why does no one write like Shakespeare?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Jamesaritchie

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 13, 2005
Messages
27,863
Reaction score
2,311
(or try to)

I'm not sure I understand your question, but a big part of the reason no one today writes like Shakespeare is because Shakespeare was, without doubt, the greatest English language writer who ever lived, and no one, anywhere, in any time period, can come close to writing as well as he did.

And if you mean the kind of stories he told, writers have been copying them since before he died. His stories have been rewritten thousands of time, told a thousand ways, and will be until we all shuffle off this mortal coil.

Did he take ideas from other sources, and rewrite older stories? Yep, and so do we all. Anyone who thinks otherwise probably believes he is Shakespeare, in fact, and may, or may not, be let out of his straitjacket someday.

It ain't the idea that matters, it's how well you write it. Shakespeare write them better than anyone else ever has, or ever will.

Though anyone who thinks all of Shakespeare's plays were taken from other writers has read very little Shakespeare, and no history. Many of his ideas and plays were original, and where and how he found the information to write them remains a mystery.

If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be writing in modern language, but his talent level would still be higher than any other writer, his genius would still be higher, and he'd still be the greatest English language writer of our time, or any other.

But, in short, no one today writes like Shakespeare because no one today is capable of writing like Shakespeare.
 

Deleted member 42

Love Shakespeare, Marlowe, Spenser, Donne, Dunbar, Henryson and Sir David Lindsay.

Now, when you can say you've read those writers [the last three are written in Old Scots], then I might take the speaker seriously.



Middle Scots!
 

Isabella Amaris

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 22, 2011
Messages
189
Reaction score
12
Location
where the sky meets the horizon
Website
isabellaamaris.blogspot.com
This is pretty much how I understand his real life was - he was at the time popular for his comedies not for his great works which were better known after his death and lasted better. After all, how many shakespeare comedies can you name off the top of your head? Compare that to the tragedies you can name. His comedy has dated a lot (to the extent that they are not funny in a modern context) but his more serious work still has relevence.

Ack! No, no... 'As You Like It',... 'Much Ado About Nothing'...still funny:) May I say, the Kenneth Branagh adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing was a big hit in 'modern' times... watched a 'rerun' recently and it was so funny (ETA: of course, I am predisposed to like it perhaps:D)... Hmmmm, you really can't compare the comedies to the tragedies, I think... That's what makes Shakespeare's work so fantastic. It spanned all genres. Successfully...

About what some are saying re stealing plot lines... Yes, it happened for sure... I remember, I was so surprised when I first found out that 'As You Like It''s plot and most characters for eg were basically a lift from the then popular tale called 'Rosalynde' ... But all playwrights lifted plotlines/characters from others at the time... They still gave their own unique spin to it at the end, that's the thing... More like adaptation than stealing, I guess...

Oh, and have to agree that sometimes the meaning and richness of the plays are lost if you don't watch them performed or read aloud... Perhaps this contributes to how some of us value Shakespeare's work ... or don't, as the case may be...
 
Last edited:

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
3,750
Reaction score
477
Location
West Spiral Arm
Yep. Shakespeare's comedies contain situational elements that make them very funny in any time period. I've never seen one performed live but I liked them even just having read them in a book.

Also. Turns out people do try to write like shakespeare. http://www.fathom.com/course/28701907/index.html
 
Last edited:

Fallen

Stood at the coalface
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 9, 2009
Messages
5,500
Reaction score
1,957
Website
www.jacklpyke.com
Sheesh. He used so many, you'd think he invented them ;)

"Come, we burn daylight, ho!" the magic of metaphor (or the construction of abnormal paradigm from the normal). He made playing with language sickeningly effortless....
 

IceCreamEmpress

Hapless Virago
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 2, 2007
Messages
6,449
Reaction score
1,321
Shakespeare's comedies aren't popular anymore? Why all the productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, then? As You Like It and Twelfth Night get revived on the regular, and there seems to be a growing fad for The Merry Wives of Windsor.
 

crunchyblanket

the Juggernaut of Imperfection
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Messages
4,870
Reaction score
766
Location
London's grey and pleasant land
Shakespeare was the figure head for his "fan service" back in the day, thus making him more important to the history books. I do not believe that Shakespeare was, and will ever be a good writer. IMO

Objectively speaking, what is it that makes him 'not a good writer'? Because I think he's friggin' superb.
 

