Are you still in love with Shakespeare?
He continues to inspire after so many years. Do you think there is or there can be anyone like him?
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I don’t love Shakespeare. I haven’t read him since high school.
Even though I’ve been a big reader from the moment I learned the alphabet, I have trouble with anything in meter.
I read the words, even read them aloud, but the rhythm makes it a musical exercise for me and I read the words without listening to the story.
Maybe I should give it a try again. It’s been many years.
Shakespeare’s plays are not meant to be read. They’re meant to be performed and watched.
I admit that I love Shakespeare. To me Shakespeare seems to be not so much of telling a story but to be always searching for a different way to look at life. Twisting situations and logic this way and that way in an attempt to find an original thought usually to no avail. Boring and tedious but I don’t care. Sometimes it’s like being lost in the dark woods and occasionally stepping out into the glorious sunlight. “What seest thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?” (The Tempest, Act 1 scene 2).
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
– Hamlet (1.5.167–8), Hamlet to Horatio
That stuff never gets old!
Our revels now are ended.
These our actors—as I foretold you—we are all spirits!
And are melted into air—into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers,
The gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples
—The great globe itself!
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve.
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
And our little life Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare
The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1
No more can be said, except: Yes, I still love Shakespeare.
Never liked Shakespeare, most of his stuff they tried to force us to read in school was nonsense.
Oh, btw, Happy birthday, old boy!
@GSLeader “stuff they tried to force us to read in school”
Which is why you don’t like it.
My recommendation is to go to a good production at a local Shakespeare company and lose yourself in the story. Or watch a good movie like Ian McKellen’s Richard III, Joss Whedon Much Ado About Nothing, or Henry V with Kenneth Branagh
No, he is a unique mind and product of his time.
The peculiar thing about Shakespeare (at least with me) is that his work grows on you. Through 4 years of high school, we were forced to tackle one of his plays each semester along with a dizzying amount of other authors and their works, but the play alone hovered over us like the angel of death for the entirety of the term. Constant tests and quizzes on content and vocabulary left you no place to hide and evasion was futile. A born slacker, along with my peers, I despised Shakespeare and his fkd up English deliberately designed to trip up those of us schooled on comic book dialog.
It’s really odd, but I have no recollection of how or when my view on the loathsome bard shifted. BUT IT DID! And I am convinced that one of great and ironic tragedies in life is that the greatest writer in the history of the world is inadvertently responsible for the failure of teenage kids in the subject named for his language more than any other factor you can name.
Down the years, I began to slowly understand what all the adoration and awe is about and exactly why it is that we were beat over the head in the hope that it would take. And the question about being in love with Shakespeare is the wrong one for me. There’s more to it than that. Because what Shakespeare has done with and for the English language is beyond genius. It’s more like paranormal. As my friend Reggie (from the city) would say “that’s some spooky shit.” The man’s work amounts to unbelievable reams of deep insight into the human condition. It isn’t just the staggering output from the man that boggles the mind. The eloquence of the work is such, that there is understandable suspicion on the part of those deeply into him that no single individual could possibly be responsible for it. I can remember reading somewhere that some scholar had concluded that Shakespeare by himself is responsible for doubling the English vocabulary in common usage prior to his arrival. How did he do it? Where does such an extraordinary command of words originate? What are the chances of such Monumental talent being combined with unparalleled insight into human behavior? Spooky’s the right word, and once again, I think instead of looking for alien visitations from flying saucers, it might pay to point fingers at guys like Shakespeare, Bach, Gauss, daVinci, you know the list.
I actually feel sorry for people who don’t ‘get’ Shakespeare. Its like we should fund some sort of cure for it.
“Villain, I have done thy mother”
@cazzie Well, they should watch one of the three movies I linked to above (especially the Richard III and the Much Ado). If they don’t like Shakespeare after watching those, well, then I can’t help them any more.
Incidentally, the Much Ado About Nothing movie was filmed entirely in Joss Whedon’s house and property. He filmed it in between the Avengers movies. What’s hilarious is that one of the scenes takes place in his daughter’s bedroom in front of the doll house. The walls are actually bright pink, but you can’t see the color because it’s shot in black and white.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in The Taming of the Shrew is also a good one for an introduction or familiarization to Will’s workes.
@Rarebear Ian McKellen’s Richard III
Hey, I forgot about that. I love that movie. I guess I do love Shakespeare a little.
I’m named after a Shakespearian character. Thank you, Mr. Shakespeare, for inspiring my mom when it came time to name me!
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