/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5432607]

Do you actually like this man's work or are you just pretending to fit in?

1. Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story. It's like a bad movie.

2. The language is archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Glossing over the 'meanings' of most lines of dialogue and simply taking in the plot, or close reading the dialogue at a snail's pace.

3. Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.

4. What was salacious in the 1500's is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was being crude, it doesn't translate to the modern era

I'm at a point in my life where I'm probably going to be teaching these works to younger students soon and it's pretty hard to do that when you don't find any value in the time being spent. It feels more elitist an institution than anything else.

[Anonymous No.5432621]

Your right anon, but you should still read him.

[Anonymous No.5432625]

>>5432621
>your right

I'm regretting this already.

[Anonymous No.5432633]

>>5432607
You can appreciate things for their historical context. Shakespeare is a great way to make kids in high school get into plays.

[Anonymous No.5432635]

I was on the same boat until I randomly decided to read a few good critiques of his style and plays. Really attempt to understand the language and references, and you'll see what the fuss is about.

[Anonymous No.5432640]

>>5432633
Shakespeare wasn't clever for his day, he's clever for 2014.

[Anonymous No.5432641]

>>5432635
My boat in regards to 'critiques' is that I more or less find them pseudo-intellectual pap wherein the author anachronistically projects his values onto a particular work.

No, bad literary theory is not going to do it for me.

[Jeff Mangum Died For Your Sins !rAl8Mz2mp2 No.5432655]

>>5432607
>I'm at a point in my life where I'm probably going to be teaching these works to younger students soon

>The language is archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Glossing over the 'meanings' of most lines of dialogue and simply taking in the plot, or close reading the dialogue at a snail's pace.

Goddamn it. These kids don't have a chance.

[Anonymous No.5432656]

>>5432640
This is the oft-repeated mantra slung about by peoples indoctrinated by the elitist institution. Again, I've yet to be convinced this is anything but. I mean, what I'm saying is not particularly untenable; humans engage in status-seeking behavior constantly, especially in academia.

Pretending to like Shakespeare seems to be the most time-honored of that status-seeking behavior, but that doesn't make it objectively any more valid.

Are his lines 'clever'? Yes, but also not really. Cleverness has a large part of its value in cultural expectations. I subvert those expectations, and you find me clever. With Shakespeare, you have to explain the cultural expectations, so you never actually get pure 'cleverness', you just get 'hah. a penis'.

[Anonymous No.5432661]

> Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.

[citation needed]. His diction is god-tier and fun as shit to read closely.

[Anonymous No.5432662]

>>5432641
Then why the fuck are you teaching English?

[Anonymous No.5432670]

>>5432662
If you think all literature has to offer is pseudo-intellectual feminist/LGBT critiques, you're extremely misguided.

[Anonymous No.5432671]

>2011
>still being this vunerable to bait

[Anonymous No.5432674]

>>5432656
>Pretending to like Shakespeare
Fuck off; i'm not reading the rest of your post. Don't project your own assessment of his work onto other people.

[Anonymous No.5432686]

>>5432670
If you think that all of the literary critiques written on Shakespeare come from the late 20th/early 21st century, you're extremely misguided.

[Anonymous No.5432693]

>>5432686
Spoiler: There is no difference except for the (incorrect) values each time period held.

[Anonymous No.5432698]

Download and watch the Globe production of Henry V. Right now. You'll get the appeal.

[Anonymous No.5432703]

>>5432698
But can you substantiate your position?

I 'get' the appeal. Like I said, I believe it's predicated upon status-seeking behavior, which is a universal trait of human behavior.

[Anonymous No.5432712]

>>5432693
Some values are inherent and can be argued for objectively. Come at me.

[Anonymous No.5432714]

Say whatever bullshit you like but King Lear is still one of the most beautiful works of art I've ever read. ( I got a bit dissapointed with Hamlet, though)

[Anonymous No.5432726]

>>5432703
Again, watching a Globe production will dispense with that notion. Children were laughing; genuine laughs, not the "i'm clever for getting this" type of laugh.

[Anonymous No.5432743]

Why does the current generation have to denigrate everything cherished by their ancestors? What's the origin of this destructiveness?

[Anonymous No.5432747]

>>5432743
You don't actually have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, fyi.

That's a false dichotomy.

[Anonymous No.5432755]

with that attitude, why read at all

[Anonymous No.5432756]

>>5432747
And Shakepeare's oeuvre is the baby

[Anonymous No.5432758]

>>5432607
>Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story.
>communicating a story

have you ever heard of something called poetry or aesthetic values?
go away, you fucking ape

[Anonymous No.5432773]

>>5432758
>muh primitive and subjective emotions make me more evolved

Obviously not.

[Anonymous No.5432774]

>>5432755
These people think that reading has to be purely utilitarian. Appreciation for tradition and aesthetics are foreign to them.

[Anonymous No.5432778]

>>5432755
Lolwat?

>if you don't like reading something bad, you're not allowed to read something good!

[Anonymous No.5432779]

>>5432773
They do make you less human though
>>>/sci/

[Anonymous No.5432787]

>>5432774
>These people think that reading has to be purely utilitarian

Strawman.

Where was a distaste for fiction as a whole ever implied? Ever?
>>5432779

>less 'human'
>implying that even makes sense

The essence of life itself - let alone 'humanity' - is evolution, not arbitrary points on that timeline.

[Anonymous No.5432807]

>>5432787
>Where was a distaste for fiction as a whole ever implied? Ever?

>Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story

Right there, that's where it was implied. It has to effectively communicate a story; it can't just be aesthetically pleasing in and of itself.

[Anonymous No.5432813]

>>5432807
>lol you use a cotton gin instead of your hands? what a soulless utilitarian LMAO

[Anonymous No.5432817]

>>5432778
More like
>I suffer from presentism and can't properly contextualize art

[Anonymous No.5432827]

>>5432817
Is this ironic? Because the uncritical adherence to modern day values is people who can't deal with the possibility that Shakespeare has no intrinsic value over superior forms of literature.

[Anonymous No.5432837]

>>5432813
>art and cotton production are the same
>aesthetics are an industry

[Anonymous No.5432849]

>>5432837
>i'll just pretend to be stupid, that'll show him!

[Anonymous No.5432858]

>>5432827
Modern day values create an atmosphere in which people who denigrate well-respected artists are taken seriously. Modern day values are the reason people can't see his work through a historical prism.

[Anonymous No.5432873]

>>5432858
Except very few people are critical enough to actually tackle the Shakespeare cult of personality.

Very, very few people.

Moreover, if modern values encourage critical thinking; cool.

[Anonymous No.5432901]

>>5432873
You haven't been paying attention. Contempt for the classics is mainstream among certain postmodern circles; Bloom talked about it in the 80s.

[Anonymous No.5432905]

>>5432901
>somehow this applies to me

No.

[Anonymous No.5432943]

>people not liking Shakespeare

[Anonymous No.5432952]

>>5432905
It applies to everyone here. In the past, if one disliked a writer as influential and well-regarded as Shakespeare, they were more likely to question their own intelligence and ability than question his talent. In other words, they understood that centuries of praise probably isn't a fluke, and that there might be some value to his work that they're not immediately privy to.

It's not an argument from popularity to say that you probably aren't smarter than Faulkner, Melville, Joyce, and TS Eliot.

