How did Shakespeare come to know so much?

[TmoonII]

http://doubtaboutwill.org/

 

[headscratcher4]

But where is Shakespear's Longeth Form Birth Certificate?

 

[headscratcher4]

I can recomend the book Contested Will.

I highly recommend this as well. It is facinating and pretty much exposes the so-called controversy. Most of the Shakespear wasn't Shakespear crowd end up looking like birthers and truthers.

 

[NewtonTrino]

The Doctor.

 

[Lucian]

http://doubtaboutwill.org/

Contested Will. It's been mentioned several times already, but it bears repeating. Also, Shakespeare & Co.

 

[NotJesus]

This is a useful site on the authorship stuff.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

This is about as wrong as it could possibly be.

Hamlet, Iago, Prince Hal/Henry V, Richard III, Prospero, Shylock, Edgar and Edmund in King Lear, Jacques in As You Like It, Brutus and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, and many more, are all highly intelligent.

You're right, I used the wrong term. I should have said something like 'unsympathetic' perhaps - they tend to be idiots, morally weak, shallow, nasty pieces of work or otherwise deeply flawed. As you mentioned Shylock, he was hardly a sympathetic character and the other male characters in MofV were, quite frankly, pathetic.

I'm happy to be corrected again as I have only read The Merchants of Venice and MacBeth for myself and was going on what my English Lit teacher said about the rest.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Maybe ETA's English lit teacher was gathering from the buttocks.

Quite possibly. She was a bit obsessed about Shakespeare being great because he wrote such strong female characters (and weak male ones) and therefore being 'ahead of his time'. She also wouldn't accept any criticism of him which further turned me off - even when I'd pulled such criticism from a learned and respected source. Just wouldn't accept he'd ever got anything other than perfect.

She also said I'd never get an A because I didn't appreciate his genius (or Dickens) so it was nice to show her the A's I got for both Language and Literature.

 

[332nd]

Quite possibly. She was a bit obsessed about Shakespeare being great because he wrote such strong female characters (and weak male ones) and therefore being 'ahead of his time'. She also wouldn't accept any criticism of him which further turned me off - even when I'd pulled such criticism from a learned and respected source. Just wouldn't accept he'd ever got anything other than perfect.

She also said I'd never get an A because I didn't appreciate his genius (or Dickens) so it was nice to show her the A's I got for both Language and Literature.

Also good to remember that Shakespeare was ment to be watched not read.

Having said that, I'd like to thank you for bringing the strong female/weak male thing to my attention because I'm working with my old Shakespeare prof. from grad school this summer & when I tell him this, he's gonna go bat poo.

 

[Finn McR]

You think that Shakespeare is over-rated *because* his observations (in your view) show females as more rational than males, or he is over-rated *and* his observations show females as more rational than males? You need to back that stuff up. Ophelia is not shown to be more rational than males in the same play. Katherina in "The Taming of the Shrew" does not come out exceptionally well. The same may be said of Beatrice in "Much Ado about Nothing".

 

[little grey rabbit]

Back in London, Dee said: "They're trying to reach the solution before we do. Kelly, you must write something for William.....something diabolically insinuating about them."

Belly of the demon, I did it, but William ruined the text, shifting everything from Prague to Venice. Dee flew into a rage. But the pale, shifty William felt protected by his royal concubine. And still he wasnt satisfied......"Enough," I said to him. "I'm tired of building your glory in the shadows. Write for yourself."

"I can't," he answered with the gaze of one who has seen a lemure, "He won't let me"
"Who? Dee?"

"No, Verulam. Don't you know he's now the one in charge? He's forcing me to write works that later he'll claim as his own. You understand, Kelley? I'm the true Bacon and posterity will never know. Oh parasite! How I hate that firebrand of hell!"

