What is so good about Shakespeare?

[Mise]

What if I ask it like this: If Much Ado About Nothing was written today by a living writer, would it receive the same praise that Shakespeare receives?

Is this a fair test for "Does Shakespeare deserve the hype?" I suppose it isn't, because it could be argued that the hypothetical modern author really does deserve the hype, but is not receiving it for social/cultural/economic reasons. If so, then doesn't this mean that "hype" is not merely a function of artistic merit, but also of those social/cultural/economic factors too? Is it really so hard to imagine, then, that Shakespeare's present hype is also partly a result of those social/cultural/economic factors, and is therefore greater than artistic merit alone would warrant?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I don't watch soaps, no. Do soaps deserve the kind of praise that Shakespeare receives?

Mostly, no. But there have been some powerfully-written storylines that people remember decades later - and consider that in many cases these episodes were originally shown before we had VCRs and they've never been rerun. Soaps can really suck a person in, and if the overall storyline is interesting enough or the character is one that people enjoy, the occasional lapse in storytelling logic is usually tolerated.

The part of Much Ado where Beatrice and Benedick's friends and family are playing matchmaker in the gardens is pure soap.

I also don't think that the farce of Hero's fake death, in particular, was very funny.

It wasn't meant to be funny.

Finally, I've seen far better comedies, so even if we're judging this play by the standards of comedy, it still doesn't rate very highly. Not to me anyway.

We all have our own standards of comedy. I love the Britcoms Are You Being Served?, Good Neighbors, Father Charlie, Black Adder, and Keeping Up Appearances, and there are even some Benny Hill skits I find funny. But if you take American humor, I think the last time I found an American sitcom consistently funny, it was The Ropers. For Canadian comedy, I prefer Rick Mercer, and have fond memories of Wayne & Shuster and Royal Canadian Air Farce.

Here's a different take on Shakespeare that doesn't take it in the least bit seriously - The Shakespearean Baseball skit by Wayne & Shuster:


Link to video.

Yeah, it's dated, and both Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster died many years ago. But this is still considered one of their classics.

 

[Tarquelne]

... but I wouldn't say that a farcical comedy is worthy of the praise that Shakespeare receives.

Not even a great farce?
Or are you thinking that MAAN in particular in particular isn't very praiseworthy?

I guess another way to put it would be: Do you think farces, by their nature, are unworthy of "the Bard"?

Finally, I've seen far better comedies, so even if we're judging this play by the standards of comedy, it still doesn't rate very highly. Not to me anyway.

Personally, I'd agree. But I'm the one wanting separate Shakespeare as a user-of-language from Shakespeare the storyteller.

With regard to humor in general, I think tastes have changed. I'd be interesting to see what Shakespeare would produce for a modern audience. He does, at least, show more breadth than many commercially successful modern authors. Perhaps most. (OTOH, modern authors are discouraged from demonstrating any range.)

With implausibility, I think tastes have improved. Still debatable, though. That, too, could merely be a "change."

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Billy Shakes talked about the human condition n'stuff.

 

[Traitorfish]

(It's just dawned on me that nobody's posted this yet, and that will not stand.)

 

[Gori the Grey]

There’s a lot to say in response to Mise’s question about how people would assess MAAN if it appeared today. I’m going to say some of the things quickly, and some not at all for right now, in order to focus in on one concern that has been lurking in our considerations, and it’s time it came out directly:

If someone wrote MAAN today, people would say: (1) why are you writing as though in Elizabethan English? (2) why are you founding your plot on cultural conventions (expectation of premarital chastity, women swooning, duelling) that obtained in Renaissance Europe, but not today? oh, it’s a period piece; well then (3) dude, your Elizabethan English is spot-on; usually when moderns try to reproduce it, it doesn’t come across as authentic. Then they’d say (4) this is an entertaining story, as much as I can make of it, anyway, because (5) due to your Elizabethan English, I don’t actually get any of the witty repartee between B & B. I can tell that they’re engaged in witty repartee, but I don’t actually follow any of it. In fact, (6) I get the gist of your plot, but I frankly feel like I only take in about 25% of the lines. But by the way, (7) that plot has got some pretty implausible stuff in it.

What Mise means, Gori, is what if someone wrote a play with the same plot, but all updated language? You’ll remember that as long ago as post 15 Pangur asserted that Shakespeare’s language is an obstacle to understanding him, and the key source of cachet for the priests in Shakespeare’s mystery cult, and that as recently as post 246 Mise characterized it as thickets of gibberish.

