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#9786 11/02/00 03:31 PM
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Hoping that this is the right forum for a language-related, but not specifically word-related question. How many of you guys (ayleurs, wordsmiths, nerds, dweebs, angels, powers, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, or others) actually enjoy reading Shakespeare? How many can only take him in modern day films (say Baz Luhrman's Shakespeare's Romero + Juliet)? How many think he is just irrelevant, and we should be focusing on the works of Maya Angelou and others, leaving him to the historians?

For what it's worth, and to save me answering my own post with another - I belong to the first category. The first time I read King Lear I was literally moved to tears.

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#9787 11/02/00 03:37 PM
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i hated reading Shakespeare! it was so hard to understand, and i couldn't read and picture what was going on.. and then I saw Richard the III, and fell in love...

For me, Shakespeare is a great to watch, but not to read. yes, sometime the plots are bit silly in the comedies, but, the language is so wonderful!


#9788 11/02/00 03:57 PM
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'm with you, Helen -- the play's the thing! (and yes, this is a YART... say no more)

:let's see if I can figure out the short form:
http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Board=theme&Number=2987

p.s. - shanks, I have to ask you (before all frivolity becomes taboo), is your namesake the
sitarist(?) popularized in the 60s, or is there another connection?

#9789 11/02/00 04:16 PM
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I, too, think that it's meant to be seen, not read. That was how it was written, after all.


#9790 11/02/00 04:32 PM
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One more comment,

Naming a thread YART does nothing to benefit the readers, except possibly to make us think the thread may not be worth reading. I use the name of a thread to remember what's in it. YART doesn't help.

Also, while I find value in posting links to previous discussions if they are being YARTed, that's no reason to try to discourage the thread from progressing. I personally have not, (and don't plan to) gone back and read all those old threads unless there's a reason to look something up. I have noticed that quite a few of the current active users are as new as september or october. Now, why should we try to burden them by expecting them (me included) to go back and read everything lest they repeat. *I know that I am YARTing, but I feel as though it needs to be said AGAIN, because every time someone cries YART it just drives me crazy. Please post the links, but please don't expect me to spend the next 2 months reading everything back there before I post again, for fear of being YARTed!


#9791 11/02/00 04:58 PM
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Excellent, xara! Applause, applause!


#9792 11/02/00 05:48 PM
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>>(and yes, this is a YART... say no more)

xara, I hope it wasn't this you were reacting to! -- it was meant as an aside to myself not to ramble on and repeat something I had posted in the earlier thread, to which I then linked (for those that might be interested).






#9793 11/02/00 05:53 PM
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I, too, think that it's meant to be seen, not read. That was how it was written, after all.

Indubitably!(That word always make smile) I do however enjoy reading his plays as well as watching them. I like being able to take my time over the language, saying aloud, savouring it, to say nothing of my frequent need to LIU! Whlie I find some of his plots weak, and I hate The Merchant of Venice's storyline, reading his plays gives me the opportunity to really appreciate the incredible gift he had, in much the same way that one savours a fine wine (or so it seems to one allergic to alcohol)


#9794 11/02/00 05:57 PM
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applause...

...but getting back to the question , I too love reading Shakespeare, though I recognize many people could now feel it is like looking through several filters, and take on board the point about reading/performance. Lear is also my absolute favourite - oh, reason not the need, indeed!

To pick up on a suggestion made elsewhere, though, I do not agree about suspension of disbelief. This is true of when we watch a movie screen, a TV programme, or (heaven forfend) read a book - it is simply the terms of suspension (the frame of reference) that is different in each case.

Above all, I love Shakespeare because of his unbounded love of langauge - a gloating, rolling, rollicking, lick of sound in which he takes and communicates such a passion for life. It's the poetry.


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Max

I agree that The Merchant of Venice is pretty execrable as a plot (but much is forgiven for Shylock's "Hath not a Jew eyes, ears dimensions, senses..." and Portia's "The quality of mercy is not strained..." speeches), but I have two (I think) that are even worse:

The Taming of the Shrew
Fantastic play; great lines; great characters, but I cannot help feeling that Katharina, as an abused wife, is possibly the most tragic of Shakespeare's heroines.

All's well that ends well
Bother. I hope this is the one - Helena et al? - but the sheer cupiditous (?!) cynicism displayed through every stage, and apotheosised (sp?) at the end, is soul destroying.

Them's my thoughts, anyway...

cheer

the sunshine warrior


#9796 11/02/00 08:58 PM
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shanks, I have to ask you (before all frivolity becomes taboo), is your namesake the sitarist(?) popularized in the 60s, or is there another connection?

Ravi Shankar and the Beatles have, unfortunately, often been suggested as the derivation of my name, but this is not the case. (Weird, I know, given that my parents were 'into' the Stones and the Beatles around the time I was born, but there you go.) My middle name is actually my paternal grandfather's. The first name was a desperate attempt on my parents' part to find an 'Indian' name that would not be mispronounced by 'the English'. It failed miserably. My sister (Sonia) had better luck in that respect...

cheer

the sunshine warrior


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Talking of "The Taming of the Shrew", I thought that the eighties (?) BBC adapatation with John Cleese (maybe on video somewhere) was about as acceptable as one can get with the play. It's the only time I really have sympathised with all the characters.


#9798 11/02/00 09:29 PM
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Back in the dark ages, when i was first reading Shakespeare--in NYC HS, back when there was a dress code, and pants (heaven forbid jeans, even the boys couldn't wear jeans!) where forbidden, our HS teacher try to get us more interested in reading Hamlet by pointing out the school gave us bowlderize versions of the play (he first introduced bowlderized as a word, and then pointed out "edited" in our text book) but it only got fun when we acted it out, not when i read it at home.

it got more interesting as we compared our school text to the full text of the play, and tried to figure out, why a line or two was edited out.. when I was grown up, and Alistar Cook, on Masterpiece theater, finally explaned what "country matters" were.

So, might i suggest Jackie, that in the future, you keep out of the gutter, but sometime visit the country? it sounds so much more inviting--who wants to wallow in the gutter? but a trip to the country, yes, that would be enjoyable!


#9799 11/02/00 09:37 PM
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Maverick

You mention suspension of disbelief which is essential in so many plays. One of the biggest challenges for modern audiences has been integrated casting where plays have been cast without regard to colour. I went to quite a few conferences on the subject in the early eighties where people expressed the view that to have a member of a family, say Juliet, who was black while the rest of her family was white was not credible.

We gained some wonderful performances through this approach and it has spread to opera and ballet (which character looks like Luciano Pavarotti anyway?) to great effect.

I can even cope with American accents, although I'm not convinced by the claim that they are closer to Elizabethan language than present day English accents (although Estuary English is a little beyond the pale). I love to hear Shakespeare spoken in any dialect, it's better than not hearing it.


#9800 11/03/00 05:10 AM
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I definitely belong to the watch rather than read school. I think I just have an inbuilt resistance to reading plays because I loved "Gawain and the Green Knight" where the language is further removed from present day speech than Shakespeare's is. Mark you, I found "Antony and Cleopatra" nearly incomprehensible when it was on TV. Despite being reasonably well acquainted with the history it was dealing with, I had no idea what was going on most of the time. Still wept buckets at Cleopatra's death though. But then I did that in the Ancient History class at school reading Plutarch's account. So embarrassing.

Bingley


Bingley
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