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/lit/ - Literature

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19298038 No.19298038 [Reply] [Original]

Why is Shakespeare considered literature when all you're doing is reading the scripts to his plays? By that metric, isn't Avengers: Endgame literature? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the quality of his writing, but it's like reading the sheet music of some great classical work and thinking that you've really experienced the work in any way. Study of the sheet music should only be supplemental, to increase your understanding of the work itself.
When does a play stop being a play and start being its script? When does a script become its play? Is a play only a play when it's being performed?

>> No.19298160

>>19298038
Shakespeare wrote more than just plays; his 100+ sonnets are all very good as well

>> No.19298202

>>19298038
Shakespeare was a poet and his plays are extremely good literature. That’s part of why he caught on, you might not be able to see any given play, but you can read whatever. And if you’re gonna read a play, you better read a play worth reading

>> No.19298218

>>19298038
>it's like reading the sheet music of some great classical work and thinking that you've really experienced the work in any way.
It's not the same at all. That's a profoundly poor comparison.

>> No.19299363

>>19298038
You're supposed to watch the plays.

>> No.19300637
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19300637

>>19298038
>it's like reading the sheet music of some great classical work
Music is fundamentally a passive media where you experience something being actively produced for your benefit. Literature is interactive and you rely on what you bring to the table in order to interact with the text in real-time.

Watching a performance of one of Shakespeare's plays means witnessing someone's (or multiple people's) interpretation of the work. Reading one of his plays means you have to flesh out the complexities of the character/story for yourself. Ambiguities still come through with most performances of Shakespeare's work (the depth of which are one of the main reasons he's hailed as the GOAT) but watching his plays is still much more restrictive than experiencing his work as an active medium via reading.

To underscore this, think about how watching one of Shakespeare's plays is enhanced by knowing the plot and summary character sketches beforehand. The idea of "spoilers" doesn't apply to his work.

>> No.19300659

>>19300637
Your pic is the most midwit shit i have ever seen. There is no hierarchy of the senses that place an auditory experience over a visual one in value. Whoever made that started from the premise that music is higher brow than film and worked backwards to justify it.

>> No.19300697

>>19298038
>By that metric, isn't Avengers: Endgame literature?
Well technically yes, just not very good literature. A postcard is literature too. People don't read the Avengers: Endgame script because the artistic value in the film is in the visuals and acting.

As for Shakespeare, visuals and acting are a very minor part of what makes a play like Hamlet great, considering how those were in their technical infancy in the Early Modern period. What is great about Shakespeare is the literature qua literature. Quite frankly I don't enjoy seeing Shakespeare performed. The language is too difficult to be delivered well, and the characters are never portrayed as multisidedly as they appear on the page. A performance is just not a very good substitute for imaginative reading.

>> No.19300737

>>19300659
That's not the point retard. I can't believe you were filtered by a meme.

>> No.19301068
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19301068

>>19300659
>There is no hierarchy of the senses that place an auditory experience over a visual one
Jesus fucking Christ dude, the primary artistic argument of the Baroque period was about the hierarchy of the senses. Apollo and Daphne is a philosophical argument on exactly that theme. Maybe learn your history before expressing your retarded opinions.