Well, then, if somebody wrote MAAN in different language, it would no longer be MAAN. Shakespeare’s language is not an obstacle to his meanings. Shakespeare’s meanings, and much of his value, inheres in his language. Is Shakespeare’s language difficult for modern readers? Yes. Can it feel like a thicket one has to hack through to get to his meaning? Yes.

For two reasons. They sometimes get conflated, but I think they should be separated. First reason: his language is 400 years old, and languages change over time. Words fall out of use, new words come into use; words that meant one thing change their meaning and come to mean something else, even syntactical constructions that people can readily process in one era seem forced, unnatural or difficult in another era. Second reason: his language is highly poetic.

The reason, I think these two sources of difficulty for modern readers with Shakespeare’s language should be separated is one I’ve glanced at in the previous posts: the second form of difficulty would have been a difficulty for Shakespeare’s original audience as well. When I told Mise at one point that I thought Shakespeare’s original audience would have taken in only 25% of a play on a first listen, I lied. I think they would have taken in 35%, because they wouldn’t have the comprehension challenges that come with historical difference. That 10% difference is the result of the change in language over time. But I still think 65% of Shakespeare’s language would have been a difficulty even for S’s original audience. (It’s just that they would have found it a fun difficulty. That’s what I hope to make Shakespeare’s language for this group: a fun difficulty (rather than a mystery-cult mystery that can serve as a marker of your culture.)).

We’ll get back to the the passage we’ve started considering in a bit, but this post is running long. To break up the page by getting a post between this one and my next long one, could someone give me the gist of the following passage: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”

 

[Mise]

Not even a great farce?

Or are you thinking that MAAN in particular in particular isn't very praiseworthy?

I guess another way to put it would be: Do you think farces, by their nature, are unworthy of "the Bard"?

I think greatness of the kind that Shakespeare is attributed has to have a purpose that's more "worthy" than mere entertainment. I can think of loads of really great jokes, but none that I would call deserving of the kind of praise that's given to Shakespeare. Shakespeare's praise isn't the same kind of praise given to Seinfeld, for example. I would be happy to say that Shakespeare is a very funny person, but it seems to me that the kind of praise Shakespeare is given is of a different nature to this.

Again, this may be me misunderstanding the kind of praise modern society gives to Shakespeare, or being subconsciously disingenuous about it.

@Gori: Yeah, what I really meant, I suppose, was if someone wrote a play with all the same relevant attributes as Shakespeare's MAAN (e.g. with a similar level of understanding among the general population), and released it today under the name John Smith (or for extra points, "Abdul Mohammed" or "Shaniqua Brown") would the writer be revered in the same way that Shakespeare was? He would surely have been taken to the cleaners for MAAN's plot, even putting aside the complexity of the language?

 

[Gori the Grey]

I’m going to hurry one part of this up by presenting it as a stretch of Socratic dialogue. That’s me giving both the questions and the answers, which I realize is argumentatively unfair (though as respected a figure as Plato does it!). But I don’t think anything here is particularly controversial, and, like I say, it will hurry things up. In any case, I’ll put the answers in spoilers so that you can give your own answers before seeing mine. If your answers differ in any substative way, let me know:

With regard to the following utterance: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. They paved paradise to put up a parking lot.”

What’s the gist of this passage?

Spoiler :

It’s pretty straightforward: We don’t tend to appreciate things while we have them, but should we lose them, we become more aware of the value they possessed than we had been while we had them.

It’s pretty straightforward, you say?

Spoiler :

Yeah, it says just what it means. Why can’t Shakespeare do that?

This may sound a little high-falutin, but would you characterize it as a statement about “the human condition,” a truth about a tendency in human nature?

Spoiler :

Well, it does sound a little high-falutin to put it that way, but yeah, it’s expressing a point about human nature.

Do you find it generally accurate?

Spoiler :

Yeah, I think people tend to be like that. The sentence has about the same level of validity as any other truism: it doesn’t hold in every case, but it does often enough.

The incorrect verb choice, “put up,” doesn’t bother you? Nobody “puts up” a parking lot, do they?

Spoiler :

Well, no, nobody “puts up” a parking lot. But the phrasing had never bothered me; I know what Mitchell means: sometimes we overvalue utilitarian things, like parking lots, to a greater degree than, and even at the expense of, things whose value is less tangible, like beauty.

And the redundancy doesn’t bother you: I mean, once you’ve paved paradise, you pretty much already have a parking lot, don’t you? She really meant bull-dozed-in-preparation-for-paving, or something like that. No?

