Shakespeare

[Chickadee]

Anyone got some firy opinions about the Bard? Think he still belongs in school or got something to say about his works?

Personally, I think he is the best thing taught in literary classes because it shows how to apply the English language to its fullest.

As for his plays, it's hard to narrow down what to say without specifics, so I'll start one off....

What's your favorite comedy and tragedy of his?

(Mine are Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth respectively)

[Destrukto]

I think heshould be taught, but not in a musty dustriddled way...

Shakespeare is a writer thatis about vibrant language, the High and the Low, the splendour and the muck...

The muck is often left out, but oh so important...

Also they should not be treated like independent works, because they have to be played to be fully appreciated...

I love the War of the Roses cycle most I think, with King Lear as a close second...

I've never really liked the comedies, but I liked Comedy of Errors, because it probably is one of the cheesiest plays ever written :D

[Jimpy]

I watched a movie about him in class, many of his stories were about his own events (of course) thats why they say they are so good because he put is own emotions in a play. There are also many other dirty secrets about him... But I like the king one as well.

[Vladimir]

i know its not a comedy but i love it...HAMLET :notworthy:

[CheHamstera]

i fuckin love Shakespeare and it's a real shame kids are put off becuase of the langauge and the fact that it's really old.

what you need is a good teacher, a copy of the text that explains all the difficult bits and gives you a little social history so you can get the jokes.

and you can't study the texts without seeing it on stage.

the modern versions of the plays - the ones that keep the language but update the setting - should be encouraged. Othello set against the backdrop of modern warfare was fantastic.

i'm not a big fan of the comedies - i much prefer the ones that deal with politics and intrigue, like Julius Ceaser and Othello. truely brilliant stuff.

[GorillaBearBear]

You know I'm not sure about teaching it in school

I mean I love the plays, and It's interesting from a lingual, entymological and literary pov and they are just damn good plays full of apalling puns and loveliness.

But studying macbeth destroyed that play, as we went over and over and all the magic in it died for me.

And che said it needs a good teacher, well yes it does. Problem is for every Excellent, vibrant, friendly, understanding and fun teacher there is, there's about 3-5 shitty ones. (mmm made up statistics. This is just a rough guess based on schools I've been to) It's a real shame that this is true. I have been fortunate in that my last 2 english teachers have been really good teachers, and the teacher I have now is excellent, and I'm glad to have her through my GCSE course, and I have not lost any love for the shakespeare text we are reading (Romeo and Juliet), but others at my school have really shit teachers. It's just one of those things

As for my favourite texts - Comedy = Midsummer Nights Dream/Much ado about nothing
Tragedy - Romeo and Juliet

[freddiestarfish]

he was a greaat writer, but the way shcools teach it is not good for his reputation.

being forced to read many plays, and analyse every single damn word really puts people off.
they should not force it upon people.

[Destrukto]

Good modern shakespeare as filmed:

Richard the Third with Ian McKellen http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0114279/

Hamlet with Mel Gibson and Glenn Close http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099726/

Twelfth Night with Helena Bonham-Carter http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0117991/

And of course the already mentioned Romeo and Juliet with Di Caprio...Baz Luhrman rocks...

Shakespeare in Love of coarse is good to get a feel of how the plays actually were staged...

Always remember was not some high and mighty poet (those only first came with Romanticism) but just a talented rowdy who had to write and play like hell to make some money :)

[squealpiggy]

OK time for a bit of controversy to the thread:

Shakespeare was an unoriginal uninspired rehasher of old legends and tired storylines, his tales of intrigue were often lifted wholesale from historical events and earlier stories and foisted on a population ignorant enough to accept them as new. The one idea that Shakespeare truly pioneered was that of the comedy relief character. Thanks Will, you are ultimately responsible for

http://www.sigmainstitute.com/ws/news_images/jarjar.jpg

And of course all of Shakespeare's comedy hinged around people finding this:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/trebuchet/images/jester.jpeg
funny.

Having said that I think a big part of enjoying shakespear is to stop thinking of him as some kind of olden days Kingsley Amis and start seeing him for what he really was. An olden days George Lucas.

George Lucas doesn't do highbrow. He does entertainment. And Shakespear's plays, despite the reverence they seem to engendre are definitely entertaining. There's something fun about them, you know what's going to happen, but in the time of Shakespeare football was a game played between whole towns using a pig not a ball! They weren't well behaved, they would throw things at the players, shout at them and have fun. Destrukto is totaly right, Shakespear was a rowdy who could write to make money. Good on him.

While at school and "studying" Romeo and Juliet (which is a bit like studying 10 Things I Hate About You in 400 years) we went to a production of the play. Loads of schools were at this production and there were lads of embarrassed teacher types telling everyone to shush and behave. And towards the end of the play when Paris walks into Juliet's chamber to find her "dead" from Friar Lurence's concoction he uttered:

Paris: Have I thought long to see this morning's face,
And doth it give me such a sight as this?

