# What's the Big Deal With Shakespeare?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529>\
**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:** 18\
**Page:** 6

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/101 "2015-10-21T14:31:41Z")

</div>

Short anecdote of how a Shakespeare quote almost got me in trouble. 🆒

My daughter claims I can come up with a quote or song for any circumstance; this is not completely true, however …

On a breezy day, I witnessed an attractive lady leading her child across the parking lot into a store. She was wearing a short flounce skirt, and, due to the height of the child, was required to bend a little to hold its hand. Then an errant gust re-enacted Marilyn Monroe’s sidewalk vent scene, revealing to all observers that she had thong panties.

That’s when it slipped out. Before I could stop it. :smack: King Lear, act 3, scene II - “Blow winds, and crack your cheeks!”

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/102 "2015-10-21T16:35:45Z")

</div>

I had pretty much the exact same question about Dicken’s _A Tale of Two Cities._ The answer has nothing really to do with his prose or his style – It’s about his place in literary history. He’s a milestone, and his writing changed the standards by which future writers were judged.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 21, 2015, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/103 "2015-10-21T17:30:19Z")

</div>

A lot of authors aren’t really considered to be literary heavyweights during their lifetime. Dickens wasn’t really in the Pantheon of Important Writers when my father was in high school in the 1930s, nor was Tolkein when I was in school in the 70s.

Sometimes this is absolutely arbitrary. Jerzy Kozinski was absolutely considered one of the greats during his lifetime, but not so much after his death. Jim Thompson was pulp trash when he was alive and now is considered kind of important.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 21, 2015, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/104 "2015-10-21T18:24:36Z")

</div>

> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#):
>
> A lot of authors aren’t really considered to be literary heavyweights during their lifetime. Dickens wasn’t really in the Pantheon of Important Writers when my father was in high school in the 1930s, nor was Tolkein when I was in school in the 70s.
> 
> Sometimes this is absolutely arbitrary. Jerzy Kozinski was absolutely considered one of the greats during his lifetime, but not so much after his death. Jim Thompson was pulp trash when he was alive and now is considered kind of important.

I wonder if Dickens was victim of snobbery about novels? English for the most part wasn’t studied in the 19th century. Even then it was mostly poetry and classics. Shakespeare wasn’t considered worthy of study until very late in the Victorian period. That’s barely a generation before your father’s period of study.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/105 "2015-10-21T22:11:15Z")

</div>

> [@PatrickLondon](#):
>
> Try Kurosawa’s movie Throne of Blood (adaptation of Macbeth), or Ran (adaptation of King Lear).

Thanks! I’m not that into Japanese movies for some reason, but I might check those out.

> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#):
>
> I wonder if Dickens was victim of snobbery about novels? English for the most part wasn’t studied in the 19th century. Even then it was mostly poetry and classics. Shakespeare wasn’t considered worthy of study until very late in the Victorian period. That’s barely a generation before your father’s period of study.

Dickens also had the stigma of writing cheap serial fiction for popular magazines, and to be fair there are definitely places in his works where you can tell he’s being paid by the word. 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [October 21, 2015, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/106 "2015-10-21T22:52:43Z")

</div>

_Pericles, Prince of Tyre_ is generally agreed by scholars to be a collaborative work by Shakespeare and another author or authors. I’ve read it several times. The first two acts are pretty standard Jacobean drama. Then Act III begins. Pericles enters, on shipboard and speaks.

> [@](#):
>
> Thou god of this great vast, rebuke these surges,  
> Which wash both heaven and hell; and thou, that hast  
> Upon the winds command, bind them in brass,  
> Having call’d them from the deep! O, still  
> Thy deafening, dreadful thunders; gently quench  
> Thy nimble, sulphurous flashes! O, how, Lychorida,  
> How does my queen? Thou stormest venomously;  
> Wilt thou spit all thyself? The seaman’s whistle  
> Is as a whisper in the ears of death,  
> Unheard.

Shakespeare has entered the building and it sends chills down my spine every time. The verse has rocketed into the stratosphere from the ground of the first acts.

