True or False: Shakespeare was a hack

[Barad Simith]

Poll question: True or False: Shakespeare was a hack

[supernova]

1. Let's see you write a play entirely in poesy

And create characters who's motivations are still argued aboout 300 years later.

And write some of the hotest love poems around, to both sexes.

And be an astute political observer of the inner working of the court, as well as human nature.

Oh, and write music to go with your pieces as well.

[Barad Simith]

2. Okay

I'll PM you when it's finished.

[supernova]

3. And, you must do all this

on the fly and with a shoestring budget too, all the while avoiding the Royal censors.

:-)

It should only take you a couple of days, right? ;-)

[Barad Simith]

4. Hell I'm already broke

I got that part down.

[supernova]

5. Well, there you go!

You're off to a great start! :D :hug:

[Robeson]

6. He perfected the English language in thought and ideas.....

...he was "The Master".

[supernova]

7. I do admit one thing

The first scene is usually a throw away for me as I aclimate myself to the language and the actors' pronounciation.

[Hugin]

8. It was widely acknowledged among his peers... He was a hack.

Retired into obscurity. There wasn't even a memorial
to his work erected until 70 years after his death.

But, I'd say... Maybe he wasn't understood by his
contemporaries. Ahead of his time, explaining the
lack of scrutiny by the authorities. Who viewed him
as filler between the bear baitings.

It's a mixed finding. One thing is for sure, the
Bard laughed all the way to the bank.

[Hugin]

11. His true genius was in recording his work...

Everyone else was doing ad-hoc improvisation.

He *wrote* his work down.

In a land of the blind the one eyed man is King.

[Elidor]

25. His genius was that he could do many things at once:

Mock the political leaders of his age and toy with the pre-conceived expectations of his audience;

Create vivid characters who confound us with their secret hearts, lucid thoughts and misguided actions, which so often mirror our own;

Cut loose with ribald verse as bawdy as anything permissible at the time;

And weave us a tale that cuts to the quick, all with a wandering genius for confrontation, titillation and violent karma. Some of his work is weak, but Shakespeare is the shit. Give it up.

[WCGreen]

12. He was ignored because he took to many pot shots

at the political scene of the day....

Commenting about the state and instability of the noble and ruling classes by wrapping his barbs in historical legends....

BTW, who cares if he wrote the stuff, he stole the stuff or he even was influenced by aliens from another dimension....

It is still great literature 400 years later....

Mrs. WCGreen and I are going to see As You Like it next month....

I'll tell you how I liked this version and compare it too the other seven or so I have seen....

[supernova]

14. That's the other genius of Shakespeare

You don't have to stick to a traditional production. You can put the plays in almost any environment and they still work:

I once saw a "MacBeth" theatre in the park done with a Japanese Samurai backdrop.... off the back of two large flat-bed trucks. And it worked.

Also John Hurt's Richard III with the vaugely WWII nazi backdrop works wickedly well.

There aren't that many works around that work well on the traditional as well as the avante-garde level.

[WCGreen]

15. Usually, except that awful Leonardo DeCrapio

version of Romeo and Juliet.....

I saw a workshop version of Merchant of Venice that blew my socks off.....

[supernova]

18. Well, maybe not the music video format

:P

Still, it's better to take the risk, artisically speaking.

[Blue_Tires]

26. one of my professors put up a similar arguement

saying that he was looked down upon by the intellectuals at the time--that his work was looked upon as lowest-common-denominator stuff for the unwashed masses...

I'll never forget it, my professor put him on the same plane as a 'sitcom writer for Fox' (her acutal quote)

[tjwmason]

9. It was all Marlowe really.

j/k

[supernova]

10. Hey!

You need a :spank: !

:D

[mitchum]

21. No, but Marlowe would have certainly considered him to be a hack

Kit had a nasty wit :)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

13. Well I thought he kinda jumped the shark with 'Hamlet VII: The Revenge.'

(credit to Steve Martin)

[Hugin]

16. LOL!

Yeeeup!

:D

[WCGreen]

17. Fuckin Hilareous

[supernova]

19. LOL! Shakespeare himself

might even laugh at that! :D

[DS1]

20. If you surf DU long enough, everyone was a hack

;-)

[bridgit]

22. as with bach in music, shakespeare expressed each...

human emotion in noble terms :thumbsup:

[tjdee]

23. I'm going to pretend you didn't even say that.

Shakespeare is one of the few people in pop culture/academic circles that is not overrated even slightly.

He was a tremendous talent, so much so that some can't even fathom him and try to attribute his work elsewhere.

[Barad Simith]

27. You don't have to pretend, because...

...I didn't say it.

On a lark I Googled "Shakespeare was a hack" to see what would come up, and found 308 pages...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Shakespeare+was+a+hack%22&btnG=Google+Search

My purpose in posting this poll was to find out what kinds of comments it would produce. (Not "flame bait" so much as it is "opinion bait".) It's been very educational so far.

[Hugin]

30. What is interesting to me....

I'm being attacked when I speak facts.

It's fascinating to watch those who only read headlines go
for the throat before reading the content of my post above.

What I say on my subject line is an acknowledged fact of
the history of Shakespeare. However, it is not accepted.

Nowhere, in that post do I say anything about me or my
opinion. Other than to agree Shakespeare was a great play
author.

[LouisianaLiberal]

24. Supernova put it very well.

Shakespeare's genius lies in his ability to put the human condition into words. Beautiful, strange turns of phrase that stun the reader who cares about understanding his fellow man and the rest of the world. Some of his writing is sublime - and will probably never be equaled in a world of video games and instant distractions.

[Orsino]

31. Yep. He undoubtedly did some hack work...

...but the quality shines though in most of his output.

[BlueIris]

28. Those of you who clicked the "tedious bore" option...

Go back to school and get a good Shakespeare teacher. You obviously never had one, and you missed out.

[hfojvt]

29. I always like an opportunity to quote Schumacher

"What matters is the tool box of ideas with which, by which, through which, we experience and interpret the world. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is nothing more than a working hypothesis suitable for various types of scientific research. On the other hand - a work by Shakespeare: teeming with the most vital ideas about the inner development of man, showing the whole grandeur and misery of human existence. How could those two things be equivalent? What do I miss, as a human being, if I have never heard of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? The answer is: Nothing. And what do I miss by not knowing Shakespeare? Unless I get my understanding from another source, I simply miss my life."