Plays are meant to be performed and listened to, not read. It’s very difficult to read ANY play (or any libretto for a musical) including modern ones. Essentially you’re reading a plain script. Reading a Shakespearean play takes a bad situation and only makes it worse because we’re generally unfamiliar with his use of language.
I was lucky enough to find a series of books where each page of the play had an explanation on the facing page of what was going on and what was being said. After reading two or three of those, I found I didn’t need the explanations anymore. I even started to catch all the sexual innuendoes in all the plays.
I actually found it difficult to read Othello. Iago was such a purely evil SOB I could barely bring myself to read it.
harris447 wrote:
I actually laughed out loud at this.
You can always tell another English teacher…[/quote]
Thank god. I thought my joke had fallen completely flat.
When i WAS an English teacher, I used to tell my students (concerning poetry), that no matter the century, language, background, etc., poetry/literature was written by people, and that meant they lived and loved and feared and died like everyone else. And they wrote about it. Since we’re all people, all of literature is accessible to us, because it’s about people like us.
In late September my wife attended the Dodge Poetry Festival in New Jersey (thanks again Frank Castle for pointing me to a decent gym). I managed to hear the tail end of Billy Collins talking about poetry one afternoon. He said “We have plenty of histories of wars and politics, but poetry is the only history we have of human emotion.”
Nice. And another reason to be open to things like Shakespeare.
I have sometimes thought a Shakespeare quotation should be on the front page of this site:
“Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!”
(Hmmm. We have our Calibans and Ariels … and Mirandas. There’s probably something in that. I wonder which Shakespeare play is most like T-Nation?)
(Hmmm. We have our Calibans and Ariels … and Mirandas. There’s probably something in that. I wonder which Shakespeare play is most like T-Nation?)[/quote]
Don’t know if the play as a whole holds up (I’ve never read or seen it), but these lines from Henry V, Act IV, Scene III are a pretty good place to start.
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.
[quote]yorik wrote:
I even started to catch all the sexual innuendoes in all the plays.
[/quote]
Cha-ching!
Also, I have a feeling that the OP hasn’t felt the sting of real love and the full spectrum of human emotion that it involves. R&J is a great play. So is Taming of the Shrew. Take the time and actually learn Spakespeare. When you’re older, you just may come to appreciate how clever Old Shakey is. Even by today’s standards. You certainly won’t be dumber for the knowledge. The man’s poetry is first rate. Try taking a poetry class. You just may find you have feelings.
i didn’t read all the replies because i don’t want to spend my WHOLE statistics study break reading about shakespear, but to answer your question:
no, i really enjoyed shakespeare. i like the writing, i like the writing style, and the fact that everything is in iambic pentameter has always amazed me. and he coined so many words it’s unbelievable… i mean, c’mon. without him we wouldn’t have alligators!
when we started romeo & juliet in 8th grade i didn’t like it either, but once we hit about act 3 i started to dig it. and hamlet was even better. caesar, richard iii are great as well. good stories once you “get” the way he writes.
I consider myself pretty well read, but I’m not a huge fan of Billy. I liked MacBeth a lot, but other than that, it’s meh. But, there’s no questioning his hugeeeeeeeeee impact on literature.
Nice to see the thread is still going…I was thinking of this thread as I was reading some of the sonnets and thinking that some of those tiny poems can be way more dense with images and linguisticaly challenging and difficult to grasp than the language and images in most of the plays…
I wonder if the OP has checked on his thread at all…
Absolutely, but there is a world of difference between stating that you’ve read something and didn’t care for it (as you have), and stating that you don’t like it because trying to read the big words make your head hurt.
Wine connoisseurs who are able to tell an expensive vintage from a recent one don’t necessarily prefer the pricey stuff. What makes them a good judge is knowing the differences.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
pja wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I can honestly say, with the exception of Algebra, there isn’t any information that I have ever learned that is completely useless.
You didn’t have to any sort of physics in pre-med(or whatever it was you were before dentistry school)???
Yeah, I was going to question that, too.
Really, Prof? Algebra has been completely useless to you?[/quote]
If I had to rate everything I’ve learned, algebra would not be anywhere near the top of the list. Maybe “useless” is the wrong word. Geometry doesn’t do much for me either. I liked Calculus and the brief part that I was awake for in physics.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
malonetd wrote:
pja wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I can honestly say, with the exception of Algebra, there isn’t any information that I have ever learned that is completely useless.
You didn’t have to any sort of physics in pre-med(or whatever it was you were before dentistry school)???
Yeah, I was going to question that, too.