You get a similar effect reading the play of _Sir Thomas More_, another collaboration, when in the handwritten manuscript the hand known as Hand D takes over. Nobody writes like Shakespeare at the top of his form. He really is unmatchable.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/107 "2015-10-22T00:08:52Z")

</div>

Reminds me of Prospero’s denunciation of his magic:

> [@](#):
>
> Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves,  
> And ye that on the sands with printless foot  
> Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him  
> When he comes back; you demi-puppets that  
> By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make,  
> Whereof the ewe not bites, and you whose pastime  
> Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice  
> To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid,  
> Weak masters though ye be, I have bedimm’d  
> The noontide sun, call’d forth the mutinous winds,  
> And 'twixt the green sea and the azured vault  
> Set roaring war: to the dread rattling thunder  
> Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak  
> With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory  
> Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up  
> The pine and cedar: graves at my command  
> Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let 'em forth  
> By my so potent art. But this rough magic  
> I here abjure, and, when I have required  
> Some heavenly music, which even now I do,  
> To work mine end upon their senses that  
> This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,  
> Bury it certain fathoms in the earth,  
> And deeper than did ever plummet sound  
> I’ll drown my book.

Which I have memorized, but it was quicker to cut and paste.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/108 "2015-10-22T01:51:10Z")

</div>

> [@Chronos](#):
>
> Reminds me of Prospero’s denunciation of his magic:  
> Which I have memorized, but it was quicker to cut and paste.

It’s instructive to compare this with Medea’s incantation in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as translated by Sir Arthur Golding. As with all great writers Shakespeare borrows from those who went before and transforms. It’s clear he knew Golding’s translation well and remembered it. And Golding still makes good reading today, it’s certainly my favourite version of Ovid’s poem.

> [@](#):
>
> Ye Ayres and windes: ye Elves of Hilles, of Brookes, of Woods alone,  
> Of standing Lakes, and of the Night approche ye everychone.  
> Through helpe of whom (the crooked bankes much wondring at the thing)  
> I have compelled streames to run cleane backward to their spring.  
> By charmes I make the calme Seas rough, and make y rough Seas plaine  
> And cover all the Skie with Cloudes, and chase them thence againe. 270  
> By charmes I rayse and lay the windes, and burst the Vipers jaw,  
> And from the bowels of the Earth both stones and trees doe drawe.  
> Whole woods and Forestes I remove : I make the Mountaines shake,  
> And even the Earth it selfe to grone and fearfully to quake.  
> I call up dead men from their graves : and thee O lightsome Moone  
> I darken oft, though beaten brasse abate thy perill soone.  
> Our Sorcerie dimmes the Morning faire, and darkes y Sun at Noone.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 11:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/109 "2015-10-22T11:18:57Z")

</div>

I don’t know if it is too late to post this. But actually, what amazes me most about Shakespeare, is just the interplay of words, that he uses. Harsh words and soft words, in just the right order, I think at least.

I sometimes wonder, what his speeches and other quotes., seems like to people who do not speak English.

Does anyone know what Shakespeare sounds like to the non-English speaker? I would really like to know.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/110 "2015-10-22T13:11:55Z")

</div>

> [@Jim\_B](#):
>
> I don’t know if it is too late to post this. But actually, what amazes me most about Shakespeare, is just the interplay of words, that he uses. Harsh words and soft words, in just the right order, I think at least.
> 
> I sometimes wonder, what his speeches and other quotes., seems like to people who do not speak English.
> 
> Does anyone know what Shakespeare sounds like to the non-English speaker? I would really like to know.

And a follow-up question, do the lines have the same power and majesty when translated into other languages? And which languages convey the **sound** the best? (Not the meaning, which I’m assuming can be translated well.)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/111 "2015-10-22T13:38:41Z")

</div>

> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#):
>
> For me it is his utter mastery of language.  
> It takes a little while to get used to the structure of the sentences and (to our modern ears) unusual choice of words but bloody hell the man could write a powerful line or two.
> 
> just a random one from “Romeo and Juliet”
> 
> almost clichéd now with overuse but still sublime I think.

When I read the OP, all I could think of was that Romeo and Juliet was coming up soon.

A few scattered quotes from his collective works flittered at the edge of my thinking, but I coud not immediately connect them with their specific works.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\
**Post date:** [October 22, 2015, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/112 "2015-10-22T14:26:25Z")

</div>

> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> And a follow-up question, do the lines have the same power and majesty when translated into other languages? And which languages convey the **sound** the best? (Not the meaning, which I’m assuming can be translated well.)

