# Shakespeare



## e.Blackstar (Nov 21, 2005)

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I spelt it wrongly, but I'm not going to bother to find out right now.

We're required to read _Romeo and Juliet_ our 9th year, which I rather despised for several reasons. _Julius Ceaser_ is coming up next for this year (after Sophocles' _Antigone_), but I find I can no longer diss Shakespere. You see, this past weekend I went to see _Titus Andronecus_ as a production at my sister's college, and I was stunned. Brilliant, it was! So...what do you guys think of the great Mssr. Villiam?


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## Ithrynluin (Nov 21, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*

Like JRRT, I have a cordial dislike of Shakespeare, though I'm not fond of plays in general either. _Antigone_ I liked better.


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## HLGStrider (Nov 21, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*

I like and dislike Shakespeare for several reasons. One of the reasons I like him was that I have played characters in several of his plays and I like acting. One of the reasons I dislike him is because my teacher/director was a volunteer English teacher Shakespeare expert rather than a drama/theater teacher and the only thing she would put on was Shakespeare plays, and I really wanted to try my hand at something else . . . like _Arsenic and Old Lace_ or something.

I like Shakespeare's way with words which is fun, eloquent, and interesting and has that old fashioned ring to it.
I hate his plots. They range between utterly, unbelievably fantastic where in one scene half the cast is killed and lies dead on the floor and anti-climactic messes where out of no where the big bad guy is converted by a passing monk and doesn't want to be bad anymore, so let's celebrate!

Shakespeare would never cut it as a novelist, but he makes a good poet.

I played Olivia in _Twelfth Night, _Lady Capulet in _Romeo and Juliet_, Peter Quince in one version of _Midsummer Night's Dream_ and Hippolyta in another. 

Hippolyta was bit part. I had two lines and wasn't really a cast member. They were just short on females of the right heighth.

Almost everytime I have been cast it has been a heighth decision. I got Lady Olivia when the director wanted to cast me as the Fool (I wanted Olivia, but either would have worked) because I was 5'4'' and the guy playing Sebastian was probably 5'7'' and the girl who would have been cast as Olivia had I been the fool was at least 5'11''.


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## DGoeij (Nov 22, 2005)

Great to watch (in a genuine theatre or as a movie), but far too hard to read. That sums it all up for me.

I liked his appearence in The Science of Discworld II, the Globe, by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen.


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## Arlina (Nov 22, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*

I too like some of Shakespeare's work, however most I don't like. Also being a part of drama, I have been involved in several of his works, including excerting some pieces to form monologes...However some of his works seem to follow a similar path.

My school did Arsenic and Old Lace last year! It was awesome...I got stuck with publicity, however everyone did a great job.


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## e.Blackstar (Nov 22, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*



DGoeij said:


> Great to watch (in a genuine theatre or as a movie), but far too hard to read. That sums it all up for me.



I can definitely agree with that.


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## Helcaraxë (Dec 3, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*

I've read a few...Macbeth, Hamlet, parts of Julius Casesar. I think his word usage is very unusual and surprising; from a linguistic standpoint I hold it in high regard.

My favorite things about Shakespeare's works are all his "quotable quotes."

"This fell sergeant, Death, is strict in his arrest..."

Good stuff. Are his works the greatest ever written? No. It doesn't compare with Tolkien, as far as I'm concerned.


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## Wolfshead (Dec 3, 2005)

*Re: Shakespere*

I read a few of his plays when I was at school. Othello was probably my favourite. The film version was pretty good too - Laurence Fishburne (the epitomy of cool - see The Matrix and the remake of Assault on Precinct 13) and Kenneth Branagh, who's always amusing.

I also liked the way Desdemona has been suffocated and then gives a closing soliloquy


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## Beleg (Dec 6, 2005)

*Imho:*

Boring to watch and equally boring to read. 

Dostoevsky, Joyce and Shakespeare write the book on how to bore a reader senseless within five minutes.


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## Wolfshead (Dec 6, 2005)

*Re: Imho:*



Beleg said:


> Boring to watch and equally boring to read.


Sacrilege! How can you dismiss the hilarity of Kenneth Branagh so lightly?!


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## Hammersmith (Dec 6, 2005)

*Re: Imho:*



Beleg said:


> Boring to watch and equally boring to read.
> 
> Dostoevsky, Joyce and Shakespeare write the book on how to bore a reader senseless within five minutes.


