Shakespeare 400

[Medium Wave]

Shakespeare 400

Patrick Thistle wrote: I read Bill Bryson's book about Shakespeare that sums up everything in the first couple of paragraphs along the lines of we know nothing about his life, it was all written down hundreds of years later etc. etc. Then Bryson carried on writing another 100 or so pages, I guess because a pamphlet wasn't what his editor wanted.

I read that book too and enjoyed Bryson's take on it. On the lack of clarity about Shakepeare's life he describes him as "being permanently there and not there, like an electron." He dismissed the claims that the Earl of Oxford may have written Shakespeare's plays as he published work under his own name which was supposedly unremarkable. No, Byson reckons, "Shakespeare wrote them alright - whoever he was."

[Various Artist]

Shakespeare 400

C'mon, you're not telling me you can't see a bit of Emmental in that icon:

Edit: Er, to EIM, not MW. I'm not suggesting there's a cheese-based Shakespearean conspiracy afoot.

[Lurgee]

Shakespeare 400

WOM wrote: Oh, and welcome Lurgee. Favourite biscuit?

Biscuits are a bit lumpen-bourgeois, aren't they? It's a slippery slope. You'll be suggesting we should all have cake, next. And I presume you know what that unfortunate suggestion led to, to paraphrase a playwright that wasn't Shakespeare.

If I had to choose one biscuit? Jaffa Cakes. Not because I like them. In fact, they taste pretty horrid. But, for me, they are imbued with Proustian associations of teenage years, acne, sexual longing and the vague and unfathomable assurance that I was going to amount to something (what?) in the world.

[Lurgee]

Shakespeare 400

Various Artist wrote: Was just about to say welcome Lurgee, lovely first couple of posts there and no mistake.

I always want to ask "Favourite cheese?"

I'm awful with cheese. I'm a straightforward cheddar man. The stronger the better. I did buy some blue cheese about three weeks ago, in a fit of madness, and now it is squatting in the fridge, untasted and ignored as far as it is possible to ignore mouldering malevolence.

[Uncle Ethan]

Shakespeare 400

I've wondered since school if having Shakespeare and Dickens forced on pupils leads many of them to start disliking them.

When your first experience of serious literature is that of having to analyse every passage and come up with essays that agree with someone else's interpretation of what they mean it must sow seeds of rebellion.

I have always enjoyed actually watching the plays. Boringly I prefer traditional versions that don't set Midsummer Night's Dream in a warehouse rave in 90s Docklands but Shakespeare's plays should be watched, not read.

[G-Man]

Shakespeare 400

WOM wrote:

I'm bemused that four centuries after the fact, we are speculating about whether William Shakespeare was the author of the works that bear his name.

That's not what you're reading my second paragraph as suggesting, are you? Because that's not what I meant. I meant that maybe we'd champion the slightly lesser works of others and 'do' them to death for a while.

No, I wasn't answering your second para but took "inspiration" from it.

[Lurgee]

Shakespeare 400

Uncle Ethan wrote: I've wondered since school if having Shakespeare and Dickens forced on pupils leads many of them to start disliking them.

When your first experience of serious literature is that of having to analyse every passage and come up with essays that agree with someone else's interpretation of what they mean it must sow seeds of rebellion.

I'm in two minds about this. On the one hand, I think there's nothing worse than forcing books on people when they aren't ready or receptive for them; nothing is going to convince people that literature is boring and stupid them compelling them to study it when they are disinclined to.

On the other hand, I remember being absolutely enthralled - enthralled, I say! - by MacBeth as a snot encrusted 15 year old. But I was the sort of youth likely to be enthralled by that sort of stuff and was not at all representative of anything much.

And on the other other hand, how likely are people to actually experience that sort of stuff if it isn't inflicted on them at a vulnerable age. How many people, left to their own discretion, will suddenly grab a copy of King Lear just for lolz? At least if they get it at school, the might remember its something about some senile old geezer and his horrible daughters.

[Lurgee]

Shakespeare 400

Random assortment of literary types and former arch-bishops muse about the relevance of [strike]the Earl of Oxford[/strike] [strike]Francis Bacon[/strike] [strike]Kit Marlowe[/strike] [strike]Emelia Bassano[/strike] Will Shakespeare to the modern world.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics...00-years-later

Ranges from the absurd to the thoughtful.

[hobbes]

Shakespeare 400

If I had to choose one biscuit? Jaffa Cakes

Blimey, you like to live dangerously...

[Duncan Gardner]

Shakespeare 400

Lang spoon wrote: There'll be a lavishly filmed worthy BBC Drama before the decade is out, Cumberpatch in a half slap head wig and no hint of Brum accent

Shaky didn't have anythng like a modern Brum accent. He most likely sounded like Jimmy Nesbitt or Adrian Dunbar do now.

Much English migration to Ulster in the 17th was from Warks and Worcs, they probably took their accent with them.

[Lang Spoon]

Shakespeare 400

Billy as a proto Nordie? Oy.. Had always pegged the 6 counties aural assault as the result of half of Ayrshire being dumped across the channel adding to an already harsh Ulster Irish dialect.

Trying to imagine Hamlet monologues in a spidey patter now.

[WOM]

Shakespeare 400

[quote]Lurgee wrote:

And on the other other hand, how likely are people to actually experience that sort of stuff if it isn't inflicted on them at a vulnerable age. How many people, left to their own discretion, will suddenly grab a copy of King Lear just for lolz?

Yeah, I can see both sides of this. I mean, to turn people on to good things, you have to actually put it in front of them and push their nose toward it. So...good. On the other hand, if you have to push their nose to it instead of them hearing about it and seeking it out, what are your chances of success? Especially with Dickens and Shakespeare, who are notoriously dense and difficult. Shakespeare is basically written in a dead language, with many (most) editions heavily notated. By the time you're through it you're thinking 'thank God that's over' instead of 'clever plot'. And, of course, they weren't written to be read, but that's how they're taught.

I mean, if you want to teach Beethoven, you don't hand them the sheet music. You play the songs.