/lit/ - Literature

Marlowe Death Conspiracy, Earl of Oxford, Breakspeare. You're favourite theory?

Favourite play?
Favourite poem?

>>3068563
I think they are all pretty stupid, to be honest. I guess I would most like the Marlowe one but really it's impossible. If you read both Marlowe and Shakespeare you see immediately how unalike they are.

Any advice for someone wanting to do a comparative literature MA?

>>3068565
I guess my favorite play right now would have to be Cymbeline. It's fascinating because it contains allusions to literally every single previous Shakespeare play, just they are distorted and sort of humorous, like he was intentionally fucking with critics.

There is this sonnet that I love more than anything but I can't remember which damn number it is. Hold on I'm looking it up.

Ok. Why Shakespeare? Yawn...had a billion academics stroke his prose.

Cliche.

>>3068578
Hm, I don't know what advice I could give you really... Other than read a lot. And try to practice memorizing exact quotes - just quotes you like or really famous ones. It's a great asset to anyone studying literature but I guess especially one who will be looking for connections and references between works.

Does it worry you that so much has already been written about Shakespeare?

I'm studying there OP. Can we meet up for sex?

>>3068583
That's kind of the best part. Beyond Shakespeare himself is an entire world of critical and artistic thought inspired by him, and the history of Shakespearean studies is really the history of Western culture as a whole. Every era (and reader) projects itself onto him and interprets things very differently. And with countless film/stage adaptations coming out every year, this trend is only growing.

>>3068587
No, see
>>3068594
It's honestly a lot of fun to partake in one of the most expansive and long-running conversations in artistic history.

I'm an expert on Shakespeare and that's a helluva lot...but the world don't need scholars as much as I thought...

>>3068593
Nice, what are you studying?

>>3068597
Are these song lyrics or something?

>>3068601
a quick search on the googles will tell you that the lyrics are taken from a song by the indefatigable Jamie Cullum

>>3068600
Modern languages. I should be in a lecture right now but I have crippling depression and anxiety. The psychological services here are quite good though.

>>3068594
Perhaps...at first, but now, Shakespeare is for plebs who like to think they are cultured. As is Joyce. Contemporary writing is at peril because of this fascination with dead (safe) authors.

England is a funny place. I hear you can get a master's on the Beatles these days :D. Anyway, good luck with your career.

>>3068609

How much does it cost?

>>3068615
Can we be friends?

>>3068615

You're right, England is a funny place.

In which specific parts of Shakespeare's oeuvre do you feel that there is some connections, resonance, or similarity to Montaigne as Shakespeare would have read it in Florio's translation.

Also, what do Oxonians insist on spelling it as, is it Shakesper? What's that based on? What he called that by someone?

>>3068617
Nope. Not trolling. You go right ahead and say how much you love WS whenever someone with real taste asks if you like poetry or theatre.

>>3068619
I'm interested in this. I want to do a master in England and I could get an idea from it. I did my final dissertation at university about Shakespeare

>>3068603
What is googles

>>3068606
Maybe we shouldn't have sex. You sound like a clinger.

>>3068609
I wouldn't say this is true exactly. Culture has always had an obsession with the past, a la Homer and the ancient world in general. Although it is true that it's only a recent development that culture believes its greatest literary accomplishments are behind us. Which is an unfortunate outlook.

>>3068615
I wouldn't be surprised. They seem to love the Beatles here. And James Bond. And literally everything us Americans (yes I'm from America) think true of the stereotypical British person.

>>3068619
It's costing my like $50,000 to get my masters degree. Which is honestly cheaper than almost every well ranked American university. Plus it will only take me one year here.

>>3068629

Shakespeare has been adored by people across an enormously wide range of intellect and education for hundreds of years. The fact that you think his work has recently become 'pleb fodder' is quite telling.

>>3068628
Very specific question... Montaigne's influence on Shakespeare is an interesting topic, and beyond some of the actual A to B relationships (the Tempest makes use of portions of Montaigne's "On Cannibals" for instance), I think the general probing psychology in much of Shakespeare (Hamlet comes to mind) is very Montaignian (is that a word?)

I have no idea who spells it that way, but we do have actual signatures in Shakespeare's hand and he spells his own name several different ways, that being one of them. There was no standardization is spelling at that time.

>>3068636
>Maybe we shouldn't have sex. You sound like a clinger.

Shakespeare criticism is by and large an index of things not worth saying about Shakespeare.

He has a massive vocabulary, a command of differing high and low styles, and most importantly there's no biography we have that could "explain" his work away. In other words, he's still a mystery in a way that Dante (who did meet Beatrice and wrote from that inspiration) or Joyce (who did meet Nora and immortalized the day she first gave him a handjob) are not. Because we figure, oh Dante or Joyce did it for a girl they loved and lost or didn't lose, or whatever.

Hence, the authorship debate. Freud thought the plays were written by the Earl of Oxford. Walt Whitman and Mark Twain believed the Bacon theory. HELEN FUCKING KELLER believed the plays were written by Francis Bacon. (See the new book by Shapiro, "Contested Will", if you doubt me.)

