# 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:** 4
**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 15, 2015, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/61 "2015-10-15T03:46:39Z")
> [@](#): > > …and Beatrice is played as a Modern Woman/Suffragette. Which is a surprisingly good fit to how Shakespeare wrote her, considering that he preceded women’s suffrage by about three centuries. ---
**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 15, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/62 "2015-10-15T04:54:12Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > 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. Sony, not seeing it. The KJV was written in stilted English, not at all similar to the street vernacular common in Shakespeare’s plays. His work was lively and playful, the bible was stodgy and wooden. Almost like it was put together by a bunch of scholars at university (note its consistent use of the “-eth” conjugation, which was occasional but not exactly pervasive throughout Shakespeare’s writings). So far as we know, he was not college-educated, so he would would not have fit in with the project, find really, the universities already had their fair share of accomplished writers. Unless you can produce some very compelling evidence, there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that he was involved. ---
**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, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/63 "2015-10-15T05:45:37Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Sony, not seeing it. The KJV was written in stilted English, not at all similar to the street vernacular common in Shakespeare’s plays. His work was lively and playful, the bible was stodgy and wooden. Almost like it was put together by a bunch of scholars at university (note its consistent use of the “-eth” conjugation, which was occasional but not exactly pervasive throughout Shakespeare’s writings). I’m told it’s a big improvement on previous English language Bibles. > [@](#): > > Unless you can produce some very compelling evidence, there is no reason whatsoever to suspect that he was involved. That’s a little beyond my purview. Famously, there are doubts Shakespeare wrote his own plays and sonnets, that he existed, that he married his wife, that he wasn’t a Klingon… ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/64 "2015-10-15T10:30:51Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > 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 concur. And run, don’t walk, away from the 1999 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” film. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Puck, Rupert Everett is competent as Oberon, and everyone else barely makes it to “junior high drama club” level of quality, with Michelle Pfeiffer’s Titania a notable rock-bottom (or rock-Bottom - heh). ---
**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 15, 2015, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/65 "2015-10-15T10:42:41Z")
Speaking of the King James Bible; the earliest known draft has reportedly just been found. [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/books/earliest-known-draft-of-king-james-bible-is-found-scholar-says.html?\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/books/earliest-known-draft-of-king-james-bible-is-found-scholar-says.html?_r=1) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/66 "2015-10-15T11:00:55Z")
> [@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. Yes, we do, exactly, and there are records of the correspondence between them. They largely drew on the work of Tyndale and Henry VIII’s authorised translation: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview26](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/24/featuresreviews.guardianreview26) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King\_James\_Version#Further\_reading](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Version#Further_reading) ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/67 "2015-10-15T11:07:36Z")
PS: Part of Shakespeare’s genius is what risks making him a “bad” playwright - the ability to explore and humanise his characters threatens to upset the balance and direction of the plot, if you’re looking for goodies to cheer and baddies to hiss. The classic case is Shylock, but you could say the same about the way Much Ado turns on a sixpence from romcom to something much darker (with “Kill Claudio!”), or the uneasiness that one gets with the way Malvolio is treated. ---
**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/68 "2015-10-15T12:14:20Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#): > > Speaking of the King James Bible; the earliest known draft has reportedly just been found. > > [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/books/earliest-known-draft-of-king-james-bible-is-found-scholar-says.html?\_r=1](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/books/earliest-known-draft-of-king-james-bible-is-found-scholar-says.html?