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Theme Changer

 Topic: Shakespeare

 (Read 5248 times)
  • 1« Previous thread | Next thread »
  • Shakespeare
     OP - June 03, 2011, 05:19 PM
    Quote from: SunbulRocket on June 03, 2011, 05:04 PM
    ^I agree with Billy. Shakespeare was a dramatist rather than an author; it would make sense if he were treated as a dramatist rather than an author. But A Level English Lit. doesn't make sense.




    But his writing works on its own too, you just have to be tuned into it.

    You are right though - you have to see his work on stage to really understand him and get into him. Until I went to see Othello when I was doing A level English with my class, I never really appreciated him properly. And then it just clicked. Afterwards my teacher was really good, and she just made Shakespeare on the page come alive too.

    If you can't get to the theatre, there are some film adaptations that are good. Seeing it all unfold in sequence helps you get the rhythms and language and form.



    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #1 - June 03, 2011, 05:29 PM
    I would go gay for the Bard.
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #2 - June 03, 2011, 05:37 PM
    Quote from: billy on June 03, 2011, 05:19 PM
    But his writing works on its own too, you just have to be tuned into it.

    I don't understand this... how would one go about being tuned into it? Especially when the language Shakespeare uses is difficult to understand, being Elizabethan/Jacobean and all that; in my experience of trying to read one of his scripts, all the characters come across as sounding overly posh and standoffish because of the language and it's hard to relate to them at all. And the plot seems to take forever because you're trying to work out what the characters are saying, and eventually you just lose interest.

    On adaptations - even comic book adaptations are good for seeing it all unfold, although you lose some of the understanding of Shakespeare's technique, you get the plot and you understand through the pictures what that character is actually like when they're sounding all posh and stuff.
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #3 - June 03, 2011, 05:39 PM
    I guess you could say I wasn't taught by the most influencial or uplifting teacher (damn right I wasn't). However my English Language teacher on the other hand is the most lively and free spirited person I've ever seen... even though she probally gets off to Shakespeares works, but thats another story.

    I have seen Macbeth on stage and it was alright I guess, though I'm not really that kind of a person who enjoys that. Though one thing I might want to see on stage is:

    http://www.tottenhamjournal.co.uk/what-s-on/theatre/theatre_review_much_ado_about_nothing_with_david_tennant_catherine_tate_1_911542

    I just love David Tenant... Cheesy
    07:54 <harakaat>: you must be jema
    07:54 <harakaat>: considering how annoying you are
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #4 - June 03, 2011, 05:44 PM
    Quote from: SunbulRocket on June 03, 2011, 05:37 PM
    I don't understand this... how would one go about being tuned into it? Especially when the language Shakespeare uses is difficult to understand, being Elizabethan/Jacobean and all that; in my experience of trying to read one of his scripts, all the characters come across as sounding overly posh and standoffish because of the language and it's hard to relate to them at all. And the plot seems to take forever because you're trying to work out what the characters are saying, and eventually you just lose interest.

    On adaptations - even comic book adaptations are good for seeing it all unfold, although you lose some of the understanding of Shakespeare's technique, you get the plot and you understand through the pictures what that character is actually like when they're sounding all posh and stuff.


    I haven't really ever had any trouble understanding the language, its so similar to our own.  I find that once I 'let go' (which is pretty much the only way I can think of to explain what happens) then it all just sort of comes together and I understand it as if I speak it.

    Infact I just spent about 4 hours lazing on the grass reading a shakespeare play and throughly enjoyed it.

    I have seen a stage production watched a few movies, but surprisingly I am finding myself enjoying his writing even more.
    Inhale the good shit, exhale the bullshit.
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #5 - June 03, 2011, 05:49 PM
    @Fombles: OMG I saw the theatre where they're playing that. There are pictures of him everywhere outside it.  dance
    I might actually go watch that to just see David Tennant in the flesh. I don't even watch Dr. Who. [/fangirl]

    @Berbs: The trouble understanding, for me, only went when I was acting it out. *shrugs*
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #6 - June 03, 2011, 05:50 PM
    Quote from: BerberElla on June 03, 2011, 05:44 PM
    Infact I just spent about 4 hours lazing on the grass reading a shakespeare play and throughly enjoyed it.


    Nope... I tried but I couldn't 'let go' as you say... just weird random jargon to me still. idiot2

    Though I might read Bram Stokers Dracula a second time to polish off my coursework Tongue

    Quote from: SunbulRocket on June 03, 2011, 05:49 PM
    @Fombles: OMG I saw the theatre where they're playing that. There are pictures of him everywhere outside it.  dance
    I might actually go watch that to just see David Tennant in the flesh. I don't even watch Dr. Who. [/fangirl]


    I'd happily turn gay for David Tennant... and Leonardo DiCaprio of course.
    07:54 <harakaat>: you must be jema
    07:54 <harakaat>: considering how annoying you are
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #7 - June 03, 2011, 05:52 PM
    I was a little  wacko at the end of Macbeth. I was caesarian, I've had trouble convincing people that I'm not of-woman born...

