posted
This thread is antother that is springing out of the discussion about Shakespeare from ArCHeR's thread about laziness.
Something that has always bothered me about Shakespeare's Tragedy of Julius Caesar is that it is not a tragedy about Julius Caesar. It is a tragedy about Marcus Brutus. Julius Caesar is an admirable play, but it does not meet the criteria for being a Shakespearean tragedy about Julius Caesar (tragic flaw that brings down the Title Character). The title's sole intention is to grab people's attention and put butts in seats; in my opinion, it is a bit of a sell-out on Shakespeare's part.
Granted, as an artist, you do what sells and in that line, not much has changed in 400 years.
So what do you think? How do you go about choosing a title for your works? And, How willing are you to changing the title just to suit the masses? How do you feel when other authors do this?
posted
I have no problem whatsoever with an author making or changing a title to suit "the masses," assuming that by "the masses" you mean the people who are paying the author to write. I don't think it's selling out, I think it's doing your job. If doing something you would prefer not to do because the people signing your paycheck told you to makes you a sellout, then we are a nation of sellouts. How many people punch the timeclock every day because it's what they want to do? Almost nobody.
Some people call it selling out. I call it having a job.
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited December 16, 2004).]
posted
Exactly, Mr. Willy. If I could write and get paid, esentially doing something I really enjoy doing, that can't be selling out. It is a job that I could enjoy doing.
Hell, I sell out everyday I come to work. Especially when I do something my boss wants me to do just for the sake of doing it his way. I compromise myself just to please the powers that be. Changing or gearing a title to my book to make it more pallatable to a given audience would be a welcome change.
posted
Yeah, well, I've never heard that there were really any criteria for being a Shakespearian tragedy other than being a tragedy written by Shakespeare.
And the play is appropriately named because it surrounds the events that turned Julius Caesar into what he became after his death.
posted
ignoring the shakespeare portion of the discussion, dpatridge starts to speak:
in choosing my titles i USUALLY can not title it until after i am either done, or almost done, with the writing. at that time, the title always has something to do with the story, but vaguely, it makes you ask questions. i guess i love a good mystery.
two exceptions to my titling practice: 1) Searth, this has been titled such for a long time, but then, i've already written two searth stories and i'm only expanding them right now :P
2) A Vinesley Christmas Eve, this one has NOTHING to do with the plot, it's just the character's last name and a twisting of the name of one of the main christmas tales parodied.
quote: I've never heard that there were really any criteria for being a Shakespearian tragedy other than being a tragedy written by Shakespeare.
The most important criteria for a Shakespearean tragedy is the fatal flaw of the title character. I have read and re-read Julius Caesar and the only flaw I can find in him is that he was a a poor politician. Except for the fatal flaw, the main character is supposed to be someone we more or less cheer for and it is their flaw that brings them down. We are supposed to feel bad that in the end they died. I don't know how sad anyone is when a poor politician dies.
I have only read and/or studied six of Shakespeare's tragedies. In all of them except JC, the audience (reader or viewer) gets a sort of peek into what makes the hero tick. We are supposed to form a bond with the character. And when the final scene comes, when death has finally claimed the hero, we are supposed to feel sorrow. That is what makes it tragic.
If this was truly about Julius Caesar, the last scene would have been Act 3.Scene I; and it probably would ended shortly after, "Et tu, Brute! Then fall, Caesar."
As it is, we see more of Brutus than we do of Caesar; we delve into what makes him tick; we are supposed to like him, because he is trying to do the right thing for Rome (unlike the other murderers, he has a pure motive); and he has a fatal flaw -- he makes a poor judgement and sides with a murderous, traitorous group who only want to use him. When the final scene comes, it is Brutus who has just been killed, and he is extolled by Mark Anthony
quote:This was the noblest Roman of them all: All the conspirators save only he Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; He only, in a general honest thought And common good to all, made one of them. His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world 'This was a man!'
