Shakespeare and the other great writers- overrated?

[DaveC426913]

I resent your calling my desire to read entertaining writings cheap and effortless.

Well, the word "entertaining" does have an implication of immediate visceral gratification. That would be distinct from the timelessness of the subtext seen in Shakespeare.

I'm not saying any writing can't be both; simply that they are distinct. If what you value is entertainment, then it's not a surprise that Shakespeare is not at the top of your list like it would be for someone who values timeless stories about the human condition.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You might be right about Milton, Virgil, and Dante, but I strongly doubt you are right about Shakespeare. Did Shakespeare not write to entertain?

Entertainment was high on his priorities but still secondary to the moral or lesson. Shakespeare felt he was performing a social/human service: raising people's awareness by showing them themselves. This comes out in Hamlet's direction to the actors he's hired. Hamlet is, on one level, is a play about what plays are about:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For
anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both
at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

I resent your calling my desire to read entertaining writings cheap and effortless.

I value cheap, effortless novels a lot and read as many as I can find. There's no shame in it for me because I know they're cheap and effortless and I don't mistake them for great writing. I've read a lot of Stephen King. I call your desire to read entertaining novels an indulgence in the cheap and effortless because I know mine is. Check out Preston Douglas. He's my new favorite author: pure entertainment. Much better than Stephen King.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, the word "entertaining" does have an implication of immediate visceral gratification. That would be distinct from the timelessness of the subtext seen in Shakespeare.

I'm not saying any writing can't be both; simply that they are distinct. If what you value is entertainment, then it's not a surprise that Shakespeare is not at the top of your list like it would be for someone who values timeless stories about the human condition.

Shakespeare's stories, the plots, are not necessarily better than anyone else's. What sets him apart is the eloquence and originality of how he expresses things. Anyone, for example, can conceive of a man spiraling down into complete black depression upon hearing that his wife has died, but the way Shakespeare expresses that man's downward inner fall is, to me, exquisite:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

 

[bluemoonKY]

I'm curious, Blue, who wrote in the 18th Century, that you like?

I don't know, but there might be some.

If there isn't anyone, would your claim be that everybody famous before the 19th is overrated?

Yes.

Were you reading stuff in translation?

I never have read any literature in any language except English.

What books of Chaucer did you read?

Only one. I read The Canterbury Tales.

Also it sounds like you have a strong preference for NOVELS, and that is a fairly new genre. Early on there are only a few to choose from: there's Defoe (Crusoe), Swift (Gulliver), Austen (Pride&Prejudice)...
Your cutoff date (18th C) seems to correspond to the invention of the novel. It was just getting started. And the examples of modern writers you esteem are all novelists.
Maybe that's the key to it, in which case there is not much to argue about.

Then the writings of 19th and 20th century writers tend to be more entertaining than the writings of writers before the 18th century because writers before the 18th century did not write novels.

BTW have you read Pride and Prejudice? Moral clarity, hilarious deadpan humor, perfect expression. Might not be so much to your taste if it runs, say, to modern Gothic, the heart wrenching, the gruesome, the mad, or the supernatural. Jane Austen doesn't do the full spectrum. I think you probably have, but I'm curious to know for sure and what you think.

We must be right around the 200th anniversary of P&P. Doesn't 1812 sound right for Jane Austen?
EDIT: Yes! I checked and Pride and Prejudice was published January 1813.

I have read Pride and Prejudice. It was not my cup of tea.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I'm guessing you would like "Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley. She was only 19 when she wrote it.

I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt if he knew you liked Stephen King more than him.

 

[arildno]

I'm guessing you would like "Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley. She was only 19 when she wrote it.

I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt if he knew you liked Stephen King more than him.

"Words can not convey my griefe, for that my mind is all too briefe.."

 

[bluemoonKY]

I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt if he knew you liked Stephen King more than him.

Shakespeare would have been mad at me.

 

[Constantinos]

Interesting discussion!

Another similar concept is that of "western canon", a list of works from the very old(Epic of Gilgamesh) to the 21st century writers, that are said to be most influential to western culture.

A known literary critic Harold Bloom has composed such a list. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/bloom/excerpts/canon.html you can find his ideas about it and his inclusion criteria among other things.

My experience with such works is:

The Odyssey - Homer (modern Greek Translation)
History of the Peloponnesian War - Thucydides (modern Greek translation)
The Histories - Herodotus (modern Greek translation)
Antigone - Sophocles (ancient Greek text)
Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels (modern Greek translation)
The Problems of Philosophy - Bertrand Russel (English text)
Poetry of modern Greek writers (Kazantzakis, Seferis, Elitis)

Now, my experience is rather limited, but I really feel as if I *gained* something from it. Be it that I found better ways to express myself or that I understood the world better. Also I found them entertaining.

But now, I believe the only purpose of reading these works is to find better ways to express myself. It's also true that people are impressed by those that have read them for some reason. I wouldn't be. For entertainment purposes, modern media are much better for me than books (movies, video games etc). Books might offer a different kind of entertainment, but not my kind. I certainly prefer interactivity. Also "timeless stories of human condition" are not my thing. If I want to understand the human condition, I would prefer to read a first year undergraduate textbook of anthropology or psychology. If I wanted to understand the world around me, I would just read science.

 

[AlephZero]

I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt if he knew you liked Stephen King more than him.

If you read his plays, Shalespeare didn't have many hangups about mocking people.

 

[JonDE]

Obviously Shakespeare is overrated, he stole all his plot ideas from Disney.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Obviously Shakespeare is overrated, he stole all his plot ideas from Disney.

And he peppered his plays with famous quotes.