Not all of his works are winners, Romeo and Juliet is complete rubbish, but his work was so influential that calling the man himself rubbish is just bloody stupid.
Poll: What is the Big Deal With Bloody Shakespeare?!?!
- Thread starter interspark
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Criticizing someone's grammar with your flawed grasp of the language does not effect anything positive.CJ1145 said:
I personally find his work rather boring and have a hard time understanding why anyone enjoys it. However everyone has their own tastes in things so whatever.
Shakespeare was awesome paving the way for modern colloquialisms by making up words and terms that never existed, talking about sexual innuendo and possibly never writing any of the works hes been give credit for.
But ya, it was a different time back then when only men acted with a lack of costume and scenery.
But ya, it was a different time back then when only men acted with a lack of costume and scenery.
What the hell is this? Not one person noticed that Shakespeare isn't famous for his stories, but for his language?
He was the world's greatest poet, not the greatest storyteller. His "stories" are gay shitty fuckness that a fetus could write. It's his usage of words that made him famous.
He was the world's greatest poet, not the greatest storyteller. His "stories" are gay shitty fuckness that a fetus could write. It's his usage of words that made him famous.
Thank you, now I don't have to tell him this again.CJ1145 said:
I add one question to the OP though: Have you even READ Shakespeare? I mean, completely, and attempted to fully enjoy it? Also, they were meant as plays. Go see the Lion King for the awesomest adaptation of Hamlet ever.
Shakespeare is subtle, poetic and emotional. It's deep man, deep. Revenge, murder, backstabing, crazy lovetriangles, nothing's too odd for him.
Em you do know the humour is a bit dated and lost on us since we don't know nuances of the Elizabethan dialect.Mr Montmorency said:
OT: I like some of his work it is pretty good. I liked the Kenneth Brannagh Productions of Hamlet.
It's also the shortest of the tragedies, containing no subplots. Shakespeare wrote it largely to suck up to the new-ish King James I (the former James VI of Scotland), and the story goes that James had a notoriously short attention span and wouldn't sit still for a full-length tragedy. It's also said that the witches were included because James had a major thing about witches, going so far as to attend witch trials and write a book [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie] on the subject.ryuutchi said:
Sorry...major Shakespeare geek here. Two degrees and working on a third. Carry on.
Not to be too much of a dick but I have to point out the irony (even though it's not irony at all, really) of the original post's lack of capitalization and good spelling while criticizing Shakespeare.
And on to the personal opinion stuff now.
Shakespeare is full of modern-day cliches- hell, the whole plot of Romeo and Juliet has been stolen so many times and in so many ways that there isn't a number big enough for it and it seems to ridiculous and over the top that it's hard to read with a completely straight face. BUT, it was the original. At the time it was quite something. It was like Doom when it first came out- now the term "FPS" refers to thousands of games, when originally, they were all called Doom-Clones. So there you have it, Doom = Romeo and Juliet.
Some of his plays, though- Julius Caesar comes to mind, I rather like that one- are brilliantly written, even by today's standards. Some of the speeches in them (again, Julius Caesar comes to mind with Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech) are so well put together that you'd be hard pressed to find another example.
Though one thing against good Shakespeare. He made up somewhere around all the words he used. Eyeball, household, and others that don't come to mind right now. At the time his plays were being published they probably sounded about like someone trying to pass off Lewis Caroll's poem "Jabberwocky" as a real, deep, intellectual, etc piece of epic poetry. And now Shakespeare is considered (though I would disagree on this point) the greatest author in English-language history by many a people.
It's good stuff. Not "oh my god best thing ever" good stuff (unless you're a non-Hipster type English major), but still great. Which admittedly may be a product of the enormous praise the works receive in turn creating a culture where they are by default the "great works" of the language and therefore everything else is subordinate. Ah well.
And on to the personal opinion stuff now.
Shakespeare is full of modern-day cliches- hell, the whole plot of Romeo and Juliet has been stolen so many times and in so many ways that there isn't a number big enough for it and it seems to ridiculous and over the top that it's hard to read with a completely straight face. BUT, it was the original. At the time it was quite something. It was like Doom when it first came out- now the term "FPS" refers to thousands of games, when originally, they were all called Doom-Clones. So there you have it, Doom = Romeo and Juliet.
Some of his plays, though- Julius Caesar comes to mind, I rather like that one- are brilliantly written, even by today's standards. Some of the speeches in them (again, Julius Caesar comes to mind with Mark Antony's "Friends, Romans, countrymen" speech) are so well put together that you'd be hard pressed to find another example.
Though one thing against good Shakespeare. He made up somewhere around all the words he used. Eyeball, household, and others that don't come to mind right now. At the time his plays were being published they probably sounded about like someone trying to pass off Lewis Caroll's poem "Jabberwocky" as a real, deep, intellectual, etc piece of epic poetry. And now Shakespeare is considered (though I would disagree on this point) the greatest author in English-language history by many a people.
It's good stuff. Not "oh my god best thing ever" good stuff (unless you're a non-Hipster type English major), but still great. Which admittedly may be a product of the enormous praise the works receive in turn creating a culture where they are by default the "great works" of the language and therefore everything else is subordinate. Ah well.
You could say he is one of the fathers of modern authors. You don't have to like him, because that's personal preference, but at least respect his work.
Well, that isn't very nice... Were this a matter of any other subject, I should report you on the spot. That said, this is a hate-thread on the man who brought us the sexy piece of man-candy that is Mercutio, so I'll abstain. Watch yourself, though, sir, or you may be finding yourself on a voyage to the basement, with no means of a safe return...CJ1145 said:
Spark, I paid attention to Romeo and Juliet throughout the 9th grade and went from someone who lacked the ability to define Your and You're(Even if I still prefer to always type Your,Sadly XD) to someone who can type 55 words a minute. I like shakespear,but not in the way that it will improve your grammar,or that I find it good,I like it because it forces you to reflect on your OWN words.interspark said:
Nah, the humour is really NOT dated. Much Ado About Nothing is a romantic comedy predicated on the idea that a guy thinks his girlfriend is cheating on him. The only dated part is the part about princes, and if you changed it to, say, a pop idol and his band, rather than a prince and his soldiers, it would work just as well.Glademaster said:
And the language itself may be dated, but jokes about, say "I put him down, sir, so he would not do me," are still funny when you realize they're making truly terrible puns about sex. (She "puts him down"- insults him-- so he won't "put her down"-- put her on her back and have sex with her.)
I love Shakespeare geekery. There's a truly awesome play that was performed at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last year about the genesis of Macbeth. It's called "Equivocation", and it's all about Lord Cecil and the Gunpowder Plot. It's really meta too, with a lot of commentary on way Shakespeare is viewed in modern times and some exploration of the thought behind the tragicomedy plays that made up the last handful of Shakespeare's work.Buzz Killington said:
That said, I love recommending Macbeth to teens because there's no diversions from the main "kill-em-all" plot, and there's lots of on-screen blood.
Also great for both geeks and people who hate Shakespeare? The Entire Works of William Shakespeare: ABRIDGED. Amazing play, that.