[The cats No.5432957]

>>5432901
Is is just "muh dead white men" or is there more criticism than that? Also did you know this is an article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_white_men

[Anonymous No.5432992]

>>5432952
>you probably aren't smarter than Faulkner, Melville, Joyce, and TS Eliot

I don't need to be more intelligent than these people.

You can be the most intelligent person in the world and still write uninteresting pap.

My critique is not contingent on my own abilities, it's contingent on human psychology and social phenomenon.

It's a very real fact that humans are highly conformist and status-oriented. My assertion is that the cult of Shakespeare is a hold-over from an institutionalization of this mentality and behavior rather than one of legitimate merit.

My position is corroborated by other examples of academia being up its own ass in order to feel 'elite'. In fact, the elitism of academia is a very common critique. The elitism of Shakespeare is just more enduring, in my eyes, because it exists in a form that is difficult to assail.

Also, the fact that being have to be 'induced' into the cult of Shakespeare is somewhat telling. Even though he's almost ubiquitous in our culture, very few will independently realize his genius. They have to be taken convinced of his greatness and turned upon the world to convince others the same. This is cultlike behavior, very similar to religious groups, rather than legitimate appeal.

[Anonymous No.5433001]

>>5432712

>2014
>thinking objective values are defensible

okeee

[Anonymous No.5433011]

>>5432992
Also, your post implicitly encourages conformity over critical analysis. I'm not saying conformity has no place; I'm saying critical analysis that can be substantiated is indispensable to any academic community and that conformity causes far more problems endemic to academia than critical thinking does.

[Anonymous No.5433014]

>>5433001
>defensible

wtf america

[Anonymous No.5433020]

>>5433001
They are, it's just really hard to actually prove that your value system is closest to being objective. And, as stated, all cultural systems have a whole slew of clearly incorrect cultural values.

John Stuart Mill did a good job.

[Anonymous No.5433076]

>>5432992
>Also, the fact that being have to be 'induced' into the cult of Shakespeare is somewhat telling. Even though he's almost ubiquitous in our culture, very few will independently realize his genius.
I have yet to know a single person who liked Shakespeare after being introduced to him in high school. Nearly every Bard enthusiast I've come across has come to appreciate his work over time, based on independent reading and watching. You're really overstating the pull of this so-called cult.

[Anonymous No.5433091]

>>5433076
I think you're overstating my critique, rather.

Most people don't have nuanced opinions on Shakespeare, they just accept the cultural Zeitgeist.

The very few who actually do conform to my model, though. If not in highschool, then in college.

There's always a story. "I had x professor, and I finally realized his genius".

Turns out x professor is a super charismatic dude, identical to the type you'd find inducing people into an actual cult.

[Anonymous No.5433107]

>>5433020

no, this is wrong. it is literally impossible to derive an "ought" statement from an "is" statement, all arguments that derive an "ought" statement appeal to another "ought" statement, and every "ought" statement that is not justified by an argument can be dismissed if one does not personally "feel" obliged

[Anonymous No.5433118]

>>5433091
There's a fine line between influence and indoctrination, and you're not seeing it. Understanding Shakespeare after having a professor who can properly articulate his appeal isn't like being inducted into a cult, it's being given the contextual tools needed to understand something that was written 400 years ago.

[Anonymous No.5433145]

>>5433107
The is-ought dichotomy is solved contextually.

There's no reason you've objectively ought to not suffer, but because you've evolved to prefer not to suffer, any value system that is constructed around the potential of you and your general species will be constructed around this truth.

It's not an objective premise, but it might as well be one.

Hence utilitarianism.

[Anonymous No.5433156]

>>5433118
All I'm doing is providing falsification for my critique.

"If my critique was theoretically right, you'd expect this to be the case" - and it is.

The fact that it is lends credence to my case.

It *might* be coincidental, but my goal is to provide enough 'coincidences' to substantiate my claims.

Hence actual decent argumentation.

[Anonymous No.5433166]

You can't separate Shakespeare from his historical context. The fact that he's influenced so many subsequent artists is part of the appeal of reading his work.

[Anonymous No.5433206]

>>5433156
A good teacher can't make one interested in something that's inherently boring. If they like Shakespeare, it's because they find value in reading his work. The same way the religious might find value in their beliefs, even of those beliefs are false. Luckily art isn't concerned with objective truth, but with subjective appreciation, so the problems inherent to religions and cults aren't a concern.

[Anonymous No.5433235]

>>5433206
Again, that's your ad hoc story.

Moreover, I wasn't trying to strawman or falsely equate it to religion, I was just pointing out indoctrination methodology in an easily palatable format.

[Anonymous No.5433308]

>>5433235
The ultimate goal of art is to appeal to our emotions and aesthetic sensibilities. How you got to that point of appreciation doesn't matter if that appreciation is genuine.

The indoctrination methodology only applies to beliefs that concern objective facts, like whether or not Xenu exists. If you were indoctrinated into believing that something mediocre was beautiful, then being told that isn't going to make you despise that object. If Bard fans are sincere, then how much that belief was the result of cultural indoctrination doesn't matter. Aesthetics are highly cultural anyways.

[Anonymous No.5433322]

>>5432607
>I'm probably going to be teaching

God help those students.

[Anonymous No.5433367]

>>5433308

You can't just say, 'All art is subjective, therefore Shakespeare.'

It actually defeats your own argument.

Moreover, it's a load of pap. All art is not subject to 'subjective' valuation in the sense that its only value can be determined in a relative sense.

My argument is that Shakespeare less exceeds or even meets universal standards of 'art' than it does attract people to a cult of personality, which is certainly not artistic. My hubris and elitism does not qualify as art.

Moreover, I am actually agreeing with the premise to an extent. I think our standards of 'art' are relative. It's simply a fact that our appreciation of what Shakespeare could have once been is blunted due to time. Things like witticisms and language in general are inter-subjective and highly culturally dependent. A joke is less funny if I have to explain it to you, for example. A joke should be sharp and should play off your expectations.

A statement to this degree

>Aesthetics are highly cultural anyways.

However, is extremely questionable.

The bottom line is that the subjectivity of art does not justify the valuation of a piece of art based on its popularity or ability to incite feelings such as arrogance, hubris, self-love, etc. These feelings are facilitators of art, but they do not qualify or quantify it. And, on this tangent, I think a large part of this problem is that people sublimate their emotions in this regard (arrogance specifically) into some sort of higher appeal. It makes me feel superior or clever, and I am interpreting this as art.

Except not, and no.

[Anonymous No.5433374]

Do you actually like this man's work or are you just pretending to fit in?

1. Symphonies are inferior forms of communicating a feeling. It's like a bad pop song.

2. The instruments are archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Wondering if that's like, a fucking flute he's using? God, that's so nerdy.

3. Close reading the sheet music is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.

4. What was popular in the 1700s is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was making people dance, it doesn't translate to the modern era

I'm at a point in my life where I'm probably going to be teaching these works to younger students soon and it's pretty hard to do that when you don't find any value in the time being spent. It feels more elitist an institution than anything else.

[Anonymous No.5433381]

>>5433322
The reality is that I'm far more intelligent and introspective than the average teacher or professor, so they'll be more than fine.

That I dare question Shakespeare's eternal value and the cult of the bard does not call into question my ability to think.

[Anonymous No.5433388]

>>5433367
>My argument is that Shakespeare less exceeds or even meets universal standards of 'art' than it does attract people to a cult of personality, which is certainly not artistic.

