The "I Hate Shakespeare" Thread.

[jocky]

Athiest you are being naughty, and dare I say it, a tad controversial, which is not always a bad thing. Lets face it the Bard has a few faults, in particular, overdoing it with the puns, but racism, never. You know the inherent dangers of identifying the artist with his subject matter. If we take your argument to its logical conclusion, then Shakespeare is a supporter of infanticide, regecide, wife murder, to name but a few. Overrated, perhaps, but I cant go with your racist theory. Still if it gets people thinking then your argument is not a bad thing. See you back on the blokes thread. Jocky.

[gbrekken]

I think some of Petrarch's sonnets might be in order now.

I do think you've underestimated the role of figures of speech in what I will call some classic literature: imagine Homer, bible etc. We've lost much in the last 2500 years.

How do I get back to that "thread".

[JBI]

I do think you've underestimated the role of figures of speech in what I will call some classic literature: imagine Homer, bible etc. We've lost much in the last 2500 years.

What about figures of speech? Are we talking in the Quintillian sense of how Shakespeare is rooted more in rennaissance schemes and tropes? It pays reading in that way, no doubt, but to say we've lost them - well maybe people have lost how to use them, but we certainly haven't lost them in formal writing to this date.

[gbrekken]

What about figures of speech? Are we talking in the Quintillian sense of how Shakespeare is rooted more in rennaissance schemes and tropes? It pays reading in that way, no doubt, but to say we've lost them - well maybe people have lost how to use them, but we certainly haven't lost them in formal writing to this date.

You are right. it is the use of them that has fallen into disrepair. "formal writing to this date" does not refer to our understanding of the past, let alone what the language is developing now. You could probable recognize polysyndeton and asyndeton, but do you know why the author used it at that point. The intent must be there for it to be meaningfully received. But if there are no manufacturers of meaning around, then we don't even exist.

[kelby_lake]

Straying from the anti - Semitic comments and focusing on opinions and Shakespeare.

I view Shakespeare's work like the people who the plays were originally written for. The plays written to be performed as just that, plays. A means for entertainment. And I personally do not enjoy his work. That being said, perhaps my opinion is more "valid" than the person ripping his work to shreds an analyzing the hell out of it. Because as the core of all of it, tragedy or comedy - they were a source of entertainment.

? The plays are entertaining. Sure, you need to be familiar with the language but it's like watching a film in French and saying 'Oh, that was boring' just because you didn't understand the language.

Anyway, his work is so varied...I'm sure you like at least one of his plays.

[jocky]

Enjoy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=69AvNm!

[Virgil]

Enjoy

www.youtube.com/watch?v=69AvNm!

I don't see anything there related to Shakespeare.

[jocky]

I don't see anything there related to Shakespeare.

I know, I am trying to figure out how to post a song and thought I would practice on a dead thread. I take it didn't work then? " How all occasions do inform against me..." Your thick Scottish pal Jocky.

[jocky]

Try this; www.youtube.com/69AvNm Clearly that didn't work either. " O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw and resolve itself into a dew ! Virgil, " Thou art a scholar " Could you post the Proclaimers 500 Miles live in Edinburgh to the Blokes thread and tell Mick I saw him and his flag.

[MorpheusSandman]

I must say, I just read through this thread in its entirety and it was really quite interesting; more so before it veered off into endless ad hominem, vacuous dismissals and blatant hypocrisy. I may take some time and write up something fairly definitive about my stance on the appraisal of art's value and how it is inextricably tied to various contexts and how rating it from outside that context is really erroneous.

[Lykren]

I think the discussion in this thread has not sufficiently served to reinforce the fact that Shakespeare is celebrated not for his ideals or opinions but simply for the aesthetic beauty of his language - for the wonderment which comes upon us when we read words which seem to evoke something transcendent as though it were a memory of something physical.

For example, this:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them—Ding-dong, bell.

does not need an ideology attached to it to make it into something as miraculous as what it describes. Nor does this

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

lose relevance over time; all humans have felt despair; despair lives within us, and Shakespeare, in the speech above, was able not just to communicate that fact (which would have been unnecessary, as we all know it to be true from birth), but to give us a way of seeing the immortal problem anew, to remind us in such a way that we could never again forget. The stark simplicity and drama of his rhetorical technique here illuminate the fact of despair so well because he combines metaphors which are both tangible and vivid, yet truthfully mimic a confused mind's frantic search for meaning. In this way he gives us both sides of the coin, allowing us to empathize with Macbeth's pain, but also to feel a kind of objectivity, in that he has depicted the pain so well that we seem to be looking at it from the outside.


Hey, I'm over four years too late! Oh well.