/lit/ - Literature

>>17734866
Intellectuals are cultured in theory lower classes are cultured in fact, atleast in premodern society. If a 'intellectual' did what shakespeare did it would be artificial and affected.

>Soft you; a word or two before you go.
>I have done the state some service, and they know't.
>No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
>When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
>Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
>Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
>Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
>Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
>Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
>Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
>Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
>Albeit unused to the melting mood,
>Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
>Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
>And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
>Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
>Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
>I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
>And smote him, thus.

the GOAT

>>17734866
The reality that no one wants to face is that the greatest writers of all times were all the product of divine inspiration.

>>17734866
The people in his time and environment produced extraordinary art already and then I think it was just a stroke of luck that put this unparalleled genius into that context. Today he would propably become an investment banker or some shit like that.

>>17734866
>To the French, as representatives of modern civilisation, Shakespeare, considered seriously, to this day is a monstrosity; and even to the Germans he has remained a subject of constantly renewed investigation, with so little [142] positive result that the most conflicting views and statements are forever cropping up again. Thus has this most bewildering of dramatists—already set down by some as an utterly irresponsible and untamed genius, without one trace of artistic culture—quite recently been credited again with the most systematic tendence of the didactic poet. Goethe, after introducing him in "Wilhelm Meister" as an "admirable writer," kept returning to the problem with increasing caution, and finally decided that here the higher tendence was to be sought, not in the poet, but in the embodied characters he brought before us in immediate action. Yet the closer these figures were inspected, the greater riddle became the artist's method: though the main plan of a piece was easy to perceive, and it was impossible to mistake the consequent development of its plot, for the most part pre-existing in the source selected, yet the marvellous "accidentiæ" in its working out, as also in the bearing of its dramatis personae, were inexplicable on any hypothesis of deliberate artistic scheming. Here we found such drastic individuality, that it often seemed like unaccountable caprice, whose sense we never really fathomed till we closed the book and saw the living drama move before our eyes; then stood before us life's own image, mirrored with resistless truth to nature, and filled us with the lofty terror of a ghostly vision. But how decipher in this magic spell the tokens of an "artwork"? Was the author of these plays a poet?

>What little we know of his life makes answer with outspoken naïvety: he was a play-actor and manager, who wrote for himself and his troop these pieces that in after days amazed and poignantly perplexed our greatest poets; pieces that for the most part would not so much as have come down to us, had the unpretending prompt-books of the Globe Theatre not been rescued from oblivion in the nick of time by the printing-press. Lope de Vega, scarcely less a wonder, wrote his pieces from one day to the next in immediate contact with his actors and the [143] stage; beside Corneille and Racine, the poets of façon, there stands the actor Molière, in whom alone production was alive; and midst his tragedy sublime stood Æschylus, the leader of its chorus.—Not to the Poet, but to the Dramatist must we look, for light upon the Drama's nature; and he stands no nearer to the poet proper than to the mime himself, from whose heart of hearts he must issue if as poet he means to "hold the mirror up to Nature."

CONT.

>>17735242
>Thus undoubtedly the essence of Dramatic art, as against the Poet's method, at first seems totally irrational; it is not to be seized, without a complete reversal of the beholder's nature. In what this reversal must consist, however, should not be hard to indicate if we recall the natural process in the beginnings of all Art, as plainly shewn to us in improvisation. The poet, mapping out a plan of action for the improvising mime, would stand in much the same relation to him as the author of an operatic text to the musician; his work can claim as yet no atom of artistic value; but this it will gain in the very fullest measure if the poet makes the improvising spirit of the mime his own, and develops his plan entirely in character with that improvisation, so that the mime now enters with all his individuality into the poet's higher reason. This involves, to be sure, a complete transformation of the poetic artwork itself, of which we might form an idea if we imagined the impromptu of some great musician noted down. We have it on the authority of competent witnesses, that nothing could compare with the effect produced by Beethoven when he improvised at length upon the pianoforte to his friends; nor, even in view of the master's greatest works, need we deem excessive the lament that precisely these inventions were not fixed in writing, if we reflect that far inferior musicians, whose penwork was always stiff and stilted, have quite amazed us in their 'free fantasias' by a wholly unsuspected and often very fertile talent for invention.—At anyrate we believe we shall really expedite the solution of an extremely difficult problem, if we define the Shakespearian Drama as [144] a fixed mimetic improvisation of the highest poetic worth. For this explains at once each wondrous accidental in the bearing and discourse of characters alive to but one purpose, to be at this moment all that they are meant to seem to us to be, and to whom accordingly no word can come that lies outside this conjured nature; so that it would be positively laughable to us, upon closer consideration, if one of these figures were suddenly to pose as poet. This last is silent, and remains for us a riddle, such as Shakespeare. But his work is the only veritable Drama; and what that implies, as work of Art, is shewn by our rating its author the profoundest poet of all time.—