And this is based on nothing but presumption based on projection. "I don't like it, so everybody else is lying!"

[Anonymous No.5433404]

>>5433374
>1. Symphonies are inferior forms of communicating a feeling. It's like a bad pop song.

Inaccurate. Symphonies enable a far more complex range of emotion than a pop song, which is predicated upon repeated catchy verse.

The pop song is actually the play analogue.

>2. The instruments are archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Wondering if that's like, a fucking flute he's using? God, that's so nerdy.

Almost all of the instruments and sounds in art music are still present in art music today.

>3. Close reading the sheet music is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.

Agreed, but this is not necessary to enjoy the art. Moreover, close reading the sheet music is extremely difficult, and the challenge itself is rewarding. Close reading Shakespeare is high school tier.

>4. What was popular in the 1700s is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was making people dance, it doesn't translate to the modern era

Another false equivalence. Shakespeare's gimmick was not his ability, but his edginess.

[Anonymous No.5433418]

>>5433388
>le Freudian face

Well, that critique of my critique isn't valid.

The fact that I might point out a possible vector for the man's inexplicable appeal does not make me a walking cliche.

[Anonymous No.5433475]

>>5433367
Let me simplify it. Let's say that, just to pick a criterion at random, the determining factor for how I judge a drama to be 'good' is whether or not it makes me cry. If —after a professor explained the context behind the story and the innovation of its form — I end up crying, is it a bad drama because I needed to have its historical importance and appeal articulated to me before it was able to affect me?

In art, the factors that allow someone to derive value from something are less important than the value itself, at least if that value is genuine. The reason for that is because we don't have objective definition for 'good.'

[Anonymous No.5433490]

>>5433404
>Shakespeare's gimmick was not his ability, but his edginess
We found it. The post that reveals OP's complete ignorance. We're done here.

[Anonymous No.5433497]

>>5433475
>If —after a professor explained the context behind the story and the innovation of its form — I end up crying

I would think you were emotionally unstable.

Having a borderline personality disorder shouldn't be a prerequisite for enjoying 'art'.

Also, we fundamentally disagree on the function of the university. Which is funny, because you were trying to accuse me of being some sort of status quo adherent whereas you are in actuality far more optimistic about how a university structure functions than I am.

[Anonymous No.5433506]

>>5433490
You finally did it. Now you can dismiss all of my arguments and walk away feeling self-assured that your ability to actively enforce the status quo against would-be usurpers is not in question.

You get the prize, anon. The prize of being one of those despicable weirdos who gets emotionally invested in enforcing groupthink.

[Anonymous No.5433514]

>>5433497
I'm emotionally unstable because I need to understand something before it affects me?

[Anonymous No.5433526]

>>5433514
It was a joke, anon. The joke is that nobody in real life is unstable enough to start crying at a Shakespearean drama because Professor X told you that Desdemona really liked the BBC.

At least I hope that to be the case.

[Anonymous No.5433536]

>>5433506
I really don't understand how you can call his ability into question, though. English blank verse IS Shakespeare. His form influenced every subsequent poet working in the language. If there's a problem with Shakespeare, it lies in corroding affects of time on the stories we find interesting,, not on his technical ability.

[Anonymous No.5433548]

>>5433536
I don't.

At least not his verbal acumen. Obviously, his verbal abilities were off the charts.

That, however, does not make one's art good.

The Steve Vai of poetry, if we're going to be going down this road.

[Anonymous No.5433590]

>>5433526
It was a thought experiment. All I'm saying is that seeing the interplay between the poetical meter and story isn't something that most people just intuit; you need to have it explained to you

[Anonymous No.5433614]

>>5433548
Gross. Shakespeare was able to show restraint, and he actually had a sharp sense of irony and a good intuition for subtle humor. Dumb comparison.

[Anonymous No.5433636]

>>5433548
Congratulations, you're fucking stupid. King Lear and Hamlet and Macbeth have been called some of the most powerful works in the English language for a reason: beyond the amazing language, there's extreme power and emotion, if you could get that through your thick skull. "Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit," "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury," "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!" are breathtaking scenes. The best way to get Shakespeare is to read one of his plays once, so you can parse the language, characters, and plot (difficult as it is on a first read), then go right back and reread it (they're almost all very short, anyway) so you know who all the characters are and what they want and can be blown away at the power of the speeches, without having to worry who's who in what disguise now. Or better yet, watch it in person.

But there is a good argument against him, namely that he mixes tragedy and comedy distastefully.

[Anonymous No.5433639]

>>5433548
>The Steve Vai of poetry

Again, God help those students.

[Anonymous No.5433641]

>>5433636
Cringe.

[Anonymous No.5433676]

>>5433641
Bro, once you "get" Shakespeare, you get him. It doesn't matter how many idiots tell me I'm being elitist, I'm misguided, or I'm being overly passionate and cringe-worthy, those tragedies I mentioned (and many more of his) are some of the most affecting things I've ever read. Do you have to read them carefully so you can internalize how the language works and be able to visualize everything clearly and understand all the characters? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes, twenty times yes. Not to mention his comedies, which are also very entertaining and well-written.

[Anonymous No.5433689]

>>5433676
I have no idea what's wrong with you, but you're probably easily impressionable or emotionally caustic. Normal men aren't emotional basket cases waiting to boil over with brief fictional provocation.

[Anonymous No.5433698]

>>5433689
So then what the fuck IS your standard of literature? You can't appreciate the language or the emotional content? Why don't you get into physics or philosophy instead?

[Anonymous No.5433702]

He's great fun. Read reread reread until the language is familiar. Bits of Shakespeare are the best it has got for me

[Anonymous No.5433712]

i only really know a couple of the plays well. Twelfth Night, King Lear, Midsummer Night's Dream, a couple of others less so. i agree that it takes some time to really get them, but once you do, they stay got.

you do have to kind of immerse yourself in them a bit. it's worthwhile to take time to read them properly, i think (read them out loud if you can- that's what they are intended for, after all), and understand their contemporary context. look up the radio series / podcast "Shakespeare's Restless World" on the BBC website (and read the book that goes with it).

[Anonymous No.5433723]

>>5433698
>So then what the fuck IS your standard of literature?

I like prose rather than meter, and only if I find it structured in a complex and novel way in the context of modern linguistics.

Basically, I like verbal ability a whole lot, but it can't be purely aesthetic. There needs to be something in there that serves linguistics in a utilitarian fashion that is somehow better than previous incarnations. Language is subjective, so relating concepts and ideas in novel or complex ways is highly appealing to me.

Mindless art prose or meter that needlessly obfuscates rather than clarifies is more or less worthless to me. I'm not particularly interested in your deep messages given that I can simply read philosophers who blow you the fuck out.

I also like good narrative and structure, but antiquated characters who cloak themselves in meter and whose motivations and interests are not instantly accessible and emotive damage that for me.

Also, 'clever' one-liners, or even multi-liners don't really impress me. Rap is full of them. I don't care if your use of the word 'dagger' implies this and that, or is a triple entendre on that and this. It's pointless fluff.

Basically, I find the whole enterprise antiquated to the point of disinterest, the structure of plays too limiting in terms of development of a fully functioning world capable of legitimate emotional immersion, and the general idea of fluffing your prose or meter with garbage really annoying rather than interesting. Again, a huge part of that is the corrosion of time, but that's the reality in which we live.

