stella41b
Posts: 4258
Joined: 10/16/2007 From: SW London (UK) Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: daintydimples quote:
ORIGINAL: TurboJugend quote:
ORIGINAL: SylvereApLeanan quote:
ORIGINAL: TurboJugend Shakespeare sucks at communicating. Most people don't understand what he is saying, propably not even in his time. Your words we can understand. He was propably a great writer, but communication..who knows. I have to correct this assumption. Shakespeare was a brilliant communicator. His plays, in particular, were full of clever innuendo, pointed observations on human nature, and every one of them written entirely as poetic verse. He was wildly popular in his time. I started reading Shakespeare around the age of seven and was able to understand enough of what he wrote to grasp the plots. I daresay anyone who took the time to read his work would be able to understand most of it, even if some of the "pop culture" references of the period got overlooked. what makes your assumption right and mine false? The plays are ofcourse soemthing else then what he wrote. Seeing people move is better communication then writing itself. Especially when people hardly could read unless you were rich? Centuries of literary criticism. And people like me who have gone through the training to be actors and who have performed Shakespeare live on stage (in my former self I was Falstaff in King Henry IV Parts 1 and 2) Not that I'm in complete disagreement with you here TurboJugend, your point is still a valid one but you could have used a much better example. Eugene O'Neill comes to mind almost instantly. My life is connected with theatre and I have seen lots of plays but even with several attempts I have never managed to get through or even stay awake at a Eugene O'Neill performance = the closest was a couple of years ago when I made it through to 20 minutes from the end at the Old Vic in London but this was largely thanks to Kevin Spacey's stage acting. However quote:
His plays, in particular, were full of clever innuendo, pointed observations on human nature, and every one of them written entirely as poetic verse. But as the Devil would have it three misbegotten knaves in Kendal Green came at my back and let drive at me and it was so dark Hal that Thou couldst not see Thy hand. Peace, good pint pot, good tickle-brain Harry. I do not only marvel at where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied. For though the camomile the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. That thou art my son, I have only thy mother's word, partly my own opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick of thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth warrant me. If then, thou be son to me, here lies the point. Why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at? Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher, and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? A question to be asked. There is a thing Harry... Oh sugar! That's about as much as I can remember but I can probably only remember this much because the second text was the monologue for the auditions. Both are from the part of Falstaff, King Henry IV Part 1. As we can see it wasn't that all Shakespeare's plays were written entirely in verse, but the sonnets were all written in verse using what is known as the Iambic pentameter with either ten or eleven syllables per line and these sonnets are contained in some of the plays. Also (at least to me) if you read the texts (extracts) above even despite the archaic language (which I believe come from the Arden series of texts) the ideas are very clearly communicated which is why people still go and see Shakespeare being performed even today.
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