[quote]PGA wrote:
Rockscar wrote:
Shakespeare is a Dick.
Fixteded[/quote]
No dude, I was talking about a guy I know Shakespear…he’s a dick.
MacBeth, The Tempest, Othello, King Lear, Hamlet and Richard III are awesome, but R&J does suck.
Man, Macbeth was great…
King Lear was cool, especially the image of raging across the moors in middle of a storm…
Romeo and Juliet only sucks because it’s been so played out and annihilated by people now. Origianlly it was probably very cool.
[quote]Rockscar wrote:
Shakespear is a Dick. [/quote]
I thought he was a Bill?
If you get the chance, you should watch the plays prior to reading them – after all, they were meant to be performed and viewed, even if they are great literature.
These are good:
A somewhat related story:
In college, I acted in a number of plays because 1) I always banged at least one girl in the cast, and 2) I’m a pretty big ham, and I thought it was fun.
In one of them, some of the cast members (myself included) had to recite passages from Romeo & Juliet. It was then I discovered that none of these people knew what the hell they were reading. They’d recite the words with no inflection whatsoever, just a droning monotone that was painful to hear.
I was the only one who took the time to learn what it was I was actually saying, and I even had to school the self-proclaimed “Shakespeare expert” chick in the cast as to what certain passages meant when others would ask her.
The fucked up thing is, most of these “actors” had been part of the “drama crowd” all throughout high school.
–You know, the weird chicks who ate their lunch in the costume loft and could recite any of the lines of the three witches in Macbeth from memory (and often did so without being asked)–
Anyway, here I come having never taken an acting class in my life, and got leading roles ahead of all of them by, wait for it… Being a good actor! If you aren’t, memorizing all the Shakespeare lines there are won’t mean shit.
The OP is accurate on one account; the pseudo-intellectual snobbery of high school drama pukes (especially fat chicks with nothing else going for them) is really something else.
To the OP: Saying “I don’t get it” is OK, as you are probably the only honest one in your group. The thing is, are you willing to just sit there and not “get it”, or will you actually take the time to see what everyone’s been fussing about for the last 500 years?
I’m telling you, it really isn’t that hard when you break it down.
[quote]Digital Chainsaw wrote:
The OP is accurate on one account; the pseudo-intellectual snobbery of high school drama pukes (especially fat chicks with nothing else going for them) is really something else.
[/quote]
One of the drama pukes I went to high school with just won the Oscar for best actor. Not that it has anything to do with the topic but it is interesting.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
First, the guy said more about human nature than any writer before or since, and there’s a reason why he’s at the top of the pantheon of writers.
TShaw wrote:
Fans of Geoffrey Chaucer would beg to differ.
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I know they would. At least Shakespeare didn’t pussy out on his deathbed and renounce the things he wrote though. ;)[/quote]
sputter sputter cough
Touche, sir!
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
One of the drama pukes I went to high school with just won the Oscar for best actor. Not that it has anything to do with the topic but it is interesting.[/quote]
Zap, Are you from Fairport, NY? (I’m thinking you’re referring to P.S.Hoffman.)
Personally I find Shakespeare boring and melodramatic (I don’t care what people say about the insights he had into the human soul, people in my experience do not act like his characters), but I wouldn’t say that he pissed me off in any way. It just sounds like you’re angry because you’re having difficulty understanding it, so you take it out on the people who do like it.
Is it worth understanding? Most people think so. It’s difficult to be really sure unless you take the time to understand it yourself.
[quote]cap’nsalty wrote:
Personally I find Shakespeare boring and melodramatic (I don’t care what people say about the insights he had into the human soul, people in my experience do not act like his characters), but I wouldn’t say that he pissed me off in any way. It just sounds like you’re angry because you’re having difficulty understanding it, so you take it out on the people who do like it.
Is it worth understanding? Most people think so. It’s difficult to be really sure unless you take the time to understand it yourself. [/quote]
That’s because Shakespeare is boring. I had to read a few of his writing during my career as a student, and out of all the old works I read, his was the worst. Way too drawn out and dare I say, cliche. Homer was much more fun to read.
he had the best moustache.
[quote]Ren wrote:
maybe it’s because you have a horrible grasp on english grammar.