[Anonymous No.5433725]

>>5432607
>"plays are like a bad movie"

>going to be a teacher

[Anonymous No.5433731]

>>5433689
What's the point of fiction that has emotional depth?

[Anonymous No.5433732]

shakespeare is ok. i read him in HS and thought he was pretty boring, but i went and saw a performance of "A Midnight Summer's Dream" and really enjoyed it for some reason

[Anonymous No.5433733]

Seems odd that Shakespeare is being presented as a matter of "difficult to get into." I fell in love with his writing right away, and I doubt I'm alone. Undoubtedly there are people who try hard to like people like Shakespeare because of their place as a cultural symbols, but they're not representative.

[Anonymous No.5433734]

>>5433723
What writers do you rate?

[Anonymous No.5433743]

>>5433732
fuck midsummer night's dream

[Anonymous No.5433747]

>>5433723
>There needs to be something in there that serves linguistics in a utilitarian fashion that is somehow better than previous incarnations.

So you don't care for storytelling, and equate writing based on its originality with regard to practical language?

[Anonymous No.5433750]

>>5432607
I completely agree with you OP. Hamlet was absolutely boring and hard to understand

[Anonymous No.5433752]

>>5433723
In short "I'm deaf to language"

[Anonymous No.5433756]

>>5433750
>boring and hard to understand

When did the students at the back of the class become the standard by which to rate literature?

[Anonymous No.5433770]

>>5433689
Tell that to Homer.

[Anonymous No.5433776]

>>5433770
Burn

[Tallis !!y+12CeFwYOo No.5433790]

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

[Anonymous No.5433799]

>>5432607
I know this is a troll but just for the sake of any impressionable newfags.
1. Wrong, I mean have you even read Moliere or Ibsen? Your're just insulting yourself here.
2. Shakespeare is not difficult to read unless it's like your second language or something. Hell Chaucer isn't even difficult if you know English. If you were making your students read Beowulf in old english or something I could understand but everyone understands Shakespeare, and there's nothing wrong with learning a few words to understand a play anyways.
3. It's not literature's job to try and race to the bottom for cheapest stimulating experience, close reading is necessary for understanding literature in general which everyone ought to learn.
4. That's such a small part of the essence of Shakespeare's work as to be inconsequential, he wasn't a shock author whose only noticeable feature was being salacious, his work is the pinnacle of the canon, dick jokes or no.

[Anonymous No.5433837]

>>5433734
My favorite author is Frank Herbert.

>>5433747h
Not really. I just aesthetically appreciate practical ability that in some way eclipses my own. With regard to poetical language, the subjective nature of any valuation muddies my appreciation and makes me feel as if my time is being wasted. In contrast, prose structured in a way that instantly impresses me and makes me feel inadequate makes me admire an author.

Story is important, to a degree, but I've read thousands of them. I've seen the incarnations of your plot, so your ability to impress me on that ground is threadbare. Emotive connections with characters (I'm not autistic, but I'm not as emotional as the average person interested in literature) and good language impress me far more tan your plot ever will. Give your character a grain I can feel.

>In short "I'm deaf to language"

Not quite, although I more or less find verse pointless.

In any case, I've pretty accurately described my contentions at this point. Most critiques seem to be people yelling in my face about how much of a pleb I am or how emotionless I am, both of which are of questionable merit as arguments.

[Anonymous No.5433849]

>>5433790
>I'm so clever and poetical

We know.

[Anonymous No.5433850]

>>5433235
>But that's just, like, your opinion, man

[Anonymous No.5433856]

>>5432621
>you should still read shit even though it's a waste of time.

[Anonymous No.5433886]

>>5433381
>The reality is that I'm far more intelligent and introspective than the average teacher or professor, so they'll be more than fine.

Holy shit you're insufferable. I bet you think you're really unique and a cool special snowflake for thinking motherfucking SHAKESPEARE is mainstream garbage that your professors only liked to look smart.

Oh wait, you do.

Fuck off already with your shit opinions and nonsensical argumentation, you blowhard piece of hipster trash. My dinner was more intelligent and introspective than you.

[Anonymous No.5433893]

>>5433837
>My favorite author is Frank Herbert.

[Anonymous No.5433911]

>>5433886
>all people who disagree with me fit within the framework of easy to demonize caricatures
>all people who even hint at challenging the status quo on any given topic are objectively bad people

People who take it upon themselves to be particularly vehement about enforcing the status quo are more or less people who believe that it will accrue them social status. To get so passionate in response to outliers is almost certainly indicative of some pathology on your end.

[Anonymous No.5433921]

>>5433911
>all people who disagree with me fit within the framework of easy to demonize caricatures

>People who take it upon themselves to be particularly vehement about enforcing the status quo are more or less people who believe that it will accrue them social status.

This is pretty freakin ironic

[Anonymous No.5433929]

>>5433911
Cry more.

>Bbbut I'm special mom! I'm questioning the "staytoos kwo!"
>No one has ever done this before because no one is as smart as me!

[Anonymous No.5433949]

>>5433921
In what exact sense? I am not making a general point about his character based on his opinions, I am making a specific point about his character based on his actions.

Whereas his reaction to my claims and opinions are based on general repudiations of my character. I'm a 'hipster' and my arguments are ephemerally irrelevant because he disagrees with not my claims, but my audacity to make them. The fact that he's more concerned with context rather than content shows he's emoting/blowing steam in my direction. The fact that humans have done this for thousands of years in order to identify themselves as the cool in-group guys is incidental and fairly obvious. You see that guy with the opinion that isn't mainstream? He's the bad guy! He's *a* bad guy! He thinks he's better than us, he who would dare to be different!

>>5433929
This is just worthless babble.

[Tallis !!y+12CeFwYOo No.5433950]

>>5433911
Lol...!

[Anonymous No.5433951]

>>5432607
I don't give a fuck about his plays. Shakespeare's sonnets alone are the greatest in the English language.

[Anonymous No.5433965]

>>5433949
Also, his behavior is very feminine, which seems to be a somewhat common thread linking together my most vehement detractors.

Staunch conformity is not masculine behavior.

[Anonymous No.5434023]

>>5433949
>he who would dare to be different!

You're missing the point. You're not being different at all. You're idea is neither original nor interesting. It's been discussed to death on this board already. The reason you're getting such an acidic reaction is because you fail to realize this, and continue to elevate yourself for being "special" even though you're probably the least special person here.

>>5433965
I bet you think you're a pretty big guy.

Also, calling people who disagree with you "feminine" isn't doing you any favors.

>I don't like you, so you must be a girl! Girls are dumb and conformist!

Do you also think the reason you're still a virgin is because you're "too nice?"

[Anonymous No.5434048]

>>5434023
>You're missing the point. You're not being different at all

Something that people like you need to learn is that legitimately subversive claims are generally going to be met with abject scorn and emotional repudiation. Someone like George Carlin was not subversive. He had an audience, and he only said pseudo-subversive things; the type of things you think probably qualify as non-PC or in some way against the status quo. They are not, and he is not.

>You're idea is neither original nor interesting

No idea is original. 'Interesting' is subjective. I'd say that enough people have found it interesting enough to comment, although that's a dubious yardstick. In any case, your emotions and opinions are not objective fact, especially if you can't substantiate them.

