/lit/ - Literature

Read this:

http://orwell.ru/library/essays/lear/english/e_ltf

hiding this thread because it's a troll. if you read this, you know this is a troll thread; if you respond, you're an idiot.

Quite a few great authors were suspicious of Shakespeare worship. G. B. Shaw and Oscar Wilde are the two that come to mind immediately.

>>1960495
The essay is worth reading.

Keep in mind that Tolstoy evaluates Shakespeare as a dramatist, then constructs his aesthetic appeal to what a good dramatist should be only to then later, in the essay, show by example why Shakes does not adhere to the definition.

Tolstoy will tell you what art is in this essay. His definition is very specific, and often excludes authors whom he identifies as good dramatists -- read the essay carefully and you may still get some use out of it.

Tolstoy is the definition of hard tack for 2011 readers, so quoting him to condemn Shakespeare, in whom people continue to find delight, is pretty perverse.

>>1960502

>people aren't allowed to hold opinions

>>1960502
People will respond to pretty much every thread posted here, because even though it is an easily recognizable troll, /lit/ has opinions and they just gotta fucking sound them off.

I wouldn't say /lit/ is easy to troll, because most of /lit/ can identify one. I'd say /lit/ is too opinionated to let retarded dogs lie.

If you look at /fit/, when they see a troll there will maybe be one person who responds, but the thread quickly sinks to the backpages. Not here. No, not here.

Troll thread, but I'll throw in my $0.02.

Shakespeare is revered so highly partly because so much of English literature can be traced back to him through mimesis. He is ranked the highest partly because our ranking system is based on his work. To condemn his writing, you would need to use a perception from outside English literature.

Perhaps this is why a great Russian writer would not see anything special in Shakespeare's writing. Tolstoy disliking Shakespeare does not make Shakespeare objectively inferior, it just means that Tolstoy does not come from a point-of-view that puts value into Shakespeare's merits. Just like us seeing him as the greatest in English writing only means that we have formed a literature based on Shakespeare's writing values.

NUANCED THINKING?!?!?! WHAT?!!?!?!

>>1960601
I don't necessarily agree with Tolstoy assessment, but you should read the essay before making assumptions.

He outlines why he thinks Shakespeare has become the idol he is today, and I do agree with him on this point -- it is largely due to the Germans. Read the essay and then let me know what you think about this.

>>1960607
I read the essay in a class a while back. Tolstoy, as great a writer as he is, is not quite as talented at literary history and criticism as he is at fiction.

I think Mimesis explains Shakespeare's position in English literature perfectly well, and also explains Tolstoy's dislike for Shakespeare. Of course Tolstoy tried to find his own explanation for his opinions, but his scope was limited by his culture, which is why he had that opinion of Shakespeare in the first place.

It's a perfectly consistent and reasonable way to look at it, as long as you're willing to admit Tolstoy was wrong. His dislike of Shakespeare wasn't wrong and was in fact absolutely reasonable for a Russian writer, but his attempts to justify that opinion were misguided.

>>1960630
The Germans adoption of Shakespeare well after the Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists had gone out of style in England has nothing to do with Russia, its culture or the authors it has turned out.

Tolstoy's essay, for the most part, is extremely tied down to the culture which produced it, but his historical tracing of Shakespeare's popularity is spot on. Whether or not the critical agent keeping the public's attention is mimesis is irrelevant (although I do agree this is his major attraction). At one point in time a group of people actually had to consider him great for reasons x and y, and it is this that Tolstoy so adroitly addresses.

But finally the most striking thing is how little difference it all makes. As I said earlier, one cannot answer Tolstoy's pamphlet, at least on its main counts. There is no argument by which one can defend a poem. It defends itself by surviving, or it is indefensible. And if this test is valid, I think the verdict in Shakespeare's case must be ‘not guilty’. Like every other writer, Shakespeare will be forgotten sooner or later, but it is unlikely that a heavier indictment will ever be brought against him. Tolstoy was perhaps the most admired literary man of his age, and he was certainly not its least able pamphleteer. He turned all his powers of denunciation against Shakespeare, like all the guns of a battleship roaring simultaneously. And with what result? Forty years later Shakespeare is still there completely unaffected, and of the attempt to demolish him nothing remains except the yellowing pages of a pamphlet which hardly anyone has read, and which would be forgotten altogether if Tolstoy had not also been the author of War and Peace and Anna Karenina.

>>1960650
True, Tolstoy's aesthetic definition means very little, and one should be wary of it. I addressed this here: >>1960548

His historical research, though, is another beast and I believe himself and several other historians are spot on when they give credit to the Germans for reviving an interest in Shakespeare.

>>1960601
Interesting post, but there are plenty of English writers who think him overrated.
Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down. He had no invention as to stories, none whatever. He took all his plots from old novels, and threw their stories into a dramatic shape, at as little expense of thought as you or I could turn his plays back again into prose tales. -Byron

>>1960654
It's cute that you were convinced, but it's bullshit. Go eat a cunt.

>>1960664
This is true, but I always thought it was his language that was the best thing about his plays. I think he had a knack for getting the best out of pre-existing stories.

>>1960674

This. I don't think anyone praises Shakespeare for his originality.

>>1960667
Yes, it could be bullshit, but I've never come across a text that challenges it. All of the information is historical, and is traced back through essays by big names like Goethe and much smaller philosophers and such. The rest of the theory is gathered from letters and general notions about the death of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama as a public interest.