>>17735242
>>17735245
Always happy to see the based Wagner poster.

>>17735245
In short, though Shakespeare has some merit, he is not in any sense a good poet, but more of a middle class dramatist with wild characters

>>17735242
>>17735245
what is this retard trying to say exactly?

>>17735272
>he is not in any sense a good poet
opinion discarded

>>17735272
Is that really what you got from that?

For me, it's Donne (pbuh!)

>>17734866
He's not a humbly village boy.
His father was one of the leading figures in his town.
He studied in Grammar school, which gives you a foundational learning in Classics.

Big Willie is a genius. Writing plays in the evening, performing them in the afternoon, and having an okay marriage and good businesses.

Big Willie is who you wish you were. He won in life.

>>17735272
Midwit.

Pic unrelated.
Why do you think Shakespeare wasn't educated?

>>17735609
Is that what I said faggot?

>>17734866
By being a lot smarter and worked harder

>>17735637
stay assblasted yokel

>>17734866
He had tons and tons of natural talent. Bongs simply can't cope that talent doesn't discriminate based on class, so they come up with hairbrained alternative authorship theories. Pretty funny desu

>>17735242
>>17735245
Germans are quite arrogant for a group of people who has never ruled the world once, in the whole of human history.

>>17734866
Who knows? Guess it was just a miracle. (pic unrelated)

>>17734866
He was hot. I'd totally fuck him

>>17734866

It was Marlowe, you fucking imbecile.

>>17735233
>extremely retarded take

>>17735729

It wasn’t that faggot. It was Marlowe.

>>17735850
Evidence?

>>17735857

Marlowe was a playwright.

That’s a good start.

>>17735841
Look at the population numbers at the time and then consider the poverty and lack of education. They basically got that guy out of a pool of a few thousand people. Unless you consider Rupi Kaur or Marvel movies the pinnacle of artistic expression we need some sort of explanation where all these people have gone.

>>17735887
Marlowe has a noticeably different style though

>>17735720
Well, no one did. Idk maybe you could count the Romans.

>>17735900

His style developed, matured, etc., obviously.

Shakespeare wrote his best stuff after Marlowe died

>>17734866
>Early schooling spent steeped in the classics

>Pledged his pen to imitate a select few writers whose works had stood the test of time.

>Read Plutarch and actively engaged with his teachings, sometimes developing his ideas and other times countering them. >Had Montaigne provide a toolkit for him to appropriate Plutarch's ideas for his generation while also providing the manual for how one could embolden his thinking by simply interacting with their surroundings.

>Practised and practised extensively, early plays often come off as unsure, the mark of the playwright is there, but confidence in the material and the ability to discipline the ideas is lacking.

>His early schooling consisted of sentence translation, starting with simple but clear writers such as Terence to more ornate ones such as Cicero. This meant that he was able to learn the importance of both the high and low styles and their effectiveness in communicating ideas. Whether he was proficient in his schooling days with these two styles is up for debate but given that his earlier plays still reeked of that pseudo-langauge that tries to impress by using high tier diction to suit low tier sentiments, we can assume that this was learned or at least developed later in his career. He gets better once he starts working with comedy where the high style can't be relied, lest it lessen the funny.

>Was good friends with Marlowe and Ben Jonson along with other playwrights and poets, the most notable one being Samuel Daniel. The company he kept suggests that he was able to get a first hand look at how the mindset that went with writing plays and how each individual developed their own technique for composing one.
>Lived in the age of Richard Hooker, Thomas Traherne, Thomas Browne, Robert Burton, Thomas Campion, Robert Jones, Thomas Sacksville, Edmund Waller, Edmund Spenser, Philip Sidney, John Webster, Thomas Middleton, Samuel Daniel and John Donne.