You're cruising for a bruising with that attitude, m'lad! 
What in particular makes you look down on the above so readily?


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## Ithrynluin (Dec 6, 2005)

*Re: Imho:*



Beleg said:


> Dostoevsky, Joyce and Shakespeare write the book on how to bore a reader senseless within five minutes.



Oh, I wouldn't put master Shakespeare anywhere near Joyce. Even though I'm not a fan of Shakespeare, his works are at least readable compared to Joyce's. _A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_? I think I nodded off before I even finished reading the title.


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## HLGStrider (Dec 6, 2005)

GASP! HE ATTACKED DUSTY-OV-SKY!

I love my Dosteovksy. . .cradles all three (or four depending on how you count them) brothers Karamozov protectively.


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## Beleg (Dec 16, 2005)

*Hammersmith* posted,



> What in particular makes you look down on the above so readily?



I dislike Dostoevsky because, well, my reaction towards 'Brothers K...' and 'Crime And Punishment' was perfectly similar to Ithrynluin's experience with 'A Portrait of an Wan-Artist as a Young Wan-Man'. 

Joyce is more dense than an organic chemistry textbook and his books read like masturbatory circlejerks written not for entertainment, or to put a certain point across, but to sate the fantasies of a secret cabal, admission to which is possible only through partial shreding of one's temporal lobe. 

Being force-fed copious ammounts of bard's writing during your formative years, and hear everyone going absolutely, gushingly insane over his genius is surely a great way to dump him in your bad graces permanently. 

And Elgee, you are welcome to your horde of Brothers K. The world is surely better off without their cancerous presence.


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## Alcuin (Dec 16, 2005)

*Re: Imho:*



Beleg said:


> Boring to watch and equally boring to read.
> 
> Dostoevsky, Joyce and Shakespeare write the book on how to bore a reader senseless within five minutes.


Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 _Romeo and Juliet_ with Olivia Hussey?? (drool, drool) 

Olivier's 1956 _Richard III_? Or Al Pacino's 1996 _Looking for Richard_? I don't know if the real Richard III was a hunchback, but that Shakespearian villain! He’s worthy of one of the Nine Rings! 

Polanski's 1971 _MacBeth_! That's a great one! Gave my teenagers nightmares. (Played to packed houses as the midnight movie when I was in college. Jon Finch as MacBeth is another one worth wraithifying into a Nazgûl)

Mel Gibson's 1991 _Hamlet_. My kids watched it and loved it before they started school.

I don’t know – I love Shakespeare! Tolkien, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dante, Petrarch – what fun on a desert island!

Joyce ... well, I must concur on that one.


> bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!


Maybe we can offer him a Mulligan.

Or set Farmer Maggot's dogs after him.


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## Khôr’nagan (Dec 16, 2005)

Shakespeare for me is annoyance personified. I mean, his language really is fascinating to read and artful, but when reading Shakespeare is accompanied by all the countless insufferable school assignments that I have been forced to endure, it is difficult to look upon Shakespeare in a friendly light, when without him I might have far less annoying assignments


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## Rhiannon (Dec 16, 2005)

I hate to seat and read Shakespeare, and I've seen a few mind-numbing performances of his works, and one that I really hated (an avant-garde production of _Macbeth_, set in Africa, where they got you up and had you move around and...gah. It was horrible), but I love all of Kenneth Brannagh's Shakespeare films (especially _Much Ado About Nothing_, which is one of my favorite movies period) and in the last year I've seen a lot of really, _really_ good theatre, most of it Shakespeare (including two plays at the new Globe, _Pericles_ and _The Tempest_). Shakespeare performed well is fantastic. Shakespeare performed badly is a good chance to take a nap. Reading Shakespeare...well, I'm taking a whole class on him in the spring, and the professor is supposed to be amazing, so maybe he'll teach me to like it. I hope so, or the class will be torture and I'll be wishing I'd taken bowling instead. 

I can't comment on Shakespeare as an actor, because I'm not one--my callings in theatre always involve either needles or ninja gear and a headset. 

Joyce, now....his early short stories, what I've read of them, are good stuff. I think he must have just gone crazy.

I adore _Antigone_, especially the Jean Anouilh version.