Shakespeare’s plays are great reads, God help us if this is how your entire generation thinks.[/quote]
God help us if we let other peoples opinions determine what our likes and dislikes are. You say that shakespeare is good. The OP thinks shakespeare is crap. You are both entitled to your opinion. If you think that something is fine art just because other people say it is, then you are nothing more then a sheep in a herd.
I have read a couple of shakespeare plays. I do not think that they have any more or less value then other literary works. They are a good example of english poetry and english plays of that period. I don’t beleive that shakespeare should be required reading for all.
What I find to be an attrocity is that several shakespeare plays were required reading in high school english classes, but I was never required to read the declaration of independence, or the constitution, or the emancipation proclomation, or FDR’s speech after pearl harbor, or winston churchill’s “fight them on the beaches, in the streets of london…etc etc etc” speech.
Call me stupid if you want, but when we have to read 5 shakespear plays to pass senior english, but knowing even ONE of the amendments to the constituion is not a requirement, there is a problem with the school system.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Digital Chainsaw wrote:
The OP is accurate on one account; the pseudo-intellectual snobbery of high school drama pukes (especially fat chicks with nothing else going for them) is really something else.
One of the drama pukes I went to high school with just won the Oscar for best actor. Not that it has anything to do with the topic but it is interesting.[/quote]
You’ll have to forgive me, I don’t know who the current Oscar holder is, but I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts winning it had nothing to do with him being a boorish snob (who nobody “got”) who wore all black and carried a plastic human skull in his backpack in case anyone wanted him to recite Hamlet at the drop of a hat when he was a teenager.
In the end, training, being “into” theater, or whatnnot means very little if one has no natural talent and/or stunning good looks to build on. Most drama majors can’t seem to accept this and waste many years fruitlessly pursuing something that none of their teachers in high school or college have the balls to tell them they suck at.
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
Tell those bitches you’re taking the Socratic route.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Do people that proudly proclaim their ignorance piss you off?[/quote]
YES! YES! YES!
[quote]BigRagoo wrote:
That’s because Shakespeare is boring. I had to read a few of his writing during my career as a student, and out of all the old works I read, his was the worst. Way too drawn out and dare I say, cliche. Homer was much more fun to read.[/quote]
I think the person who wrote the first response to the original poster was joking when he said Shakespeare was cliche. He knew that a lot of cliches we use every day actually come from Shakespeare; Shakespeare was the very first to say them. You can’t really say you don’t like his works because they are “cliche”, since they were the origin of the overused phrases. Well you can, but it wouldn’t make much sense.
As for being drawn out, I think Shakespeare’s works are the complete opposite: they are way too dense. I don’t like Shakespeare, but mainly because I don’t have the patience for it.
Things which are good do not necessarily depend upon likes and dislikes. Just because certain people don’t like Shakespeare doesn’t make it bad. And if you are complaining about the language, read Beowolf. Shakespeare isn’t difficult at all. People make it hard. Now you may have trouble with big words and free verse, but that is your problem. Break it down verse by verse, get video tapes of it, get cliff notes. Try to understand at least one of his plays. Much Ado about Nothing would be better. The effort of at least trying to comprehend it would lend you more useful skills, even if you never do truly understand his plays. Knocking it or those who do understand it or who are trying is of very little use. If you really do need help with it, pm me and I’ll se what I can do.
Oh and by the way, and I’m not a fat, emo, bitchy chick. I’m not even all that artsy. People who have a strong point in one area are usually so focused that they never are able to achieve or comprehend other areas. This is why you get the fat chick syndrome associated with these sort of things. Would that people were more well-rounded and not in the belly.
[quote]PGA wrote:
No, we’ve heard it in countless other threads as to why…[/quote]
No need to hate.
To the OP, if you are struggling with Shakespeare, persist. Once you get the ‘flow’ of the language, it will start to make more sense to you. Also, get a copy with plenty of notes which explain the language (some copies have the text on the left page, and the commentary on the right).
‘Romeo and Juliet’ is a good play to start your Shakespeare journey on- the language is fairly straightforward by Shakespeare standards and most people know something of the plot and characters, even if they have never read the play before, because it’s such a part of our culture. It is far from being my favorite play- that is ‘Othello’ but it is rewarding, with some effort.