How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[gumboot]

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'. She was portrayed as pretty perfect wasn't she? Beautiful, intelligent, brave, resourceful, rich? Whereas all the blokes in it are clowns or villains.

How are Gratiano, Lorenzo, Antonio and Bassanio "clowns or villains"?

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 in the traditional theatrical sense doesn't mean "funny". It's a common misunderstanding.

 

[gumboot]

No.

Also, what's with all the line breaks? It's a sonnet, it should be displayed like so:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

It should be noted that immortality through memory and/or written record is a very common theme in Shakespeare, and completely in keeping with this sonnet.

 

[fuelair]

The idea that Shakespeare was "well educated" goes back to the notion that the mere son of as glove maker who didn't have a University Education and was not an Aristocrat could not possibly have written the plays. Its complete nonsense. There is nothing in Shakespeare's plays or sonnets that indicates a stunninglty well educated man who could only have learned what he did from a very difficult / through University education. Afterall Shakespeare had Bohemia have a sea coast. Going with this balderdash is the notion that Shakespeare's plays reveal a knowledge of Court politics and life that only an Aristocrat could have had. That too is nonsense. As a member of two different troupes of Actors patronized by Aristocrats Shakespeare could easily have had access to all the gossip about Court life and intrigues imaginable. To say nothing of the fact that most members of the Court lived in London so that knowing about and gossiping about Court intrigues etc., was very easy and a hobby of many londoners.

I can recomend the book Contested Will.

Still is IIRC.

 

[Lucian]

Much of the writings attributed to Shakespeare were actually written by Queen Elizabeth 1... such as:

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

As to your theory of authorship--wow, no. More importantly though, why have you arranged the quatrains into couplets? That's as awkward as putting a quotation at the end of a post.

ETA I see gumboot has already mentioned this oddity.

 

[Janadele]

It is the way the author wishes it.

 

[angrysoba]

It is the way the author wishes it.

Sorry, but what? Queen Elizabeth wrote some of Shakespeare's sonnets?

You're 'aving a larf!

 

[Janadele]

Have you any plausible reason to think she did not?

 

[Resume]

Have you any plausible reason to think she did not?

Well, the biggest reason would probably be because she didn't.

That Shakespeare feller pretty much took care of it.

 

[Janadele]

And how do you know that ?

 

[Resume]

And how do you know that ?

It isn't how I know it but rather how scholars have approached the question. Here's a little something written in layman's terms.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2011/10/19/yes-shakespeare-really-did-write-shakespeare/

 

[hgc]

More honoured in the breach than in the observation

"More honoured in the breach than in the observance"

Rolls off the tongue much more cleanly and makes sense when quoted accurately.

 

[Harpo]

Shakespeare, from what I have heard, is the most famous author of all, widely acclaimed as the best writer in history. He obviously went to a lot of trouble to produce his scores of plays and poems, but, my question is, presuming that these plays and poems have anything wise and valuable in them to say, how did Shakespeare acquire the wisdom needed to write them? If you tell me "he was a genius" am I to believe that he simply walked the Earth for a few decades, living the life of the common man, and through sheer brilliance of intellect induced his pearls of wisdom? Or was he exceptionally well-educated?

Curiously yours,

Cpl Ferro

 

[NotJesus]

Have you any plausible reason to think she did not?

You have this backwards. You need to give us a plausible reason to think that she did. Until then:

"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
-C. Hitchens

 

[Lucian]

It is the way the author wishes it.

What is the way the author wishes it? The weird sonnet format? If so, why do you believe the author would wish to have the poem formatted in a way that disguises and perverts the rhyme scheme?

 

[Beerina]

Why hasn't anybody translated his work into English?

You make a funny but there are people who modernize and simplify Shakespeare, for both children and adults.

That seems to suggest much of the power was in characters and situations, as if that can be separated from the clever prose they speak.

It's like updating a pointillist painting with large swaths of primary, no-gradient colors.

 

[Lucian]

You make a funny but there are people who modernize and simplify Shakespeare, for both children and adults.

That seems to suggest much of the power was in characters and situations, as if that can be separated from the clever prose they speak.

It's like updating a pointillist painting with large swaths of primary, no-gradient colors.

Do you mean verse?

 

[Jon.]

You make a funny but there are people who modernize and simplify Shakespeare, for both children and adults.

That seems to suggest much of the power was in characters and situations, as if that can be separated from the clever prose they speak.

It's like updating a pointillist painting with large swaths of primary, no-gradient colors.

And yet, when my kids want to hear a story told to them, as opposed to having one read to them, they love Shakespeare. We've told them a bunch, including Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth. They loved the idea of Malvolio getting tricked and branded a madman! ETA: We tell the stories in modern language, not in "Shakespearean!"

 

[gumboot]

It is the way the author wishes it.

This is the original printing of Sonnet 18. Note the layout.

 

[Janadele]

the printer was not the author.

 

[Helen]

Janadele, why don't you answer why the author would want it printed in couplets, when that breaks up the rhyme scheme?