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".
Justin Bieber is (according to Google trends) more popular than Jesus and a lot more popular than Shakespeare. Yet I call Justin Bieber overrated. Just because something sells well it doesn't mean it can't be overrated, in fact that's the definition of overrated. When you call people ignorant for considering him overrated then you prove that you're quite ignorant yourself.
OT: Personally I haven't really read much of Shakespeare, but I've seen some plays and well, there have been some good, some brilliant, some bad and some terrible. However it's not really my cup of tea. The thing is that Shakespeare's work can be interpreted in ways to make it stay relevant even now. To be able to accomplish that you have to be pretty good.
Sure he's overrated, but that doesn't mean his stuff isn't good.
Shakespeare is to world culture what Valve is to the Escapist!
In all seriousness i have to say i do like quite a lot of Shakespeare's works, but they are certainly being held a bit too high when we're at the point where you sudenly validate yourself as an intellectual being by quoting him in a single conversation.
I suppose i just enjoy his stories a lot because they feel so well told. He didn't become one of the most famous wordsmiths in history by drooling on a piece of paper.
Overrated.
Shoot me.
Sure, you can find him amazing if you want, doesn't make him the best author of all time that everybody should watch and love, or else be counted as uneducated and the literature equivalent of CoD players [The group gamers generally scapegoat for anything uneducated, or to do with streamlining and such].
He may be good, but don't expect me to love him. He's boring. He can't hold the attention of most people I know for more than 5 minutes with his works. Other great writers existed in his time, existed since his time, and exist today - and few people worship them as much as some worship Shakespeare.
Personal taste, is all I have to say. Of the few people I know that actually like Shakespeare, most believe he completely transcends personal taste, and is great no matter what you like, and if you don't think you like him, you just don't get it and need to read it again. Seriously, they're like Bioware and the ME3 ending. People like that, who give him the "God of all writing" rating, are the reason I find him overrated. Otherwise, he's just mediocre.
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".
I'm pretty sure that Shakespeare's status as human history's number 1 bestseller is first and foremost a result of his books having been regularily purchased wholesale by schools, colleges and public libraries for centuries - which, in turn, is a result of them being overrated.
As has been pointed out previously, Shakespeare's work was never intended to be art. He was merely trying to write stuff that the general public would pay money to see on a stage. Murder + mayhem + forbidden love = profit.
Certainly, his work is generally well-written and entertaining, but that's all there is to it. Those who insist on scouring those ancient pages for hidden symbolism and alternative meanings, are simply missing the point. We might as well be making school kids study the Harry Potter series.
His plots aren't great but his skill with the english language is utterly superb. He can use it so masterful and make even the most basic sentence a delight to hear.
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.
He created a shit load of plays and poems, and almost all of them are considered masterpieces by his times standard, which is a pretty good achievement.
He invented well over 2 trillion words. True story. I kid, somewhere around the 2000 mark I think, I can't really remember.
Obviously you can't compare him to poets and playwrights today, because they're in totally different leagues. And you need to know, that poems and plays where the fucking biggest deal ever back then. They had no other form of media entertainment, that was it.
In the same way you can't compare Michaelangelo's helicopter drawing with an actual helicopter schematic. But you still know that Michaelangelo was a fucking genius.
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".
For something to be overrated it would have to be popular and critically acclaimed...
Plus, just because many people like Shakespeare doesn't mean it's actually great. Again, kind of the definition of overrated.
Basically what people are doing is the opposite of what you're saying: they see how incredibly popular Shakespeare's writing is but are arguing that may not be justified.
I'm not sure I agree. While I don't think his works are better than contemporary works, his influence on later works is undeniable and for its time it's quite magnificent. To put it in differently: his achievement is extraordinary, his works aren't (that is, not anymore).
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.
He is certainly the most influential writer in the English language but influential doesn't always translate into good(think twilight(no i am not comparing shakespear with twilight just using it as an analogy))but it is beyond my experience to pass judgement on the quality of his works(though I would offer that his characters often seem to me a lot less organic or real than what I expect from modern literature though that is mainly the language style used) so I guess I will go with classic.
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.
Zhukov said:
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.
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.
He's ok, but I absolutley LOATHE the writing style.
I've only read Macbeth and already that has put me off from reading any more of that dribble. I only understood what was going on when we watched a film adaptation of the play in class and by looking up plot details online when revising for an essay paper. Sure enough, the story was OK. Infact it's kind of enjoyable. But the writing made things far too irritating to understand and I have no idea who's done what or where they are before the first murder happens
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.
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!
Craorach said:
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.
LHZA said:
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.)
Raven said:
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:
Robert Ewing said:
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.
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