Poll: Is shakespeare great?

[Chairman Miaow]

Have you ever seen Shakespeare performed?

Yes. Two different versions of Romeo and Juliet on video, and 1 live sitting of MacBeth in the replica of the Globe Theatre in London.

I find Romeo and Juliet to be absolute drivel but love Macbeth. what did you think of it?

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Okay, I'm admittedly biased here--I have an actual honest-to-God master's degree in Shakespeare, and I'm working on a PhD. Putting my bias aside, though, Shakespeare is still one of the greatest writers in the English language of all time, not just for his ability to turn a phrase and captivate audiences, but for the influence he's had on the language itself.

Spoiler: Really long bonus Bernard Levin quote...look him up.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is father to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.



(To be fair, Levin misattributed "But me no buts"--it wasn't coined until the early 18th century.)

Onward!

Shakespeare no doubt took his ideas from previous works, but they have been lost to the ages for the most part.

Fun fact: He did, and they haven't in a lot of cases. For instance, Shakespeare borrowed a lot from Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans for plays like Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. (There's a speech in the latter play that's lifted almost word-for-word from Plutarch.) Shakespeare's history plays (all the Henries and Richards and so on) take their plots from Raphael Holinshed's 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The story of Romeo and Juliet is taken from a 1562 poem by Arthur Brooke called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet...the list goes on.

The problem with Shakespeare is how he's taught in school. He's taught as dry pieces of literature and are read as such, and you have to remember most of his work was meant to be performed. It makes a difference, plus it makes it more interesting to study when you keep that in mind.

Yeah, this, pretty much. Look, I love this stuff, and even I find just reading it from the page kind of dry and boring sometimes, especially when you get into the parts where there are jokes that probably had them rolling on the floor at the Globe, but just don't work after four hundred years. Ideally, Shakespeare is meant to be seen and heard, not read, and being performed by people who know not only what they're saying, but why they're saying it.

Also--and I used to find this heresy until only a few years ago--it's okay to cut down the script to streamline the production a bit, especially if you're removing things like the in-jokes in the later versions of Hamlet that are just sniping at the companies of boy players that were popular at the time. (That's in the First Folio edition, Act II, scene 2, if you're interested.)

Plus, im fairly convinced about the theories of Shakespeare not actually being the one who wrote the works.

You just saw Anonymous, didn't you? All the "theories" about Shakespeare not really writing Shakespeare warp Occam's Razor into a mangled pile of twisted metal, to stretch a metaphor. They depend on, for one thing, keeping actors (who, let's face it, are some of the most gossipy people on the planet) quiet for decades and even on their deathbeds. This is to say nothing of, for instance, Shakespeare's plays continuing to come out for several years after the death of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (the most current popular candidate). I could go on.

Finally:

He's great because he popularized the English language single handedly! If he hadn't of existed, English would be a reaaalllyyy obscure European language today. In fact, most of England would probably be speaking some dialect of French. And in turn, so would you America.

I think you might be thinking of Chaucer back in the 14th century--he's the one who really began to popularize English as a literary language. By the time of Shakespeare's career, England was already established as a world power, and English was a robust and well-known language.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Okay, I'm admittedly biased here--I have an actual honest-to-God master's degree in Shakespeare, and I'm working on a PhD. Putting my bias aside, though, Shakespeare is still one of the greatest writers in the English language of all time, not just for his ability to turn a phrase and captivate audiences, but for the influence he's had on the language itself.

Spoiler: Really long bonus Bernard Levin quote...look him up.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me'', you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is father to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.



(To be fair, Levin misattributed "But me no buts"--it wasn't coined until the early 18th century.)

Onward!

Shakespeare no doubt took his ideas from previous works, but they have been lost to the ages for the most part.

Fun fact: He did, and they haven't in a lot of cases. For instance, Shakespeare borrowed a lot from Sir Thomas North's 1579 translation of Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans for plays like Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. (There's a speech in the latter play that's lifted almost word-for-word from Plutarch.) Shakespeare's history plays (all the Henries and Richards and so on) take their plots from Raphael Holinshed's 1587 edition of Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The story of Romeo and Juliet is taken from a 1562 poem by Arthur Brooke called The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet...the list goes on.

