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/lit/ - Literature

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618269 No.618269 [Reply] [Original]

Why do people like Shakespeare?

>> No.618274

Because he's fun to read if you aren't a dumbass.

>> No.618279

>>618274

But he isn't

>> No.618282

Hes not fun to read, no, but his plays are still powerful and inspiring

>> No.618280

>>618279
Dumbass status: confirmed.

>> No.618284
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618284

He writes great plays and has contributed to English Literature

>> No.618288

>>618274

>hurrdurr readan is hard. not bein able 2 read is the only reason for not liking certain literature

>> No.618289

>>618280
Not a dumbass, but his stuff gets very boring very fast. I loved the first 2 or 3 Shakespeare plays I read, and then hated everything after that.

>> No.618292

>>618289
>his stuff gets boring very fast

You aren't very good at reading, evidently.

>> No.618293

>>618269

Feels good man

>> No.618294

Hamlet was pretty badass, so was MacBeth

>> No.618300

>>618292

Being interested in meaningless verbose blather which is only there for formalistic reasons is the same as being able to read well

>> No.618304

>>618292
:( I am, all I'm saying is that his themes get re-used, I see the same symbols over and over. I read the same plays in high school (where they dissect books like a dead cat) and then out of high school, and I didn't gain any new perspectives.

I'm not saying that an individual play got boring quickly, but that his works overall did.

>> No.618308

>>618300
Indeed.

>> No.618310

Shakespeare here. Fuck you OP

>> No.618311

>>618300
Shakespeare is pretty far from meaningless blather.
If you get the puns and the timeframe, most of his plays are pretty funny.
And they're just good reads, and fun to watch as well.

>> No.618317
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618317

cervantes is better

>> No.618322

>>618311

What if I get the puns and find them horribly pretentious ways of saying things that could have been said far more pithily and thereby pragmatically more effective?

>> No.618324

>>618304
Oh, no, the author wrote in a similar style for all his works. How terrible! He would have been much better if he wrote more like a monkey with ADD and changed to a different style every time he picked up a pen.

>> No.618334

Read Othello for the first time at the beginning of the semester. The only play I've ever read that I was not able to put down. Act V was just...wow.

>>618322

...he's a fucking poet. Poets write things in florid ways that can be expressed in plain text. If you don't like it, don't read poetry.

>> No.618364

>>618334

But good poetry doesn't have unnecessary florid language. Good poetry uses complex strings of words only because they have the benefit of having more precise meanings. Pithiness is not lost in good poetry.

>> No.618366

>>618364
You don't have a clue as to what good poetry is.

>> No.618372

>>618366

You don't have a clue what good poetry is, and you're pretentious.

>> No.618373

>>618364

Well, yes, but the style at the time was to use over-florid language. All Elizabethan poets wrote in similar ways. It was the popular style, just like nature and the inherent goodness of man was a popular style at the time of the Romantics.

>> No.618375

>>618372
At least I know what I'm talking about.

>> No.618376

>>618373

Which doesn't make it good.

>> No.618378

>>618376

Doesn't make it bad either.

>> No.618383

>>618375

Ah, that's where my claim falls to the ground. I was only hoping you wouldn't make that point. I can see you're more than a match for me.

>> No.618387

>>618383
Indeed I am. Enjoy your piss-poor modern poetry.

>> No.618386

>Shakespeare
>not a good poet
ITT obvious trolling.

>> No.618392

>>618378

Uh, yes it does. The style doesn't read well, doesn't translate well into theatre, and doesn't get its points across very effectively. It has nothing going for it.

>> No.618395

>>618392
herp derp they see me trollin'

>> No.618396

>>618392
>hello I'm 12

>> No.618398

>>618387

ty, i will go back to reading my baudelaire and lautréamont and let you go back to reading some real poetry like dickinson and browning

>> No.618421

>>618392

Umm...what? I've been reading poetry for years, and maybe he's pretty middle of the road, but Shakespeare was far from bad. His language is very easy to understand if you have patience and read thoroughly, and as for staging? What?

