R&J: Good, but not a favourite. Better as a performance piece, not as enjoyable as literature.

Hamlet: Great no matter how you slice it (my personal favourite).

History Plays: Factually flawed and full of artistic license -- but interesting both to read and see.

Comedies: Not all that comedic; light, fluffy reading. Worth looking at on occasion, but not my favourites. Possible exceptions: Much ado about Nothing and The Winter's Tale.

Sonnets: Boring and uninteresting, unless you like reading or studying sonnets (aside from the occasional witty couplet, I don't).

Shakespeare is a bit of an anomaly in literature, the theatre and history. Circumstances existed which elevated his works to a special place in the developement of English literature and the arts.

Every person in the world that is literate in the English language but has not read Shakespeare is, in point of fact, underrating him, just as every person that is literate in Middle English but hasn't read Chaucer is underrating him. On the other hand, there are plenty of people that don't speak English who think that Shakespeare is more than he is.

And anyway, what makes your opinion better than mine? I think shakspeare is overrated. His plays were not that good.

And you're a perfect example of what I'm saying. What makes him so great? He's telling stories that anyone can see in real life, and doing it in a slightly poetic language. Those people who say that Shakespeare couldn't have written what he did are even worse! They belong in the same group of people who think aliens built the pyramids (the Pyramids, however, being a greater collection of artwork than Speare's plays, IMO).

I think he's pretty good, but that's about as far as I'm going to go before getting into a debate I don't feel like participating in right now. You can say he's not, and that's fine with me.

If the standard is something a little less absurd, like maybe "displaying skill sufficient to have significant and lasting influence on the nature of a language or the stories told therein," then I'm afraid you have a tough row to hoe denying Shakespeare his place.

The opinions of the casual reader have little bearing on the greatness of the author. Thank God. If they did, J.K. Rowling would be the greatest author of all time.

Greatness is determined by the collective recognition of the well-read. I mean well-read in the stodgy, elitist, having-read-all-of-the-classics-from Eupridides-through-Spinoza, just-as-likely-to-study-a-text-as-to-just-read-it sort of way that I defined it in my earlier post. Because, to be quite honest, its only those well-read few (and I'm certainly not among them) who are sufficiently educated to be entitled to an opinion on the subject of greatness.

But in an objective sense of polling those that have chosen to read his works and seeing how many of them have seen fit to read his works over and over as opposed to just once...yeah, Shakespeare is up there.

So when you ask what makes my opinion better than yours, you proceeded to answer your own question by saying, "I think shakspeare is overrated. His plays were not that good." There you have it. The fact that the above statement is your opinion is what makes my opinion better.

I have concluded that you are either:

A. A snob

or

B. Unable to clearly state your point.

You're opinion is NOT better than mine. That's why it's an opinion. A college art professor can tell me that a dot is beautiful art. That doesn't make it beautiful art, no matter what his cred. is.

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He's telling stories that anyone can see in real life, and doing it in a slightly poetic language.

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Really? Wow! How unnatural, that you can see so much in your real life. Your neighbourhood must be a battle field. And if a Midsummer Night's Dream is real life then we are in trouble.

And disagreeing with someone's opinion doesn't really count as denigration of character. You were disagreeing with him yourself, Jer.

As ArCH said:

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A college art professor can tell me that a dot is beautiful art. That doesn't make it beautiful art, no matter what his cred. is.

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Can I request a cessation to the name-calling/denigration of character?

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I wasn't calling him a snob. I was saying if he wasn't being clear (or rather, if I wasn't understanding what he was saying), then he was being a snob for thinking his opinion is better. I DID misunderstand him, so he wasn't being a snob.

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Really? Wow! How unnatural, that you can see so much in your real life. Your neighbourhood must be a battle field. And if a Midsummer Night's Dream is real life then we are in trouble.

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In his time, most neighborhoods WERE battlefields, and much of what we call fantasy was believed to be true by many. But the circumstances of the stories weren't the stories. The stories were from life.

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That aside, I think you should try reading some more of Shakespeare's work before offering so much antagonism.

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What in the world makes you think I haven't? I clearly stated before that my favorite of his plays was Othello. Why would I say that if I never read it.

I have read Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, performed in Julius Ceasar (I was the sooth sayer), and I have seen many of the movies (movies for the most part losing none of the essence of shakespeare, seeing as how he wrote scripts. In fact, most of the movies used his scripts) including Lawrence Olivier as Othello, Mel Gibson as Hamlet, and DiCaprio as Romeo (I don't think they changed a single word of dialogue. Replace guns with swords and cars with horses, and voila- Shakespeare).