Really, Prof? Algebra has been completely useless to you?
If I had to rate everything I’ve learned, algebra would not be anywhere near the top of the list. Maybe “useless” is the wrong word. Geometry doesn’t do much for me either. I liked Calculus and the brief part that I was awake for in physics.[/quote]
Actually, after I posted that I thought about and I guess once you hit algebra and beyond it does become more and more “useless” for everyday life. I’m just a math nerd so it was hard for me to hear someone say it was useless.
[quote]yorik wrote:
Plays are meant to be performed and listened to, not read. It’s very difficult to read ANY play (or any libretto for a musical) including modern ones. Essentially you’re reading a plain script. Reading a Shakespearean play takes a bad situation and only makes it worse because we’re generally unfamiliar with his use of language.
I was lucky enough to find a series of books where each page of the play had an explanation on the facing page of what was going on and what was being said. After reading two or three of those, I found I didn’t need the explanations anymore. I even started to catch all the sexual innuendoes in all the plays.
I actually found it difficult to read Othello. Iago was such a purely evil SOB I could barely bring myself to read it.[/quote]
A good teacher will explainthe nuances as well. I know that mine did and it definitely helped me enjoy it more and understand it better. Maybe there aren’t enough teachers left that understand it.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
Professor X wrote:
malonetd wrote:
pja wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I can honestly say, with the exception of Algebra, there isn’t any information that I have ever learned that is completely useless.
You didn’t have to any sort of physics in pre-med(or whatever it was you were before dentistry school)???
Yeah, I was going to question that, too.
Really, Prof? Algebra has been completely useless to you?
If I had to rate everything I’ve learned, algebra would not be anywhere near the top of the list. Maybe “useless” is the wrong word. Geometry doesn’t do much for me either. I liked Calculus and the brief part that I was awake for in physics.
Actually, after I posted that I thought about and I guess once you hit algebra and beyond it does become more and more “useless” for everyday life. I’m just a math nerd so it was hard for me to hear someone say it was useless.[/quote]
I use algebra quite a bit on my job and calculus to an extent as well.
To the Prof, how interesting would calculus have been without a knowledge of algebra? Calculus without algebra is like bench pressing without arms, you pretty much just sit there grunting without accomplishing anything.
[quote]relativelyfunguy wrote:
We just read through his romeo and juliet piece today in my class. The writing pretty much annoys me just because the fact of the matter is most people in the class don’t know what’s going on even though they try and act like they do, and the teacher just ends up telling everyone what goes on anyways. The only person who really comprehends what’s going on is the fat girl in the corner who has her own hardback book version of every play Shakespeare has ever written. It pissed me off cuz we were in groups today, and after every section, we’d have to discuss what happened, and i have 3 annoying girls in my group, one who is a total blob, all over the place, the other is huge too and snappy, and the other is just weird and looks like she should know a lot but knows shit about it, pretending she does. They give me mean looks when I just admit I have no clue what was just read, because it’s true, the shit is stupid. I can’t stand these fat girls whose lives are based only around these stupid readings, they have nothing better to do with themselves, so they figure they might as well get good at reading something pointless. Am I the only one who dislikes this crap so much?[/quote]
I found your post to be little more than a “tale told by an idiot. Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
[quote]dollarbill44 wrote:
malonetd wrote:
Professor X wrote:
malonetd wrote:
pja wrote:
Professor X wrote:
I can honestly say, with the exception of Algebra, there isn’t any information that I have ever learned that is completely useless.
You didn’t have to any sort of physics in pre-med(or whatever it was you were before dentistry school)???
Yeah, I was going to question that, too.
Really, Prof? Algebra has been completely useless to you?
If I had to rate everything I’ve learned, algebra would not be anywhere near the top of the list. Maybe “useless” is the wrong word. Geometry doesn’t do much for me either. I liked Calculus and the brief part that I was awake for in physics.
Actually, after I posted that I thought about and I guess once you hit algebra and beyond it does become more and more “useless” for everyday life. I’m just a math nerd so it was hard for me to hear someone say it was useless.
I use algebra quite a bit on my job and calculus to an extent as well.
To the Prof, how interesting would calculus have been without a knowledge of algebra? Calculus without algebra is like bench pressing without arms, you pretty much just sit there grunting without accomplishing anything.
DB[/quote]
I related calculus to art. I found it interesting, challenging and it made my mind click…as if everything fell into place. I just didn’t see Algebra on that same level and overall, it didn’t do much for me. Calculus made me question what I was capable of. Algebra just made me question when class would be over. Different strokes for different…nerds.