>The reason you're getting such an acidic reaction is because you fail to realize this, and continue to elevate yourself for being "special" even though you're probably the least special person here.

I've discussed this in-depth. The poorest reaction I've gotten has actually been sparse; only a couple of people have engaged in overt status quo zealotry, yourself included. It's these people I castigate as shitty human beings, not all those who merely disagree with my opinions. Status quo zealotry is the most despicable of all behaviors.

[Anonymous No.5434083]

>>5434023
>I bet you think you're a pretty big guy.

Again, your ridiculous concern with my self-image, especially as it relates to yours, is clearly indicative of mental pathology.

>Also, calling people who disagree with you "feminine" isn't doing you any favors.

Huh? What 'favors' am I looking for? I'm not a lemming who gets off on assent. I've had solid discussions with various people in this thread. You've not provided an inch of legitimate discourse. You're rotten and that's somehow my fault, which is all I've pointed out.

>>I don't like you, so you must be a girl! Girls are dumb and conformist!

What are you even talking about?

Female behavior is inherently conformist. There's a reason genuinely subversive intellectual and political movements are all male. It has nothing to do with subjective valuation and everything to do with how we orient ourselves in society based on our historical worth. Differing intrinsic reproductive reality leads to differing reproductive strategy. Women are notoriously supportive of conformity and status quo as a general rule, because it yields the most reproductive value. There are always exceptions, but that's the general reality. When I describe your behavior as feminine, I'm shaming you under the implicit assumption that you're a man, not shaming you for being a female.

>Do you also think the reason you're still a virgin is because you're "too nice?"

This is just ridiculous.

[Anonymous No.5434091]

>>5434048
>>5434083
Why do you keep posting?

[Anonymous No.5434100]

>>5434091
Because I've had quality discussion on this board, no thanks to you nor your emotional outbursts. More or less the same reason anyone posts on 4chan.

Although the fact that you are so desperate as to find it necessary to emote and psychoanalyze my motivations is reward in and of itself.

[Anonymous No.5434126]

>>5432607
Ah my goodness, dipshit. Look, troll, you should already know that Shakespeare's current deified status is indeed dependent on the particular trends of history. Every popular author's fame is a chance, even if they were incredible. In the 17th century he was popular but not worshiped like Sidney (and had he not published a book of his plays, none of us would know his name--many playwrights' work has been lost completely because people stopped performing it).
Shakespeare's reputation and influence are almost incalculable, so your opinion of the quality of his work is almost irrelevant (especially since it's so asinine and immaturely defended). It's like the 20 year-old dickheads who like to make fun of the Beatles, because they have no conception of what the Beatles did to music. You have no idea what Shakespeare did to literature. Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the history of the English-speaking world, for Christ's sake. Entry-level philosophy, physics, etc., have nothing to do with it. What kind of fucking idiot says we shouldn't bother studying the most important author in our language's history because he can imagine better uses of the time in other subjects? All you're giving is your opinion, anyway. I found entry-level philosophy didn't intellectually stimulate me at all: it bored the fuck out of me. Learning the living history of my language, the culture that created much of mine, and close reading the amazing prose is worthwhile. And get over this idea that you're daring by disliking Shakespeare. Lots of people do, and have. Your main issue is the completely fucked-up idea that Shakespeare's rep was created by elitist institutions, and ignoring the centuries of him packing playhouses with normal people, even lower-class ones. You shouldn't be teaching English at any level until you grow up a bit.

[Anonymous No.5434131]

>>5434126
>Shakespeare
>amazing prose

Goodbye.

[Anonymous No.5434135]

Here: first-year level stuff you should already know:
In the early 18th century Shakespeare took over the lead on the London stage from Beaumont and Fletcher, and henceforth dominated the London stage (with endless butchering and rewriting for stars and pompous directors).
By contrast to the stage history, in literary criticism there was no lag time or temporary preference for other dramatists: Shakespeare had a unique position at least from the Restoration in 1660 and onwards. Editors and critics of the plays, disdaining the showiness and melodrama of Shakespearean stage representation, began to focus on Shakespeare as a dramatic poet, to be studied on the printed page rather than in the theatre.
The rift between Shakespeare on the stage and Shakespeare on the page was at its widest in the early 19th century, at a time when both forms of Shakespeare were hitting peaks of fame and popularity: theatrical Shakespeare was successful spectacle and melodrama for the masses, while book or closet drama Shakespeare was being elevated by the reverential commentary of the Romantics into unique poetic genius, prophet, and bard. Before the Romantics, Shakespeare was simply the most admired of all dramatic poets, especially for his insight into human nature and his realism, but Romantic critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge refactored him into an object of almost religious adoration or "bardolatry," who towered above other writers, and whose plays were to be 'worshipped' as not "merely great works of art" but as "phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers" and "with entire submission of our own faculties" (De Quincey, 1823). To the later 19th century Shakespeare became in addition an emblem of national pride, the crown jewel of English culture, and a "rallying-sign." as Thomas Carlyle wrote in 1841, for the whole British empire.

[Anonymous No.5434146]

>>5434135
>an appeal to authority constitutes an argument

Is that what you're getting at by copy-pasting nothing of interest to this thread?

[Anonymous No.5434150]

>>5434131
Let me guess: you're too fucking stupid to have noticed the prose in Shakespeare's plays alongside the rhymed and blank verse?

[Anonymous No.5434157]

>>5434150
Claiming that Shakespeare's defining feature was his amazing prose is like claiming that the best part of sex is when you put the condom on.

[Anonymous No.5434163]

>>5434146
You, my little assclown, have no argument whatsoever. You haven't presented anything but juvenile whining. I'm pointing out that Shakespeare's historical and cultural importance is undeniable if you're studying English literature. Your opinion on that is meaningless. It's not an appeal to authority, it's a statement of fact.

[Anonymous No.5434164]

>>5434157
You...

...What?

[Anonymous No.5434179]

>>5434163
I like how you're still presenting arguments that have no bearing to anything discussed in this thread from the self-perspective of you being some crusader for literature as an art-form.

In reality, you're just a mouthbreather with little to nothing to provide in any given discussion where having an actual opinion is a pre-requisite.

[The cats No.5434184]

>>5434163
Ad hominem

[Anonymous No.5434192]

This thread is cancer

[Anonymous No.5434193]

>>5434157
I didn't claim that: learn to read, child. I gave a few examples of what I personally found interesting in his work. It was a response to your utterly subjective claim about stuff you'd be more stimulated by. But this is pointless. As long as you're dumb enough to spout this crap during an interview, you'll never get near an English class as an instructor. I can't continue debating with someone who started this shitshow by whining how plays aren't as cool as movies.

[Anonymous No.5434238]

this thread is why we can't have nice things

[Anonymous No.5434243]

>>5434193
>learn to read, child

Your general diction and writing style is more or less absurd. You seem heavily invested in self-image, which is perfectly representative of the pathology I ascribed to Bard worship. Given the fact that the greatest affront to you, to be gathered by your posting, was the fact that someone else would dare to imply he was 'special' or 'intelligent', rather than the content itself, I'm almost convinced that you have narcissistic personality disorder, in which case your general exhortations are comical and pointless as a general rule.

>I gave a few examples of what I personally found interesting in his work

We gathered as much. The 'amazing prose'. The process of you ripping open the condom package and working it down your engorged phallus.

