Re: Shakespeare
Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Fri, 06 Nov 1998 23:32:01 +1100
> > Do you think the people who write Melrose Place consider themselves
artists
> > and poets? Because this is the esteem in which the sort of things
> > Shakespeare wrote were held in.
>
> While this may be a handy analogy, it's misleading to the point of being
> basically entirely wrong.
In what way? And how can something be at the beginning of the sentence
`misleading' and become by the end of the sentence `entirely wrong' ???
Compare
1) Aaron Spelling is a producer who commissions writers to write things
that will make people want to advertise during his show. (i.e. $$$)
2) James Burbage (and later, several shareholders, including Shakespeare)
commissioned writers (one of which happened to be Shakespeare himself) to
write things that would make people want to spend hard earned money on
seeing their show (i.e. $$$)
3) Aaron Spelling doesn't claim to be Shakespeare. He pitches things
towards his audience
4) Shakespeare makes a fairly big claim to being Shakespeare but he never
would have said he was anything approaching say, Ovid. But he pitched
things towards his audience which, yes, is maybe more akin to the
sophistication of the Simpsons than to Melrose Place - i.e. take for
example Loves Labours Lost. There's intellectual jokes that only a
university graduate would get on one end, and fart jokes at the other end
for everyone else. That's to say: yes, some jokes would have gone over some
people's heads but everyone came away entertained. So I think the Simpsons
is perhaps a better analogy than an arthouse movie - what I'm saying is
that it works on several different levels
Remember also that even the Elizabethans didn't talk like Shakespeare.
That's why I included that quote about Juliet and Romeo.
Waiting to see that David Foster Wallace Scream III tho ... (:
> But I have wandered a bit. "This is the esteem in which the sort of
> things Shakespeare wrote were held in"... You may be suggesting that
> because certain sections of the audience thought of Shakespeare as
> entertainment devoid of artistic value, Shakespeare did, too. This
> suggestion would need support.
I'm not saying that at all ... just, keep it in perspective. Shakespeare
was one of the ones responsible for turning theatre into high art -
basically he wrote Twin Peaks while everyone else was writing The Love Boat
- but hindsight's 20-20. Maybe at the end of his career he realised the
artistic worth of his writings, but only then. Theatre was on a par with
bear bating - pretty much Elizabethan Pro Wrestling.
> > He didn't even bother to hold on to the
> > scripts, let alone consider publishing them.
> That's speculation. Besides which, it's a point equally suited to the
> other side of the argument. Supposing Shakespeare stood to profit from
> the sale of his plays (they were popular enough to be pirated, anyway),
> why wouldn't he publish them?
Well ... it's not really. Shakespeare only let a script get away from him
once it had been absolutely exhausted by the company (mainly because there
was no such thing as royalties in those days) and they really needed the
money - by selling it he more or less rendered it obsolete (which is why
they got pretty pissed off if someone else did a pirate version - it meant
it was basically public domain and any company could do it). I'm not saying
Shakespeare didn't know he was popular and profitable - in fact that backs
up my theories. Nor am I saying he did it for the money only.
> Perhaps he didn't retain copies because the plays were the property of
> company. And Hemmings and Condel apparantly *did* retain copies of the
> plays, probably on behalf of the company.
Yes ... but compare this to say, Henry James, who completely and
painstakingly reworked the work of his whole career over for his Collected
Works. A little different to letting them languish in some prop room
somewhere. Apart from anything, the idea of publishing *anyone's* Complete
Works for reading pleasure - and it was a pretty expensive book in its time
- was a revolutionary idea. the First Folio was really the first example of
its kind ever.
> We really don't know what the poetry "meant" to Shakespeare. The
> Sonnets may well have been commissioned by a wealthy mother of an errant
> young man, as _Midsummer_ might have been commissioned for a noble
> wedding.
I'm discounting the Sonnets, because unlike the rest of the poetry,
Shakespeare showed no desire to have them published, they seemed to be
private reminiscences. I'm also discounting the undoubted poetry of the
plays. In both cases you could say I'm distinguishing the poetry from the
Poetry. The Poetry was his real claim to legitimate fame - poetry was a
`gentlemen's pursuit'. This is simply because poetry was a more respectable
art form. If you have a hit movie, everyone will pat you on the back. If
you then movie into *opera* ... that's when the Cultural Pages of the local
newspaper will start doing articles about you.
> Finally, would Ben Jonson hang around with a person who didn't consider
> himself an artist?
Yes, and whinge about it all the way ... haven't you read his elegy to
Shakespeare that was published in the First Folio. The gist of it is `Well,
he was no artist [like me, it is implied] but as my Mum says, he knew his
Rambo from his Rimbaud'
Or words to that effect (:
Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
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