Avy

Shanks wrote that Shakespearean plays asked for the willing suspension of disbelief with simple (stupid?) plots.

I suppose it sounds a bit condescending for me to make such remarks about Shakespeare's plays. What I meant, if I may be allowed to go into a little more detail, is that Shakespeare's plot devices were probably never meant to be better than 'formal' affairs, as opposed to a naturalistic device that could pass for something in real life. As you rightly point our, Shakespeare used these devices in order to set up the action - and it is upon the action, the langyage, the emotional interaction between the characters, and the use of plot/sub-plot parallels that gives Shakespearian drama so much of its power.

At the other end, of course, is someone like Ben Jonson, of who's The Alchemist Coleridge once said that it was one of the three most perfectly plotted works of literature. (Score extra points for telling us which the other two were!) Jonson was famous for flattening out his characters, and making them fit into his idea of people having 'humours', and there being only four basic character types and so on. (Jonson wasn't stupid - he parodied the idea as well...)

Of course, a simple plot is not the same as a stupid plot. As you point out, Antigone is simple, but there's nothing stupid about it.

cheer

the sunshine (I shall not make frivolous posts in Q&A) warrior

ps. Tell Aenigma I'd rather be 'lousy' in Krapp's Last Tape