Pheasant_Plucker

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 2, 2011
Messages
58
Reaction score
3
Shakespeare was the figure head for his "fan service" back in the day, thus making him more important to the history books. I do not believe that Shakespeare was, and will ever be a good writer. IMO

Well. Yeah. He's not likely to get any better.

Don't understand the "fan service" comment. Sorry.
 

Domino Derval

FREAKING OUT!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
359
Reaction score
44
Location
That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotligh
Website
denisedanes.wordpress.com
Well. Yeah. He's not likely to get any better.

Don't understand the "fan service" comment. Sorry.

If I had to take a guess at what BotByte meant, I think he means that Shakespeare occasionally either played loose with history or used popular interpretations of historical events that were favorable to the rulers of his time. Richard III making the Tudors look like absolute angels, for instance. MacBeth being complimentary to King James's heritage.

Of course, this falls into the area of "Let me perform my plays without getting arrested" more than "If I write a certain way I can cheat my way into the history books."
 

Pheasant_Plucker

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 2, 2011
Messages
58
Reaction score
3
If I had to take a guess at what BotByte meant, I think he means that Shakespeare occasionally either played loose with history or used popular interpretations of historical events that were favorable to the rulers of his time. Richard III making the Tudors look like absolute angels, for instance. MacBeth being complimentary to King James's heritage.

Of course, this falls into the area of "Let me perform my plays without getting arrested" more than "If I write a certain way I can cheat my way into the history books."

Quite possibly, though I think you're maybe being a little generous re. BotByte's analysis.

I think you're absolutely right with the points you make. I doubt Shakespeare had an eye on his place in posterity. The "First Folio" of his works wasn't published until nearly a decade after he died. I suspect he would've thought of his plays as being disposable, throwaway... The soap operas of their day.
 

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
3,750
Reaction score
477
Location
West Spiral Arm
Some people think Marlowe WAS Shakespeare, in which case, the answer to your question is EVERYTHING

:-O

I'd heard there was ample evidence against that claim (though I don't know specifically).

I think it was my professor, who is a Shakespeare scholar, who was pretty adamant about it.

Though that's a bit of a derailer if ever there was one :D
 
Last edited:

MacAllister

'Twas but a dream of thee
Staff member
Boss Mare
Administrator
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
VPX
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
22,010
Reaction score
10,707
Location
Out on a limb
Website
macallisterstone.com

mscelina

Teh doommobile, drivin' rite by you
Requiescat In Pace
Registered
Joined
Jan 18, 2007
Messages
20,006
Reaction score
5,352
Location
Going shopping with Soccer Mom and Bubastes for fu
Here's the thing--Shakespeare, like only a handful of writers ever, has withstood the test of time in TWO fields. To play Shakespeare is something most actors dream of or, conversely, try in order to validate themselves in the public eye, and writers universally, I think, would love to know their works are still in constant print and circulation over 400 years later.

That being said--

Trying to convince someone who strolls onto a writers' forum and tries to stir up crap about Shakespeare's merits as a writer of the reasons why Shakespeare's still so popular, studied and performed is almost as big a waste of time as the never-ending argument over the Oxford comma.

I pray thee cease thy counsel,
Which falls into mine ears as profitless
as water in a sieve.
William Shakespeare
 

Domino Derval

FREAKING OUT!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 16, 2011
Messages
359
Reaction score
44
Location
That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotligh
Website
denisedanes.wordpress.com
Didn't Lady Gaga just cover that plot again, in fact?

Oh sure, my fake Shakespeare gets found out within a day, but Double Falsehood ends up in the Arden. So not fair.

Fortunately, I've also discovered another passage cut from the folio version of Titus Andronichus, in which Aaron recalls "No woman nor wench so sweet as Rio, who once danc'd upon the sands..."
 

The Lonely One

Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 13, 2008
Messages
3,750
Reaction score
477
Location
West Spiral Arm
*wanders in wearing robe and bunny slippers with coffee in hand.

