Shakespeare

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
101

Not much to the purpose of this discussion, I know, but a few days ago I had a yen to read Henry V’s Agincourt speech again. I swear I can’t read this gem without tearing up because it’s both gorgeous poetry and an inspiring (if warmongering) speech. Here it is just for the hell of it:

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian.’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

102

Although Jonson had a considerable influence on the lyric poets that followed him, his only influence on theatre after him was in his support of neoclassicism, which, on balance, did more harm than good. The main reason for the “Sons of Ben” was that he had simply become the “grand old man”.

Of course there were. Nevertheless, the contemporary anti-theatre writers all complain that it was too popular, and too crowded.

Tod Browning and James Whale had a good deal more to do with both.

103

Wissdok, you are much like a blind man arguing about colours. It’s a safe bet that you’ve never read Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher, or Dryden. I recommend that you go away and read The Poetaster by Jonson (very funny play satirising other playwrights, specifically John Marston), A King and No King by Beaumont and Fletcher (wonderful tragedy, it would make an excellent movie) and Dryden’s Marriage-a-la-Mode (another marvellous comedy).

Then come back and argue the respective merits of these writers. As it stands, I’m done with you.

104

Let me make this clear aldiboronti and Mr. Kennedy, I never spoke of the merit of Dryden, Jonson, Fletcher, and Beaumont. I just explained what has long be studied by scholars. The Restoration Period was when, as the scholars point out, when Jonson influence was at its greatest. No, I have not read their work but I can read what scholars more qualified than us, have written on the subject. If you don’t like what they say, argue with them not me.

As for the main discussion… good writing, good literature, good art, are all subjective to whatever definition is used for good. Yes, I think The Old Man And the Sea is a better book than See Spot Run, but my neighbor may not agree. Whom among us should judge? I think I am being very polite and diplomatic. And if my neighbor wish to proclaim, Modonna the greatest writer of all time, you will here me debate that too. No one person or group should be throwing around the term “the greatest” without the support of the populous. The fact some of you believe that you are more qualified than my neighbor or me, says a lot about both Capitalism and Democracy in this country. People have different taste and that is a good thing. The fact your taste are different than mine doesn’t mean yours are better.

105

Don’t forget the huge trousers and The Roar. (For you Black Adder fans out there.)
RR

106

You and me both, teela brown. All this talk about it made me watch it again just last night!

107

While I don’t disagree on the value of watching Shakespeare, don’t underestimate the value of reading him. A few years back I undertook to read all the plays . In the middle of this project I started to read them more fluently (to the extent of dreaming in blank verse) and the experience was quite wonderful.

I wonder if wissdok considers Broadway to be popular? Certainly the limitations of the venue mean few people see plays, but it is not elitist/ Doesn’t value over time count? I suspect in-a-Gadda-da-Vida sold more copies than Highway 61 Revisited when it came out, but not any more. And Mozart was certainly concerned about the popularity of his work (not that he hit the popularity target consistently) and was quite thrilled that he well liked in Prague, more so than Vienna. Remember he was one of the first composers who supported himself by writing as opposed to being kept by a noble.

108

When I was in school, “democracy” was the name of a system of government.

109

If no-one could learn Shakespeare but by the medium of actors, there would soon be a considerable actor shortage.

But for most people, a decent theatrical company is the best way to open the door.

110

I had thought Donne had written a poem praising Shakespeare, but I can’t find it. Jonson praised Donne though.

Looking at the book I used in my British Literature class last year, I do see some things:

Ben Jonson wrote a poem called “To the Memory of My Beloved the Author, Mr. William Shakespeare and What He Hath Left Us”
It’s kind of long, so I’ll link to it instead of reposting it:
http://www.bartleby.com/40/163.html

John Milton wrote a poem called “On Shakespeare”:

Dryden wrote an essay comparing Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. The link is here. It’s the section called “Shakespeare and Ben Jonson Compared”, near the bottom.

Sorry if someone posted this already, I don’t think anyone did though.

These people all loved Shakespeare.

111

Just read Twain’s essay and it is highly entertaining (hilarious, in parts) but he does make errors of fact as well as errors of omission. I think there are six specimens of Shakespeare’s signature, not five. And there are things we know for certain about Shakespeare’s youth even if there’s no documentary evidence - for one thing we know he got Anne Hathaway pregnant. And we can surmise at least some degree of courtship before that. The 26 year old Anne probably will have needed some amount of persuasion to “make the beast with two backs” with this callow 18 year old who she probably met while wandering around the Warwickshire countryside.

The one sonnet that we know for sure that is written about Anne is dismissed by most scholars as “not as good” as the rest but I think it’s actually quite powerful:

Those lips that Love’s own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said ‘I hate’
To me that languish’d for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
‘I hate’ she alter’d with an end,
That follow’d it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away;
‘I hate’ from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying ‘not you.’

