I noticed this line from John Carey's review of A.D.Nuttall's book Shakespeare the Thinker:
'His suggestion that Shakespeare was ashamed of or unimpressed by the plays he had written is borne out by the fact that he took no steps to ensure they would survive.'
Two thoughts occur. What would have impressed Shakespeare or left him unashamed? And how would he have felt if he'd just done what I've done?
The mind, as ever when confronted by this man, reels.
Monday, April 23, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
who makes it reel; shakespeare, carey, or nuttall?
ReplyDeleteI've never seen a single play of shakespeare's. I don't think my emotions could handle the stress. Either that or I'd be sorely disappointed...
My thoughts are more pedestrian and to compare Shakespeare's behavior with those of his contemporaries. Did Ben Jonson preserve and publish his plays, for example? Other playwrights?
ReplyDeleteI think the main complaint is that Shakespeare didn't used Folio 2.0. He used that old Folio 1.0 which didn't have any user-friendly 'save for posterity' feature.
ReplyDeleteIn his case the answer is 391 I believe.
ReplyDeleteShakespeare, Ian, I don't know, Bill and you're quite right, Chip, obviously.
ReplyDeleteA.D. Nutall's views don't gel with those of Peter Ackroyd is his biography of the bard.
ReplyDeleteBen Jonson published his plays towards the end of his lifetime. i seem to remember some critic of the time pouring scorn on the idea of publishing mere plays. Jonson, as a cobbler's son who taught himself Latin & Greek, took himself, and his craft, very seriously.
ReplyDeleteSince plays were considered to be entertainment & not 'literature' (rather like spy thrillers today), and since the players would mess them around anyway, i imagine Shakespeare learnt not to expect reverence or even much understanding. i imagine him learning to seek no reward (other than monetary) for his labours, beyond the (no doubt considerable) pleasure of writing.
To avoid going nuts, Nietzsche-style - a real possibility if he felt that, say, King Lear was profound literature, and everyone else just thought it was the equivalent of a popcorn movie - i can see him adopting a cavalier attitude to his plays, taking only the writing seriously - what happened afterwards not being in his hands. Thus he wrote a 'Hamlet' much much longer than would ever have been performed anywhere.
As it happens he was right, and he didn't need to trouble himself over posterity.
Shakespeare was an atute observer of human nature and probably recognised better than most the danger of hubris. As elberry says, what Shakespeare wrote were entertainments, designed for the masses. We have exactly the opposite situation these days, where the fact that early episodes of some TV sitcom or other were not recorded and "saved for posterity" is seen as some sort of national disaster.
ReplyDeleteCreating art is one of the few consolations to being a genius.
ReplyDelete