# 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:** 3
**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, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/41 "2015-10-14T14:07:06Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > A phrase not coined by William Shakespeare. When you put it into Elizabethan English, it comes out different. Hehe. > [@Urbanredneck](#): > > …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. > [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > To which contemporary novelists are you comparing Twain and finding him lacking? I ask merely from curiousity. I was wondering if \*\*Urbanredneck \*\*feels that Dickens lives up to _todays [sic] standards_? Presuming, of course, that today’s standards have risen, not declined. :dubious: ---
**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, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/42 "2015-10-14T14:26:13Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Jim B.** : > > 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 feared it might be something like this. If your high school English teacher was good, then in the process of studying those plays, you watched them (either on stage, or in movie form). If your teacher wasn’t so good, though, then you just read them and dissected them, which is probably worse for appreciation than never having been exposed to them at all. Go watch more of the plays, performed by decent troupes, and don’t worry about them being “Great Literature”. Go just to have a good time and be entertained for a couple of hours. That’s how you learn to appreciate Shakespeare. Then, once you appreciate the work, you can feel free to dissect them, if that’s your bag (or not, if it isn’t). But don’t start with the dissection. ---
**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 14, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/43 "2015-10-14T19:09:31Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > … He is rumored to have been one of the authors of the King James Version of the _Bible_. Airplanes are rumored to be spreading fiendish chemicals upon us from above which can be nullified by spraying vinegar in the air. An equally tenable rumor. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/44 "2015-10-14T19:51:17Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > An equally tenable rumor. See, I always heard this, not as a rumor, but as accepted fact. King James asked all the accomplished English writers of the day to help him create his namesake Bible translation. Shakespeare was one of those accomplished writers. He was very popular in London, and wrote and performed plays for King James, personally. We don’t know which parts he wrote, because nobody kept track, but I thought it was accepted that he did have a hand in its creation. But I don’t think we have records of who the actual writers of the King James Bible were, do we? If you have a cite, I would like to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/45 "2015-10-14T19:58:48Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Shakespeare not only wrote phrases that we all know, he invented many words that are now in English. [Examples.](http://nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/shakespeare-words/) Also, some really great subtle insults: [ul] [li]No longer from head to foot and from hip to hop, she is spherical, like a globe; I could find countries in her.[/li][li]You have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm, and cloudiness.[/li][li]I do repent the tedious minutes I with her I have spent.[/li][li]Asses are made to bear, and so are you.[/li][li]Let’s meet as little as we can.[/li][li]They lie deadly that tell you you have good faces.[/li][li]Thous hast in thy skull no more brain than I have in mine elbows.[/li][/ul] and my favorite: [ul] [li]More of your conversation would infect my brain.[/li][/ul] Also, _Hamlet_ is the best black comedy ever. If the Coen Brothers adapted a Shakespeare play, it would be this one. “Thrift! Thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish the marriage tables.” His entire exchange with Polonius is one of progressive absurdity; “For yourself, sir, shall grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could walk backward.” The fencing duel in Act V is every bit as funny and fucked up as anything in _The Big Lebowski_. Give the 2010 BBC production of _Hamlet_ with David Tennent in the titular role or Joss Whedon’s excellent production of _Much Ado About Nothing_ a try. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/46 "2015-10-14T20:07:12Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > Because only he could make a King leer. Now you have me humming **Brush Up Your Shakespeare.** And when I read the plays, I was quite astounded to find “Making the beast of two backs” in Othello. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/47 "2015-10-14T20:07:23Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > But I don’t think we have records of who the actual writers of the King James Bible were, do we? If you have a cite, I would like to see it. [Translation committees for the King James Bible, broken down by book.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version#Translation_Committees) Shakespeare was a popular playwright, but he was still just a playwright. Aside from class issues (the idea of someone who worked in a play house rewriting the Bible would have been scandalous) the primary qualifications looked for in writers of the new translations were a deep knowledge of Christian theology, and a strong grasp of Greek and Hebrew - neither qualities possessed by Shakespeare. