Literature

[Linsolv]

Today, I was sitting around discussing literature, and I had a dilemma.

 

I absolutely have no conception of Shakespeare. I've read a pretty good bit (though it has some gaps -- I've never read Hamlet or MacBeth, for instance) and I just don't feel any emotional reaction to it.

 

My companions' reactions led me to believe that perhaps it was my failing, and not a standard reaction.

 

What exactly is it I'm not seeing?

[mjdgoldeneye]

Well, you have to remember this is material written in an entirely different society and in Elizabethan English.

 

I can't blame a modern person for not relating to English/Scottish/Italian/etc. noblemen and court jesters and so on.

 

No piece of art of literature or entertainment has an intrinsic value. Sometimes hearing someone else's feeling on a work can give you further insight to the work or the person, but your initial reaction is the most honest.

[Slagaholic]

I was Shylock in a production of The Merchant of Venice. Didn't give half a crap about my character or any of the characters until the final act.

 

There's nothing wrong with you.

[dvdWarrior]

It was written for an earlier time, but every now and then, you can find a more modern way to relate.

 

From Shakespeare's Henry V, 1598:

 

KING HENRY V:

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he to-day that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now a-bed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

I know that one pretty well, but mainly because I've watched HBO's mini-series Band Of Brothers a good many times.

 

[Linsolv]

You're right. The Saint Crispin's Day speech is incredible. I'd forgotten about it.

[Remianen]

It really depends on personal taste. As an example, I despised English literature in high school. So much so that I flunked it (on purpose) for three quarters before finally deciding to pass it for the fourth quarter. But that quarter revolved around The Canterbury Tales and put me on to Chaucer (who I much prefer over Shakespeare).

 

Some of Shakespeare's works I hate. Like, there are very few literary characters that I despise more than Prince Hamlet. "Indecision is the handmaiden of death". If he had killed Claudius when he had the opportunity (the first one), everyone would've lived. But no, he hemmed and hawed and as a result, everyone dies and Denmark is left without a ruler (and no, I don't consider Fortinbras a ruler).

 

MacBeth makes an awesome cautionary tale. Does all that bad stuff happen if MacBeth doesn't listen to his wife? Note: I'm not saying men shouldn't listen to their wives. But if she tells you to do something you have serious misgivings about, there's a reason for that (and you shouldn't do it). Even if she questions your manhood.

[BurningHamster]

I personally never really cared for Shakespeare much either and always got the impression that people who were into it were more into it to appear cultured as opposed to actually enjoying it.

 

Bits and pieces are okay such as the St Crispin's day speech but overall meh.

[Shmoe]

Yeah, pretty much hate Shakespeare too. A lot of it just seems over complex for the purpose of being over complex, like he was trying to impress himself. Either that or there are just so many times there are passages which really get nothing established or said. Still passed it with ease, but either way

 

Like Remi and others said, it's all preference. I'm sure for each one of us there are people who still love Shakespeare's work. I just haven't met any of them yet.

[Daffanka]

Shakespeare is much better acted out than read. Just a heads up.

[Purple Cowboy]

I'm a big lit crit/Harold Bloom fan, and he has a massive book (750 pages for lit crit is quite a bit) called Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human which is a clever argument that we all modern people have basically been created by Shakespeare because we imitate a lot of the behaviors in his plays (specifically a key principle of Shakespeare that runs through his works - that of speaking with someone vacantly and without perception). Real mind trip, I love that stuff.

 

While Bloom puts Shakespeare nearly on saintly level, I haven't poured over the texts enough really to connect. Some of the comedies, like Taming of the Shrew, grew on me on subsequent readings just like hearing a song a few times and finally getting into it.

[Trashbear]

 

MacBeth makes an awesome cautionary tale. Does all that bad stuff happen if MacBeth doesn't listen to his wife? Note: I'm not saying men shouldn't listen to their wives. But if she tells you to do something you have serious misgivings about, there's a reason for that (and you shouldn't do it). Even if she questions your manhood.

 

Even though it was Springsteen who said "You can't start a fire without a spark," Lady Macbeth only pushed him over the line...the witches stirred the evil that lived in his heart, and Lady Macbeth steadied his hand, but Macbeth is a bad, bad man.

 

Ask Macduff. And Banquo for that matter.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, I earned my first degree in English, so these types of discussions are fun for me. But yeah, some people find Shakespeare to be not so fun. Just remember that his plays were like episodes of "Friends" back then. These were pieces of pop culture, not examples of the finest literature written by man. Shakespeare himself would be shocked that we're talking about his works today. And probably confused, too. It would be like people a few centuries from now talking about "Frasier" as if it were sacred.

 

There are a great many neat quotes in Shakespeare's tales. I believe it was in Henry V, Act V... the speech that begins with King Henry saying to Falstaff, the old friend, jester, and coward: "I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers."