The problem with Shakespeare is how he's taught in school. He's taught as dry pieces of literature and are read as such, and you have to remember most of his work was meant to be performed. It makes a difference, plus it makes it more interesting to study when you keep that in mind.

Yeah, this, pretty much. Look, I love this stuff, and even I find just reading it from the page kind of dry and boring sometimes, especially when you get into the parts where there are jokes that probably had them rolling on the floor at the Globe, but just don't work after four hundred years. Ideally, Shakespeare is meant to be seen and heard, not read, and being performed by people who know not only what they're saying, but why they're saying it.

Also--and I used to find this heresy until only a few years ago--it's okay to cut down the script to streamline the production a bit, especially if you're removing things like the in-jokes in the later versions of Hamlet that are just sniping at the companies of boy players that were popular at the time. (That's in the First Folio edition, Act II, scene 2, if you're interested.)

Plus, im fairly convinced about the theories of Shakespeare not actually being the one who wrote the works.

You just saw Anonymous, didn't you? All the "theories" about Shakespeare not really writing Shakespeare warp Occam's Razor into a mangled pile of twisted metal, to stretch a metaphor. They depend on, for one thing, keeping actors (who, let's face it, are some of the most gossipy people on the planet) quiet for decades and even on their deathbeds. This is to say nothing of, for instance, Shakespeare's plays continuing to come out for several years after the death of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (the most current popular candidate). I could go on.

Finally:

He's great because he popularized the English language single handedly! If he hadn't of existed, English would be a reaaalllyyy obscure European language today. In fact, most of England would probably be speaking some dialect of French. And in turn, so would you America.

I think you might be thinking of Chaucer back in the 14th century--he's the one who really began to popularize English as a literary language. By the time of Shakespeare's career, England was already established as a world power, and English was a robust and well-known language.

Yeah, Chaucer did popularize it in that respect, but English was still seen as the shit language of Europe. It was only a language the poor would speak. It's well known that most upper class English nobles spoke French, or a similar language. Shakespeare made it popular, and a more 'fancy' language I guess you could say.

 

[Raven's Nest]

Plus, im fairly convinced about the theories of Shakespeare not actually being the one who wrote the works.

You just saw Anonymous, didn't you? All the "theories" about Shakespeare not really writing Shakespeare warp Occam's Razor into a mangled pile of twisted metal, to str

etch a metaphor. They depend on, for one thing, keeping actors (who, let's face it, are some of the most gossipy people on the planet) quiet for decades and even on their deathbeds. This is to say nothing of, for instance, Shakespeare's plays continuing to come out for several years after the death of Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (the most current popular candidate). I could go on.

I know not of this Anonymous film... Just vaguely remember agreeing with a few documentaries and the odd episode of QI that mentions it. Also, its quite possible some of his works were not immediately published and may have been left in storage somehow, which would account for the discrepancies surrounding the earls death.

But I don't really know anything about it so if you have a degree in Shakespeare I'm not going to argue lol.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Studying Shakespeare in school was probably one of my favourite things, it certainly made English bearable.

In fact not for Shakespeare I probably would have failed English because I was terrible at the poetry side of the exam.

So yeah I think Shakespeare is pretty great.

 

[babinro]

Sucks

I don't understand the language or the meanings behind the stories. Something that confuses my puny little mind sucks.

Clearly the stories are classics. The fact that the stories are still frequently told and referenced show that.

 

[James Crook]

I can see why it's considered classic literature, and that any self-respecting English speaker should at least know about him and his works, but I can't wrap my head around why everybody wants to elevate him on the pedestal of the "best and brightest".
Still isn't as annoying as Catcher in the rye though.

 

[Shakomaru]

The problem with Shakespeare is how he's taught in school. He's taught as dry pieces of literature and are read as such, and you have to remember most of his work was meant to be preformed. It makes a difference, plus it makes it more interesting to study when you keep that in mind.

Also it's full of sex jokes. Really. Not even Joking here. I like the guy and his stuff, but yeah the plays are really better if preformed. I admire the guy because he invented 1700 words. Just a freaking genius.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Yeah, Chaucer did popularize it in that respect, but English was still seen as the shit language of Europe. It was only a language the poor would speak. It's well known that most upper class English nobles spoke French, or a similar language.