"Bacon's a pig, but he has talent," I said. "Why doesnt he write his own stuff?"
He didnt have time. We realized this only years later when Germany was invaded by the Rosy Cross madness. Then, from scattered references, certain phrases, putting two and two together, I saw that the author of the Rosicrucian manifestos was really he. He wrote under the pseudonym of Johann Valentin Andrae!

Now in the darkness of this cell where I languish, more clearheaded than Don Isidro Parodi, I know for whom Andreae was writing....Andreae was writing a novel of chivalry for a Spaniard, who was languishing meanwhile in another prison. I don't know why, but this project served the infamous Bacon, who wanted to go down in history as the secret author of the adventures of the knight of La Mancha. Bacon asked Andreae to pen for him, in secret, a novel whose hidden author he would pretend to be, enjoying in the shadows (but why? why?) another man's triumph.

So it appears that William Shakespeare actually wrote the works of Bacon, but that leaves unanswered who wrote the works of Shakespeare.
But I digress. I am cold in this dungeon and my thumb hurts. I am writing, in the dim light of a dying lamp, the last works that will pass under William's name.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

You think that Shakespeare is over-rated *because* his observations (in your view) show females as more rational than males, or he is over-rated *and* his observations show females as more rational than males? You need to back that stuff up. Ophelia is not shown to be more rational than males in the same play. Katherina in "The Taming of the Shrew" does not come out exceptionally well. The same may be said of Beatrice in "Much Ado about Nothing".

Oh I'm more than happy to be shown to be wrong on the male female thing - it just seemed to be true in the two plays I did in school and my English Lit teacher claimed it was a trend in his work. She was a crap teacher so I have no issue if that turns out to be wrong. I haven't read any other plays than Merchant of Venice and MacBeth and it seemed to hold for those - MofV especially.

That's got nothing to do with why I think he's over-rated though - I have no problem with strong female characters - after all, I married one. I just don't like his stuff, it never engaged me, seemed trite and boring and I suspect I also react negatively when something is held up as being the 'best thing ever'. I also absolutely hated his poetry...but then I hate most poetry except the more 'epic' stuff like Sohrab & Rustum.

I'm happy to accept though that my taste in literature would be generally held to be 'plebian' but I'm not going to like Shakespeare (or Dickens, who was even worse in my opinion) just because I'm supposed to. I just don't like it, it doesn't engage me and doesn't impress me.

 

[gumboot]

You're right, I used the wrong term. I should have said something like 'unsympathetic' perhaps - they tend to be idiots, morally weak, shallow, nasty pieces of work or otherwise deeply flawed.

I think you'll find that all of Shakespeare's characters are "deeply flawed". That's called "good writing".

As you mentioned Shylock, he was hardly a sympathetic character and the other male characters in MofV were, quite frankly, pathetic.

"The Merchant of Venice" is a comedy. If your teacher had been familiar with Shakespeare's work they'd know that his treatment of characters in his comedies is vastly different to his histories and tragedies. Most crucially, he deliberately makes them unsympathetic because the comedy revolves around the predicaments they're put in, and if we cared too much about the characters we wouldn't find their plight amusing.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a genuinely likeable character in any of his comedies.

I'm happy to be corrected again as I have only read The Merchants of Venice and MacBeth for myself and was going on what my English Lit teacher said about the rest.

Macbeth is quite remarkable in that it has such a strong female role (actually quite rare, even in Shakespeare's work), and it's a poor choice for assessing Shakespeare's male characters. Macbeth actually has a very small cast, with only four significant characters, maybe only three.

I can think of plenty of incredibly strong, complex and likable characters in Shakespeare. The title character in Titus Andronicus springs immediately to mind (actually Titus Andronicus is all-round bursting with absolutely fantastic characters).

If you're after the sort of swash-buckling hero who could be played by Orlando Bloom you won't find it in Shakespeare's plays. His are studies of the human condition, and necessarily he breaks his characters to teach us things about ourselves. Ultimately the reason roles like Lear and Hamlet and Prospero are celebrated is not because they're immutable titans, but because they're so excruciatingly human.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

I think you'll find that all of Shakespeare's characters are "deeply flawed". That's called "good writing".





