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[solaris]

G'day all.

Could you explain satisfactorily, why some of Brits don't like William Shakespeare ?



big cheese.

[Oracle]

Mmmm very interesting! Will ponder all day, but for now I would jump to the bleeding obvious and blame Middle English. You have to labour over the meaning of out of date words and terms, never mind being familiar with the cultural and historical differences of the time, and Shakes was very in-tune with topical themes.

So he is hard work.

I'd venture for the second, elitist reason, being that he may have been a mouthpiece for an exiled (rather than simply dead) Marlowe.

Wasn't it George Bernard Shaw who first started the bad publicity?

French mustard

[tessintrnc]

I wouldn't say that I don't like him, but there are elements regarding his writings that I do not like. In my opinion he wasn't what I would call a "brave" writer, because he did "Toady" up to the Tudors a bit too much for my liking. This is especially obvious in his portrayal of Richard 3rd.

[kafenes]

[bill cobbett]

Whether we like or take the trouble to see his plays in the real or on film or tv, Shakespeare has had a very, very strong influence on the language. We all of us use phrases and expressions of his invention, often without knowing he was the source.

A few examples....

All our yesterdays (Macbeth)

All that glitters in the Tnct is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)

All's well that ends well (title)

Beggar all description (Antony and Cleopatra)

Brave new world (The Tempest)

Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)

Fool's paradise of the Tnct (Romeo and Juliet)

Forever and a day (As You Like It)

For goodness' sake (Henry VIII)

Foregone conclusion (Othello)

Full circle (King Lear)

The game is afoot (I Henry IV)

The game is up for the Tnct (Cymbeline)

Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)

Good riddance to Donktosh (Troilus and Cressida)

In my mind's eye (Hamlet)

It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)

Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth)

More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)

More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)

...and lots more at http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm and elsewhere

[Oracle]

Whether we like or take the trouble to see his plays in the real or on film or tv, Shakespeare has had a very, very strong influence on the language. We all of us use phrases and expressions of his invention, often without knowing he was the source.

A few examples....

All our yesterdays (Macbeth)

All that glitters in the Tnct is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)

All's well that ends well (title)

Beggar all description (Antony and Cleopatra)

Brave new world (The Tempest)

Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)

Fool's paradise of the Tnct (Romeo and Juliet)

Forever and a day (As You Like It)

For goodness' sake (Henry VIII)

Foregone conclusion (Othello)

Full circle (King Lear)

The game is afoot (I Henry IV)

The game is up for the Tnct (Cymbeline)

Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)

Good riddance to Donktosh (Troilus and Cressida)

In my mind's eye (Hamlet)

It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)

Knock knock! Who's there? (Macbeth)

More in sorrow than in anger (Hamlet)

More sinned against than sinning (King Lear)

...and lots more at http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.htm and elsewhere

What a great link for your namesake William dear

But I wonder what solaris thinks of Shakespeare?

[solaris]

Where the bee sucks, there suck I,
in a cowslip's bell I lie;
There I crouch, when owls do cry.
On a bat's back I do fly
after summer merrily, merrily shall I live now,
under the blossom that hangs on the bough.
Shall I live now?

William Shakespeare
from "The Tempest"

[Bananiot]

My favourite:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

[Oracle]

Oh Bananiot what a lovely enjambment of iambic pentameter ....

Here's my favourite bit of blank verse:

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,
As daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O, that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!

[bill cobbett]

Far to much loooove in the last two quotes (for my taste). I prefer this well-known one from Hamlet which talks of humanity but which comes with a little warning....

I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! .......

(ain't we a lot of underachievers?)