# What's the Big Deal With Shakespeare? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 13, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529 "2015-10-13T06:40:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/21 "2015-10-13T20:47:16Z")
He’s the original sitcom creator. Overheard at the Shakespeare Festival: _“Nobody’s gonna believe that that chick is a dude! Look at the tits on that fuck-animal!”_ ---
**Author:** ![northporlarbear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7bcc69/32.png) [@northporlarbear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/northporlarbear)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/22 "2015-10-13T21:14:19Z")
Embodiment of cliche with what humans perceive as the mainstream beauty is what I meant. Not that his works were cliche even in his own time. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/23 "2015-10-13T22:05:12Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > Devil’s advocate here…do we know that these phrases weren’t in common usage at the time, and just appropriated by Shakespeare? For example, The Beatles didn’t coin the term “Let it be”, they just wrote it down and became popularly associated with it. > > Are we assuming originality in his turns of phrase and choices of words that may merely be association colored by the distance of time and the scarcity of contemporary comparisons? No doubt some of the words and phrases “invented” by Shakespeare were already in usage before he set them down. However, we also have other Folio’s from playwrights of the period, notably Ben Jonson and the partnership of Beaumont & Fletcher. Without digging into this on the internet I don’t believe either rival Folio contains so many “new” words and common phrases used today. I suspect this is particularly true about the phrases in Shakespeare. It’s unlikely Shakespeare was writing down commonly used phrases of the period in _his_ plays whilst the other playwrights of his period chose not to do so. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/24 "2015-10-13T22:08:07Z")
Because only he could make a King leer. ---
**Author:** ![Stringbean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Stringbean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stringbean)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/25 "2015-10-13T22:21:42Z")
He put to words what words cannot express. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/26 "2015-10-13T22:45:19Z")
Besides the plays, there are the [sonnets](http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/)(have you ever tried to WRITE a sonnet? It’s really hard; there are [rules](http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/sonnetstyle.html). He wrote 154!) This one gives me goosebumps (#29): > [@](#): > > When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes > I all alone beweep my outcast state, > And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, > And look upon myself, and curse my fate, > Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, > Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, > Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope, > With what I most enjoy contented least; > Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising, > Haply I think on thee, and then my state, > Like to the lark at break of day arising > From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate; > For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings > That then I scorn to change my state with kings. How about this one (#116)? > [@](#): > > Let me not to the marriage of true minds > Admit impediments. Love is not love > Which alters when it alteration finds, > Or bends with the remover to remove: > O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, > That looks on tempests, and is never shaken; > It is the star to every wandering bark, > Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. > Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks > Within his bending sickle’s compass come; > Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, > But bears it out even to the edge of doom. > If this be error and upon me proved, > I never writ, nor no man ever loved. But THIS is my all-time favorite (#30): > [@](#): > > When to the sessions of sweet silent thought > I summon up remembrance of things past, > I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, > And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: > Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow, > For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, > And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe, > And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight: > Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, > And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er > The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, > Which I new pay as if not paid before. > But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, > All losses are restor’d and sorrows end. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/27 "2015-10-13T22:57:41Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Shakespeare is considered by some, the best writer in the history of the English-speaking world. AND THAT’S **ANOTHER** thing I hate about Shakespeare! Is all the twits who bloviate about Shakespeare, And how they prattle on about all his great accomplishments, well LA DEE DA DEE DA! And once they start to gushin’ there’s no stoppin’ ‘em, and then it’s Bluh bluh blubluh Bluh Shakespeare! Then he walks in, and it’s TaDaa TaDah! Shakespeare! He’s holding court, and they’re all _“Will, you’re such a genius, and your writing is divine! A rose by any other name is such a clever line!”_ And they’re all “Ooh!” And he’s all “Stop!” And they’re all “Ahh!” And I’m all “Bleagh!” AND I’M REALLY GETTIN’ SICK OF IT!!! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/28 "2015-10-13T22:59:01Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > AND THAT’S **ANOTHER** thing I hate about Shakespeare! > Is all the twits who bloviate about Shakespeare, > And how they prattle on about all his great accomplishments, well LA DEE DA DEE DA! > And once they start to gushin’ there’s no stoppin’ ‘em, and then it’s > Bluh bluh blubluh Bluh Shakespeare! > Then he walks in, and it’s TaDaa TaDah! Shakespeare! > He’s holding court, and they’re all > _“Will, you’re such a genius, and your writing is divine! > A rose by any other name is such a clever line!”_ > And they’re all “Ooh!” > And he’s all “Stop!” > And they’re all “Ahh!” > And I’m all “Bleagh!” > AND I’M REALLY GETTIN’ SICK OF IT!!! (From _God, I Hate Shakespeare_, Something Rotten, Act 1) ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/29 "2015-10-13T23:25:04Z")