I mean...what? His plays are still among the very best ever written. The man was far beyond his time, understood humanity very well and created some of the most interesting and enduring characters in the canon.

Excuse me. You can list all the nice little poets that you enjoy all you like, but that doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. You're flat out wrong when it comes to Shakespeare.

>> No.618446

>>618398
>wat
Dickinson was a proto-Modernist, troll.

>> No.618448

>>618421

I'm not saying his language is unintelligible--I'm saying that it is silly and forced and that it being forced detracts from its ability to communicate what Shakespeare intends to communicate. He makes concessions for form and the form does not carry into diegetic speech.

>> No.618453

In MacBeth in the scene where Lady M. is urging M to kill Duncan so he'll become king, am i wrong or is she making a blowjob reference when she talks about (paraphrasing) the baby that sucks and she knows what its like to suck, etc ...

>> No.618454

>>618446

Because that has anything to do with what I'm talking about and somehow refutes my point...

>> No.618458

>>618311
>Implying you should laugh at a tragedy

>> No.618463

>>618448

Sure. Of course it does. I don't think there are many people who would say that Shakespeare couldn't stand to be more concise. The point is, and I know I'm repeating myself here but it still stands, that everyone of his period wrote that way. It was the style of the time in Elizabethan England.

>> No.618471

>O, I am slain!

Seriously, Shakespeare?

>> No.618488

>>618463

Yes, and everybody who wrote that way wrote badly.

>> No.618491

So, how come, at the beginning of Midsummer Night's, Theseus and Hippolyta say it's four days until their wedding, and then the next day they get married along with the four lovers?

>> No.618492

cuz his insults are the shit

"i'd beat thee, but i should infect my hands"
win

>> No.618493

>>618491
cos that's how Shakespeare rolls.

>> No.618496

>>618471
Have you ever thought it was to tell the audience that he was killed. Remember Shakespeare's plays were in theaters where people would be drinking.

>> No.618508

>>618491
It's not the next day.
At the end of Act 1, Lysander tells Hermia to meet him in the woods the next night, so Act 2 starts on the second day. Then they sleep at the beginning of Act 3, and again at the end.
Then, at the beginning of Act 5, Thesseus says that they'll get married along with him the next night.
Boom, four nights.

>> No.618516

>>618508

That can't be right. Helena was waiting for dawn to leave the wood. If a night had gone by, she would have escaped.

>> No.618538

>>618496
>I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this; Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
>Falls on the bed, and dies

This is some serious shit

>> No.618539

>>618516
Which scene are you talking about?

>> No.618562

>>618539

Act 3 scene two

>Helena: O weary night, O long and tedious night, abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east, so that I may back to Athens by daylight, etc etc

Though you're right, this doesn't take place as early as I was thinking. Shortly after this they all fall asleep and are later discovered the next morning.

I wonder why my Lit professor was so keen on trying to tell me the entirety of the activity in the wood took place over one night...

>> No.618593

>>618488

As an academic, I've heard some pretty obtuse things.

Dismissing nearly one hundred years of the most enduring poetry ever written, though?

That takes the fucking cake.

>> No.618598

why do i like the Shakespeare...

shit was so fucking cash...

>> No.618606

>>618593

An English major is not an academic.

>> No.618692

Exactly what I wanted to ask. 1) people don't even know if he was real or not. 2) He was a bisexual who from I seen he hated his wife, I mean... he gave her the 2nd best bed when he died. 2) He is apparently sadistic since in every one of his plays someone is dead or has commited suicide. Over-all shakespeare is a fucking moron who stole other people's plays and idea's.

>> No.618709

>>618692

>1)
>2)
>2)

I'm not sure you've got the mental capacity to appreciate Shakespeare just yet.

>> No.618720

I lol at everyone who brings up the second best bed thing.

Protip: You were lucky to have a bed then, not to mention two. Also, isn't that suggesting he had a better bed? Yeah, and that bed went to his daughter.

Fucking dumbasses taking things out of context.