For these reasons, I think the tragedy is really of Brutus.
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While this sort of shameless mis-naming of stories perhaps doesn't happen so much in novels, when those novels are "adapted" into a movie. Often the movie bears no resemblance to the book and only uses the title and the names of the main characters. If you're lucky, some of the plot points will make it into the script, but this doesn't always happen.
Instead of making up new character names and finding their own title - producers, directors or whomever chooses the title - picks something that will garner an instant audience simply because the name is familliar.
Perhaps I have too much pent rage and this where it is getting funnelled, but I do feel that artists have a responsibility to their artform as well as to their audience. If an author gets part way through a series and all of a sudden does something contrary to the way the characters probably would have done it simply because it is titalating or trendy, it is irksome, especially if you are a dedicated fan and loyal reader.
posted
The point is that you are defining Shakespearean tragedy as requiring the title character to have the tragic flaw, and then complaining that "Julius Caeser" does not fit your definition.
But the definition I use, which happens to coincide with the explanation found on Wikipedia, does not suffer from that problem. All Shakespeare's tragedies fit just fine, because what really matters is the protagonist, not the title character (even though the two mostly coincide.)
Now, you are still free to complain that Shakespeare didn't name the play after the protagonist, but instead named it after Julius Caeser because that name was more likely to draw crowds. But the problem is not that the play does not fit the definition of Shakesperean tragedy, because it does.
posted
Actually, I recall hearing in my youth that Shakespeare originally had a different name for the play, but renamed it on the advice of a friend. The following is a historical reconstruction of that event:
Shakespeare: Forsooth, I've written a new play. Friend: What's it called? Shakespeare: It's entitled "Julius, Grab Her Quick Before She Runs Away." Friend: Too long. Just call it "Julius, Seize 'er."
Anyway, as the entry referenced by EJS points out, while Shakespearean tragedy usually has the protagonist exibit a fatal flaw and most of the characters dead by the end of the play, that is not the defining trait of Shakespearean tragedies. The defining trait is that they are tragedies written by Shakespeare.
Whether or not any of the tragedies written by Shakespeare are Aristotelian tragedies is another matter. Aristotelian tragedies are tragedies that conform to the principles laid down in Poetics, which you can get for free online if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Aristotle doesn't really get into how a tragedy should be titled, probably because it never occured to him that choosing a title for the play was the playwright's job or ever would be.
One should note that even the great Greek tragedies didn't observe strictly that the tragic character, the character exibiting a tragic flaw, should be the title character. As long as there was an important "good" character who caused and suffered much evil as a result of a virtue gone to excess, it was a tragedy, even if the story was supposed to be mostly about another character entirely.
posted
As to changing a title to suit the masses. If the change of a simple word could bring people to read who would not otherwise. I would call that selling in not out. What good is art if it is not apreciated? OSC wanted to name 'Ender's Shadow' 'Urchin'. Personally I would have passed it over the first few times. (Actually I bought Speaker for the dead without realizing it was about Ender.) The title is more about Salesmanship than art anyways.
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
RH, I wrote a paper (in high school, I think) on the title of JULIUS CAESAR with the same arguments you used, so I agree with you.
I have issues with the titles of other works, as well, but it isn't worth raging about. Rage is bad for the digestion, among other things.
By the way, the tragic flaw definition of tragedy is not universal. There are some tragedies out there that work just fine as tragedies without any tragic flaws, per se, and trying to make them fit the tragic flaw definition may require some weird arguments at times.
My choice for most powerful kind of tragedy (if I remember correctly, Aristotle discusses more than one kind--and tragic flaws are not included in his discussion) is when two good guys are antagonists and are each working toward a worthy goal in opposition to each other. When only one wins, the winner finds out that the other guy wasn't a bad guy after all, and that if they'd only known, they could have worked something out so that both would have won. This is especially tragic if the loser dies so that there is no way to completely fix things. The only tragic flaw you could argue for in that kind of tragedy is poor communication.
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