By the way, I've taken a drama class every year of school from k-12. I know Shakespeare.

The fact that you think that anyone who doesn't like Shakespeare never read him is further proving my point. "What? He doesn't think Shakespeare is the best playwright ever? He must be an idiot!"

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That is why so many writers have taken inspiration from some of his story lines and transformed them into their own stories.

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Perhaps a lot of those people borrowed from Shakespeare as Emminem borrowed from Stockhousen?

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Well, I've been called a snob before, and "Unable to clearly state your point" isn't really a name, is it?

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No, it isn't. I wonder why you would point that out. (here's a tip: re-read that post)

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Which is my point exactly. It is the opinion itself, not the person stating it, that makes one opinion better than another.

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But, you see, opinions can't be better than other opinions. That's the thing. They're subjective. You can't say "his taste in art is better than his taste in art." You CAN say, "he has little information and experience to back up his opinion."

But that doesn't really apply to this case much, now does it?

Now, if you read clearly you will see that I have only offered fact and not opinion. I shall keep my opinions to myself as to suggest that he is the greatest playwright would mean that I would have to read every play written, neh?

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If you think that Shakespeare lived in a war zone or that he believed in fairies then you are sadly mistaken. Read through your history books and naybe then you will understand that the reason the British Empire grew so big was that the country was fairly stable for most of that period of time. Shakespeare drew from his own historical sources as well as his imagnination.

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I didn't say he was drawing from HIS life, I said he was drawing from LIFE. The stories he wrote happened in life, or at least were believed to have happened, or were at the very least based on some basic human conflict.

You could say that all stories do this. Well, of course! That's my point. He's not doing anything that no one else has done, and in my opinion, he doesn't do it any better than other people.

And by the way, Shakespeare probably did believe in fairies. People still believe in fairies, albiet not like they did then. Remember that people were swept away when two little girls took pictures of cardboard fairies in the early 20th century.

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Now, if you read clearly you will see that I have only offered fact and not opinion. I shall keep my opinions to myself as to suggest that he is the greatest playwright would mean that I would have to read every play written, neh?

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Ah, what a cheap way to get around what you've said. You assumed I knew nothing of Shakespeare, and for what reason? The only one I could see was that I wasn't speaking highly of his work.

I think you should try learning some more about what I know before offering so much antagonism.

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I am not sure how influenced Eminem is by Stockhousen, but I am sure that many writers have been influenced by Shakespeare.

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My objective in the Emminem comment was to point out that influence is hard to track unless the artist comes right out and says, "I was influence by ____."

Emminem uses many electronic and avant-garde sounds. Wether or not he does it by himself, because he was influenced by Stockhousen, or by someone who was influenced by Stockhousen is something we may never know. The same applies to Shakespeare.

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I shall let the man by judged by his peers, and not by an amateur dramatist

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You should stop assuming. I don't think I need to spell out why for you (for no matter what kind of syntax you use, calling me an amateur dramatist in a roundabout way is very much a cheap shot that missed its target).

In one sense of the word, all of Shakespeare's peers are dead. In another, I'm his peer.

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This thread had them in a stranglehold of fear and doubt.

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Excitement Rating 2.2 (Very Low)
Intensity Rating 2.1 (Very Low)
Nausea Rating 9.54 (Very High)

'Shake spear' is a term for someone with sexual dysfunction.

Don't worry lots of things are overrated. Oreos for instance, they are good, but not that good.

Lots of things are underrated too, like pissing contests.

I think Shakespeare is cool, I was 'Sargeant-at-arms' in MacBeth. I loved it. The Tempest is cool too.

.

If you have a response, please feel free to email me. I'm done reading this post.

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And so you are saying, that reading 4 of Shakespeare's works mean that you are well informed, or that I was wrong in suggesting you have not read enough of his work.

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I have read Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, performed in Julius Ceasar...

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I have read four of his most highly acclaimed work. If that's the best he can do, then he is overrated. I'm not saying I'm an expert on Shakespeare. I'm saying I have an opinion based on his major works.

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Othello was pretty good, but it is difficult to read and even more difficult to perform properly.

R&J is overrated, but it was one of Shakespeare's first and most-popular/profitable plays. I have had to study it twice (high school and college), and while it is a good play and well-written (including a rather inventive sonnet between Romeo and Juliet), it is not among my favourites.