The reality is this; does anybody actually care about what you find 'good', 'great', or even 'amazing'? We stopped using those words to substantiate our claims in high school; especially our really dumb claims. Give your writing some texture or don't even bother putting your thoughts into words.

>It was a response to your utterly subjective claim about stuff you'd be more stimulated by

That was mostly in the context of a time-budgeted teaching environment, such as high school, wherein I generally posit that children will gain more from learning rhetoric or philosophy rather than close reading 'deep' fancy nonsense babble. Hell, you could teach a dry linguistics course and get more out of it.

>As long as you're dumb enough to spout this crap during an interview, you'll never get near an English class as an instructor

I already have the chops in terms of grades and alma mater, so I'll be more than alright.

>I can't continue debating with someone who started this shitshow by whining how plays aren't as cool as movies.

'Cool'. Is that another crowning achievement of your verbal repertoire? Cool, good, amazing! The degrees in which you probably view the world.

[Anonymous No.5434254]

OP is dumb as f*ck

Seriously, though, just from the start, the point where you start arguing that one medium is intrinsically inferior to another is p much the point where I'm comfortable ignoring you, and most of the other arguments are hardly ones that I'd respect anyway. i think a lot of that is that OP has internalized a lot of dumb shit we think in our culture (in particular point 4) but still, cmon son

[Anonymous No.5434260]

>Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story
>The language is archaic
> Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling
>What was salacious in the 1500's is pretty boring now
Christ help your students, they have an imbecile for a teacher.

[Anonymous No.5434263]

>>5434254
It's actually impossible for one medium to not be inferior to another.

All things have objective valuation, at least in regards to how we rate and quantify 'quality' in art. The fact is that it is impossible that two mediums will have identical or equal merit, so one will always be the inferior and one will always be the superior.

My contention is that plays are sufficiently inferior to be notable.

[Anonymous No.5434267]

>>5434263
>It's actually impossible for one medium to not be inferior to another.
Just go

Please just go

[Anonymous No.5434270]

>>5434267
>i'm dumb, incapable of critical thought and think exclusively in slogans

We know.

[Anonymous No.5434285]

>>5434270
Please

[Anonymous No.5434290]

>>5434243
And this is why psychoanalysis is bullshit.

[Anonymous No.5434306]

>>5434263
again, dumb as f*ck

the most basic problem here (prob not the only one though) is that you're regarding potential for quality in art as being on a sliding scale from least to most. like, there is only one way for a work of art to be quality, and only one thing that counts as quality, and mediums can be ranked as better or worse in relation to how much they have the artistic-quality

this is patently stupid, even without trying to make an arguments about subjectivity, because there are multiple valid ways to represent the world and there are multiple valid forms in which to create beautiful things. sculpture and literature do fundamentally different things artistically. to say that one is essentially inferior to the other, you need to make an argument that representing form concretely is intrinsically a worse way of creating beauty than representing the world through words or representing subjective thought or what-have-you. and again, this isn't even a subjectivity argument! you can think that beauty is an objective thing, but just regarding different mediums as better or worse ways of being beautiful is literally objectively wrong.

[Anonymous No.5434347]

>>5434306
That's more or less a strawman. I'm pointing that certain mediums are intrinsically capable of rendering onto the both artist and the hangers-on a greater range of satisfaction and expression. The simple fact is that certain mediums are limited by their scope.

This is easily demonstrable. If I created an artform that exclusively dealt with concentric circles, I would be limiting artistic potential. The fact that plays and other forms of 'art' exist does not automatically validate them in equity. These artforms can be stretched, but have a well-defined scope. When a world is built using prose, and the character's motivations are clearly accessible to the reader, a fuller scope and potential is realized. Art is often defined by what you can do within particular parameters; but my argument is that plays are far too restricted in this sense. They had faculty in Shakespeare's day, mostly because to be published with a body of work is not as it is today in form or tradition, but this is almost entirely negated by modern technologies.

I'm not saying plays cannot be appreciated in the same way that I'm not saying black and white television cannot be appreciated. It's simply objectively inferior.

Moreover, no two things can ever be equal unless they are the same.

[Anonymous No.5434359]

Have you actually read any of his sonnets? Tried reciting them? I wasn't fond of Shakespeare at all until I actually read his poetry. I don't like most of his plays, I can count on one hand the ones I actually enjoyed seeing.

But his sonnets are another matter. Reading those poems in high school is the reason I now have an appreciation for all poetry. It's not even that I think he's the best poet ever, it just awakened me to what kind of mastery of language is required to produce great poetry. I have many other poets whose work I prefer to his, and I don't even credit him as the greatest of the early English poets (that goes to the anonymous Pearl poet), but I do hold him in very high esteem as a master of his craft.

[Anonymous No.5434382]

>>5434359
I had a slew of my poems published when I was 13 in a poet's collection for 'exceptional students'.

The reality was that none of the meanings he ascribed to my poetry actually existed in my mind when I created them. He literally fabricated them, and the guy is fairly well respected.

This was probably the event that made me dislike poetry in general.

And that's not really some unique or overly personal experience. It's just matter of fact that poetry is pointless and obfuscatory. People already think poetically by nature's design. We form countless associations and build on meaning with our words and ability. You don't need to obfuscate your abilities and meaning in a veil that can more or less entirely denature your ability to actually communicate your point effective. 'Build your own story' literature is worthless nonsense.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5434396]

>>5434382

>The reality was that none of the meanings he ascribed to my poetry actually existed in my mind when I created them. He literally fabricated them, and the guy is fairly well respected.
>This was probably the event that made me dislike poetry in general.

that's how reading generally works, not only poetry
i suggest you to read borges 'pierre menard, author of the quixote'

[Anonymous No.5434409]

>>5434347
1st of all, two things being unequal does not necessarily mean that they have to be in a relationship of better and worse. It's an obvious example, but an apple is not equal to an orange, but that doesn't mean an apple is better than an orange, or equal to an orange: they're simply different. A chocolate bar isn't equal to a train, but saying one is better than the other would approach the point of absurdity. So that's the first point I would make: things can be different qualitatively and conceptually, and hence be unequal but not comparable.

Second, you're still ignoring the fact that scope is not the same same across the different mediums. You're still treating it as though all mediums go a certain distance in the same direction. This is still simply not the case. Literature has, in certain respects, a greater scope than plays; plays have, in certain respects, a greater scope than literature. They are different ways of creating beautiful things, different *qualitatively* and not just *quantitatively*. Prose fiction is much better at worldbuilding using prose and internal subjectivity. On the other hand, plays have performance and a rich tactile, visual element that prose simply lacks. And this dimension can't be ignored; it's integral to the concept of drama as a medium. This gets even more obvious as you get into things like painting and sculpture where the goal is very often no longer even to tell a story. If you're judging art solely by its ability to tell a story or communicate a truth, plays would be inferior, but painting and sculpture would be absolutely worthless. This should be evidence that art is not solely judged by its ability to tell a story or communicate a truth.

[Anonymous No.5434427]

>>5434396
Not really. Very few people teach the discipline of literature under the implicit assumption that any critique has inherent value. Critical study of literature often involves reverse engineering cultural, social, personal and countless other variables to understand thematic choices and narratives.