    More seriously, I haven't read/watched nearly enough Shakespeare. So much to do, so little time. :/
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #8 - June 03, 2011, 06:49 PM
    MARLOWE


    MARLOWE

    MARLOWE

     grin12
    "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all
            Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

    - John Keats
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #9 - June 03, 2011, 06:54 PM
    FUCK YEAH
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #10 - June 03, 2011, 07:01 PM
    Shakespeares plays were actually only meant to be played on stage.
    He never really intended on them to be written down.
    In fact, he never really gave people the script and let them turn it into a book or anything.
    Many of the fans, critics, etc of Shakespeare actually wrote down the script while they were being played.
    And some of them may or may not have been changed.

    I'm a Shakespeare fan ^_^ <3
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #11 - June 03, 2011, 07:13 PM
    Quote from: SunbulRocket on June 03, 2011, 05:37 PM
    I don't understand this... how would one go about being tuned into it? Especially when the language Shakespeare uses is difficult to understand, being Elizabethan/Jacobean and all that; in my experience of trying to read one of his scripts, all the characters come across as sounding overly posh and standoffish because of the language and it's hard to relate to them at all. And the plot seems to take forever because you're trying to work out what the characters are saying, and eventually you just lose interest.


    Thats what I mean. First of all, it is 400 year old English. There are in some plays references that are obscure. And then there is the fact that its all composed in a formal metre and rhetoric for the conventions of theatre at the time. But if you watch enough Shakespeare, and then read it, you just begin to tune into the language, and the words themselves become brilliant to read.

    I'll write more later, just popping out now.


    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #12 - June 03, 2011, 07:15 PM
    Quote from: BerberElla on June 03, 2011, 05:44 PM
    I haven't really ever had any trouble understanding the language, its so similar to our own.  I find that once I 'let go' (which is pretty much the only way I can think of to explain what happens) then it all just sort of comes together and I understand it as if I speak it.


    Yes! Thats what I find too.

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #13 - June 03, 2011, 08:02 PM
    Quote from: IsLame on June 03, 2011, 06:17 PM
    I think Shakespeare is overrated & is pants too?

    Billy - do you think I could ever like Shakepeare?  I have never liked plays in general  (I find them over-dramatic & over-staged) and whenever I read it I just dont find it worth wasting any time over.
    My best friend went to watch a play recently & he was saying the same thing.
    My Book     news002       
    My Blog  pccoffee
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #14 - June 03, 2011, 09:35 PM
    Quote
    Billy - do you think I could ever like Shakepeare?  I have never liked plays in general  (I find them over-dramatic & over-staged) and whenever I read it I just dont find it worth wasting any time over.
    My best friend went to watch a play recently & he was saying the same thing.


    I don't know mate. I guess everyone is different, some people just won't like it no matter what. Ultimately thats fair enough. The only time I come back on that is when someone says I don't like it, therefore its rubbish and nonsense and so on. Because its so deep and interesting, thats wrong. But if someone just isn't into it, it doesn't matter, taste is taste.

    I only said what I said before about how some people just need to tune into it, and sometimes they just aren't taught it well, because I know quite a few people who have once said to me, meh, Shakespeare, whatever, and then later they saw a play or film version, read a little, and became entranced by it, as much as me.

    All human life is there, and the language is great too.

     

    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #15 - June 03, 2011, 09:39 PM
    Quote from: Hananii on June 03, 2011, 07:01 PM
    Shakespeares plays were actually only meant to be played on stage.
    He never really intended on them to be written down.
    In fact, he never really gave people the script and let them turn it into a book or anything.
    Many of the fans, critics, etc of Shakespeare actually wrote down the script while they were being played.
    And some of them may or may not have been changed.

    I'm a Shakespeare fan ^_^ <3


    Yeah, the first folio of his plays was published in 1623, 7 years after his death, by his friends and fellow theatre company men. Copies will have been in circulation before that, to the theatrical company and players. But the first compilation of his plays didn't come till later. Publishing such as it was, was very different then.
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #16 - June 03, 2011, 09:54 PM
    Quote from: billy on June 03, 2011, 09:35 PM
    I only said what I said before about how some people just need to tune into it, and sometimes they just aren't taught it well, because I know quite a few people who have once said to me, meh, Shakespeare, whatever, and then later they saw a play or film version, read a little, and became entranced by it, as much as me.


    Did all of those, still doesn't come to me. I'll grant it that he was a literary genius for his time and pretty much the god father of modern day stage plays, but I guess, like you say 'everyone is different'.

    I guess if I had enough time and motivation I could get into it, I love literature and thats why I chose it as a A level subject, but the prospect of studying Shakespeare isn't sitting well with me. Tongue
    07:54 <harakaat>: you must be jema
    07:54 <harakaat>: considering how annoying you are
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #17 - June 03, 2011, 10:15 PM
    Quote
    I'll grant it that he was a literary genius for his time


    For all time  Afro
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #18 - June 03, 2011, 10:21 PM
    I would say he was more than a literary genius.

