Ok, well hi I'm a kind of newbie to actually posting on the website, mainly because I was in college writing thesis and hitting on cute girls, but I thought to myself, why have you been posting so much lately on the internet and the answers were A) I'm unemployed as the sun for the summer B) I found the Debate discussion forum instead of just checking everyday to see if there were any trades C) I'm a lazy bum and I've been blessed with some skills even if I don't know what they all are. Anyway some things about me are that I just graduated 2003 from a small CAtholic school, am 22, have an interest in getting my doctorate in English, Rockets fan since I started realizing there was such a thing as basketball, pretty conservative yet willing to listen and be a friend to anyone, A Shakespeare freak. So, I think this thread should be about Shakespeare. ITs an easy thread but its my first. Any of your thoughts on the man, a good place to start would be the division between art and reality, that one is always fun. Remember not to limit posts to the plays, he did write a number of Sonnets (154) and several other poems, and fancied himself a poet above all else. Well lets hope this is a fruitful discourse. And yes I know its Saturday night and I'm writing on the internet to my imaginary friends about shakespeare.
Welcome...as i said in my last post in another thread, I'm a little worse for wine, so I'll limit my response... In terns of division of reality and art when it comes to SHakespeare, I feel that a great starting off point can be summed up in two words: Hamnet, Hamlet. Discuss amongst your sober selves...
So was there really a guy named Shakespeare who was born on 1564 and composed all those plays and literature? Yes or No?
There was a guy, the question is did write all of the plays? I think so, but it's one of those things that can be debated forever without coming to a 100% conclusion. An interesting sidenote about Shakespeare's plays: Go through the play pick 10 words that you don't know the definitions of or only kind of know the definitions of, and then using the Oxford English Dictionary that goes through the history of the word, look up the words and where they came from, and how the meaning might have been different in the time of Shakespeare. It adds even more depth to his plays, and enables the appreciation of his talent to an even greater degree. Realisticly you could do this with almost every word in his plays.
I admit that as youth I had little appreciation for Shakespeare. But when I went to see a Midsummer's Night Dream at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival (one of the finest theaters in the nation) my opinion of his work did a 180. I was always amazed to find out how much of our very vocabulary were affected by this Englishman. Richard III, Act i, Sc.4 The Merchant of Venice, III:1 II Henry VI, IV:2 Julius Caesar, III:1
I like to start with the melancholy Jaques. All the world's a stage. Then I like to add a dash of death. Which death is more real, on stage or in life? Then I say in life. Art is immortal. Death is eternal. I had a professor last semester for a sonnets class who made this claim that I don't know if you guys would agree with ( I really don't but its interesting as all hell). The claim is thus, Shakespeare invented modern day romance as we know it. I just wanted to know what you guys think about that.
you do know the "kill all the lawyers" quote doesn't mean what it's been played to mean in our culture right? it was a means to begin a tyranny....like step one to tyranny is to kill all the lawyers, who would otherwise secure a voice for the people. just thought i'd chime in with that one. no self-interest at all there!
I know the context it was used in.....but with our increasingly litigous society where you can sue anyone for anything, I thought it particularly amusing.
shakespeare is awesome. they teach it in high school but not alot of people really liked it. i read it alot (not so much since) but it always stuck as my favorite kind of plays to do when i acted in high school. mercutio was my favorite role but macbeth was cool practicing flipping out every day after school. they had hamlet at the alley in june. anyone get to see it?
my high school english teacher, who was also my favorite teacher, taught us to see the poetry in shakespeare's prose. and such magnificient prose... Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood... From the extremest upward of thy head to the descent and dust beneath thy foot, a most toad spotted traitor... You are not worth the dust which the rude wind blows in your face... Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile; filths savour but themselves... Milk-liver¡¦d man! That bear¡¦st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs; Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning Thine honour from thy suffering... And that just from one play alone. for a whole year, my friends and i would insult each other using just purely shakespearean lines...
Wow that is cool. I always liked studying Shakespeare in high school, but I never knew how much of a bad ass he was until I got to college and then I was like whoa! What is this guy trying to do. I think all the theories about, was he pro Christian, a nihilist, whatever you hear out there, I think that all of those take second fiddle to what he was trying to do. He was all about the art. That's the thing I think he cared the most about.