Poetry basically eschews all pretense of having to orient yourself across an actual axis of thought and reinforce the themes with character motivations, plotpoints, dialogue and other functional elements of prose (ie. themes of man versus nature, death and life, etc.) and just lets you go full retard with abstract 'art language' that more or less comes off as worthless. It's the idea of constructing this living breathing narrative versus constructing a linguistic cipher that people have to unlock. I'm not particularly interested in playing these pointless games.

[Anonymous No.5434430]

>>5432607
>1. Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story. It's like a bad movie.
Plays are superior forms of communicating a story. They can be focused on characters and actions to a degree that books and poems cannot, even if you're reading the play instead of watching it.

>2. The language is archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Glossing over the 'meanings' of most lines of dialogue and simply taking in the plot, or close reading the dialogue at a snail's pace.
This has nothing to do with the quality of the work, it's only indicative of how familiar you are with Shakespeare and how much effort you've put into reading him. If you were reading a book in French and had difficulties with it because you were a beginner, would this argument go against that book?

>3. Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.
This is simply where we have a difference of opinion. Shakespeare was a great poet and wrote much better iambic pentameter than almost any other English-language poet, with more metaphors and syntactical complexity than almost any other poet could pull off.

>4. What was salacious in the 1500's is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was being crude, it doesn't translate to the modern era
Why is his "'gimmick' being crude"? Why do you pick this out as the most important thing? Why not
how he mixes this with high language and art? Why not his tragic scenes and incredibly misanthropic view?

And finally:
>Do you actually like this man's work or are you just pretending to fit in?
Yes, I actually like this man's work. Why? Chiefly, his language.

"…his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked newborn babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven’s cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on th' other."

"I'll example you with thievery:
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief."

"The grey-ey'd morn smiles on the frowning night,
Check'ring the Eastern clouds with streaks of light;
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels."

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5434448]

>>5434427
the main idea that the meaning is in the mind of the reader. yes, this typically refers to metaphorical prose and poetry but can be applied to any prose

[Anonymous No.5434449]

>>5434427
Are we still talking about Shakespeare here? Because Shakespeare has all those themes, character motivations, etc. you speak of and more. How much of Shakespeare have you even read?

[Anonymous No.5434466]

>1. Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story. It's like a bad movie.

I think a majority of people in America would agree with you. They, and you, are wrong. Oh well, though, that won't stop the theatre industry from dying it's very slow death. Philistines.

>2. The language is archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Glossing over the 'meanings' of most lines of dialogue and simply taking in the plot, or close reading the dialogue at a snail's pace.

Just because you have trouble understanding the text does not mean everyone else does. I feel sorry for your future students.

>3. Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.

It's poetry, not pop-sci.

>4. What was salacious in the 1500's is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was being crude, it doesn't translate to the modern era

Fart jokes have always been funny. Don't pretend that's not true.

[Anonymous No.5434467]

>>5434427
Let me get this straight.
You don't appreciate poetic language.
Therefore you don't appreciate Shakespeare, who is mostly revered for his poetic language.
Therefore you shitpost on /lit/ about how everyone who likes Shakespeare is either lying because they want to be part of the status quo, or has psychological issues, or both?

[Anonymous No.5434476]

>>5434430

Macbeazles! If that's your bag, check out Jonathon fucking Slinger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBiW4QXnEmw

[Anonymous No.5434483]

>>5434427
so autismal

[Anonymous No.5434484]

>>5434409
>two things being unequal does not necessarily mean that they have to be in a relationship of better and

If two things are unequal, one is objectively worse in a given category and one is objectively better. That is objective valuation, not how you 'treat' them.

You can treat your lesser - your dog - like a real human being. That doesn't make him objectively the same as you, or as objectively as good at understanding written word.

>It's an obvious example, but an apple is not equal to an orange, but that doesn't mean an apple is better than an orange, or equal to an orange: they're simply different...

But an apple is better at something, you just have to define your valuations. As is an orange. Your valuations are subjective to a degree, but that's only because you will 'subjectively' place more value on certain values versus others.


To address your other claims, my comparison is more or less comprehensive. That's generally the implication when you're making a general comparison of any two given things. The implication is not that every data point meets or exceeds another, simply that the whole is greater. Take for example the idea of plays being a visual medium. Are they? Certainly. Plays are more or less archaic movies. They cannot provide the same texture as a movie, and thusly they don't. It is perfectly valid to value certain things in plays more than you would a movie (perhaps the prestige of the play, getting back to my critique of elitism), but the whole package is simply eclipsed. A movie allows for greater artistic expression, especially given expanding technology and accessibility. Plays, in comparison, suffer from lost nuance of expression, smaller scope, less artistic width and so on. Their benefits, in comparison, are dubious.

In general, however, my critique of plays was more in response to plays versus prose-based fiction. Too many working parts are lost. The focus on dialogue is stifling. We don't study movie scripts in school unless we are expressly going to be filmmakers for this very reason.

[Anonymous No.5434486]

I think there's a post about Shakespeare in the /lit/ guide.
https://pastebin.com/9QFSMxuK

[Anonymous No.5434505]

>>5432726
I love the Globe, absolute proof that Shakespeare is more than just an academic wankfest. Just seeing how much the crowd is enjoying themselves, even though they have to stand or sit on some of the least comfortable seats on the planet, is proof of that.

[Anonymous No.5434518]

>>5434486
the lit guide, or in other words, a collection of your copypasta

[Anonymous No.5434526]

>>5434484
>But an apple is better at something, you just have to define your valuations. As is an orange. Your valuations are subjective to a degree, but that's only because you will 'subjectively' place more value on certain values versus others.

No. That's simply not the case. There may be some purposes to which an apple or an orange is better suited, but any such purpose is incidental to their being. In themselves, an apple is not better than an orange. They have different beings and can't be compared in general terms.

Similarly, in forms of art, although forms of art do have the same ultimate purpose, their means of achieving that purpose is fundamentally different and incomparable.

I would point out that your argument here is not at all general - it relies on enumerating specific qualities of specific forms of art. But your claims are exceedingly general - all forms of art can be objectively ranked, and plays hold a lower position than prose fiction. I'd seriously like to hear how you can possibly fit painting or sculpture or dance into the metric you're proposing here.

I'd also point out that the experience, and hence the artistic effect, of watching a play and the experience of watching a movie are distinctly different, in ways that are patently obvious to literally anyone who's done both, but w/e

[Anonymous No.5434529]

Well, there's too much for me to respond to at this point, and I have to go to work tomorrow.

So enjoy bickering amongst yourselves about whose penis measures which particular length. Enjoy quoting Shakespearean gobbledygook and claiming you alone hold the key to his castle. Enjoy making insipid comments about the nature of art and poetry. I'll continue being your intellectual inferior, no doubt. At least I have an actual sizable phallus :^)

[Anonymous No.5434540]

>>5434518
Not my doc or my copypasta ... I wish, though. That one anon was extremely well-read.

[Anonymous No.5434561]

>>5434529

[Anonymous No.5435095]

I loved Shakespeare when I was a 16 year old who smoked weed every day and barely went to class or passed.

If you don't like Shakespeare you're honestly hopeless and should stop pursuing literature and focus on STEM or some shit.

[Anonymous No.5435145]

>>5432607
I like seeing it, reading it is too much work.

[Anonymous No.5435180]

>>5435095
This. Thinking that Shakesy is the greatest of the greatest might be a shibboleth of literature departments, but he's one of the most easily readable and enjoyable authors in the canon, which is remarkable given how fucking old he is. If you find no value in him I'm almost certain you have a tin ear and a mind so straightly literal your thoughts might be mistaken for a train schedule.