Willy the Shake had no special effects (much beyond a couched pig’s bladder full of blood for a proper stabbing), no elaborate sets, no CG, he painted his stories in words. Lots and lots of words. And did it better than his contemporaries. Yet, his plays ran about two hours. He metered most of the speeches and dialog amazing well, except for a few prosaic passages. The words flow off the tongue in exquisite balance, pouring each phrase agilely into the next like a champagne cascade. Take Hamlet’s best known soliloquy: Olivier dragged it out to nearly four minutes long, making it ponderous, almost tedious. The original would have been about a minute and a half; two minutes, between “To …” and “… action” is just too long. So, really, where Shakespeare’s works fail to excite, it may be because they are presented poorly. Sometimes that is due to actors and directors being over-awed by the greatness of them, afraid to instill them with the proper energy and pace they deserve (hard to reach a modern audience when the vernacular can be so difficult). It can be a struggle to read a whole play on its own, because it was not meant to be read but to be performed. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/30 "2015-10-13T23:36:22Z")
> [@northporlarbear](#): > > Mostly, I think it’s because the previous generation said so who said so because their previous generation said so up to the actual Shakespeare era. Also, back then, there probably wasn’t as big a competition as today. Not that many writers. Not that many published novels & plays. So, he stood out back then. Then he has been praised. > > Also, his stories tend to be mainstream. There is no sudden surprise or twist. He just builds up on the stories that anyone can expect but be great with it. It’s like forging a typical mainstream beauty as a masterpiece. There is no kink. In a simple way of saying, cliche is the best stories out there; it is frowned upon if you do it today, but he had no one to frown upon him back then. His stories are great because they are cliche & he has done great works with cliche. This is almost totally factually wrong. Shakespeare wasn’t particularly well loved in his own time. He wasn’t hated, but he has grown in admiration as the generations went on, and there were quite a lot of playwrights and poets in his time, you just likely don’t know them. For about 100 years Ben Johnson was considered the greatest playwright of the age. His stuff just didn’t age well. I dare you to name a Thomas Middleton or Daniel Webster play without using Google. One of them wrote the most commercially successful play of the age though. That’s without going into the writers who came later and really made popular works like “Tis Pitty She’s a whore” (great play, terrible name). Shakespeare really became popular with the Victorians who sanitized his plays and gave them happy endings, and even that his work survived to be discovered in the 1890s by the modernists who realized that he was writing about 300 years ahead of his time and it took the world a while to catch up. His plays were never about plot, and that was pretty revolutionary. They were all about character and language and what words say about characters, and how characters can be inches wide but miles deep. He only wrote two original plots, but all of his characters were wholly unique. Read the Jewish of Malta or The Spanish Tragedy and you will find very different plays from Merchant of Venice and Hamlet, but almost identical plots. He wrote stories everyone knew already on purpose so that he could say something new about them. No one really did that again until Brecht who admits he stole the idea from Shakespeare. Without Shakespeare you don’t have modern literature as we know it. Not just in English but in drama. Every movie you have ever seen, every play written after the 1890s, all modern story telling stems from Shakespeare. You don’t have to like it, but you have to respect it. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/31 "2015-10-13T23:50:49Z")
Because in early backwoods America if you could quote Shakespeare, you could still say you were cultured. Actors used Hamlet as the standard by which each actor’s merits could be compared for centuries. While undoubtedly an excellent writer, America’s desire not to be completely cut off from centuries of English literature had a lot to do with it in this country. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/32 "2015-10-14T01:44:35Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **NAF1138** : > > He only wrote two original plots,… Which two? I’m thinking _The Tempest_ and… _Measure for Measure_? But yeah, his strength wasn’t in the stories he told, but in how he told them. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/33 "2015-10-14T02:49:12Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which two? I’m thinking _The Tempest_ and… _Measure for Measure_? Midsummer. I am not familiar with the source for measure for measure, but I know it was based on a play from the mid 1500. Wiki says a George Whetstone play and a story by Cithio. I’ll be honest, I am trusting my theatre degree to not betray me with that Shakespeare fun fact. It was something I was taught, but never fact checked on my own. I trust my professor though. And like you said, the point holds. > **[Measure for Measure](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measure_for_Measure)** > > Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604 and first performed in 1604, according to available records. It was published in the First Folio of 1623. > The play centers on the despotic and puritan Angelo, a deputy entrusted to rule the city of Vienna in the absence of Duke Vincentio, who instead disguises himself as a humble friar to observe Angelo's regency and the lives of his citizens. Angelo persecutes a young man named Claudio for the ... ---