Hamlet is great, like I said before. Of all the Shakespearean plays I have read, studied (yes this is different from just reading), or seen; it is by far the best and has been the most meaningful to me.

Julius Caesar really bugs me because it shows how comercial theatre was, even four hundred years ago. Julius is in a grand total of about three scenes. He is not a tragic hero. He has no fatal flaw. And I don't care that he gets stabbed in the back in by his friend. The true hero of the story is Marcus Brutus. He is in the play from start to finish, has a fatal flaw and I care when and how he dies.

Making a judgement on the movie versions you mentioned is perhaps a little flawed. Gibson's Hamlet rearranges whole passages and omits so much it is a disservice to the play, it is barely two hours in length. If you want a much better movie version try the four hour Kenneth Branagh version. DiCaprio's R&J raises the same complaints, and it always strikes me as funny that, had he lived four hundred years ago, DiCaprio probably would have been cast as Juliet.

You, like anyone, are entitled to your opinion. However, if you can look past your emotional response to Shakespeare and consider the deeper impact he has had on literature, theatre and the arts. He invented many words and phrases that we continue to use to this day.

You may think he is somewhat over-rated as a playwrite (over-hyped perhaps), but you cannot, imo, over-rate his contirbutions to history.

[edited because I accidently hit submit before I was finished ranting ]

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Julius Caesar really bugs me because it shows how comercial theatre was, even four hundred years ago. Julius is in a grand total of about three scenes. He is not a tragic hero. He has no fatal flaw. And I don't care that he gets stabbed in the back in by his friend. The true hero of the story is Marcus Brutus. He is in the play from start to finish, has a fatal flaw and I care when and how he dies.

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Have you ever seen Oscar? Well, he's only in one scene and he gets the title. Writers can be funny sometimes.

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Othello was pretty good, but it is difficult to read and even more difficult to perform properly.

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Perform? I dunno. I've only done a small excerpt at the most, and it's not that easy to tell if Olivier is having a hard time with his performances . Read? Not really. I guess middle English isn't that hard for me to read...

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Making a judgement on the movie versions you mentioned is perhaps a little flawed. Gibson's Hamlet rearranges whole passages and omits so much it is a disservice to the play, it is barely two hours in length. If you want a much better movie version try the four hour Kenneth Branagh version. DiCaprio's R&J raises the same complaints

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If it ever comes on tv, I'll watch the Branagh version. I don't intend to spend money on Shakespeare, when I can spend on something I actually have a taste for.

BTW, I can't remember. Was Branagh Boromir, or someone else? The only other things I've seen him in (that I can remember) are Wild Wild West and a biblical movie (although I can't remember which one).

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However, if you can look past your emotional response to Shakespeare

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Shakespeare was an artist. You're SUPPOSED to look directly at your emotional response when it comes to art. If you mean Shakespeare as a person, I don't know why you think I'd be emotional about a man I've never met, save for a few drawings and paintings of him.

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consider the deeper impact he has had on literature, theatre and the arts.

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First off, I'm not talking about his impact on literature. That's one reason I think people overrate him. They mix his contributions with his art.

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You may think he is somewhat over-rated as a playwrite (over-hyped perhaps), but you cannot, imo, over-rate his contirbutions to history.

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I think emotional response is overrated.

But if you are looking at emotion, then Shaxspur has clearly influenced a lot of people's emotion, even those who don't like him.

What do you think of Bacon?

What well-known writer do you think is underrated?

I am swapping to EJStone's post.

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BTW, I can't remember. Was Branagh Boromir, or someone else?

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No, but apparently he was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Gilderoy Lockhart).

If you really want a list of all the movies has been in, check out this website.

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I guess middle English isn't that hard for me to read...

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I've seen the movie Oscar and thought it was pretty good. I think the perpose of calling the movie Oscar, even though Oscar doesn't show up until the final scene, is to help build a sort of question about who this guy is. He is conspicuously absent. sort of like a comic who asks the same question or makes the same statement several times through his routine but always ends up running off on a tangent unti the very end. Julius Caesar reminds me more of movies like The Last of the Mohicans or The Three Musketeers (you can almost take your pick of the version). These movies use some of the characters and very few (or none) of the plot points from the novel, write their own story, then they stick the "Name that will Sell" on it and market it up the yin yang. Julius Caesar is an admirable play, but it does not meet the criteria for being a Shakespearean tragedy about Julius Caesar. 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. But I suppose every artist does what he has to make a living.

* I joined a psych project where I have to write X number of words every day. This is to test the effect of schedules on writing productivity. The point is, if I didn't produce that many words, somebody would know I was slacking off.