_r=1) No need to rely on the \*New York Times \*'s second-hand account - the _TLS_ article is available online. [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece](http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece) ---
**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 15, 2015, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/69 "2015-10-15T13:16:04Z")
> [@APB](#): > > No need to rely on the \*New York Times \*'s second-hand account - the _TLS_ article is available online. > > [http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece](http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1619318.ece) Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![erysichthon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d07c76/32.png) [@erysichthon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erysichthon)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2015, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/70 "2015-10-15T21:01:48Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I concur. > > And run, don’t walk, away from the 1999 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” film. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Puck, Rupert Everett is competent as Oberon, and everyone else barely makes it to “junior high drama club” level of quality, with Michelle Pfeiffer’s Titania a notable rock-bottom (or rock-Bottom - heh). I thought Calista Flockhart was pretty good in that version. I remember people dismissing her as a “TV face” at the time, but she was an established theater actress before doing the _Ally McBeal_ TV show. My favorite film version of MND is the 1968 Peter Hall production, which has an amazing cast (including Judi Dench and Helen Mirren)! The video transfers I’ve seen have been decidedly sub-par, but I hear that Amazon’s HD streaming version is excellent. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 8:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/71 "2015-10-16T08:51:01Z")
> [@erysichthon](#): > > I thought Calista Flockhart was pretty good in that version. I remember people dismissing her as a “TV face” at the time, but she was an established theater actress before doing the _Ally McBeal_ TV show. I remember being distinctly underwhelmed. Even Kevin Kline, who ought to have been an excellent Bottom, didn’t really sell it to me. Ah well. (Speaking of KK, it’s a crying shame that it’s impossible to find a good copy of his “Pirates of Penzance” movie with Angela Lansbury, Linda Ronstadt and Rex Smith. _So_ good. But many of the advertised copies on the likes of Amazon are actually a stage version without Kline in it.) ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2015, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/72 "2015-10-16T13:39:14Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > (From _God, I Hate Shakespeare_, Something Rotten, Act 1) You are dead to me! ---
**Author:** ![betterlifethroughchemistry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/betterlifethroughchemistry/32/3094_2.png) [@betterlifethroughchemistry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betterlifethroughchemistry)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/73 "2015-10-17T01:08:20Z")
> [@gracer](#): > > If you want to, you can go and see Macbeth performed and watch an exciting play. You’ll be entertained. > > If you want to, you can read this: > > …and marvel at how Shakespeare really captures in words that utter despair at the thought of how time just passes, in the end we all die and none of it means anything. > > If you want to, you can look a little deeper, at how Shakespeare put it all together for an actor to be able to say those words to maximum effect. [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGbZCgHQ9m8) is Ian McKellen discussing the soliloquy, with a beautiful rendition of it at the end. They way the words all fit together, perfectly crafted to create an effect and to discuss that despair. > > And then if you still want more, you can think about the candle and the walking shadow and [Plato’s prisoners chained up in a cave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_Cave) who only ever saw the shadows on the wall of the cave and that was all the reality they knew, and think about if Shakespeare is perhaps also referring to that. Or just pick any other line and see what you might find there. I had to memorize this passage and recite it in front of the class in Mrs. Imhoff’s 10th grade English and can recite it to this day…very powerful… ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/74 "2015-10-17T01:16:36Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I concur. > > And run, don’t walk, away from the 1999 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” film. Stanley Tucci is excellent as Puck, Rupert Everett is competent as Oberon, and everyone else barely makes it to “junior high drama club” level of quality, with Michelle Pfeiffer’s Titania a notable rock-bottom (or rock-Bottom - heh). Huh. The play within a play in this production is the first, and possibly the only time, I’ve laughed hysterically at a Shakespeare movie. We’ve got a local theatre troop that does an excellent job mounting Shakespeare productions, really playing up the bawdy side of things and going for borderline slapstick physical comedy that helps to mitigate language issues. I’ve laughed plenty at what they’ve done. But movie Shakespeare has generally left me somewhere from cold to very mildly and intellectually amused. That scene in that production is the exception. ---