**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/34 "2015-10-14T04:55:10Z")
Perhaps I can be of some assistance. Growing up I was a smart kid, but I was more interested in math and science than English. I knew how to read and spell and even write well so I felt there wasn’t anything else to teach me. However all thru both middle and high school English was required every year, and I did well enough that by freshman year of high school my English class inevitably started reading Shakespeare (_Romeo & Juliet_). And although I got thru it, I really wasn’t interested in it. And I didn’t find reading it enjoyable, but rather work. Anyway, fast forward to early adulthood and my older brother, who was more into literature than I was and did read Shakespeare, started exposing me to audio recordings and, even more, filmed versions of his plays. And I started to get it. And once I did I was smart enough to understand the brilliance and timelessness of his work. What I found is that I can really, really enjoy Shakespeare _ **passively** _, IOW listening to and/or watching it performed, but not so much _ **actively** _, IOW reading it to myself. I simply can’t slog thru the Elizabethan well enough or fast enough to be able to fully understand or enjoy it in my head. But seeing or hearing it fully emoted in context makes all the difference. Even to this day I have never sat down and read one of his plays, but I recently took an acting class just for fun and of course it included Shakespeare, _Taming of the Shrew_, and actually having to learn & discuss lines and perform it with others was enough of a combination of active and passive that this also worked for me. Never having read that play I was amazed at how literally every modern romantic comedy is in some way based on it\*!\* And I loved the filmed versions of Ian McKellan’s _Richard III_, Branagh’s _Henry V_, and even Baz Luhrmann’s _Romeo + Juliet_. And all of these contained the actual Elizabethan dialog (just not all of it). Try watching a well-produced, modern production of something like the films I mentioned above (not an adaptation, but with the actual, Elizabethan dialog). You may still find it impenetrable, in which case so what? But it may be enough of a bridge to modern sensibilities to help you understand why his stuff is still around… ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_B](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jim_b/32/4338_2.png) [@Jim\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_B)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/35 "2015-10-14T06:40:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Perhaps we should start at the bottom: **Jim B.** , what has been your exposure to Shakespeare thus far? Assuming it’s not too late to reply, like most people, I probably have been exposed to all of them, to some degree. I know in high school, we specifically studied _Romeo and Juliet_, _Julius Caesar_ and the _Tempest_. A couple of years ago, I saw the _Merchant of Venice_ on my own. I agree, his language is very lofty and awe-inspiring. It also is a little bit repetitive, I think. But actually, I once read there may be a reason for that. In the Globe Theatre, there were often vendors hocking their wares, at the same time the plays were going on. So Shakespeare had to make sure they heard the plays too. (At least, that’s what I heard.) ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/36 "2015-10-14T07:32:08Z")
He’s the dividing line between Middle and Modern English. He’s mainly notable for being a transition figure at a major shift of English (and western) history. He (and his business partner Richard Burbage) elevated the theater from panhandling buskers–up to this point, actors got paid from somebody passing the hat–to paid and valued professionals. The Globe was the first theater in known history to charge a gate fee. He phrased things memorably and wrote multifaceted characters. None of his contemporaries could make that claim. And playwrights after him knew that they couldn’t just fart out words until they hit the requisite page count any longer. He raised the bar. He also bookended two literary eras (without partaking in either). Shakespeare was active at the tail end of the era of epic poetry and at the beginning of the prose novel. More accurately, he lived during the rough transition between the two. He is rumored to have been one of the authors of the King James Version of the _Bible_. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/37 "2015-10-14T08:51:23Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Assuming it’s not too late to reply… Not at all. I’m wondering if you’ve had your initial question answered? > [@](#): > > I once read there may be a reason for that. In the Globe Theatre, there were often vendors hocking their wares, at the same time the plays were going on. So Shakespeare had to make sure they heard the plays too. (At least, that’s what I heard.) And this is relevant to the question of Shakespeare’s literary immortality how…? Or just an interesting tidbit. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/38 "2015-10-14T11:00:27Z")
One should never forget writing has been and always will be about money and getting paid for your work. So a writer like Shakespeare would write a play because that was what was popular. He would write a novel if that is what was wanted and the same for poetry. BTW, I dont think Mark Twain is that hot either at least by todays standards. But, 150 years ago I’d guess it was pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/39 "2015-10-14T13:06:59Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > He’s the original sitcom creator. > > Overheard at the Shakespeare Festival: _“Nobody’s gonna believe that that chick is a dude! Look at the tits on that fuck-animal!”_ A phrase not coined by William Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/40 "2015-10-14T13:59:52Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > I dont think Mark Twain is that hot either at least by todays standards. But, 150 years ago I’d guess it was pretty good. To which contemporary novelists are you comparing Twain and finding him lacking? I ask merely from curiousity. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=3)