>Had access to fantastic translations such as Golding's Metamorphosis, Adlington's Golden Ass, Harrngton's Orlando Furusio, Florio's Montaigne and Decameron. There might be more but these few are the ones I remember. Sections in The Tempest also suggest a sense of familiarity with the Latin text of Ovid rather than Golding's translation meaning that Shakespeare was slowly gaining proficiency in Latin rather than simply resting on what he knew. Scholarly consensus these days is also favouring the idea of him being knowledgeable of Italian and French.

>May have practised a primitive method of Benjamin Franklin's writing technique, given how he was able to versify Montaigne's essays for his plays.

Apologies for the writing style, I'm tired and I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts into coherent sentences. I've only gotten into Shakespeare and Literature early last year so there might some things I might be missing

>>17736574
Oh and of course the Bible or in Shakespeare's case the Geneva and Bishop's Bible. More on this here: https://www.bardweb.net/content/ac/shakesbible.html
Shylocks "Hath a Jew" always felt inspired by the Book of Job and a great of deal of phrases from the Bibles Shiek Pir have been written into the KJV, unaltered. If one were to read the Sermons of his day, they would realize just how brilliantly composed they are, minor rhetorical masterpieces especially those of Lancelot Andrewes and Jeremy Taylor.

>>17736574
good post

It was Francis Bacon

>>17735661
This.
Bongs have a very strong class divide and the idea that a pleb could have talent is too much for them to handle.

I've you've never read Shakespeare before should I get a complete work or one with notes? Is the language hard coming in cold?

>>17734866
You have never needed a University education to be good at something.

>>17735233
>no university
>he would become an investment banker
I’m actually with you somewhat but that’s absurd.

>>17736794
I assumed that a genius in the 21st century would go to university. Imagine a Shakespeare working in marketing or whatever. Such a depressing thought and likely the case.

>>17736786
The complete works usually come with notes at the bottom explaining any archaic words or uncommon references. But even without that you shouldn’t struggle. It can help to watch a plays or film and radio versions. Branagh‘s Hamlet for example is fantastic.

>>17736786
If you have never read before best single volume editions are Folger, classic notes on the left, text on the right; each act gets a brief summary in case your lost. As well as some neat essays on how it was performed and thoughts on the play and so on. But if you want a single volume edition the new oxford complete works is great with a big but. The big but is that its written by Oxford scholars who have a massive hard on for Shakespeare not being the true author and they are very PC in the introduction essays. That said the texts themselves are well formatted (everything on one page, not columned) with fine notes. So Folger if you can get your hands on them (they can be rare depending on what country your in) new oxford for full edition. Alternatively, as cringe as it might seem, no fear Shakespeare is a perfectly fine way of going through the first time, especially for someone not used to the language.

>>17737439
sorry meant to say best single play editions in reference to Folger

>>17734866
Because he didn't exist

>>17734866
Because you’ve either got soul or you don’t. University can teach you the mechanics behind good art, but soul is the most important aspect, and that cannot be taught

>>17736076
verdi did his best work after wagner died

>>17735898
rap music
anyway there have been periods in history of no real poetry/good art

I read the first half of Schiller's Don Carlos last night and I have to say that it made me start to see some of Shakespeare's flaws. Schiller's characters just seem so much more life like, nuanced, and three dimensional. With the exception of Hamlet most of Shakespeare's characters just feel like black and white cardboard cutouts in comparison.

>>17737692
falstaff

>>17737755
I don't see Falstaff as being particularly deep either. He's mainly just a drunk scoundrel used as a foil for Hal.

>>17737804
he's the only great imaginary character who is truly good. his faults are so minor. no one is perfect, and he's filled with imperfections, but the essential part of his nature is goodness. shakespeare surely understood him better than the other great characters he created.

>>17737056
All of our modern geniuses are distracted by the internet. Think of life 500 years ago. There was absolutely nothing to do. Books were the equivalent of the internet and it only took a bright mind to absorb the information and style to be able to repeat it and maybe add some flair of your own.

Today the lust for knowledge is sated by an endless supply of garbage, just a click or tap away. Shakespeare would be a shitposter.