Spoiler :

Stop being so literal.

All I mean is, the odd verb choice, the tautology, these don’t interfere with your comprehension of what she’s driving at?

Spoiler :

No.

In fact, some of these things could be sources of the lyrics’ power, couldn’t they? “Pave” and “put-up” at least intensifies the alliteration. And maybe the inappropriateness of the phrase “put up” actually intensifies the grim irony: we bull dozed Paradise, and in its place we didn’t even get the kind of grand architectural structure of which one could properly use the phrase “put up”; all we got was a flat, uninspiring, unbeautiful, completely utilitarian parking lot?

Spoiler :

Now you’re getting the idea, man. Sometimes when you speak in non-literal ways, or with sonic effects like alliteration, it intensifies the power of what you’re trying to get across.

So is that how “got” works? Properly speaking, she really should have said “had”; you can’t know what you “got” when it’s gone, because once it is, you don’t “got” it no more. But “got” and “gone” alliterate, so they better bring out the contrast of before/after than even the more grammatically correct “had” and “gone” would.

Spoiler :

Now you’re getting into the spirit of it! That and, she’s trying to get us to learn to appreciate what we “got” as though it’s “gone” but while we still “got” it. She’s actually focusing on three time periods: unappreciative now, appreciative post-loss and (hypothetical) appreciative now.

Thanks, this has been a really productive dialogue.

@Mise, so wait, your original question was, if a modern author wrote a play, the language of which was as impenetrable as MAAN's language is (i.e. audiences can only get 35% on a first listen), would that author be lauded?

 

[Mise]

Gori, amongst other things, yeah. Hold everything else constant (in a meaningful sense), and only change the author from Shakespeare to <some other guy>. How would that author and their work be received?

What I mean by "in a meaningful sense" is that all relevant artistic features remain the same. If Shakespeare's hype was deserved solely on artistic merit, then it shouldn't make a difference if it was written by William Shakespeare in C16 or Shaniqua Brown in 2014.


I don't have any problems with those answers, they're all perfectly reasonable.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Got it, and I'll try to think of a way of coming at that.

The exercise I'm working on is not that, exactly, but might it might touch on some of the same things indirectly, so thank you for confirming that there's nothing objectionable (or deck-stacking) in the answers I gave to my own questions about the Joni Mitchell passage. Now back to part of the Shakespeare quote we've been working on.

for it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.

Could you give me the gist of this passage? I actually know you can because you indirectly did when we were discussing it before (even though it's also part of a passage that you characterized as being a thicket of gibberish). But would you be willing to do so directly?

EDIT: Follow up thought to your question. My references to rap, and even to CGI movies, were partially designed to speak to what you're asking. I think people actually seek out (i.e. put a value on) aesthetic experiences that they know will, in the moment, overwhelm their minds power to fully process. So a modern day MAAN that was lexically overwhelming in the (poetic) way that S's play is (but not the language-has-changed-over-time way) (and with another author's name) might well be regarded highly.

 

[Tarquelne]

I think greatness of the kind that Shakespeare is attributed has to have a purpose that's more "worthy" than mere entertainment.

If someone has trouble appreciating a light comedy because they've been led to expect (for example) a transformative experience, then I think it's safe to say there's some sort of over-hyping going on, somewhere.

Though the over-hyping may be more about "kind" than "degree."

Again, this may be me misunderstanding the kind of praise modern society gives to Shakespeare, or being subconsciously disingenuous about it.

I think there's a disconnect between most public discourse and academic or other discussions of those more "in the know." Public discourse (IME) tends to be either uncritical praise or uninformed condemnation.

Hold everything else constant (in a meaningful sense), and only change the author from Shakespeare to <some other guy>. How would that author and their work be received?

There's at least one successful author (Ben Bova?) who wrote a novel, attached a pseudonym, and tried to get it published. It was rejected several times. He attached his own name and it was immediately accepted. Few would have found this surprising.

Arts criticism is about as far from a science as you can get.
Quite a bit could go back to accessibility. Not necessarily with regard to the author's actual work, but how reluctant people often are to put time or effort into even the most accessible work if its from an unknown author.

With a well established author, OTOH they may be willing to bend over backward in an attempt to "get it." An effort that may or may not be deserved on the work's actual merits.

I think people also more or less turn off their critical faculties at times. This is what keeps people reading a series or watching a TV show for years after the quality dropped.

Like most really good authors, there's streaks of depth, if not genius, even in Shakespeare's "trivial" works. But it sounds like he may have been over-hyped to you.

