Manchurian Candidate film became available, the only way I could 'view' the film was in fact by way of the screen-play (BFI publication iirc). But that is, I suppose, a special case.

 

[gumboot]

However, Shakespeare's stuff, in the Oxford edition at least, gets divided into three categories - Tragedies, Comedies and Histories. Which imparts a certain, possibly spurious, accuracy to some of his works.

I think of them much like "based on a true story" films made today.

 

[Lovegun]

i understand that someone may just not care for shakespeare (although my blood boils at the notion). But i'm sensing that the quality of instruction may be the issue here, at least that's what my pendulum tells me .

my first shakespeare instructor began the semester by letting the class know that it made no importance to him whether shakespeare existed or who wrote the works or whatever else nonsense comes up in that realm. the important thing is that we have the works.

of course the authorship question is fun, but so much less fruitful than examining the texts.

 

[lionking]

How many other playwrights are being debated hundreds of years after they died?

Will is da king.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

ughh, calling shakespeare overrated is a face palmable offence. get off the internet and read more shakespeare.

I don't really think it's your place to judge whether someone likes Shakespeare or not. What would be extremely silly, however, would be to deny his importance and influence.

 

[TmoonII]

I think it's more important to know who influenced him, particularly the women influencing his career.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

That's only important because of his own importance, though.

 

[dudalb]

Amazed that the Baconians and the Oxfordians have not shown up yet.
BTW there are trailers up for Roland Emmerich "Shakespeare did not write Shakepeare" conspriacy film "Anonymous". Looks to be as historically accurate as Emmerich's disaster films are sceintifically accurate......

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Well to begin with you shouldn't be reading Shakespeare, you should be watching it. Shakespeare is live performance. The problem is it's often done very poorly. The question should be

"how many good performances do you feel you need to watch before deciding whether you like them or not?"

After all, if someone recommends a film to you, do you go out and read the screenplay, or do you watch the film?

I saw Merchant of Venice live in a theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon and I still didn't like it I'm afraid.

I didn't mind Macbeth so much - found it mildly entertaining but still couldn't understand what all the fuss was about.

I guess I'm a hopeless case when it comes to 'classic' literature....though I absolutely love the Aenid (and yes, I studied it in the original Latin - and so it didn't involve my English teacher, which may have helped ).

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Shakespeare is overrated in one sense. People expect, unreasonably, that every line in every play he ever wrote would be some sort of work of magic. If there ever was a real genius, it's him -- but, having read his complete works, in English, it doesn't work that way, folks.

In my view King Lear is the best play ever written, and Macbeth and Hamlet and Henry IV (both parts) not far behind. I can name many others who are close. But not every play he wrote is that good.

Thanks, that makes my point better than I did. As I say, I don't like his stuff but I recognise it has (apparently a lot of) merit because it moves so many other people but I have certainly come across many who simply won't accept any criticism of him and do contend that every line, indeed every syllable of every word, is sheer perfection.

When I pointed out a known historical inaccuracy in MofV (I think it was around the existence of timepieces but my memory may be letting me down) my teacher wouldn't accept it was a mistake and constructed an elaborate argument about Shakespeare knowing it was wrong but incorporating it deliberately to make some philosophical point or other.

 

[TmoonII]

That's only important because of his own importance, though.

"The Mona Lisa" attracted more art appreciation than da Vinci at certain points in history. I question where Warhol would be without Cambell's Soup. This is a microcosm, but evidence enough; knowledge of influence of an artist/writer is just as significant as the by-product. Perhaps popularity supercedes the mental/spiritual influnces, but in a tangible world we would be boring/lacking advancement without influence.

 

[TubbaBlubba]

"The Mona Lisa" attracted more art appreciation than da Vinci at certain points in history. I question where Warhol would be without Cambell's Soup. This is a microcosm, but evidence enough; knowledge of influence of an artist/writer is just as significant as the by-product. Perhaps popularity supercedes the mental/spiritual influnces, but in a tangible world we would be boring/lacking advancement without influence.

I don't think you understand what I meant. What I was saying was, what Shakespeare was influenced by, is only important because Shakespeare, and his works, influenced a lot of people.

No one cares about Bob the Farmer's influences, because he didn't really influence anyone notably.

 

[marksman]

How many other playwrights are being debated hundreds of years after they died?

Will is da king.

Well, there's Aristophanes, Sophocles and Aeschylus. Before Will, if you said "playwright", you'd probably think of one of these three. That Shakespeare managed to break through the Greek Triumvirate that reigned supreme for over two millennia before him is itself illustrative of how influential he has been, and nobody has really come close since.

 

[TmoonII]

The Cat in the Hat runs a tight race.

 

[Damien Evans]

How many other playwrights are being debated hundreds of years after they died?

Will is da king.

Homer, obviously (coming up on 3,000 years in his case)

Euripidies, Aristophanes and a few other classical Greeks.

 

[Lucian]

ughh, calling shakespeare overrated is a face palmable offence. get off the internet and read more shakespeare.

it's also laughable that you can admit that you're wrong about shakespeare only having strong female characters because you happened to read two works in which that was the case, but based on that same sampling you can proclaim he is overrated.

Face palmable, you say. How about this?

(Thanks to Akhenaten for Facespeare)

 

[Adonis]

I won't get into the "Overrated" argument because every big success has a group of people whose fancies aren't tickled and I don't like arguing taste.

Am I the only weirdo who vastly prefers reading Shakespeare's plays to seeing them acted out? With the exception of Hamlet, which I consider his most rounded work in terms of plot vs character vs writing (though I love Henry IV part 1 almost as much), I'm more interested in the poetry and the wordplay than the actual stories a lot of time.

I can certainly see how people prefer Aristophane and Homer but I don't think too many people were implying he was in a league beyond other greats.

 

[gumboot]

Homer, obviously (coming up on 3,000 years in his case)

Euripidies, Aristophanes and a few other classical Greeks.

Once upon a time, but none of these writers' works are remotely as widespread as Shakespeare is today. I think a lot of it has to do with Shakespeare's incorporation in the curriculum of the English-speaking world at school. Sure, a lot of people trace their revulsion to Shakespeare from that time, as this thread demonstrates... but a lot of people like me trace their appreciation of Shakespeare to those same classes.