[Anonymous No.5435252]

Although OP has made some crackpot points (among others about women being conformist and artistic value being objective, yuck), I nevertheless think his original lament has some warrant to exist in the realm of validity.

Just look at how personality cults arise in other areas of human discourse; it's a complex mechanism and certainly the arts (and also academia, I might add) are riddled with fads and celebrities as a result of it, also, of course, owing to the fact that there precisely isn't any objective measure of artistic value in a literary work.

[Anonymous No.5435385]

>Young upstarts bashing down the doors challenging the canon
>you know better that centuries of scholarship

[Anonymous No.5435397]

>>5432607
For a while, Shakespeare was difficult for me to make sense of and understand. As time went on I became more capable of comprehending what was going on in his plays, but I didn’t grow to enjoy them any more. In high school I got around to reading “The Taming of the Shrew,” which I found problematic and, in turn, unenjoyable. From the way Katherine’s character is portrayed as harsh and bitchy because she doesn’t want to get married — meanwhile, her younger sister Bianca who happens to be more docile is therefore more appealing to male suitors — to the plot revolving around how Katherine needs to be “tamed” until she turns into an obedient and subservient wife in a marriage she’s forced into, all the way down to the play’s title itself, The Taming of the Shrew did nothing but irritate my budding feminist identity.

Sure, it’s reflective of the time period it was written in — racial, gender, and sexual equality hadn’t yet reached 16th century England — but that doesn’t make me any more inclined to relish in what I interpret to be Shakespeare’s inherent sexism. If I don’t like reading modern stories and authors that perpetuate sexist ideals about gender, love, and marriage, why should I make an exception for Shakespeare? Instead of devoting all of this literary space and obsessing over the words written by an author who celebrates his 450th birthday this month, I could be focusing on other important writers from both past and present who offer different and equally important perspectives.

The dominant narrative is, more often than not, determined by society’s elite. I’d rather not put an old, rich, white man from regal Britain and his antiquated ideologies about society on a pedestal. In part, he’s as influential and significant as he is because of the other old white men in power who decided he would be, and who made those decisions as to which literature gets canonized.

[Anonymous No.5435430]

>>5435397

Obvious troll post, but:

There are characters in Shakespeare's plays that are sexist (and racist, and homophobic, and misogynistic, etc. etc.) but there are also characters in Shakespeare's plays that completely subvert the stereotypes one expects of them. Why, then, the perennial accusation leveled at Shakes that he was x-ist? It is simply a conflation of a limited set ofcharacters' beliefs and motivations with those of the author.

[Anonymous No.5435535]

>>5432607
She should have died hereafter.
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

How can you not like this?

>1. Plays are inferior forms of communicating a story. It's like a bad movie.
It's not the play that matters with shakespeare, it's the metaphor.

>2. The language is archaic to the point that you are essentially going to be doing one of two things. Glossing over the 'meanings' of most lines of dialogue and simply taking in the plot, or close reading the dialogue at a snail's pace.
I understand how annoying the whole /mu/-tier attitude of "oh you think swans is abrasive listen to merzbow pleb" is annoying, but shakespeare really isn't that hard. It takes about a page or two to get used to it if reading it, and watching it you can pretty much discern everything from context.

>3. Close reading the dialogue is less intellectually fulfilling and stimulating than entry-level philosophy, physics, popular science, etc.
1. You're wrong.
2. A blowjob is less sexually fulfilling to some than intercourse but I'm not going to complain at a blowjob.

>4. What was salacious in the 1500's is pretty boring now. If we are to assume that his 'gimmick' was being crude, it doesn't translate to the modern era
He wasn't even salacious then. I have no idea where you got the idea that anybody cares about his sex jokes, yeah the line about how getting drunk makes you bad at sex in macbeth is somewhat funny and the "faith, her privates we" is a damn good pun but something like the soliloquy I posted is obviously of much greater significance.

[Anonymous No.5435555]

>>5434083
>Female behavior is inherently conformist. There's a reason genuinely subversive intellectual and political movements are all male. It has nothing to do with subjective valuation and everything to do with how we orient ourselves in society based on our historical worth. Differing intrinsic reproductive reality leads to differing reproductive strategy. Women are notoriously supportive of conformity and status quo as a general rule, because it yields the most reproductive value. There are always exceptions, but that's the general reality. When I describe your behavior as feminine, I'm shaming you under the implicit assumption that you're a man, not shaming you for being a female.

So essentially, you're calling him a women in an overly convoluted way?

Anyway onto your post, someone else mentioned there was a thread about this very topic, but to think that archaic language should be a reason not to read is a little absurd. It makes it more of obstacle sure, but there exist books that deal with him. Now the overall claim, that Shakespeare isn't worthy of our time, needs better evidence and the ones given need to be supported better.

[Anonymous No.5435571]

>>5433156
>"If my critique was theoretically right, you'd expect this to be the case" - and it is

I'm pretty sure that's the fallacy of affirming the consequent.
>If A, then B.
>B
>Therefore, A

[Anonymous No.5435593]

>>5433404
>Close reading Shakespeare is high school tier.
Oh fucking >implying your average adolescent and arrogant you and thinks they're better than Shakespeare. I watched and read and reread a damn well lot of Shakespeare in high school and loved the shit out of it but none of that was close reading and was into it outside of assignments. Do you know what close reading is? If you struggle to look at annotations at the bottom of the page and the language is too archaic for you, I doubt you've done close reading. You have absolutely no idea what close reading is to anything, fucking kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.5435883]

>>5432607
OP, I actually agree with you. If I remember correctly Shakespeare wasn't, in his day and age, the most renowned or well-known playwright, although he was extremely popular. I believe that many modern writers are far more skilled than Shakespeare, but he has one everlasting advantage- his "poetic" playwright form. Due to this popular Elizabethan style, Shakespeare was able to get away with making metaphor, similes, and innuendos out the ass. Someone making such large amount of them would be sure to stumble upon a few good ones. Modern day writers simply cannot use this poetical form and still be considered very relevant.

Of course the Shakespeare fanatics have one last refuge- the plot. Too bad for them, most of his stories were copies of classics or folk tales, not his inventions.

The fact of the matter is that Shakespeare was pleb. It's time to face it, /lit/. He was an untalented man who made us of the literary fads of his lifetime to produce works that appear "deep" and "poetic" to his largely plebeian audience, many of whom were illiterate rascals incapable of true introspection or self-awareness. His so-called character development is just another abuse of his gimmicky, poetical form; by allowing his characters to go on unending, melodramatic diatribes, he was able to present the reader with the illusion of well-crafted character development when, in reality, he was simply having each little caricature of a human being think out loud, thereby rendering the character's emotions in a form slightly more elegant than a grocery list.

[Anonymous No.5436318]

>>5435883
4/10. Fuck off

[Anonymous No.5436494]

>>5433091
>x professor

[Anonymous No.5436503]

>>5435883
>plot
3/10 was going okay until then.

[Anonymous No.5436828]

>>5434263
>It's actually impossible for one medium to not be inferior to another.
if you really have this way of thinking art isn't something for you

[Anonymous No.5436840]

If Shakespeare is overrated, explain to me why almost every story told copies Hamlet in some way.

[Anonymous No.5436847]