I find the idea that Shakespeare isn't at least a little over-hyped boggling. ALL "established authors" are, to some degree, over-hyped, and there's nobody more established than Shakespeare. To my mind the only significant question is whether or not there's generally an extraordinary amount of hype. (I lean toward "not," but maybe I just haven't been paying attention.)



Has anyone mentioned the TV show "Slings and Arrows"? A fair amount there examining how Shakespeare is presented, and how he's perceived.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I find the idea that Shakespeare isn't at least a little over-hyped boggling.

That's why it's fun to try to argue the case! Wait until I get to arguing that he's under-hyped!

That will be just borrowed thunder. Earlier I quoted an essay by the Shakespeare critic Stephen Booth. He was at Berkeley; he's emeritus now. His quote runs something like "Saying Shakespeare is greater than other poets is like saying King Kong is larger than other monkeys." I like that quote. Anyway, he opens that essay saying "Shakespeare is our most underrated author."

I resonated with the case he tried to make in the essay. It's not exactly my grounds for finding Shakespeare superlative, but it helped me with thinking my grounds through.

Actually, it won't be borrowed thunder. My reason for thinking S is great is like Booth's; my reason for thinking he is under-hyped is different.

Tarq is right, though, Mise, along with all the people who have been arguing that Shakespeare's value is as much produced (by cultural institutions like the academy) as it is simply discerned. We'll never get a chance to test the theory, unless the ms for a play never associated with S shows up, people make their assessment of it, and then, separately, we find information that it was written by S.

And even that couldn't happen. Because we'd know in a heartbeat it was Shakespeare's.

It would be that good.

 

[Tarquelne]

"Saying Shakespeare is greater than other poets is like saying King Kong is larger than other monkeys."

King Kong is a fiction, so that supports my statement.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

He is a fictional ape not a monkey at all.

 

[Gori the Grey]

King Kong is a fiction, so that supports my statement.

I know, but I still think it's a cool quote.

 

[Traitorfish]

He is a fictional ape not a monkey at all.

Apes are really a sub-set of monkeys. We only pretend otherwise because we don't like to think of ourselves as monkeys, just as we used to be uncomfortable thinking of ourselves as apes.

Likewise, Shakespeare is a sub-set of guys who were looking to get paid, we just pretend otherwise because we don't like to think of The Greatest English Author Ever as sharing a space with hack writers.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There's at least one successful author (Ben Bova?) who wrote a novel, attached a pseudonym, and tried to get it published. It was rejected several times. He attached his own name and it was immediately accepted. Few would have found this surprising.

He wouldn't be the only well-known author to experience that. Name recognition is crucial in marketing anything; why else are Isaac Asimov's earlier works that he published under the name Paul French being re-released under his own name?

 

[ParkCungHee]

His quote runs something like "Saying Shakespeare is greater than other poets is like saying King Kong is larger than other monkeys." I like that quote.

So, Shakespeare's greatness depends on which version you're looking at?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So, Shakespeare's greatness depends on which version you're looking at?

It's a matter of perception. Some people love Macbeth. I have never seen a performance of that one that I liked, and the one time I saw it live, I dozed off (thank goodness I hadn't had to pay to see it). Yet Macbeth is generally considered among the elite of the Shakespeare plays.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Likewise, Shakespeare is a sub-set of guys who were looking to get paid, we just pretend otherwise because we don't like to think of The Greatest English Author Ever as sharing a space with hack writers.

Au contraire, Trraitorfish, my argument, at least, for S's greatness involves factoring in commercial considerations like these: I think S is regarded as being so good precisely because he was looking to get paid. The verbal effect I'm trying to detail is one that I believe would have encouraged repeat attendance at his plays; he used it to make himself richer! (And it worked!) It just so happened to also gives literary critics superlative stuff to work with.

So, Shakespeare's greatness depends on which version you're looking at?

I'm not sure I understand your question Park (and particularly in connection with the King Kong quote).

I don't know what you mean by version.

If you're asking what edition you should read from, I'd say an annotated edition. There the Shakespearean priestly class (or as I would have it, people who have huge boners for Shakespeare) will have provided you with a lot of help in making your way through what Mise calls a thicket of gibberish.

By the way, I'm jonesing to continue this Shakespeare talk. If not Mise, would anyone be willing to indicate the gist of this passage?

for it so falls out
That what we have we prize not to the worth
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
Whiles it was ours.

Just the basic idea it's trying to get across.