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/48 "2015-10-14T20:08:32Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also, _Hamlet_ is the best black comedy ever. If the Coen Brothers adapted a Shakespeare play, it would be this one. “Thrift! Thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish the marriage tables.” His entire exchange with Polonius is one of progressive absurdity; “For yourself, sir, shall grow as old as I am, if like a crab you could walk backward.” The fencing duel in Act V is every bit as funny and fucked up as anything in _The Big Lebowski_. > > Stranger Though there is definitely comedy in Hamlet, I never thought of it as a black comedy before, but it works. I like it, I like it. ---
**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 14, 2015, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/49 "2015-10-14T20:14:14Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > But I don’t think we have records of who the actual writers of the King James Bible were, do we? If you have a cite, I would like to see it. I just looked it up on that wiki thing, which _does_ present a very specific list. The bible text was _translated_ from mostly Hebrew and Koine Greek, which was well outside Shakespeare’s expertise. The work was done in the big universities, far from London, where he lived at the time. And, IIUC, Shakespeare was a Catholic, which made him kind of untrustworthy for such an important project. ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/50 "2015-10-14T20:51:36Z")
Thanks, **Miller** and **eschereal**. Ignorance fought. Guess my high school literature teacher wasn’t right about everything. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/51 "2015-10-14T20:53:21Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > And, IIUC, Shakespeare was a Catholic, which made him kind of untrustworthy for such an important project. It’s suspected that Shakespeare might have been a closeted Catholic. Catholics were heavily persecuted in England during Shakespeare’s life, and he probably would not have been able to obtain the prominence he did, if he were openly Catholic. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/52 "2015-10-14T21:01:18Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > 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.) By the way, I like Shakespeare just fine, I worked at one of the best Shakespeare Festivals in America for five years, and I still believe there is definitely some very bad Shakespeare out there, even in the very best theaters and performed by the finest actors around. Some actors and directors accept work that they’re really not prepared to do (especially where the drawing power of a TV or movie star outweighs their actual acting ability). If you’re interested in learning to enjoy Shakespeare, I’d encourage you to go see a few of his plays\*, and talk about the plays afterwards with whoever you go to the play with. Keep these two things in mind when you talk about it: 1: You’re allowed to think that the play was bad. I like Shakespeare, and I frequently don’t like performances of his plays. Just like you sometimes dislike a movie or TV show, you’re totally allowed to think that the play wasn’t any good, in part or in whole, and that either this performance of the play was bad but the script was good or that the script is bad outright. Personally, I’ve said that I’ll never go see _Merry Wives_, _Love’s Labour’s Lost_, or _Antony and Cleopatra_ again. I don’t like the scripts, and I don’t need to see them again to try to enjoy them. That said, I used to include _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ on that list, but I saw a production a couple years back that was pretty good, and the character that ruins the play for me (Julia) was so wonderfully acted that I was glad I went to see it, even if I still dislike the play as a whole. 2: You’re allowed to decide you really don’t like Shakespeare that much. He’s not my favorite playwright, not by a long shot, and plenty of very smart people have made the case that he’s overrated. If you give him a chance, really try to see good productions, and then decide that you don’t like him anymore than you don’t like rap or country or classic rock or whatever genre of music, that’s a totally valid decision. \*Skip the movies. Just like there are books that will never be translated well into movies, I believe that there are plays that will never be made into good movies, and Shakespeare is highly placed among them. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I’ve never seen it done very well, at least as a whole movie. Individual scenes might be good, but as a whole, not so much. ---
**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 14, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/53 "2015-10-14T21:40:19Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > See, I always heard this, not as a rumor, but as accepted fact. King James asked all the accomplished English writers of the day to help him create his namesake Bible translation. Shakespeare was one of those accomplished writers. He was very popular in London, and wrote and performed plays for King James, personally. We don’t know which parts he wrote, because nobody kept track, but I thought it was accepted that he did have a hand in its creation. > > But I don’t think we have records of who the actual writers of the King James Bible were, do we? If you have a cite, I would like to see it. It’s virtually certain Shakespeare didn’t write any of the King James Bible. I don’t have a cite as to who did write it, but I suspect that gig would have went to a variety of university educated folk. The rumour that Shakespeare was involved surrounds Psalm 46. Something like 46 words into the psalm the word \*shake \*appears; 46 words from the end of the psalm the word _speare_ appears. Shakespeare was 46 years old at the time of writing. This is pretty much the entire “evidence” as to Shakespeare writing the KJ bible. Ben Jonson was far more popular in London, and with King James, yet he was never asked to write any of the bible. From memory no playwright was asked to. edit: I missed Miller’s above post. ---
**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 14, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/54 "2015-10-14T21:43:10Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s suspected that Shakespeare might have been a closeted Catholic. Catholics were heavily persecuted in England during Shakespeare’s life, and he probably would not have been able to obtain the prominence he did, if he were openly Catholic. Very much so. In my opinion the evidence of Shakespeare’s Catholicism has been greatly exaggerated. Interestingly Ben Jonson(I seem to mention him in every post on this thread) was openly Catholic for a period under James before returning to the COE. ---
**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, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/55 "2015-10-14T23:24:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Stranger** : > > Also, some really great subtle insults: > > ``` > No longer from head to foot and from hip to hop, she is spherical, like a globe; I could find countries in her. > > ``` This one is especially good, since he proceeds to expand upon it in great detail, listing all of the countries he finds and where. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/56 "2015-10-14T23:40:44Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > Also, some really great subtle insults: My personal favorite: > [@](#): > > He has not so much brain as ear-wax ---
**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 15, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/57 "2015-10-15T00:36:50Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I just looked it up on that wiki thing, which _does_ present a very specific list. The bible text was _translated_ from mostly Hebrew and Koine Greek, which was well outside Shakespeare’s expertise. The work was done in the big universities, far from London, where he lived at the time. And, IIUC, Shakespeare was a Catholic, which made him kind of untrustworthy for such an important project. There is absolutely no suspicion that Shakespeare helped translate the Bible, so much as helped script-doctor it. The KJV (and this is the Catholic-raised boy in me talking) was heavily rewritten both for style and for political considerations. Its intentions were to A) provide an English Bible that didn’t read awkwardly and B) religiously justify King James’s reign. This is not a slur on King James, as he was neither the first monarch nor the last to have the Good Book rewritten for this purpose. ---
**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 15, 2015, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/58 "2015-10-15T02:20:03Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > \*Skip the movies. Just like there are books that will never be translated well into movies, I believe that there are plays that will never be made into good movies, and Shakespeare is highly placed among them. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I’ve never seen it done very well, at least as a whole movie. Individual scenes might be good, but as a whole, not so much. I think the OP might enjoy [Much Ado About Nothing](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107616/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2), the 1993 Kenneth Branagh-Emma Thompson version (Branagh also directed it). The cast includes Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Kate Beckinsale. The plot is lightweight, but it is beautifully filmed in Italy, it has fabulous music, and it really moves along. And Kenneth Branagh has a natural, easy way of speaking Shakespearean dialogue that makes you hear it as modern English (as opposed to, say, Denzel Washington-- whom I ADORE!-- but who reads Shakespeare like he’s reading from the back of a cereal box). The scene of Branagh in the garden with the lawn chair was brilliant and had the whole theater in hysterical laughter. I would likewise recommend Branagh’s [Hamlet](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116477/?ref_=nv_sr_1), which he also directed. Part of it was filmed in a hall of mirrors, something he said he would NEVER do again. Another one that might pique the OP’s interest is the 1967 [The Taming of the Shrew](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061407/?ref_=nv_sr_1) with real-life Bickersons\* Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Burton was another guy who could deliver Shakespearean lines in a very natural way, as though that was the way he really talked. \*[The Bickersons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bickersons)- before my time, so surely before the OP’s time. ---
**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 15, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/59 "2015-10-15T03:12:58Z")
I agree! Branagh and Thompson are wonderful in it as Benedick and Beatrice. Brian Blessed and Denzel Washington suck. Michael Keaton REALLY sucks, which is a shame because Dogberry is such a great character. And Keanu Reeves sucks as only Keanu Reeves can! But the production rises above them. I am also very fond of the 1973 teevee version, which featured Sam Waterston as Benedick. Set in small-town 1890s America. > **[Much Ado About Nothing (TV Movie 1973) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071870/)** > > Much Ado About Nothing: Directed by Nick Havinga. With Sam Waterston, Kathleen Widdoes, Barnard Hughes, Charles Bartlett. Videotape of the Joseph Papp production. Don Pedro and his men (Teddy Roosevelt Roughriders) have returned from the wars. After... ---
**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 15, 2015, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/60 "2015-10-15T03:20:12Z")
Note for Shakespeare snobs: The 1973 version is a film of the Joseph Papp production. Also, I was off on the date…the heroes are marching home from the Spanish-American War, and Beatrice is played as a Modern Woman/Suffragette. And the ragtime/early jazz version of “Hey Nonny Nonny” is delicious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=4)