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## Alcuin (Dec 17, 2005)

Shakespeare is supposed to be *seen*! And *heard*! Besides, school will make you stupid if you let it. Go, learn, and remember: a lot of other people know this stuff, and that bumpkin in front of the class didn’t teach _them_. So you can learn it with or without the moron in the classroom, and in spite of them, too, if necessary.

It certainly seems that a lot of teachers ruin Shakespeare. Imagine hearing rock (or rap, or jazz, or whatever you really like) played by someone who doesn’t particularly care for it, who’s only doing because he has to, and who can’t be fired if he does it poorly but not so badly that it’s unrecognizable. Or worse, that person trying to teach you to play it! And even if he _loves_ it, he has to be a pretty good musician to get it across, much less teach you to do it. (And _you_ must have the talent for it to play it yourself.) Almost everyone in class would barf on the way out the door, and nearly everyone would agree the music was [something the TTF server turns into little stars, like this: ****]. 

Or if you liked _Star Wars_, think about what it will be like 100 years from now... Instructor: “Students, get out your textpads and bring up Episode IV. Carlo, what is the symbolism of Luke’s losing his hand? What?! You haven’t read your homework?! George? You, too, hm? Philip?” George to Carlo: “I’ll tell you what I think about this _Star Wars_ stuff. It’s all a bunch of little stars! I can’t believe my great-grandparents stood in line to see it! Boy, were they ever dumb little stars!” Carlo to George: “What do you think your great-grandparents said instead of ‘little stars’? And aren’t some stars really little? I mean, Alpha Centari is little…” Instructor: “Okay, you two! I caught you now! That’s twice today for you Carlo! Off to the central authority for you both!” George and Carlo in unison: “Oh, little stars!!”

Wait ’til teachers start shoving stupid projects about _Lord of the Rings_ down people’s throats. Students will soon learn to hate Tolkien – not because it isn’t good, but because they _*have*_ to do it, and because they _*have*_ to do it for _*somebody else*_. Some people really do dislike Tolkien’s stories; sometimes they wander through here; but they don’t stay, because they don’t like it. (Hey, I don’t like James Joyce or Harper Lee: I think their stuff is just blindingly chock _full_ of little stars! And I was never _forced_ to read it; I did anyway because it was supposed to be “great” literature ... until I finally barfed on it. Had I been forced to read it, I’d _*really *_hate it, and with a passion!) 

Now, imagine locking all the people who really dislike Tolkien in this forum with us, a fresh new group of them every year, primed and prepped by the group in front of them, and they *have* to post once a day, 5 days a week, for 42 weeks. Oh, and they _*have*_ to read every single post from every single poster on every single topic, or at least, every single topic somebody else likes (or dislikes least). This would be a very noisy, very unhappy, very unpleasant forum in very short order, and no one would get anything useful from it very easily.

Give ol’ Will Shakespeare a second chance. If you really hate his stuff, you hate it. But don’t rely on reading it, and see the best productions you can. It isn’t meant to be read silently. (Except maybe a half-dozen of the Sonnets. Any discussion would quickly turn into little stars: most high school teachers just gloss over them quickly, if at all. Or why he left his wife his second-best bed.) Oh, and stick to the good stuff: no matter what Leonardo DiCaprio did, Romeo did not go for a swim, nor was Mercutio gunned down. Nor did Richard III drive a tank or wear a gas mask. (Actually, I rather enjoyed the 1995 Loncraine/McKellen version, but most people don’t. One wiseacre called it “Third Reich-ard.” It’s appropriate.)

As for me, I must have been incredibly lucky. My English teachers were awesome, and Shakespeare in junior high school, high school, and college was a blast!


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## Hammersmith (Dec 17, 2005)

Well said and brilliantly put, Alcuin! Shakespeare was nearly ruined for me in precisely the manner you so excellently describe, but then I was idly glancing at a few lines and I suddenly thought, "Wow! This guy's a genius!"

And so, much less eloquently than Mr Alcuin, give the bard a shot, guys! You'll be pleasantly surprised!


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## Noldor_returned (Dec 17, 2005)

Yes and no, like others. The yes reasons are:

I have acted a few of his characters, and I (like elgee) love my acting
He knows what he's talking about
the scene in Romeo and juliet when it goes, "Do you bite your thumb at us sir?" "I do bite my thumb sir..." etc
There is no writer that I know of who can be compared to him, mainly because there are few books surviving written with similar language features by different authors
The no reasons are:

Most of his works are fairly tedious
I get sick of all the thee thy and thou's


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