It conjures up images of when they first met - the young Will wandering around the countryside filled with hate and anger until he met Anne, who took all his hate away. Or at least taught him how to channel it. The last two lines contain two puns showing that the poem was written about Anne. “hate away” being a pun of “Hathaway” and “And saved my life” being a pun of “Ann saved my life”.

All the other sonnets may be very high falutin’ and all but no one in those sonnets “saves his life”.

It’s actually quite interesting to view the whole thing from the perspective of Anne. This page does quite a good job of it.

Anyway Twain, and just about everyone else I found when I went a-googlin’, when considering the bust in the Holy Trinity church in Stratford, goes on and on about whether it’s a true likeness of Shakespeare or not. No one seems to realise that that is completely and totally irrelevant. Who cares what he looked like? That doesn’t prove anything.

Of much more interest is the inscription below the bust - carved within Anne’s lifetime either by the order of Susanna, his daughter, or by Anne herself. The inscription says:

*Iudicio Pylium, genio Socratem, arte Maronem.
Terra tegit, populus maret, olympus habet.

Stay, passenger, why goest thou by so fast,
Read, if thou can’st, whom envious death hath plas’t
Within this monument Shakspeare with whome
Quick nature dide, whose name doth deck the tombe,
Far more then cost, sith all that he hath writ
Leaves living art, but page, to serve his witt.*

It’s not known who composed this (possibly Jonson since it bears a striking similarity to Jonson’s introduction to the first folio) but it is definitely known that Anne and her two daughters and her granddaughter read it, just the same as we read it now. Conclusive proof, I would think, that the guy buried nearby was a writer of some kind.

112

Mr. Kennedy,
Democracy is a philosophical term {Capitalism is another}. Democracy is the belief in the principles that the people, through equality, hold power. Government is also a philosophical term. Government means “ the body that hold authority to govern.” The Boy Scouts of America have a government if they have any body of authority. If they govern themselves they are a Democracy, if by a delegated body such as a national headquarters, they are a Representative Democracy. If this governing body doesn’t directly answer to the scouts by organizational design they may also be a Republic. Another term that might be helpful to you is politics, its philosophical meaning is “the struggle over {scarce} resources.” These resources can be material, an idea, or any other thing that there can be competition over. As a bonus I will throw in state, a political unit of people with a {common} governing body. In general use in the United States we also have to add the word nation when we describe foreign countries, as we are a federation of states. Thank you for coming to Political Science 101.

As for my use in the earlier post, I meant it as I wrote it. The continual premise that the “enlightened” should be the only ones to decide what is quality and judged good… doesn’t go with the principles of Democracy (the people hold authority equally) and Capitalism (the principle that the people own resources privately).
I also note that I again am being dragged back to discuss Jonson, Dryden, and the other writers of the Restoration Period. Please let me simplify this one and for all. The Restoration Period was a time of conservatism. It starts in 1660, Shakespeare died in 1616. Charles II was now in power, and while the period did show great lack, most writing of that period was influenced. Jonson who was a favorite of the crown before reformers took power. Charles, himself, I believe wasn’t a big fan of Shakespeare. Yes, the writers of his day spoke fondly of the Bard but they also spoke fondly of each other. Jonson {as I said before} is considered an abrasive sort as he would often “pat Shakespeare with one hand and slap him with the other.” But to his credit he said all he was going to say about Shakespeare before the Restoration Period anyway, as he died in 1637. As for Dryden, if you read more you will find that he was also a Shakespeare critic. Anyway, the age is considered to end with the death of Dryden in 1700. Here is a a couple of short quotes about the age of Restoration Period.

From the Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia 1973, Vol. 9 pg 78.
The quality of the later age is suggested by its admiration for Ben Jonson and his disciples; the transparent and apparently effortless poetic medium of the “school of Ben”, along with its emphasis upon good taste, moderation, and the Greek and Latin classics as a models, appealed profoundly to the new generation.

From Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts 1992, pg 208.
It wasn’t until the Restoration, which began nearly half a century after Shakespeare’s death, that anyone began to write about the bard. Biographically, it was too late; Shakespeare’s colleagues and acquaintances were dead, and the conditions under which he had worked were completely different. In addition, the world’s most distinguished playwright left no words about himself.

As the 1700s open up, literature enters an age of reason, logic and balance. This kicks on for a few years and then its starts a build up to Romantic Age of the latter part of the century. It is during this “building up” in the early part of the 1700s that more and more people take a keen interest in Shakespeare enough to separate him from is contemporaries. Sadly he has been dead for a hundreds years by then and there is little left to find. Its because of all the unanswered mysteries of Shakespeare that we have Baconians, Oxfordians, and Marloweians.

And now you know the rest of the story……

Wissdok
Bachelor of Arts, Political Science
Master in Public Adminstration

113

Strictly speaking, we don’t absolutely know that, but it seems pretty darned likely.

