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There are a lot of conspiracy theories out there about Shakespeare -- some say he didn't really write his plays, that it was one of his contemporaries. I dunno, I say enjoy the plays, and "Shakespeare" is a nicer, more romantic name than "Ben Jonson". :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lil Miss
I love Twelfth Night as well, along with Much Ado About Nothing and, well, most of his romantic comedies.
I have to agree about the Unabridged Oxford English Dictonary, not only do they list the language of origin for a word but a history of its usage and meaning across time, with the earliest recorded listing of a word in English literature or prose. I am glad that some one did this...and glad it wasn't me. If a word was first used by the Bard the OED will mention that..
The quote in Hamlet has changed a bit with time, Polonius says as an aside "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it."
Earlier in the same scene (Act II, scene two...) Polonius pretending to be a bit senile ask Hamlet who appears to be playing with him...
P. What do you read my lord...?
H. words, words, words..
Its a great scene.......from one of my favorite plays....
Finally, when I was taking English lit courses in college two different discussions sometimes have been offered about Shakespeare not writing all his plays....First is the suggestion that a non-royal sailor and actor could not have possibly written the plays....and several names have been suggested...but none is likely...still suggesting that the author of Hamlet, Macbeth and most of the plays is a single author...just not Shakespeare..
The other, more plausible thought is that some of Shakespeare's plays were unfinished when he died and some were edited, perhaps drastically when his first collected plays were written....Some of McBeth for example appears missing and parts of the late plays such as Tempest and King Lear may have been added posthumously.
Francis Bacon has being touted for a long time as the mostly likely candidate to have "ghost-written" Shakespeare's works.
Hamlet has the most complicated and subtle charcters...Macbeth is unmatched in imagery...
Something wicked this way comes...
why dress me in borrowed robes....
Fair is foul and foul fair....
sits in a foggy cloud and waits for me...
Tis bitter cold and I am sick at heart...
When you think of Shakespeare and his talent, do you appreciate the language or do you appreciate the stories themselves? I am asking this because I have read that the stories are originally folk tales (I do not know a better expression) that he just modified and wrote down, the same way Brother's Grimm wrote down the German folk/fairy tales. So in a way Shakespeare himself would be a ghostwriter.
The language is magic.
I agree, Nausicaa.
Whether done by one man or two, Shakespeare's works are simply amazing. In high school we had to read a lot of his plays, and I loved them then. Everyone else hated it and found it hard to understand, and they all thought I was crazy. :lol Since then, I've reread a lot of them too.
My favorites are Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew, and Othello.
Oops! How could I forget A Mid-Summer Night's Dream! Another favorite. :)
Something odd I've noticed about myself...I always, ALWYAS cheer for the villain in Shakespeare's plays. Lady Macbeth and Iago are, in my opinion, two of his best characters.