Give him a break. He's trying to bring the thread back on topic.

too bad we're not quite finished

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No, but apparently he was in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Gilderoy Lockhart).

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Woops. I don't know why I confused Branagh with Sean Bean. They do look similar though... I could have sworn I saw his name in the credits...

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I wasn't refering to the language so much as the content.

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I didn't find that hard either. I think you might be looking too deep into Iago. To me he's a very shallow and base character. He's not a dual character, he's a two-faced character, and there is a difference. But that's a discussion for someplace else.

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I haven't had the opportunity to watch the Olivier Othello, and I can't remember anything specific about it.

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Good acting, bad makeup.

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I've seen the movie Oscar and thought it was pretty good. I think the perpose of calling the movie Oscar, even though Oscar doesn't show up until the final scene, is to help build a sort of question about who this guy is.

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You're missing my point. Just because there is a name in a title, doesn't mean that the name is the main character. I don't think Shakespeare ever intended for Ceasar to be the main character. It's similar to the play about Judas (I can't remember the name now). People got upset at it ending before the ressurection, but they missed the point: the play was about Judas, not Jesus.

But again, that's for another discussion.

If the discussion doesn't get back to the title subject now, I will close it.

i have ADD myself :P

ADD is fiction...and horrbily overprescribed.

It should stand for Another Drug Dependent...

I've found that drinking alot helps me with writer's block...well it doesn't help me write anything, but I'm drunk enough that it doesn't really bother me :-)

Only reason I wasn't diagnosed with it is I was born in 1970 and in the early 80's doctors did more than prescribe pills when it came to behavioral issues.

100 years ago you would have been known as brilliant, creative, intelligent, with active minds yearning to absorb and process as much of your world as possible.

Perhaps you did not learn to discipline your minds when you were very young. So, instead, someone along the line told you there was something wrong with you and handed you a bottle of pills.

I don't know. But it seems that there are a lot of people with compelling evidence that there are WAY too many people being diagnosed and medicated for ADD, yet EVERY ADD sufferer claims that HIS/HER affliction is genuine.

I'm not saying that every ADD sufferer is deluded. What I am saying is that you guys seem to be trying to give Archer an excuse for something that the exercise of simple discipline will fix--no matter what your state of (reasonably healthy) mind.

Fortunately it seems that Archer realizes this, too.

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Only reason I wasn't diagnosed with it is I was born in 1970 and in the early 80's doctors did more than prescribe pills when it came to behavioral issues.

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You know, sometimes just pills works. It worked for me. I went from an F to an A in one subject in one grading period after they started me on ritalin. I have an actual case of ADD. I don't have a short attention span.

That what a lot of doctors mistake as ADD, and you pretty much have to have it to know the difference. I'm not easily distracted, I just lose focus. I'll sometimes have to read a sentence several times before I actually focus on what it's saying. I'll just be reading the words and not the sentence. I'll be thinking about something the previous sentence made me think of, or I'll just be thinking about nothing at all.

People with ADD can also have too much focus. When it comes to things like knots, or peeling off glue from fingers, etc. we don't stop until it's done.

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100 years ago you would have been known as brilliant, creative, intelligent, with active minds yearning to absorb and process as much of your world as possible.

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I doubt that. There is a big difference between ADD and ecclectic tastes.

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Perhaps you did not learn to discipline your minds when you were very young.

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Most children don't do that anyway. It's not a lack of discipline that causes ADD, discipline is a tool used to overcome it.

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I don't know. But it seems that there are a lot of people with compelling evidence that there are WAY too many people being diagnosed and medicated for ADD, yet EVERY ADD sufferer claims that HIS/HER affliction is genuine.

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Well of course they do. It gives them an excuse.

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Fortunately it seems that Archer realizes this, too.

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But humans cannot focus on more than one thing at a time.

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I believe you. After all, you can't argue with results.

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Yes, but I was just wondering if having trouble even while trying to write is something competent writers go through when it isn't writer's block (I know where I wanna go).

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The answer, for me anyway, is an absolute YES.

And all the symptoms of ADD that you describe, I had them too. Perhaps to a lesser degree. Still do at times. My mind worked differently than other kids' minds--that doesn't mean it was 'broken'. It simply meant it was different, and no one out there seemed to know how to focus it, so I had to do it myself. I still struggle with it sometimes--just kinda faze out while I'm reading something. Frustrating.