Well, for one thing, it’s in iambic tetrameter rather than pentameter, so it isn’t altogether a proper sonnet at all. It’s probably something he wrote when he was about 18.

It should be noted that some people in England bearing the name “Hathaway” pronounce it “Hate-away” to this day, though it is no longer the usual pronunciation.

114

No it isn’t, except in a sense of “philosophy” so broad as to be useless.

No, that would be “belief in the principle of democracy,” which is two abstractions removed from democracy itself.

Again, no it isn’t.

No, that is not what the word means.

Granny. Eggs. Don’t.

Translated, “democracy” is a “nice” word, and so you wish to arrogate its use to yourself. It won’t work here, chummy. Ham-handed propaganda is the tool of ignorance, and ignorance is the enemy in Cecil’s little club.

No, that is not what “capitalism” means.

Jonson is not numbered among “writer of the Restoration Period.”

No, let me. You cannot use the Restoration and Augustan periods as an argument that Shakespeare was not appreciated in his own day, because they came later. You also cannot use them as an argument that Shakespeare was not appreciated during those very periods, because it is a demonstrable fact that, at the height of the period of “correcting” Shakespeare, it was still something they found necessary to do. Like Voltaire, they were fascinated by him even as they decried him.

115

The imdb lists “William Shakespeare” as the writer on 621 productions since 1899 - an average of about 8 titles a YEAR.

116

Would someone simply point out every time that wissdok fails to respond to the point that the “enlightened” aren’t the ones who decide that Shakespeare is popular: the continued production of his works by the unenlightened, including numerous high school drama clubs, amature theater organizations, Hollywood, etc., and the success of those productions makes it clear that Shakespeare is appreciated by the masses even today. Once we establish this, the rest of his argument fails for lack of any support. :rolleyes:

117

Can someone simply explain to me why everyone is jumping all over wissdok when the problem is simply that the guy doesn’t find Shakespeare to be accessible? All of the arguments against wissdok have been designed to attack his arguments, not the underlying cause. Instead of trying to get him to say he’s wrong, how about trying to present Shakespeare in a way **wissdok ** can appreciate? I guarentee that if you sell him on Shakespeare and can make him love Shakespeare as much as the rest of us, he’ll let go of the arguments you find vexing.

What makes this approach particularly appealing is that wissdok is far from alone in his opinions. He’s just the only one reading this thread who’s willing to stand up and say so. I, for one, would like to see an approach to change his thinking. Instead, what we have is rapidly devolving into a flamefest.

I’ll save you a bunch of time and tell you how this thread ends if this keeps up:

  • wissdok doesn’t back down, insisting that people who like Shakespeare are elitists (and probably sophists as well)
  • Those in opposition to wissdok will continue to say he’s wrong, and start posting responses that include subtle (or not so subtle) questions about his judgement, intelligence, or capacity for reading…
  • …Thereby proving wissdok’s point entirely.
    K, now that we’ve gotten that out of the way… wissdok here are some Shakespeare quotes that have entered the lexicon. I see a lot of basic wisdom in these statements, and some of them are just fun to say (Like “Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war!” I love yelling that before a football game.) Others have become so ingrained in the language it’s almost shocking to realize they all came from one source:

“This above all: to thine own self be true”.
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't.” (Generally stated as “There’s a method to his madness.”)
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”.
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose”. (Funny how often the religious right quotes this as a bible phrase.)
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt”
“He will give the devil his due”
“He hath eaten me out of house and home”.
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers”
“Having nothing, nothing can he lose” (Paraphrased by Bob Dylan.)
“Cry “Havoc,” and let slip the dogs of war”
“Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once. Of all the wonders that I yet have heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; Seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come”.
“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
“I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at”.
“My salad days, when I was green in judgment.” (God, I love that one.)
“Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”.

118

Except for the fact that that is precisely what he DIDN’T do.

The premise by wissdok is not that he doesn’t like Shakespeare. The premise from wissdok is that the works of Shakespeare would long since have been forgotten if it weren’t for some sort of cultural elite who consistently force them upon others, assuring us of their value and insisting that we share that opinion. Presumably, based upon his statements, wissdok disagrees as to their value.

Disagree with their value he can, and no one can dispute his feeling in that regard. But asserting that Shakespeare is receiving present-day plaudits solely because of some elite he cannot do, unless he enjoys being told he is wrong, demonstrably so. Which is the point I have been addressing. :slight_smile:

119

And getting nowhere. At the very least, you have done nothing to change his mind, and a fair amount to prove his point.

Suggestion: Try changing his mind. Start by dropping the adversarial position.

120

To help further Leviosaurus’s point. From this website, just the first of many a similar site found on google.

This alone isn’t what makes Shakespeare great, and doesn’t even adress wissdok’s most distressing point (that being that popularity=quality), but I do agree that we won’t get anywhere by taking the approach we have been. Maybe overwhelming him with instances of Shakespeare in popular culture will do the trick.