It seems like you've read something, or a group of somethings, which I have not. Do you mind sharing it, so I may be cleansed of this bullshit?

>>1960630
>his scope was limited by his culture

>>1960649
>extremely tied down to the culture which produced it

Ah yes, environmental influence. Very useful thing to invoke when you disagree with writers of the past, but can't condemn the writer as a whole. "Oh, he was good with X, and very modern in his opinions on Y, but his opinions on Z were hopelessly antiquated, clearly just the unfortunate and accidental influence of a barbarous generation on his mind. We can safely dismiss those bad opinions, as they're not really that great writer's own, because bluh bluh bluh."

>>1960719
Not at all, rather his culture does influence his ideology, and both himself and the culture except full responsibility for it.

There was no accusation made of using any of this as an excuse. What exactly is the argument your point is detracting from?

If the "emperor's new clothes" situation exists with anyone, it is Tolstoy himself. I've read every one of his works and it fucking sucked. There was no emotional resonance, the characters were dull, the plot and dialogue packed zero punch - if Tolstoy thinks that's good writing no wonder he can't appreciate Shakespeare.

>>1960870
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess you read Tolstoi in English.

>>1960695
>Yes, it could be bullshit, but I've never come across a text that challenges it.
how about the second post in this thread

>>1960891
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Tolstoy read Shakespeare in Russian.

>>1960927
Wrong.

Tolstoy could read/speak something like 14 different languages, and English was one of them.

He says in his essay that he read the Bard in English.

Sorry Tolstoy, no need to be jealous because you don't match up to the greatest writer of all time. You're still good and all.

>>1960933
You can't fully appreciate Shakespeare unless English is your mother tongue.

>>1960927
>>1960933

i lol'd

>>1960945
Oh, my sweet Lord.

Full. Retard. You just went.

Shakespeare did not write his works to be read. They were meant to be seen; the First Folio was only published after he died. And if you've ever seen a GOOD production of one of his plays - by the Royal Shakespeare Company, for instance, or at The Globe - you will not see a single person, not even the most sceptical Shakespeare reader, leave disappointed, bored or unconvinced. Shakespeare wrote theatre: master actors and directors can still enthrall with his work.

Furthermore, his reputation, popularity with academics (the Arden edition of Hamlet suggests that 400 books a YEAR are written about Hamlet alone), the adaptability of his plays (The Lion King, the upcoming Coriolanus) and his immense influence on the English language and worldwide culture suggest he is one of the greatest writers of all time.

>>1960776
>>Not at all, rather his culture does influence his ideology, and both himself and the culture except full responsibility for it.
You're separating his feelings - "he thinks the Shakester is bad and that's OK" - from his opinions "(...) is bad because of X, and his reasoning is wrong and merely cultural."
What reason or standard of criticism cannot be interpreted as a cultural product? Yet his reasoning is wrong and 'cultural', but your own is... absent, basically due to the modern neurosis about having string opinions, but as long as you call his standards wrong and culturally subjective, you're implying the existence of your own universally objective counter-standards.
I haven't been paying too much attention to the discussion, so meh, I might have you wrong.

>>1960952
Non-native English speaker detected. Enjoy your inferior understanding of Shakespeare.

You simply cannot understate the importance of a writer's cultural background when you approach his writings. A great part of the reason why Joseph Conrad and Tolstoi himself are so well regarded in Anglo-american contexts is that the outlook, perspective, and worldview that they present in their works is fundamentally NOT that of Western European author, and as such we find their works fascinating.

I do not find the idea that Tostoi's dislike of Shakespeare is a negative manifestation of the dissonance between their cultures to be absurd.

>>1960955
>Furthermore, his reputation, popularity with academics...the adaptability of his plays...and his immense influence on the English language and worldwide culture suggest he is one of the greatest writers of all time.

Or, at least, one of the most interesting.

>>1960955
>you will not see a single person, not even the most sceptical Shakespeare reader, leave disappointed, bored or unconvinced.
That's true. Usually after lesser plays there are people standing around the lobby making soliloquies on the subject of their disappointment, or engaging in furious public condemnation of those other playwrights whose fans are automatically considered to be sophisticated and those detractors are automatically considered to be boors, but never with Shakespeare.

>>1960955
Dubs speaks the truth. Good stuff, anon.

I don't get it. Why do people on /lit/ hate Shakespeare so much?

>>1960988
I didn't say "never with Shakespeare"; in fact I've seen a lot of awful performances of his work. I said that a good company, such as the RSC, gets universal or near-universal praise from audiences.

>>1961024
most of us don't, but those who do dislike shakespeare suffer from "omg am i dumb for not liking the highest acclaimed writer of all time? academics must be wrong" etc

>>1961024
I just think he is overrated. Additionally, I had to read 8 of his plays in high school and always felt as though Shakespeare worship was putting blinders on my education.

>>1960501
literally nobody in this thread has responded to this and I find that absurd

>>1961188
It's because nobody gives a shit what a political journalist thinks about writers.


>>1960650
> Forty years later

Best part of your wind.

>>1961702

My... wind?

Macbeth is the greatest work of fiction ever written.

Shakespeare's tragedies are good. Some of his histories are good. His comedies suck balls though, if you aren't some theatre poof.

>>1961715

Yeah, your wind and piss.