They did speak French, yes, and it was a prestige language and the language of international diplomacy for centuries afterward, but by no means was English a "shit language" by this point. For instance, English was used extensively in law proceedings, and had been since a decree by Edward III in 1362. (Edward also gave a speech addressing Parliament in English for the first time.)

It was used in the royal court as well, becoming prevalent by the 15th century--there's a text from the London guild of brewers from 1422 in which they adopt English for their official records, citing as one reason "...for that our most excellent lord King Henry the Fifth hath, in his letters missive, and divers affairs touching his own person, more willingly chosen to declare the secrets of his will [in it]". (See Albert Baugh and Thomas Cable's A History of the English Language, 5th edition, pg. 142.)

All this is to say nothing of things like George Puttenham's hugely influential The Arte of English Poesie or the inkhorn controversy. (The controversy was basically people arguing bitterly over introducing new Latinate words into English. Some, like "capacity" and "dismiss", survived. Others, like "eximious" or "fatigate", didn't.)

Edited to add:

Also it's full of sex jokes. Really. Not even joking here.

Oh yeah. There's some very dirty stuff between Sampson and Gregory in I.i of Romeo and Juliet, for instance, all about thrusting maids to the wall and taking their maidenheads and such. Then there's the more obscure stuff, which unfortunately requires footnotes. There's a speech in As You Like It where Jaques talks about meeting the fool Touchstone in the forest:

Spoiler: Part of the speech.

And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:
Thus we may see,' quoth he, 'how the world wags:
'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,
And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;
And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,
And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
And thereby hangs a tale.' When I did hear
The motley fool thus moral on the time,
My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,
That fools should be so deep-contemplative,
And I did laugh sans intermission
An hour by his dial.

A modern audience is left wondering why Jaques is laughing his ass off for an hour at what Touchstone says. It's slightly funnier if you know that (due to pronunciation shifts over the centuries) "hour" and "whore" used to be pronounced almost alike, and that "tail" was (as so many Elizabethan words were) slang for "penis".

Jaques is laughing to see a fool pretend to be all philosophical and contemplative while he's actually talking about catching STDs from prostitutes and having one's dick rot and fall off.

So, yeah. Remember when I said some jokes don't work after four hundred years? There you go.

 

[NotSoLoneWanderer]

If it weren't for the whole "Victorian English thing" he did I might be inspired to look into more of his works but relative to my modern surroundings and the literature I'm used to it's bland and needlessly roundabout. I understand everything he writes. That isn't hard at all but I just don't care for his writing style.

Edit: I appreciate his works in a historical sense but not the works themselves.

Err the Victoran era was 1832 to 1901, Shakespeare died in 1616. Its Elizabethan English that is used.

I can see why he's so lauded, although I'm personally not a huge fan of the old-timey style.

Funny thing. Back in his day Shakespeare's works were considered as artless pap to be enjoyed by the uneducated masses, similar to how a lot of people regard Twilight or reality TV in modern times.

Whoops my mistake. Should have said olde English. Broader term.


Small rather important point, Shakespears's plays were performed at the court of Elizabeth the 1st. The play Richard II was used as part of the Earl of Essex's attempted coup and remained banned for the next 200 years. The modern parallel is more the God Farther or Raging Bull than twilight.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I think part of the problem is most people get exposed to him first through reading one or other of the plays at school. When I was at school and we read Othello I don't think any of us 'got it' until the teacher brought in a video of a BBC production with Bob Hoskins as Iago.

Genius move. Shakespeare is often seen as lofty, artsy, 'poncy'... but Bob Hoskins was just a regular bloke as well as being a very good and charismatic actor. And he was in The Long Good Friday, so he was cool.

Then we got it.

I prefer the Kenneth Brannagh adaptation myself. Iago breaking the fourth wall and being such an awesome slimeball was epic.

 

[bauke67]

Being the first?
He basically stole all his stories from classic mythology, so no, he's not that great.