And I still believe that most ADD sufferers may simply be brilliant minds who would be better off being trained to channel their creativity, rather than simply drugged into a "normal" state of brain activity. That has nothing to do with 'eclectic tastes'. It has to do with a pattern of brain function that few understand, therefore it must be abnormal, therefore it must be subdued. And since our schools are not trained or equipped to teach any but the 'most normal' bulk of the population, children like you and me just get dragged along for the ride.

And as far as children not being disciplined--First, I never said lack of discipline CAUSED ADD. I, essentially, agreed with you, that teaching children to discipline themselves early in life could help to overcome it without resorting to the easy way out--the 'drug habit' I believe that self-discipline is like reading--if you miss the golden window of childhood to learn it, it becomes more and more difficult to learn it as you age. That's why people who spend time in prison or jail rarely ever NOT return; Second, I suppose lack of discipline is one of the greatest troubles of our society today. In Old Testament times a person was considered capable of making and being responsible for adult decisions at the age of EIGHT. During the Revolutionary War there was at least one military leader who was younger than 16. 150 years ago it was not uncommon for 13 year olds to be financially responsible for their families. Today the adults lack self-discipline to the point that instead of working hard to overcome problems like ADD and depression and a myriad other afflictions, they simply medicate and forget. Is it any wonder illicit drug use is so rampant? So what has happened in the last few generations? We've let our children be children because we have been blessed with abundance. But along with that penchant to remove burdens from them, we've also removed from them the value of responsibility, the satisfaction of self-control, the joy of the rewards of hard work.

I could go on and on. But this thread isn't about ADD. It's about writing.

No matter who you are or how you approach it, writing is hard work. Sure it starts out fun. You find a great deal of satisfaction in finishing a story, and you love those words of praise you get from family and friends. But when those moments of pleasure are over and all you have left is you and the computer and nothing seems to be coming and you're frustrated and burned out...

The difference between someone who wants to make a life of writing, and someone who wants to write for the fun of it, is the discipline to work even when you don't want to. To write even though everything you seem to write is complete drivel. To keep plodding on and on and on and on and on even though you'd really rather be doing something else. To keep your butt in the chair for as long as it takes to get the job done--because that's what writing is for the career writer, a JOB.

And what keeps you writing? Those fairly infrequent moments when your fingers are flying over the keyboard and the words are flowing out of you like magic. The letter in the mail that says "We'd like to buy your story." The dream of having your name on the cover of a book.

If you'd rather not deal with the struggle, then chalk yourself up as a hobby writer. And that's OK. That's a perfectly valid choice. It might just be that career writing isn't the thing you want RIGHT NOW. I think every writer has to reach a certain point of ripening in order to give it their whole heart--for some that's age 20, for others it's 60.

The reason I mention it here is because of the ADD discussion. (Yeah, I know, maybe it is off-topic, but maybe not. I think it has potential, so I haven't discouraged it.)

One of the things several of the writers mentioned in their descriptions of their own experiences was that while something awful was happening, they noticed "part" of themselves watching and taking notes for possible use in future writings, while another part was horrified at that callous observer, and while (of course) another part was actually experiencing the whole awful thing.

One of them even commented that when she noticed this multi-part breakup of her psyche, she knew that she was becoming a writer.

Now I don't claim that you have to be able to do this in order to become a writer, but I submit that if this isn't exactly what was described above as letting half the brain work on a story while the other half wanders off, it is a reasonable facsimile.

I don't have ADD (so far as I know), but I do claim the ability to split myself into several different aspects that all react to a situation in their own way. And I know I'm not the only person out there who can do this.

One problem I've encountered is that I tend to use all my attention for things that normal people don't think deserve attention. "It isn't that I'm unable to hear you, it's that I find you less interesting than what I'm doing right now." I like to read with all my attention devoted to the text, max out the processors and look at the pretty colors in 32 bit native resolution But if what I'm doing isn't very interesting to me, I can divide some of my attention and use it for other things. So if I'm reading the instructions for how to program a VCR or something like that, I can spare plenty of attention to play cards and talk to everyone at the same time. But if I'm reading something for pleasure, then I don't have anything left over for anything else.

I don't know. Which is why I have pretty much ignored this tangent till now. But I suspect if anyone is thinking of getting a story idea out of it, it might be more profitable to reverse the terms here, making it so that being easily distracted was a sign that you didn't have enough attention to split it in multiple directions. After all, the ability to carry on normal social interaction without losing track of a boring or mundane but necessary task is supposed to be normal, and kids who don't or can't do it are the ones labled as ADD.