"The Merchant of Venice" is a comedy. If your teacher had been familiar with Shakespeare's work they'd know that his treatment of characters in his comedies is vastly different to his histories and tragedies. Most crucially, he deliberately makes them unsympathetic because the comedy revolves around the predicaments they're put in, and if we cared too much about the characters we wouldn't find their plight amusing.

You'll be hard-pressed to find a genuinely likeable character in any of his comedies.




Macbeth is quite remarkable in that it has such a strong female role (actually quite rare, even in Shakespeare's work), and it's a poor choice for assessing Shakespeare's male characters. Macbeth actually has a very small cast, with only four significant characters, maybe only three.

I can think of plenty of incredibly strong, complex and likable characters in Shakespeare. The title character in Titus Andronicus springs immediately to mind (actually Titus Andronicus is all-round bursting with absolutely fantastic characters).

If you're after the sort of swash-buckling hero who could be played by Orlando Bloom you won't find it in Shakespeare's plays. His are studies of the human condition, and necessarily he breaks his characters to teach us things about ourselves. Ultimately the reason roles like Lear and Hamlet and Prospero are celebrated is not because they're immutable titans, but because they're so excruciatingly human.

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. As I say, I'm happy to admit I'm no expert and to be educated by those with more experience of his work. 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'. In fact I'd argue that giving 'all characters' deep flaws would make the work unrealistic. Whether you really meant 'all' and 'deeply flawed' or you were exaggerating to make a point, I'm not familiar enough with the rest of his work to be sure.

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. 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. 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).

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.

 

[Lovegun]

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.

 

[NotJesus]

You'll be hard-pressed to find a genuinely likeable character in any of his comedies.

[cough] Rosalind [cough]

 

[SusanB-M1]

A friend and I went to the Globe Theatre a few years ago and saw 'The Merchant of Venice' on a warm, summer's day. A most enjoyable occasion.

 

[Skeptic]

"The Merchant of Venice" is a comedy. If your teacher had been familiar with Shakespeare's work they'd know that his treatment of characters in his comedies is vastly different to his histories and tragedies. Most crucially, he deliberately makes them unsympathetic because the comedy revolves around the predicaments they're put in, and if we cared too much about the characters we wouldn't find their plight amusing.

Also, a "comedy" at the time is any story that ends happily for everyone, not necessarily a funny one. And, yes, The Merchant of Venice ends happily for Shylock too, from Shakespeare's point of view: he is converted to Christianity, and thus might be saved from hell; a far better fate than he "deserved" at the time according to most playwrites.

Macbeth is quite remarkable in that it has such a strong female role (actually quite rare, even in Shakespeare's work), and it's a poor choice for assessing Shakespeare's male characters. Macbeth actually has a very small cast, with only four significant characters, maybe only three.

MAD magazine did it best in its "Macbeth" parody.

See this man.
He is called Macbeth.
He doesn't want to be king.
All he wants is to be thane of Cawdor.
Whatever-the-heck that is!
But Macbeth's wife wants him to be king.
Wants, wants, wants.
You know the type.
Pushy!

 

[Skeptic]

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.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

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.

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

If you'd read 2 Dan Brown's and not enjoyed them, would you feel you couldn't comment that you didn't like his work and, personally, struggled to see why he was so popular? And before you start, I'm not comparing Dan Brown to Shakespeare but the point remains - after all, it's not as though anyone is saying Macbeth and Merchant of Venice and not good examples of his work.

Anyone, as I said, I accept my tastes are plebian but I still believe Shakespeare is over-rated. I accept he must have had talent for his work to stand the test of time and for so many people to love his work but I hate the whole 'He can't be criticised, he was perfect, he was a genius' attitude.

How about we leave it at, he was unquestionably talented but his work just doesn't appeal to me?