**Author:** ![Haldurson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/51bf81/32.png) [@Haldurson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Haldurson)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/75 "2015-10-17T02:09:52Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > In Romeo and Juliet he even has a mildly crazy Mercutio talk of a tiny chariot pulled by atomes (atoms…atomic power?). That’s a real stretch right there. Mercutio is talking about tiny fairies. Considering that there was no real atomic theory until the 19th century, and the concept of converting matter into energy did not exist until the 20th century, it’s most likely that the text is referring to Mercutio imagining a chariot pulled by something tiny, but unspecified. Anything else would be completely implausible. Thinking that Shakespeare crafted an atomic theory out of thin air is ludicrous. There are practical reasons why they were discovered when they were. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/76 "2015-10-17T05:03:15Z")
> [@Haldurson](#): > > Thinking that Shakespeare crafted an atomic theory out of thin air is ludicrous. There are practical reasons why they were discovered when they were. Erm… Democritus had an atomic theory of matter around 400BC. I don’t know if he had any actual evidence for it, but he certainly believed it. I agree it’s not what Shakespeare is talking about though. ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/77 "2015-10-17T05:05:37Z")
From Wikipedia; Democritus (/dɪˈmɒkrɪtəs/; Greek: Δημόκριτος Dēmókritos, meaning “chosen of the people”; c. 460 – c. 370 BC) was an influential Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe.[3] ---
**Author:** ![Mikeisskeptical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@Mikeisskeptical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikeisskeptical)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/78 "2015-10-17T05:12:12Z")
Also, Shakespeare is amazing. Hamlet for the win! [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/YfDCcJSW7yQ/hqdefault.jpg "Hamlet") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfDCcJSW7yQ) ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/79 "2015-10-17T06:09:42Z")
> [@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? This [link](http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-English-words-invented-by-Shakespeare#List_of_Words_first_used_by_Shakespeare) discusses the issue: > [@](#): > > Early Modern English as a literary medium was unfixed in structure and vocabulary in comparison to Greek and Latin, and was in a constant state of flux. When William Shakespeare began writing his plays, the English language was rapidly absorbing words from other cultures due to wars, exploration, diplomacy, and colonization. By the age of Elizabeth, English had become widely used with the expansion of philosophy, theology and physical sciences, but many writers lacked the vocabulary to express such ideas. To accommodate, writers such as Edmund Spenser, Sir Philip Sidney, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare expressed new ideas and distinctions by inventing, borrowing or adopting a word or a phrase from another language, known as neologizing. From nouns, verbs and modifiers of Latin and Greek and other modern Romance languages, it is estimated that between the years of 1500 and 1659 30,000 new words were added to the English language. > [@](#): > > It is widely assumed that Shakespeare himself introduced more words into English than all the other writers of his time combined. However, calculating the number of words Shakespeare coined is difficult. First, one must define the meaning of coinage. Should variations of existing words or existing words to which he gave new meaning be counted? Should one consider compound words? Also, one must take into account that a word might be considered of Shakespearean origins only because his works have been more thoroughly scrutinized than others of his time. A word might also have existed in oral communication long before Shakespeare set it to paper. > [@Haldurson](#): > > That’s a real stretch right there. Mercutio is talking about tiny fairies. Considering that there was no real atomic theory until the 19th century, and the concept of converting matter into energy did not exist until the 20th century, it’s most likely that the text is referring to Mercutio imagining a chariot pulled by something tiny, but unspecified. Anything else would be completely implausible. Thinking that Shakespeare crafted an atomic theory out of thin air is ludicrous. There are practical reasons why they were discovered when they were. Greek philosophers had postulated an [atom](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atom) as the smallest individual and indivisable unit of matter. The word was in use at the time to mean “mote of dust”. Connecting that to modern atomic theory is bass-ackwards. (No, Shakespeare didn’t invent that word.) Modern chemists used the existing word “atom” from Greek theory to describe their proposed smallest physical amount of matter. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2015, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/80 "2015-10-17T12:07:53Z")
There is a theory that Shakespeare’s language (in the text handed down to us) owes a great deal to a man called John Florio: [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/12/who-edited-shakespeare-john-florio](http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/12/who-edited-shakespeare-john-florio) People who like literary speculation and games might enjoy Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next novels, and particularly The Eyre Affair, in which ordinary householders are regularly disturbed by door-to-door evangelists - for the Baconian theory as to the authorship of Shakespeare. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=5)