h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Actually, there are some wonderful lines in Shakespeare which are as true today as they ever were. I know I sort of slagged off the play earlier on, but my favourite quote comes from Prince Hal's soliloquy in Henry IV Part I:

If all the year were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work,
But when they seldom come, they wished for come.

Ain't that the truth! Mind you, what am I doing posting this at 2:40 pm! (Not working, but not on holiday, if you get my drift!)

Maybe you can, but I can tell a hawk from a handsaw.

Stet

http://www.bibliomania.com/Reference/PhraseAndFable/data/587.html

The wind was in the north-north-west. I also know a rabbet from a raceway (Dick Francis, 'Decider', p258)

Ooh, do I detect a Dick Francis fan (or should I say 'Another Dick Francis fan', being one myself)? He may not be Shakespeare (it's more than 300 years too late, for starters), but he does write good crime fiction, which Shakespeare never did.

You do, I am. I've read the lot about 5 times each (...get a life...). They are full of useful information, as well as being a great read! It amused me that Jeffrey Archer published 'Twelve of the Best' (or something like that), so Dick Francis published 'Field of 13' last year . I know who I prefer.

Only 5 times? I'm forced to admit that I have every book he's written (except his autobiography and his biography of Lester Piggott). Whenever my husband asks what I want for Christmas I say 'Well, Dick Francis' latest is called...' Problem solved!

Shakespeare was a genius.
I know that it's unfashionable to say so in an age where genius is despised - but just read his plays. I have just finished the complete works and realise that if I had read them 10 years earlier I wouldn't have had to bother with reading anything by Machievelli, James Joyce, Sigmund Freud John-Louis Stevenson, Fitzgerald, Nabokov or Rushdie.
Take my advice - read the bard and you need not read any author ever again.

Try reading Hamlet, plebian.

OK, if you'll read James Thurber's short piece on MacBeth, in which he 'solves' the story. If you don't know, James Thurber was an American satirist. You can find his piece on MacBeth in a compilation called 'Thurber Carnival'. I can't remember what the piece is called because my copy of the book has gone walkies. Hopefully the book is still available.

PS Thurbers version of Little Red Riding Hood is quite good, too. But being exclusively interested in Shakespeare, you wouldn't care about that.

Get a life!

Other authors are always worth reading. There will always be differences in style, for example, and although Shakespeare has probably told every story possible (someone once worked out that there are only 7 different story-lines), other people will always be able to put their own spin on them. I have read some of Shakespeare's works and although I acknowledge his genius I would never discount any other writer.

My favourite is from Macbeth... 'The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon, where gots't thou thy goose look?' If that doesn't shut them up, nothing will...

I agree.

When I was at school (Banff Academy) I was asked by a teacher to express my opinion on Shakespear in front of the class. I said he was tedious, and the language was so archaic as to make it unreadable. She replied "oh, you're too young to have an opinion". I replied "Why did you ask me for one, then?". I got a thrashing. My opinion of Shakespear stands now, at age 37 - is that still too young?

(that is, I agree with the original posting... Why van't they insert these bloody things at the point you reply to...?)

In an age when genius is despised? What age do you live in? You yourself included a list of authors that aren't despised in the least, with the possible exception of Machiavelli. Machiavelli we despise because of his message, not style. Fortunately, though, we live in an age where everything is subject to questioning. The naysayers in this forum questioned the genius of Billy when they read him, and found him wanting. Some people still find his style lyrical; I find it clumsy. Some people find him witty; I beleive I could find better wit in a public toilet stall.

As for never reading another author? Who could bear such a thing? It would be like watching the same television show every day, like eating the same food at every meal...variety is what provides the canvass of life with its myriad shades that mix together, sometimes wondrously, sometimes horridly, but always superior to the plain white canvass.

In an age when genius .... I wish irony was compulsory in North American schools

Cheerful,

There was only one book I studied at school which I would ever pick up again except at the point of a gun, and that was Moonfleet. The ones I will never, never go near again include The Go-Between, The Great Gatsby and A High Wind In Jamaica. And Henry V, although I can still quote great chunks of the St Crispin's day speech (which was the *only* part of the play I memorised, and this, plus quotes from elsewhere on the paper, got me a pass in my Eng. Lit O Level).

This forum doesn't appear to be very active, but I just thought I'd throw my lot in and express my opinion.

I think Shakespeare was probably the greatest writer of all time. His plays are unsurpassed in the richness of vocabulary, the variety of characters, and the depth of plot. His poetry is some of the most beautiful that has ever been penned, and even several hundred years later has the power to sway emotions like not much else can.

Anyway, I better stop before I get carried away...

Yes, Shakespeare is very good. I may have given the impression in my earlier replies that I don't think much of him, but it's truer to say that I don't think much of the way 'O' level (or GCSE) English Literature is taught in British schools.

I don't know that I'd necessarily call him the greatest writer of all time, though. He was a great playwright, certainly, but some of his plots were stolen from other sources. Romeo and Juliet, for example, was based on a story called 'Pyramus and Thisbe', which appears in a collection by the Latin writer Ovid. I know that Shakespeare was aware of this story because it is mentioned in one of his other works (Midsummer Night's Dream, I think, or it may have been Twelfth Night).

Still, at least you haven't annoyed me, like '@Work 8D' did by claiming that if one reads Shakespeare one need never read any one else's works!

I'm glad I haven't annoyed you.

The point about Romeo and Juliet is, why do you think that it is famous and the original story it is based on is not? I think that proves Shakespeare's mastery of writing... But it is as true today as it was then, that very little that is written is actually completely original; most of it is, in some way, based on previously written material. I don't think that's a negative point; it's just a fact.

I agree, I think it's a shame the way that most people get put off Shakespeare in schools.