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/lit/ - Literature

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1907605 No.1907605 [Reply] [Original]

I've been lurking this board for a while and it occurred to me that the "classics" keep popping up but no one ever really seems to mention Shakespeare.

What does /lit/ think about Shakespeare, I personally think If someone where to write like him today he'd be labeled a pretentious fuck and he'd simply not be dumbed down enough for the masses i.e. using too high of a register and having too complex characters.

Shakespeare seems to have been limited to academia who write essays upon eassays on hamlet e.c.t. or use him quote harvesting and teenagers on the British/Irish secondary school curriculum (not sure about other countries). Nobody seems to really read it for the mere joy of it.

>> No.1907612

How does it feel to be wrong on basically all counts? /lit/ moves slow, two hours doesn't constitute "a while". We have Shakespeare threads all the time.

>> No.1907608

Think you have a piont.

But to write like shakespeare you would have to re define how language is observed. As he is credited as doing....

>> No.1907631

>>1907612

After reading your post I skimmed the last 15 pages, about 5 threads about LOTR then their are a few "classics", to kill a mocking bird e.c.t., lots of George Orwell mentioning, and lots of that dance of the dragons book, not a single Shakespeare this is similar to what I tend to see here.

So no, I don't think I'm wrong.

>> No.1907639

I specifically remember a big discussion about whether Shakespeare was better read or seen. And another about...yawn...if he really wrote his plays or someone else did blah blah...

captcha: the smesso

>> No.1907641

>>1907605
Shakespeare is one of the most read (and watched) playwrights of all time. His plays are always being performed somewhere, whether it be a high school or broadway.

you're a fucking dumbass. He did write poems, but you can read all the sonnets in an hour if you want. He mostly wrote plays, which are meant to be performed and not read. You are not as smart as you think you are.

>> No.1907649

>e.c.t.
tehe

>>1907631
It's summer, everything is worse in the summer.

>> No.1907650

Shakespeare was written for the masses. Most people find him difficult to read because they can't into early modern English. Then he is forced down our throats in high school, where nobody is expected to enjoy it because of the early modern English, thus strengthening the perception that the bard (and anyone who enjoys reading him) is a pretentious fuck.

>> No.1907653

>>1907650
Shakespeare is amazingly easy to understand when performed by a competent troupe of actors.

It's meant to be read aloud not read on the page. You also don't know what you're talking about and should probably stop posting.

>> No.1907656

1. /lit/ talks about Shakespeare all the time. A few days ago it impressed me to see three Shakespeare threads in the first page.

2. Shakespeare is fun to read and plays on multiple levels. It's just retarded to think of the possibility of his works being published today, first because one of the things that make people think he is distant is the distance in time from us. And I realize he was a high standard even at the time, his plays were never meant to be intuitive and easy on the actors. Second because everything that we know as literature from the past four hundred years use Shakespeare somehow, there is no way to imagine Hamlet being published today as something new.

>> No.1907659

>>1907656
What the fuck are you talking about? Shakespeare's been done, of course they can't publish him as a new thing again?

What the fuck kind of hypothetical world is this?

>> No.1907662

>>1907659
The one OP invented. What you said is exactly what I mean.

>> No.1907667

>>1907608

Can you tell me more about how he redefined how language was observed? I'm not sure I catch your drift, but it sounds interesting.

>> No.1907675
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1907675

always preferred Marlowe, but i still have a lot of love for Macbeth and Hamlet, King Lear not so much, and i never really liked his comedies or histories,

i always felt that his work needed too much interpretation (Hermeneutics) theory applied to it to make it fully understood, and that this detracted from the enjoyment of it, especially when it's usually read lots of times and seen only one or two times by the average person.

but yeah, definitely made to be seen and read aloud, rather than read off paper.

Brownbear exits chased by a bear.

>> No.1907678

>>1907641

You say in your post he's the most read playwright and then jump on to say he's not meant to be read. The truth is his works are being sold in the form of a book hence literature.

If the compulsory high school Shakespeare is taken out of the equation, I'd doubt he's the most read author in this day and age. Heck I could probably safely claim more people have read and seen harry potter.

>> No.1907684
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1907684

>>1907678
>>1907678

he is the most read playwright but his plays are also one of the most seen. Although you can read them that i not as good as seeing them be performed (as long as it isn't some fucking modernisation of the play, 99% of the times those FUCKING SUCK and i get mad as fuck.)

>Heck I could probably safely claim more people have read and seen harry potte

across the entire history of Literature or this year?

i bet more people in the last 3 years read The Da Vinci Code than Macbeth, that means nothing because the Da Vinci Code will not still be being read 20 years from now.

>> No.1907686

>>1907678
I meant read aloud, bro.

Also, in my high school lit class we read Romeo and Juliet aloud. Even my dumbass classmates could figure out what was going on when we did that.

>> No.1907695

>>1907686
>>1907686

we read it aloud and watched that god-awful leo dicaprio film adaptation.

fucking hell that was torture, we must have seen it about 5 times

>> No.1907697

>>1907675

>exit, PERSUED by a bear.

One thing which has always interested me about Shakespeare is how that stage direction from The Winter's Tale would have been originally performed.

Do you think they'd have just dressed an actor in furs or a costume? There could be some possibility that the theatre might have acquired a knackered old bear from a bear-baiting pit to wearily chase the actor around the stage.