 

[Albino Boo]

If it weren't for the whole "Victorian English thing" he did I might be inspired to look into more of his works but relative to my modern surroundings and the literature I'm used to it's bland and needlessly roundabout. I understand everything he writes. That isn't hard at all but I just don't care for his writing style.

Edit: I appreciate his works in a historical sense but not the works themselves.

Err the Victoran era was 1832 to 1901, Shakespeare died in 1616. Its Elizabethan English that is used.


Whoops my mistake. Should have said olde English. Broader term.

Not your day. Old English is an early form of English used by the Anglo-Saxons and remained in use till about 1200. Shakespeare was born in 1564. The form English used by Shakespeare is either Elizabethan (1558-1603) or early modern (1476-1714).

 

[Daveman]

He's prolific, I'll grant him that. People say he invented a shit tonne of words. I find this unlikely, imagine if you went to a play and half the words were made up and left unexplained. It's much more likely they were in common use conversationally however due to him being so prolific it's likely he was just the first record of them.

 

[lord.jeff]

I think Shakespear is a bit over rated but I like several of his plays, and I really wish we had modern authors willing to create their own language rules like he did.

 

[Chemical Alia]

The sheer arrogance of this board continues to amaze. Its relentless. Shakespeare is the best selling author of all time. Its estimated that over 500 billion of his works have been sold; works that influence every piece of fiction in our culture to this day. Not just plays and books, but games, movies, television, EVERYTHING.

But eh, let's ignore all that and declare him "overrated".

Unbelievable. Absolutely epic.

Let's not forget about the impressive list of words and phrases that he invented which helped to shape the modern language. ( http://www.cracked.com/article_15859_10-words-phrases-you-wont-believe-shakespeare-invented.html )

I haven't read a lot of Shakespeare, but to deny his contributions to literature and even everyday language as "overrated" just makes you sound like a bit of a troglodyte.

 

[verdant monkai]

It is all a matter of opinion really, some people don't like cheese and Marmite I certainly do.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Shakespeare no doubt took his ideas from pervious works, but they have been lost to the ages for the most part.

A number of his plays are actually direct re-tellings/translations of older works that we still have! The Rape of Lucrece is a re-telling of Ovid's Fasti, Antony and Cleopatra includes passages copied word for word from Plutarch's version of the story, and there are estimates that over 4000 (out of a total 6000) lines of the three parts of Henry VI are lifted from other authors' works (and then stitched together like a patchwork quilt).

This was all standard practice at the time he was writing. Plays (and popular poems like The Rape of Lucrece) weren't really seen as "proper literature". They were pulp for the masses, like today's Hollywood blockbusters. And (also like today's Hollywood blockbusters) they took good material from wherever they could find it, especially from classical literature.

Interestingly, no one has found any probable older source for A Midsummer Night's Dream, which means it could well be a completely original story by Shakespeare himself.

 

[MetalMagpie]

He's prolific, I'll grant him that. People say he invented a shit tonne of words. I find this unlikely, imagine if you went to a play and half the words were made up and left unexplained. It's much more likely they were in common use conversationally however due to him being so prolific it's likely he was just the first record of them.

Actually, most of the words and phrases he "invented" were combinations/extensions of existing words, so they would have been easy for people to work out (especially in context).

The word "lonely" (first recorded in his plays) is only making an adjective out of the existing word "lone" (in the same way I might invent the opposite word "togetherly"). "Eyeballs" is similarly easy to decipher (both "eye" and "balls" were existing words) as is "hot-blooded".

He was particularly fond of adding "un-" to the start of an existing word to create its opposite. Undress, unhappy, unhelpful, unchanging, unclaimed, uncomfortable, unreal, unlicensed, unmusical, ungoverned and uneducated are all his. He also came up with things like unbosom, unfool and unpremeditated, which didn't catch on.

Shakespeare might not have invented every word that first appears in his works, but he was certainly very flexible with language!

 

[kasperbbs]

Can't say that i enjoyed reading his work, and now that i'm done with school i will never touch it again. The fact taht i had to read his work in a form of awkward Lithuanian translation made f*ck knows when didn't help.

Overrated because it's old, like so many other things in this crazy world.