[Lt. Lucrativo]

For me, enjoying Shakespeare is about enjoying and appreciating the use of language. What he's writing about isn't necessarily anything fascinating or profound--many of his plots were adapted or lifted directly from other sources--but he almost invariably found a fascinating or profound way of expressing things. For people who love to use language, I'd say he's pretty indispensable.

 

That said, I certainly agree with Daffanka that Shakespeare was meant to be heard rather than read. Especially for a modern reader who likely won't be familiar with many of the words and much of the phraseology that he uses, sitting down to read a Shakespeare play can be something of a slog and can require spending so much energy figuring out what he's trying to say that there's none left for appreciating how he's saying it. In my experience, however, Shakespeare really rewards re-reading. Once you understand what's supposed to be happening, it's much easier to just sit back and enjoy the masterful use of language.

[Trashbear]

While the thread is hot, and since this forum has pretty much the smartest people around, let me put another question out there...H.P. Lovecraft: Yay or Nay?

 

I love horror, I love a well-crafted setting and atmosphere. I don't, however, much care for Lovecraft. He's a fine writer, and he was gifted when it came to imagining wholly different realities and universes, but I don't have much use for him. I think it has to do with the fact that he was a shut-in who hated most everyone, especially black and Chinese people. As a result, he never really latched onto what, in effect, makes us human and never really was able to create engaging characters. He had no idea how people talked or behaved.

 

The proof is that out of the millions of words penned by Lovecraft, fewer than ten thousand were lines of dialogue. I respect him for his talents, but he's just not for me. Given that I'm in Rhode Island, my lit. friends think this is near blasphemy.

[Remianen]

Shakespeare is much better acted out than read. Just a heads up.

 

I don't even like it acted. There are rare occasions where an acting performance makes a trash story somewhat palatable. The problem I have with Shakespeare is, many of his stories are trash with characters that evoke ambivalence or downright hate from me.

 

Even though it was Springsteen who said "You can't start a fire without a spark," Lady Macbeth only pushed him over the line...the witches stirred the evil that lived in his heart, and Lady Macbeth steadied his hand, but Macbeth is a bad, bad man.

 

Ask Macduff. And Banquo for that matter.

 

So, you're a bad, bad man because you listen to a prophecy and like it but do nothing to further it until your wife basically calls you a homosexual if you don't? I'm not buyin' it. MacBeth's major sin is very similar to the story of Adam. Evil is a slippery slope and Lady MacBeth pushed her husband right on down.

 

And no, I'm not a fan of Lovecraft. Edgar Allan Poe is my favorite writer of all time and I see Lovecraft as somewhat derivative of him. But you bring up some good points. Like, I've always liked F. Scott Fitzgerald's characters (except Daisy) and perhaps a reason he was able to make such strong characters was his level of socialization.

[lazorbeak]

Never read Lovecraft, so I can't comment there.

 

 

I've been in a number of Shakespearean productions, and they're always fun. I think the worst adaptations are those that for some reason want to keep the costumes and look of the period: as has been mentioned, Shakespeare's plots weren't original and were never meant to be stuck in the 17th Century forever. Although I think the worst show I did in college was a modern day Romeo and Juliet where the director didn't make it clear if he wanted a campy melodrama or a fun comedy and ended up getting a bizarre combination where half the actors treated every line as a joke (including Romeo) and the other half (including Juliet) didn't.

 

But yeah, the works do a great job of using language to express emotion: I'm not sure that there isn't a Shakespeare quote that's applicable to just about anything.

 

I think people have this false impression as Shakespeare as some sort of stodgy old man because he's such a presence in the English literature canon, but there's always dirty jokes and fun bits, even in most of his dramas.

 

Also actors love to do his shows because he always gives everyone time off-stage to change or re-charge for a few minutes. It seems like in Act 4 there's always one scene where a minor character talks to a glorified extra for like 3 minutes about what's going on: these bits are usually done in front of the curtain so the sets can be changed and the lead actors get a breather. It's not particularly dramatic to read as text (in HS I don't think I ever read Act 4 of a Shakespeare play), but it serves a purpose in the theater.

[Dragonmack]

While I have never read Shakespeare myself ( prefering to see plays performed rather than read ) I have read a lot of older literature works like the Chaucer Canterbury Tales, the epic poems of Homer, Virgil and Dante, and the original King Arthur stories of Le Morte de Arthur and a lot of it can be boring or confusing taken out of the context of the time frame it was written in . ( Dante especially seems to have had a thing for putting certain high ranking clergy in his work, especially ones he disliked ) . while in some cases it was hard to slog through, I usually found it more rewarding to actually read the novels as they tended to include more depth and detail than movies or plays that were based on them.