You guys are still here?

*wanders out (I gotta stop walking into threads without clothes on).
 

areteus

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 4, 2011
Messages
2,636
Reaction score
183
Location
Manchester UK
The situational stuff is fine. However, some of the jokes he wrote don't play as funny as they used to any more (mainly because of the language differentials) whereas a good old angsty moan about the existential nature of the universe seems eternal...

And I don't count A Midsummers Nights dream as one of his comedies.

None of this changes the fact that what he would be doing in the modern day is writing sit coms and soap operas until he gets his big break in arthouse cinema...
 

Toothpaste

THE RECKLESS RESCUE is out now!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 18, 2006
Messages
8,745
Reaction score
3,096
Location
Toronto, Canada
Website
www.adriennekress.com
The situational stuff is fine. However, some of the jokes he wrote don't play as funny as they used to any more (mainly because of the language differentials) whereas a good old angsty moan about the existential nature of the universe seems eternal...

I think this is very much a taste thing. I find many of his jokes still resonate today.

And I don't count A Midsummers Nights dream as one of his comedies.

First of all, that's just an opinion. I know a lot of people like to play up the other worldly qualities of Midsummer, but whenever I see such a production invariably this means the lovers and the mechanicals get short shrift - they kind of get given far more pathos than is required (sure they each get serious moments, but all comedies have serious moments), which means that really people aren't interpreting the actual play, just making something that has a heck of a lot of comedy in it into something deep dark and mystical and all about fairies. To me that isn't actually doing Midsummer. To deny the other two thirds of the play because you want to do cool fairy stuff? That's not doing the play.

In general people these days are so desperate to find new ways of doing Shakespeare that they, in my mind, aren't true to the text, especially the spirit of the text. I saw a production that was so obsessed with the small boy that Oberon and Titania were fighting over, that they had a small baby doll wrapped around Titania's neck the whole time. While, okay, that is the motivation for their fight, the real point of them having a fight is so that then Oberon can cast a spell on Titania and hilarity ensues with her falling in love with a man who has an ass head. But with this darn baby around her neck the whole time, the actress could barely move, barely interact with Bottom, it was ridiculous (and not in a clever funny way ridiculous). The true purpose of that plot point was put aside so that the director could demonstrate: "Look how I totally get Shakespeare, and how everyone else just overlooks the boy, but I've made him the most important part of the show."

Also you technically can't say that it isn't a comedy. You can say you don't find it funny, but the definition of a "comedy" as it pertains to his period is a story that ends with a happy ending, usually with a wedding. This makes Measure for Measure and Merchant of Venice technically comedies as well. (and in fact, it's quite obvious the latter is meant to be funny - with the cross dressing, and the test for the suitors etc, it's just now with contemporary audiences and our view of Shylock that people tend to make the story seem more serious than it was intended to be)

None of this changes the fact that what he would be doing in the modern day is writing sit coms and soap operas until he gets his big break in arthouse cinema...

Again, I disagree. I don't think he'd be doing that at all. I think he'd be hanging out with Tarantino and that gang, making gory but witty works. Maybe also Jackson and Spielberg when he felt like doing an epic. And occasionally also dipping his toe into Romantic Comedy. He's not a soap opera kind of guy - he didn't write serials, and he wrote far more intelligently even when he was appealing to the masses. Nor is he an arthouse kind of guy. His plays were always on a large grand scale, and appealed to everyone, not just artsy snobs. He'd probably be doing much better written versions of the 300 (but with all the same historical inaccuracies).
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 42

Again, I disagree. I don't think he'd be doing that at all. I think he'd be hanging out with Tarantino and that gang, making gory but witty works. Maybe also Jackson and Spielberg when he felt like doing an epic. And occasionally also dipping his toe into Romantic Comedy. He's not a soap opera kind of guy - he didn't write serials. Nor is he an arthouse kind of guy. His plays were always on a large grand scale. He'd probably be doing much better written versions of the 300 (but with all the same historical inaccuracies).

I also suspect he'd own real estate, play the market, and be litigious as all get out.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.