>> No.1907701

>>1907697
>>1907697

i thought it was 'exeunt' too
but i simplified it because i couldn't totally remember

>Do you think they'd have just dressed an actor in furs or a costume?
i always wondered this too, i know they had bear baiting pits outside the Globe, but i mean what are the chances they would have gotten away with using an actual bear before someone got injured or killed?

i think it was probably a guy in costume, but i really do wish they used a bear

>> No.1907716

>>1907686


Just the gist of it or in actual depth, everyone quickly understands romeo and Juliet is about two lovers ect... But then to get the proper meaning of Shakespeare play is much harder;To grasp every soliloquy, to understand the allusions, the mental state of the characters at any given time.

I think most "modern" people aren't able anymore, not because they are "dumbasses" but simply because they don't put in the effort. They want to digest easy vocabulary, shallow stereotypical characters and an happy ending.

And that's why I think literature as great as shakespeare's will never be given a chance again (assuming someone could provide it)

>> No.1907715

>>1907701

It's not exuent, because that's plural - there's only one person persued, Antigonus IIRC. The story I heard was that there was a bear-pit next door to the globe, and Shakespeare worked it in as either a) a shout out to the bear guys, a kind of early modern "After the show, why not visit Mumtaz' House of Tandoori, only 100 yards from this cinema" or b) Shakespeare lost a bet and as a forfeit had to include a bear in his next play. The consensus was that it was almost certainly a real bear. And I will not be shaken from that belief - the idea of dangerous, starved, tortured wild animals pursuing actors around the globe is too delicious an image to give up.

>> No.1907717

>>1907697
>>1907715
Most scholars believe it was an actual bear from the bear baiting pits. They often had trained animals on stage.

A much harder one to figure out is Tom the Dog from The Witch of Edmonton.

>> No.1907728

>>1907716

Additionally, Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare's worst plays: there's only so much you can do with "Crazy, Hormonal Mixed-Up Teeners in Love" as a theme (needs more Tybalt, anyway). I don't understand why so many people get that inflicted on them at school, it just makes people WTF. I suspect there are so many film adaptations, including the DiCaprio one, that lazy teachers see four free classes of showing a movie.

If I was trying to get someone into Shakespeare, I'd give them Macbeth, or some of the histories. For me, Shakespeare really grabbed me when I read Richard II at school, and my teacher told me that Richard was executed with a red hot poker shoved up the arse (prolly not true, but whatevs) - I really perked up at that moment and thought "wow, this is drama". It's a bloody good play as well, probably my favourite history.

>> No.1907730

>>1907715

>Mumtaz

You're not from Bradford by any chance are you?

>> No.1907733
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1907733

>>1907701
The bear pauses then quickly drags Sean Penn's corpse out of the cave.
Sean Penn's skull makes a little coconut sound against the cave floor.

>> No.1907740

>>1907730

Nah, soz mate, it's years since I've even been to Bradford. I'm a dutchfag.

>> No.1907751

I bought Titus Andronicus a few months ago and got bored. Is there something wrong with me>

>> No.1907755

>>1907733

WHat the fuck does a coconut sound like? In my experience, they just stay quiet and still.

>> No.1907757

>>1907751

You should watch the film Titus with Anythony Hopkins.

>> No.1907758

>>1907605
>nobody seems to read Shakespeare for the mere joy of it
A year or two ago I would have agreed with you, but I started reading Othello on a train journey to a beautiful city and was hooked- I couldn't stop, really enjoying it. I had finished it by the end of the day. That reaffirmed my faith in the power and entertainment value of his plays.

>> No.1907772

>>1907755

Sounds like Sean Penn's skull hitting the ground, apparently.

I've actually heard a coconut fall out of a palm tree onto sand. It sort of went

>flumpup

>> No.1907775

>>1907772

What you heard was the sound of a coconut falling from a height onto sand. That is not the sound of a coconut.

>> No.1907782

Hamlet, King Lear, and Macbeth are beautifully written plays.

I was never too enthralled by his other works, and Romeo and Juliet is just terrible. Come at me bro.

>> No.1907785

>>1907782
Agreed, and i think Othello is very striking if not as beautiful as the others "great tragedies."

>> No.1907786
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1907786

>>1907775

I know - I'm the one who wrote what I wrote, and I was also there when it happened. I'm aware that this was the sound of a coconut falling onto sand. I was giving it as an example of a sound that a coconut can make in certain situations.

I could also have said that they sound cloppety-clop LIEK A HOERS.

In the instance that you're referring to, the sound of a coconut is like that of Sean Penn's head hiting the ground. I suggest you find Sean Penn, wrstle him, and then ding his head off the floor in a kind of Mythbusters stylee, from different heights, and catalogue all the sounds it makes, then when you next need to describe the sound of a coconut, you can say

>the coconut made a noise like Sean Penn's head hitting a mahogany table from an approximate height of 23cm.

It seems a bit specialised, but since you care so much, it seems the only way forward. Oh, and be careful with that Sean Penn - he can get really fractious, from what I hear.

Anyway, nice talking to you, but I have to go now. Bye.

>> No.1907795
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1907795

>>1907785

Got a brother in the lead role as well, with a white wife - even Will Smith doesn't get that kind of inter-racial juice nowadays in the 21st century.

>>1907782

If you liked those three, then you'd probably like the late plays as well. Cymbeline and The Tempest are the apogee of Shakespeare, in my opinion. The last works of a master who was reflecting on his life and his craft, and maybe for the first time in his life wasn't just writing for the bling and the bitches.

No argument about Romeo and Juliet, see >>1907728

>> No.1908434

Shakespeare is overrated. He was the best Elizabethan playwright, sure, but in himself he isn't the center of the western canon. No single writer is.