400 years since the publication of the First Folio,

[Anonymous No.22850470]

aka "Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies" (1623). One of the most influential books of all time. Say something nice about it.

[Anonymous No.22850483]

>>22850470
>Then the same person will hardly be able to play a serious part in life, and at the same time to be an imitator and imitate many other parts as well; for even when two species of imitation are nearly allied, the same persons cannot succeed in both, as, for example, the writers of tragedy and comedy --did you not just now call them imitations?

>Yes, I did; and you are right in thinking that the same persons cannot succeed in both.

These lines are an exchange between Socrates and Adameintus in Plato's Republic. It's pretty cool that Shakespeare proved them wrong, since he was succesful and critically acclaimed in both Tragedy and Comedy, although imo his tragedy's are greater than his comedies.

[Anonymous No.22850491]

>>22850483
woah, it's almost as if humanity managed to transcend and evolve instead of remaining stagnant

[Anonymous No.22850498]

>>22850491
Are you sure about that? No one before or since Shakespeare's time has been as prolific in both comedy and tragedy. It's more that he was an utterly inspired genius of the highest order, and his ability to be so proficient in both styles is a testiment to what a rare, once in a universe talent he was.

[Anonymous No.22850499]

>>22850491
>it's almost as if
Reddit construction

[Anonymous No.22850523]

>>22850498
>No one before or since Shakespeare's time has been as prolific in both comedy and tragedy.
Lope de Vega comes to mind. See how the theater ('teatro') section includes both tragedies ('tragedias') and comedies ('comedias'):
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lope_de_Vega#Obras

[Anonymous No.22850534]

>>22850523
de Vega was a prolific for his comedies. His tragedies are subpar: he lacks language of passion, contains several strained thoughts and witicisms, and is highly irregular in his themes. Actually someone like de Vega proves Socrates point: He was able to succeed in one (comedy), not both. Molière is similar: his comedies are genius, but his tragedies are not. Shakespeare however was able to succeed in both to a high degree.

[Anonymous No.22850546]

>>22850523
People in Socrates time could also write tragedies and comedies. They obviously did since Socrates is able to make the observation that you cannot succeed in both by splitting your time between them. Simply being able to publish works in both styles does not mean one is succesful in both from a critical standpoint.

[Anonymous No.22850644]

>>22850534
I don't think you know what prolific means. It means producing a great number of something.
>He was able to succeed in one (comedy), not both.
His most famous and critically acclaimed work is a tragedy lol
>>22850546
Lope de Vega succeeded in both. You guys just want Shakespeare to be some unique exception so bad.

[Anonymous No.22850658]

>>22850470
To the French, as representatives of modern civilisation, Shakespeare, considered seriously, to this day is a monstrosity; and even to the Germans he has remained a subject of constantly renewed investigation, with so little positive result that the most conflicting views and statements are forever cropping up again. Thus has this most bewildering of dramatists—already set down by some as an utterly irresponsible and untamed genius, without one trace of artistic culture—quite recently been credited again with the most systematic tendence of the didactic poet. Goethe, after introducing him in "Wilhelm Meister" as an "admirable writer," kept returning to the problem with increasing caution, and finally decided that here the higher tendence was to be sought, not in the poet, but in the embodied characters he brought before us in immediate action. Yet the closer these figures were inspected, the greater riddle became the artist's method: though the main plan of a piece was easy to perceive, and it was impossible to mistake the consequent development of its plot, for the most part pre-existing in the source selected, yet the marvellous "accidentiæ" in its working out, as also in the bearing of its dramatis personae, were inexplicable on any hypothesis of deliberate artistic scheming. Here we found such drastic individuality, that it often seemed like unaccountable caprice, whose sense we never really fathomed till we closed the book and saw the living drama move before our eyes; then stood before us life's own image, mirrored with resistless truth to nature, and filled us with the lofty terror of a ghostly vision. But how decipher in this magic spell the tokens of an "artwork"? Was the author of these plays a poet?

What little we know of his life makes answer with outspoken naïvety: he was a play-actor and manager, who wrote for himself and his troop these pieces that in after days amazed and poignantly perplexed our greatest poets; pieces that for the most part would not so much as have come down to us, had the unpretending prompt-books of the Globe Theatre not been rescued from oblivion in the nick of time by the printing-press. Lope de Vega, scarcely less a wonder, wrote his pieces from one day to the next in immediate contact with his actors and the stage; beside Corneille and Racine, the poets of façon, there stands the actor Molière, in whom alone production was alive; and midst his tragedy sublime stood Æschylus, the leader of its chorus.—Not to the Poet, but to the Dramatist must we look, for light upon the Drama's nature; and he stands no nearer to the poet proper than to the mime himself, from whose heart of hearts he must issue if as poet he means to "hold the mirror up to Nature."