Heckler from Audience: Fuck 'er while she's warm!

This is the spirit of shakespeare.

[Smartie Popper!]

Last week I saw 12th night, and I think it's amazing how is work can be adapted to modern theatre without changing the script.

I do think that it should be taught in schools ,It's damn hard to understand..

If he wrote any of his plays that is..

[smiley clown]

When we did Romeo and Juliet in school we did it alongside watching the video in every other lesson. This helped a lot because reading just the next it can get boring but by watching the great film adaptation we didn't get bored.

Also, I have been in twelth night as Sir Andrew and by being in it you really got the funny side of it. We did three performances out in a park and then we did this private performance for the these people in a posh house who invited all their friends over to drink champagne on the lawn and they were laughing all the time even though we had no idea what we were saying:confused:

[GorillaBearBear]

Squealpiggy - It's not the storylines, but the writing which is good. I think most of us know that he wasn't particularly original, but he did it in a way that is enjoyable, and that is what makes a truly great playwrite
And as for his style of comedy, that was what was funny at the time. QED. That amused people, he was ultimately looking to get people to see his plays, throw in a bit of what the layabouts want.
Besides, most of his later works aren't all that uninspired. A few of them are really quite original.

[squealpiggy]

I never said he wasn't entertaining. Like I said he was Lucas, not Orson Welles! But the majority of discussions about old will revolve around his brand new ideas, which he really didn't have!

Besides which it wasn't much of a debate, just people agreeing, so I had to be controversial. And he is ultimatley responsible for Jar Jar.

[almighty_bob]

More Controversy;

1. Did he really write the stuff, or was it 'borrowed' from others?

2. Should he be taught in English classes as he made up alot of words, randomly adding them to the English language...
this is surely not a good idea; as we would not want peeps writing 'made-up' words in their GCSEs/ A levels/ S.A.T.s (for our US brothers & sisters...)

[GorillaBearBear]

Lots of authors make up words though. Dickens invented the word boredom for example. It is how the English language is formed, besides, the fact a word is made up in shakespeare's play will escape the notice of students (and possibly teacher) because it is now part of our language anyway. Therefore I would consider that a null point.

[almighty_bob]

not really, there are still a few words that he made up, that have not been added to the language.
I would give examples, but the library closed 5 minutes ago....
and all my copies are in Germany...

[freddiestarfish]

good old will invented over 1700 words that we now commonly use

[almighty_bob]

that may be, but there are still a few that we dont!
which is one of my points...

anyone going to argue whether he wrote it in the first place though?

[squealpiggy]

I am really amused by the fact that all the major productions have very posh sounding English accents, totally ignoring the settings of the play and furthermore completely ignoring that Shakespear was from Stratford Upon von and was of a poor ish background. Entertainers were lower classes then, and didn't ruddy well sound posh!

[almighty_bob]

LOL
very nicely pointed out squealpiggy...

although I suppose they wish to be 'proper'

maybe someone in the industry should consider a little research...

<saying that, one should consider the fact that many of the plays are not set within England...>

[Chickadee]

One of the reasons I opened this was to get some various opinions on interpretaions of the plays.

I was bothered because I'm very familiar with several of them and last Monday my Humanities teacher and I got into a debate about Hamlet.

He claims that the climax of the play is in the To Be or Not to Be speech because that's where Hamlet decides he can't kill Claudius because he'll suffer in the afterlife ("Conscience does make cowards of us all"). I said that he was referring to suicide there since he's talking about killing himself and why he fears "To sleep- perchance to dream- aye, there's the rub!" My prof said he didn't see that, but I couldn't follow his argument either. I'd always thought the climax was when he killed Polonius. Anybody got anything to add?

[smiley clown]

Its one of the thngs that is good about shakespeare that his plays have more than one high point and that every one has their own interpretation of what is the most important part.

[Chickadee]

Too true and that's why I love his works.
However, an opinion must be justified. You can't just say, "Well, Hamlet was a woman [or some such radical statement] just because that's how I see it." I need to know WHY you see it that way. By the way, I do not in any way think Hamlet was a woman, but that was the thesis of an article my brother had to read for his class.

[almighty_bob]

mmm....
interesting idea...
however, women were not allowed as actors (hence bearded women/ blokes in skirts...), therefore hamlet was very much a bloke...

just out of curiousity, what would have happened if shakespeare had written a scene with lesbians???
would be rather twisted surely...

[smiley clown]

Yeah or when the characters start cross-dressing. This happens in several plays and can get quite twisted also.

How rare!