You want to know my theory?

One English writer gets to be the most famous writer of all time. His name? Shakespeare (or so they say).

Meanwhile, 400+ years earlier, the only Englishman ever to be elected Pope gets elected as Pope. He promptly uses his powers to give Ireland to the King of England, which says a lot about the Papacy and about Irish Catholics. What was his name?

Well, Pope Adrian IV. The only English Pope. Look it up. His real name was Breakspeare.

Obviously Shakespeare was some kind of pen name. Obviously there is a conspiracy. I just find it hilarious that it's only within the past 10 years or so that people have started to suggest (based on the "Shake-shafte" found in a Catholic recusant household during Shakespeare's lost years) that Shakespeare might have been Catholic. DUH. Joyce noticed this, Antony Burgess noticed this, they both knew about Shakespeare / Breakspeare. They just had better things to write than more fapping over the supposedly greatest writer of all time.

Pic related: It's Hamlet's Uncle, the Roman who conquered Britannia and was deified there.

>not going to Warwick instead
How foolish.

>>3068646
What do you think, specifically, about the theory that Florio was the author of Shakespeare? Do you have any specific thoughts on this? We've all heard all the general things said against the authorship question.

Florio had probably met Montaigne, definitely met Giordiano Bruno and Galileo, and various other European intellectuals; he was Italian and so natively explains the influential tradition of Chaucer->Boccaccio->Shakespeare; he fills out the shoes of the well-travelled 'Aristocrat' quite well.

>>3068636
>$50,000

Just the Masters Degree or the Masters + Accomodation, etc?

>>3068651
Very interesting and suggestive post.

>>3068671

I can't take credit for it. It was posted by a fellow claiming to not be Bill Murray some years ago. I just wanted to repeat it for whatever reason.

>>3068658

Fuck yeah Warwick. I'm a 2nd year!

>>3068662
>>>3068636
>>$50,000
>Just the Masters Degree or the Masters + Accomodation, etc?

>>3068660
The trouble with many shakespeare theories is that it simply works better if you assume Shakey was actually the author. Take Othello, it was created after a visit to England by the Moorish ambassador who Shakey happened to have seen in person; a lot of the alternate options don't have the same experience in their history

Do you have an interests in literature outside of Shakespeare and English lit? Other areas of Europe, or Asia maybe?

>>3068555
Why did Shakespeare steal all his shit from another playwright? Did he completely lack talent and standards?

>>3068555

Why did you waste five years of your life?

>>3068774
Interesting touch with the Moorish ambassador, but it's not hard for [well travelled aristocrat x] to have been to Africa, and southern Europe is more in touch with Africa than England.

>>3068606
Spain?

>>3068606
Are you female?

I'm having a crisis of hetrosexuality at the moment.

>the history of Shakespearean studies is really the history of Western culture as a whole

This seems like an overstatement. Do you think you could make it more convincing by offering some evidence?

QUESTIONS:

1: How much of Shakespeare studies is read by those outside academia?

2: Are there important unsolved problems in the field? Do you think there are important results to be gained from studying Shakespeare in the future, or is the primary value simply different cultures reinterpreting his work?

3: How much of Shakespeare studies consists of people inferring story details that are not at all present in the story?

For example, some people wrongly thought the Lord of the Rings was about counter culture during the 60's. Every Shakespeare page on Wikipedia seems to have an entry about how the male characters are probably gay. How much of your peers publications are just rubbish?

4: Do you think that Shakespeare was the greatest writer ever? Do you think that well written modern works, such as novels, poetry, films and television deserve equal scrutiny? If so, why should these studies be conducted by academics in the University system as opposed to hobbyists on blogs or in clubs.

5: What are your job prospects? Intending to pursue a career in the university?

Forgive me if I come off overly critical OP, I don't dislike you as a person. But I do think that your field is the Elizabethan equivalent of forums dedicated to the obsessive discussion of Breaking Bad.

>>3068855
You don't recognise differences of quality between Shakespeare & Breaking Bad?

What a fucking pleb.

>>3068862
Ignoring quality debates that come from setting up individual examples against Willy, consider breaking bad a stand in for modern writing that may be considered as well written as Shakespeare.

I don't think anyone is going to say that Shakespeare is obviously the best writer ever, but we'll step in that pile of crap when we come to it.

why did you make this thread again

favorite quotes. last 2 or 3 things you highlighted or underlined.

>>3068679
Fuck yeah Warwick. I'm a 3rd year!

Who's your tutor this year?

>>3068555
Who's your tutor this year, OP?

>>3068870
>Shakespeare is obviously the best writer ever

In the English language, to me he is.

Did you know that Ol' Shakie came up with the Freudian concept of Id, Ego and Superego centuries before Freud?

Just look up the lunatic, the lover and the poet.

>$50,000 to study shakespeare for 3 years
my palm just exploded through my face at the speed of sound. enjoy getting a job.

>Shakespeare intentionally writes in various styles to convince researchers centuries after his death that he was in fact three different people. Bard as fuck.

>>3068609
>amen

Does OP include David Foster Wallace in this group?