[Anonymous No.22850664]

>>22850658
Thus undoubtedly the essence of Dramatic art, as against the Poet's method, at first seems totally irrational; it is not to be seized, without a complete reversal of the beholder's nature. In what this reversal must consist, however, should not be hard to indicate if we recall the natural process in the beginnings of all Art, as plainly shewn to us in improvisation. The poet, mapping out a plan of action for the improvising mime, would stand in much the same relation to him as the author of an operatic text to the musician; his work can claim as yet no atom of artistic value; but this it will gain in the very fullest measure if the poet makes the improvising spirit of the mime his own, and develops his plan entirely in character with that improvisation, so that the mime now enters with all his individuality into the poet's higher reason. This involves, to be sure, a complete transformation of the poetic artwork itself, of which we might form an idea if we imagined the impromptu of some great musician noted down. We have it on the authority of competent witnesses, that nothing could compare with the effect produced by Beethoven when he improvised at length upon the pianoforte to his friends; nor, even in view of the master's greatest works, need we deem excessive the lament that precisely these inventions were not fixed in writing, if we reflect that far inferior musicians, whose penwork was always stiff and stilted, have quite amazed us in their 'free fantasias' by a wholly unsuspected and often very fertile talent for invention.—At anyrate we believe we shall really expedite the solution of an extremely difficult problem, if we define the Shakespearian Drama as a fixed mimetic improvisation of the highest poetic worth. For this explains at once each wondrous accidental in the bearing and discourse of characters alive to but one purpose, to be at this moment all that they are meant to seem to us to be, and to whom accordingly no word can come that lies outside this conjured nature; so that it would be positively laughable to us, upon closer consideration, if one of these figures were suddenly to pose as poet. This last is silent, and remains for us a riddle, such as Shakespeare. But his work is the only veritable Drama; and what that implies, as work of Art, is shewn by our rating its author the profoundest poet of all time.—

[Anonymous No.22850666]

>>22850644
>I don't think you know what prolific means. It means producing a great number of something.
I do know what that means but I used the word wrong, you're right. I meant to say renowned, not prolific. And no I don't want Shakespeare to be a unique exception so bad, I'm just stating what is clear to most learned men who have studied the great playwrites critically throughout all ages. You citing a wikipedia article tells me that you maybe haven't even read Vega's works. I could just as easily say you badly want Shakespeare to *not* be a unique exception.

[Anonymous No.22850678]

>>22850644
Why are all of Shakespeares comedies and tragedies adapted into other mediums such as Opera, ballet, and film, and not de Vega? Oh, that's right, it's because Shakespeare is a superior genius. Even Spanish, French and Italian operatic composers were adapting Shakespeares works to Opera before de Vega.

[Anonymous No.22850695]

>>22850658
>>22850664
based

[Anonymous No.22850711]

>>22850666
I posted that link show you that Vega was prolific at both tragedy and comedy. You said there wasn't any other person who was prolific at both. Now you're changing your tune to "renowned". He was also renowned at both. And roductions of both his comedies and tragedies are constantly being staged.

[Anonymous No.22850727]

>>22850678
>a barracuda is bigger than a goldfish, therefore, goldfish aren't aquatic animals
Your logic doesn't make sense because now you're mixing fame and popularity. Vega was prolific at bothm that's just the truth.

[Anonymous No.22851480]

>>22850711
>>22850727
This is perhaps an unavailing argument to have with you since you seem to misunderstand the finer points of literary criticism, and what makes an author renowned in tragedy. Generally speaking, it is by their use of passionate language and moments of sublimity. I will instance an example of this for you from Shakespeare's Macbeth, Act 1, sc. V. Lady Macbeth has just read a letter from her husband, telling her that witches have prophesied he is destined to become the King of Scotland. She then learns from a messenger that Duncan, the current King, will be staying with them that night. She realizes the prophecy will come to fruition if they kill Duncan while he is staying at their house.

Lady Macbeth-
"The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood,
Stop up th’ access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
Th’ effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, your murd’ring ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark
To cry, “Hold, hold!” "

The images exhibited by this language are passionate: denouncing her nature as woman and human to commit a murder, calling on spirits to replace the life giving suck of milk from her breast with poison, the sublime imagery of the forces of hell covering her in a smoke so dark that Heaven cannot penetrate it to reach her conscience. The language takes you above and outside yourself, and exhibits an image anda atmosphere awful isolation, dread, and evil.

Vega's plays are still produced because he is a great author. He is fantastical in his style and is highly entertaining, especially his comedies. But this example of the langauge of passion and sublimity from Macbeth is one of hundreds from Shakespeare's canon. Vega has very few instances like this in comparison, if any that are legitimately so. Another play like King Lear or Othello is full of the language of passion and sublime imagery. They abound in Shakespeares works.