I haven’t read many French translations of Shakespeare but, while some are really good, even impressive, none matches the original. A good translator will manage to make it sound majestic while sticking as close as possible to the “message”. But the interplay of words and sounds and, even worse, the puns are usually entirely lost, except when the same pun works in French (which is: almost never) or another one can be substituted without betraying the overall dialogue.

So, Shakespeare also sounds majestic in French… like many great French playwrights from that era. What makes him really special is usually gone, however.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/113 "2015-10-22T17:02:15Z")

</div>

> [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](#):
>
> I haven’t read many French translations of Shakespeare but, while some are really good, even impressive, none matches the original. A good translator will manage to make it sound majestic while sticking as close as possible to the “message”. But the interplay of words and sounds and, even worse, the puns are usually entirely lost, except when the same pun works in French (which is: almost never) or another one can be substituted without betraying the overall dialogue.
> 
> So, Shakespeare also sounds majestic in French… like many great French playwrights from that era. What makes him really special is usually gone, however.

Thanks for this information.

I do know certain countries historically claim that their translation of Shakespeare is as good, if not better, than the original. This is probably where the old \*Shakespeare in original Klingon \*line from Star Treck derives. Notably German translators of the early 19th century made this claim. I have also read(I forget where) that Shakespeare does sound rather impressive in Russian.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/114 "2015-10-22T17:26:21Z")

</div>

Text all messed up. Will try again, as I’m sure to miss the edit window…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 22, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/115 "2015-10-22T17:34:59Z")

</div>

Second attempt…

[Here’s](http://bigreaders.myfastforum.org/archive/shakespeare-in-french __o_t__ t_1068.html) a snippet of a discussion I found on another message board when I googled “Shakespeare in French.”

> [@](#):
>
> I found a copy of ‘Twelfth Night’ (La Nuit des Rois) and below I post a speech from it in English and French. I have copies of several plays by Shakespeare in French - ‘Romeo et Juliette’, ‘Le Songe d’une Nuit d’ete’, ‘Comme Il Vous Plaira’ and ‘Le Conte d’hiver’. All of them are translated into prose with no attempt at versification.
> 
> Make me a willow cabin at your gate,  
> And call upon my soul within the house;  
> Write loyal cantons of contemned love,  
> And sing them loud even in the dead of night;  
> Holla your name to the reverberate hills,  
> And make the babbling gossip of the air  
> Cry out ‘Olivia!’ O! you should not rest  
> Between the elements of air and earth,  
> But you should pity me!
> 
> Je me batirais a votre porte une huite en branches de saule et je rappellerais mon ame emprisonee chez vous. J’ecrirais de poignants couplets sur l’amour dedaigne et je le chanterais tout haut dans la nuit noire. Je clamerais votre nom aux echos des collines. Je ferais retentir les airs en criant votre nom ‘Olivia!’ Ah, je vous jure qu’il n’y aurait plus de repos pour vous entre la terre et le ciel jusqu’a ce que vous eussiez enfin pitie de moi.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/116 "2015-10-23T01:40:11Z")

</div>

> [@PatrickLondon](#):
>
> Try Kurosawa’s movie Throne of Blood (adaptation of Macbeth), or Ran (adaptation of King Lear).

You know, in Throne of Blood Kurosawa didn’t hardly have to change anything. Medieval Japan and medieval Scotland weren’t all THAT different.

I’d still like to figure out how they did that flight of arrows scene though.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**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 23, 2015, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/117 "2015-10-23T02:22:53Z")

</div>

> [@Baker](#):
>
> I’d still like to figure out how they did that flight of arrows scene though.

They were real arrows. There was some post-production editing for the arrow that went through Mifune’s throat, but otherwise the arrows were all real. Ditto in _Ran_.

Kurbrick and Scorsese had nothing on Kurosawa. Kurosawa was the god of insane verisimilitude.

Stranger

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\
**Post date:** [October 23, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529/118 "2015-10-23T07:32:33Z")

</div>

> [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](#):
>
> I have also read(I forget where) that Shakespeare does sound rather impressive in Russian.

I saw a movie version of _King Lear_ in Russian in the early 90s. That was before I even read the play but I was really impressed by the way it sounded.

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-big-deal-with-shakespeare/734529.md?page=5)