Poll: Shakespeare, your thoughts?

[CapnDork1337]

The OP doth protest too much, methinks.

Okay, now in all seriousness, I think Shakespeare was pretty bad ass. Yeah he was crude, vulgar and violent, but that was so he could appeal to a wider audience. His stories were still full of very deep insights that can relate to our society today. Also the loop hole for the no man of natural birth shall kill Macbeth, beautiful. And I feel I have to throw in my two cents on this:

Now, I was forced to study "The Bard" far more than I would've liked so far in the Acting program at my University. I have come upon a conclusion: The man's writing was great, but his stories were terrible.
I'll take an example of a play I was in last summer. Twelfth Night. In this play, there is a scene near the end where a twin brother and sister see each other and I, playing Sebastion, the brother had to say, "Do I stand there?"
No. I wasn't standing there, and as her brother, I knew that. We worked quite hard to make the lines sound as if he was playing, not really meaning it, but he did! Shakespeare wrote it in such away that he could mean nothing else! All she did was cut her hair! Would you recognize your twin sister if she cut her hair? Of course you fucking would!

A few things that don't exactly work with your example. Firstly, she would've done a lot more to disguise herself in reality, but for the purposes of this play it would've been to time consuming and I think missed the mark. In keeping her pretty much the same it was like, the physical embodiment of the viewers knowledge that she wasn't who she said she was...if that makes any sense. And second, he does mean that line, but not in the way you're thinking. Obviously he can't be standing there. It's more of a what the fuck is going on line, because in the world of the play she is more well disguised than some cut hair.

 

[The_Deleted]

If you get the chance then look for the Anthony Hopkins film. Fan-bastard-tastic.

"Othello" with Anthony Hopkins as Othello and Bob Hoskins as Iago? I saw that, it was fan-fucking-tastic!

No, he did Titus, too.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Titus_W0QQitemZ260404943078QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_CDsDVDs_DVDs_DVDs_GL?hash=item260404943078&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1687|66%3A2|65%3A12|39%3A1|240%3A1318|301%3A1|293%3A1|294%3A50

You know you want to.

 

[quack35]

He's pretty good. I've only read The Merchant of Venice, but that was pretty entertaining.

 

[comadorcrack]

As much as I love the Bard and his works, I could never vote for him being a literary genius because he really didn't do anything that hadn't been done. Everything he wrote was based of off something from the Greeks.

He is however a great writer and I love all of his plays, most of all Macbeth

 

[ace_of_something]

Nice name OP; Frisky Dingo rules.

I like shakespeare maybe because I was a drama nerd in high school and college though. I played Tybalt, Oberon, and Caliban. Why? Because I'm tall and intimidating so I was usually someone scary or the king of the faeries.

 

[Trivun]

I absolutely love Shakespeare's works! Studying them wasn't too bad, but I wouldn't have minded not studying them. However, I find Shakespeare to be pretty damn amazing. That said, I am a theatre buff anyway...

 

[SomeLameStuff]

When I was forced to study his stuff for English, my opinion of him went from "He's alright" to "Oh GOD! MAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOPMAKEITSTOP!!!"

Read Macbeth fine.

Read Macbeth and King Richard III fair enough.

Read Macbeth and King Richard III + analyze it, now we've dropped into the ocean of shittiness.

But they hit us with read Macbeth and King Richard III + analyze it and write a 1000 word essay on how Shakespeare blah blah and blah, now the ocean of shittiness has closed over our heads with no rescue boat in sight.

Gotta love Yahtzee. Why can't we study his work instead of Shakespeare's?

 

[Galletea]

You really need to see the plays to appreciate them fully, the humour and stories don't really come alive while you're struggling through the oxford edition or whatever, looking at the notes to make sense of half of it.

 

[ZeeClone]

He is good, but you NEED to see the characters performed and performed well or it's just all too dry and flat.

 

[GOATOFRAGE]

I am not into poetry but I appreciate his work. You have to remember that he wrote plays, they were meant to be seen.

This. Reading his plays in class were horrible; Seeing one of his Comedies performed by a decent set of actors is definitely worth a watch.

Its true, luckily my current english teacher is safe so we watched the Al pacino version of Merchant of Venice with full gangster Shylock action

 

[Daniel Cygnus]

I can appreciate his stuff; I really like Macbeth. It's just Ye Olde Eng-lishe that bothers me.

 

[high_castle]

Alright. Maybe it's just the English major in me, but I love Shakespeare. I DO think, however, it can be hard for kids to relate to. When I read Othello in 8th grade, I didn't have a strong grasp on the characters or themes. Rereading it in college, though, I could appreciate the depths much more.

Shakespeare basically helped form the English language as it is today. Yes, he invented many of the words we use today because his common audience wasn't educated and thus wouldn't know if the words he used were real or not. And though he borrowed many ideas for his plays, he had a real gift of narrative.

I find it odd you've complained about his characters, too. I think they're all fleshed-out and very unique. Hamlet is, as some people here know, one of my favorite works of literature. Period. The main character has a very distinct personality and strong emotions. He's also, as so many people forget, only about 18 years old. Which makes his "emo phase" more understandable. This point gets lost when folks like Mel Gibson want to play the roll just because. The same play also brought us the lovingly ironic Polonius, another distinct character. And Hamlet is one of the most-quoted pieces of literature of all time. We can thank the play for, "Never a borrower nor a lender be," "Brevity is the soul of wit," "This be madness, yet there is method in it," "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," "There are more things in Heaven and earth than dreamt of in your philosophy," "What a piece of work is a man," "To be or not to be," "in that sleep of death what dreams may come," "shuffle off this mortal coil," and "Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well." Really, the play is quoted so often, most people don't even know what they're quoting.

 

[pigeon_of_doom]

I agree with most of the people on his thread. Hugely important in his own time, still some relevance today, but as his plays aren't made to be studied they need to be seen on stage.

 

[traceur_]

I despise his works because it's fucking impossible to understand and is totally annoying. On paper I can barely tolerate it and when I see it acted out (in romeo + juliet starring leonardo decaprio) it sends me into a homicidal rage. I can't stand the way he turns a "hello" into 2 paragraphs.

 

[Jharry5]

Yes, I really like his works. Hamlet is possibly my favourite play of all time. I just don't think that the title 'literary genius' is deserved. By all means, he is really good. What I don't get is why he is so highly regarded nowadays? Whilst he was alive, he was one of many playwrights acive in London. For about 100 years after his death, critics didn't react well to his work. So where did this adoration come from?

 

[Same River New Water]

I honestly think the man's overrated.

This reminded me of an essay by George Orwell about Leo Tolstoy's criticism of Shakespeare (whew, that's a lot of big literary names all together!) Basically, Tolstoy dismissed Shakespeare as a hack who got famous by fluke and Orwell tells him why he's wrong, while acknowledging some of Shakespeare's flaws. You might even find it interesting:
http://www.george-orwell.org/Lear,_Tolstoy_and_the_Fool/0.html

virtually every basic storyline can be traced back to one of his plays, and most more complex ones too. (...) when you consider that he barely had a college education and did almost no traveling to speak of, that's not something to take lightly.

I agree he was brilliant, but it's worth remembering that Shakespeare borrowed most if not all of his plots from earlier works. Just to take an example at random, Romeo and Juliet was a remake of an existing story with inspirations drawn from all over the place [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_and_Juliet#Sources].

I've heard some very interesting and convincing theories about who really wrote Shakespeare's plays [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question] since the man himself was so uneducated. I'm partial to Christopher Marlowe, incidentally.