    "Does this help us to answer that baffling question - What is beauty? Here certainly there are as many opinions as, there are heads; and every lover, in this matter, thinks himself an authority not to be gainsaid. Croce answers that beauty is the mental formation of an image (or a series of images ) that catches the essence of the thing perceived. The beauty belongs, again, rather to the inward image than to the outward form in which it is embodied. We like to think that the difference between ourselves and Shakespeare is largely a difference in technique of external expression; that we have thoughts that lie too deep for words. But this is a fond delusion: the difference lies not in the power of externalizing the image but in the power of inwardly forming an image that expresses the object." - Will Durant
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #19 - June 05, 2011, 01:29 AM
    I've secretly been hoping there was a thread about Shakespeare since i joined (i quoted the great man in my introduction) and now that it's finally made, i feel like i'm a child whose just seen 7 rainbows dance

    Shakespeare is such an influential figure in English literature i don't know where i'd be if he didn't exist. Yes i believe he still exists, how can he not be alive amongst his millions of plays and sonnets?

    I always found it mesmerizing figuring out what so and so meant, it was mind boggling seeing a million connotations and underlying meanings, that were scarcely even intended to contain. It was like playing mind reading with the past. Of course for my teachers and classmates it was unusually rare to find a student so engrossed and in love with English Literature and with Shakespeare's work. I don't quite grasp why that was the case, i mean how can you possibly not enjoy such rich, indulgent and imminent works full of powerful language overflowing with beautiful imagery?

    I always enjoyed reading, analysing and enacting Shakespeares work. Any example of His work is unjustly representative of the degree of adoration i have for the Great One's work. But just to mention a few i absolutely adore indulging in Hamlet, Macbeth & Much Ado About Nothing. In my opinion which is completely biased and inclined towards Shakespeare, I found these plays extremely extraordinary as they constitute eternal pertinence, they seem to be just as relevant and pertinent in today's time and society as they were back in Shakespeare's time. That's a quality, classics have, they compete with contemporaries of all times and surpass them epically. Unfortunately you can't find many great writers in today's time. Englsh Literature seems to have past it's golden age.

    Interestingly enough MAB recommended this conspiracy theory as opposed to Shakespeare, it really got me thinking and made my mind go over drive with the possiblities that there was no Shakespeare but in fact a number of contemporary playwriters and poets that were submerged to make Shakespeare.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #20 - June 05, 2011, 01:44 AM
    Shakespeare will never be forgotten - there is no higher praise.
    At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
    Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
    Downward to darkness, on extended wings. - Stevens
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #21 - June 05, 2011, 11:52 AM

    Zaiba  Afro
    "we can smell traitors and country haters"


    Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
    God is Love.
    Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.

  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #22 - June 05, 2011, 12:57 PM
    Haha, just today I wrote an IOC (for IB English A1) for my English examination on the storm scene from King Lear. In class, the teacher showed us a film adaptation and paused it sometimes to explain/comment on something. Due to reasons I will not get into now, I missed half of my English classes and missed out on huge chunks of the film. Whenever I did show up, I really enjoyed it. Though... I don't know, I feel that a film is not the right way to appreciate Shakespeare. Nor is reading the scripts (though I haven't made a concerted effort to do that yet, unfortunately). I'd really, really like to go attend a Shakespearean play, but I probably wouldn't have much fun since I'm keratoconic and extremely shortsighted. I understand the gist of what the characters say, but occasionally a phrase eludes me (and yes, as someone mentioned obscure references abound) and that frustrates me greatly. So... either watch it with an annotated version (which would be more work than enjoyment) or get a modern English version which would kill the linguistic beauty :/ *Sigh* I don't know...

    The answer probably is to get over myself and not try to understand every little thing. That needs some training...

    Also, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the usual joke Arabs make when you talk about Shakespeare.

    You: Blah blah blah Shakespeare blah blah!
    Arab: Meen?
    You: Shakespeare!
    Arab: Ah, Sheikh Zubair!
    قل للمليحة في الخمار الأسود
    مـاذا فـعــلت بــناسـك مـتـعـبد

    قـد كـان شـمّر لــلـصلاة ثـيابه
    حتى خـطرت له بباب المسجد

    ردي عليـه صـلاتـه وصيـامــه
    لا تـقــتـلــيه بـحـق ديــن محمد
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #23 - June 05, 2011, 07:11 PM
    get one with footnotes explaining the references and oddwords. duh. ><
    I chose to get circumcised at 17, don't tell me I never believed.
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #24 - June 05, 2011, 08:46 PM
    Yeah, but I mentioned how that would detract from the enjoyment of the text and how just reading a Shakespearean text seems to me to be rather pointless since they were meant to be acted out.
    قل للمليحة في الخمار الأسود
    مـاذا فـعــلت بــناسـك مـتـعـبد

    قـد كـان شـمّر لــلـصلاة ثـيابه
    حتى خـطرت له بباب المسجد

    ردي عليـه صـلاتـه وصيـامــه
    لا تـقــتـلــيه بـحـق ديــن محمد
  • Re: Shakespeare
     Reply #25 - June 05, 2011, 08:53 PM
    ah. Read annotated for something else. Yeah I've heard of Sheikh Zubair Grin Shakespear is also a jewish woman.
    I chose to get circumcised at 17, don't tell me I never believed.
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