 

Of course the big difference between them and Shakespeares, is that Shakespeare was writing for things to be performed, therefore all the detail is already in the play, while the novels and epic poems were meant to be read, and thus details can get lost when adapting for movie or play.

 

Basic point being that yeah it really probably isnt all that interesting to read a screenplay compared to the actual performance of it. Although some of Shakespeare's works do hold up, especially if given a contemporary context.

[Linsolv]

While the thread is hot, and since this forum has pretty much the smartest people around, let me put another question out there...H.P. Lovecraft: Yay or Nay?

 

I love horror, I love a well-crafted setting and atmosphere. I don't, however, much care for Lovecraft. He's a fine writer, and he was gifted when it came to imagining wholly different realities and universes, but I don't have much use for him. I think it has to do with the fact that he was a shut-in who hated most everyone, especially black and Chinese people. As a result, he never really latched onto what, in effect, makes us human and never really was able to create engaging characters. He had no idea how people talked or behaved.

 

The proof is that out of the millions of words penned by Lovecraft, fewer than ten thousand were lines of dialogue. I respect him for his talents, but he's just not for me. Given that I'm in Rhode Island, my lit. friends think this is near blasphemy.

 

Lovecraft's great. I mean. He's incredibly hard to read. For some reason, HP thought that it'd be a good idea to make his text so dense that you need to get at it with a chisel.

 

But I still think fondly back to reading The Colour Out of Space and The Statement of Randolph Carter. The shorter his stuff is, the better. Once you start getting into the multi-chapter epics like Call of Cthulhu or At the Mountains of Madness it becomes very nearly impossible to keep reading.

 

Secretly, though, I am a big fan of Robert Howard, who was apparently one of the folks Lovecraft wrote to with regularity.

 

-----------------

 

I never meant to take a whole lot away from Shakespeare; but while his use of language is always good, his sonnets and plays never give me much other than amusement. Ironically, the exception being Romeo and Juliet, where I just get so MAD at these characters for being so impatient that they bring so much misfortune on their own heads, and then get sympathy from the crowd.

 

I did enjoy Othello, and The Taming of the Shrew, but because they were clever or funny respectively. So while it'd be fair to say that Taming did it's job, Othello really didn't have me 'involved,' in that again I didn't really feel any pity for the characters.

[Purple Cowboy]

The canon is definitely shifting away from Shakespeare as the center of the lit universe (at least, that's how I see it). I think the old academic guard is just worried that Will will be marginalized so he keeps getting pushed on us, so we recognize that at least aesthetically he was a poetic genius in just about everything he wrote.

 

Haven't read any Lovecraft myself (aside from a tiny bit for background for a Call of Cthulhu RPG campaign). I don't really read much horror. Not that I don't care for it, just not high up there on my "likes."

 

If I'm going fiction I'm usually more along the sci-fi like Gene Wolfe.

[BHK1978]

While the thread is hot, and since this forum has pretty much the smartest people around, let me put another question out there...H.P. Lovecraft: Yay or Nay?

 

I love horror, I love a well-crafted setting and atmosphere. I don't, however, much care for Lovecraft. He's a fine writer, and he was gifted when it came to imagining wholly different realities and universes, but I don't have much use for him. I think it has to do with the fact that he was a shut-in who hated most everyone, especially black and Chinese people. As a result, he never really latched onto what, in effect, makes us human and never really was able to create engaging characters. He had no idea how people talked or behaved.

 

The proof is that out of the millions of words penned by Lovecraft, fewer than ten thousand were lines of dialogue. I respect him for his talents, but he's just not for me. Given that I'm in Rhode Island, my lit. friends think this is near blasphemy.

 

That is it we are going to have to revoke your Rhode Island citizenship. Honestly, I have never read Lovecraft myself but I have watched movies based on his works (Yes I know that does not mean a thing, as the differences between the two mediums are vast).

 

In regards to Shakespeare, I agree with BurningHamster, I think many people who say they enjoy Shakespeare (not all mind you) come across to me, as being pretentious and they want you to think that they are cultured.

 

Plus we say those are the works of Shakespeare but do we know that he wrote them for a fact?

[Linsolv]

There are only 2 movies TRULY based on Lovecraft's writing, not counting a German film I'm really looking forward to that I don't think has had a proper release as yet. [die Farbe]

 

The first is The Resurrected, which I don't think bills itself as a Lovecraft remake but very clearly is.

 

The second is a silent film adaptation of The Call of Cthulhu from 2005.

 

The Masters of Horror episode would probably count, if I didn't consider that a TV show that just happened to have a lot of good episodes.

 

Everything else I've seen was trash that thought they could get rich quick by using his name, and generally not a fair adaptation, or even vaguely close.