6 ms·

If a lost folio of some forgotten contemporary of Shakespeare were discovered, a collection of plays which were more entertaining, moving, and inspiring than th

If a lost folio of some forgotten contemporary of Shakespeare were discovered, a collection of plays which were more entertaining, moving, and inspiring than the works of Shakespeare, plays which more convincingly depicted the range and depth of the human experience, which were more surprising and delightful and sobering, which were by some objective measure "better" plays than Shakespeare's, then I still think that Shakespeare's plays would probably be "greater" and more worthy of study and consumption A big, big part of what makes Shakespeare's plays and sonnets "great" is that they've been the foremost works of English literature for hundreds of years. They're known to everyone who attended school in an English speaking country, they've shaped and influenced our language, culture, and every work of literature which followed. Being familiar with the works of Shakespeare is necessary context for a thousand phrases and references that you'll encounter every day. And the "value" which a reader or watcher can extract from the works of Shakespeare can be enhanced by the hundreds of years of critics and audience who have already written about and engaged with his works.

scotty79 4y ago
So fame creates value?
- distrill 4y ago
  in this instance it creates influence, which is probably very valuable yes.
  - coastflow 4y ago
    To add, the Bible is seen by many scholars as one of the greatest works of literature (and is on the St. John's College curriculum) not because the scholars are religious, but in large part due to its influence on other great works of literature (e.g. Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, much of Dostoevsky's work) and shaping human history.
    - 988747 4y ago
      It's not even about such works as Dante's Inferno, which are directly thematically related to Bible. As with Shakespeare it's all about hundreds of small things, expressions, metaphors. Without Bible words and phrases such as "forbidden fruit", "good Samaritan", "eye for an eye", "Armageddon", "wayward son" lose context, or meaning.
- avrionov 4y ago
  The value created fame, which increased the value.
- lmm 4y ago
  It's the artistic world's version of network effects, just like facebook being valuable mainly because everyone uses it.
- derbOac 4y ago
  Accessibility has value; fame is a form of accessibility.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  It’s not just fame, there is a multi-generational cultural inheritance from Shakespeare because so many people have been thinking and writing and talking about it for so long. Any cultural work subjected to that much thought and criticism becomes a mirror, or a lens, through which other subjects can be explored. Essays about Shakespeare written 100 years ago not only enrich our appreciation of Shakespeare, they reveal how people thought about things 100 years ago. The text of Shakespeare doesn’t change, so by observing changes in analysis of Shakespeare over time, we can reveal changes in our own culture over time. You can’t do that with a new piece of writing, even if it were “new to us” despite being written contemporaneously with Shakespeare. It would be analyzed first in the context of Shakespeare, not by itself, because that is a context we all already share.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    It's also worth noting that Shakespeare's cultural significance, as with a few other cultural relics (say, the Mona Lisa), is in certain regards fairly modern. After Shakespeare's life, his works faded from prevalence, at least as represented in the printed record, until the mid-19th century. I'm uncertain of the specific dynamics, but suspect that growing cities and want of lowr-cost and popular known entertainment resulted in a revival of his plays (out of copyright, and hence free to produce). Similarly, the Mona Lisa ascended to popular awareness and fame after it was stolen in the early 20th century, at a time when cheap mass-market newspapers existed, and photgraphic reproductions could be printed. Shakespeare: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Shakespeare&year_start=1500&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=20&direct_url=t1%3B%2CShakespeare%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Shakespeare&ye... Mona Lisa: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Mona+Lisa&year_start=1500&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=20&direct_url=t1%3B%2CMona%20Lisa%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Mona+Lisa&year...
    - cafard 4y ago
      Mid-19th-Century for Shakespeare? Samuel Johnson wrote prefaces for an edition of Shakespeare in the late 18th Century, and Pope had done so earlier. As for the Mona Lisa, have a look at least at https://gutenberg.org/files/2398/2398-h/2398-h.htm#leonardo https://gutenberg.org/files/2398/2398-h/2398-h.htm#leonardo .
- vintermann 4y ago
  It does for us. It's not the abstract value that matters. A few years in my country, a critic caused some minor furore by suggesting that a beloved (and recently dead) author wasn't all that good. She had been a radio personality and children's literature writer for a generation, and her stories were a kind of sweet, homely social realism, about growing up in an apartment building and playing the violin, for instance. Now the critic suggested that she had gotten chances others hadn't, because of her politics and identity. The public broadcaster at the time definitively saw shaping the country towards the labour party's social democratic vision as their job, and the author certainly fit nicely into that. Now the point is, even if the critic is right and this author wasn't all that great, she can't just be swapped out for me. I grew up with those books, not anyone else's. So did a generation. And so it is with all literature. Should we try to find the authors that got less attention at the time, but maybe would have deserved it? Maybe imagine what could have been? By all means. But what happened, happened. And it's even more important to understand those things.
mftb 4y ago
While I realize that you're overstating both cases for rhetorical purposes, (that these undiscovered works are "better", and that Shakespeare is still "greater") I think that you're short-changing "discovery". We might find that Shakespeare's works were, not just influenced by these unknown works, but outright homages, or that these undiscovered works somehow offer greater context and insight into some previously known author's works. In a similar vein, the linked article spends to much time fearing what's lost and not enough thinking about what we may yet find.
- Kranar 4y ago
  >We might find that Shakespeare's works were, not just influenced by these unknown works, but outright homages Shakespeare's works are already known to be homages and heavily influenced by existing works to the point that the stories are pretty much considered English stage adaptations of existing literature, much of which was not originally written in English. Hamlet is based on the Legend of Amleth, Macbeth and King Lear are both adaptations of Holinshed's Chronicles, Romeo and Juliet is based on Mariotto and Ganozza. Shakespeare was not the only one who made stage adaptations of classic literature, there are dozens of playwrites who each have their own version of the above listed stories adapted to their specific audiences, language and cultural customs.
  - darkerside 4y ago
    Sigh. Another reboot? Why can't we write anything original anymore?
    - mathgladiator 4y ago
      Because there may not be that many themes.
    - jnsie 4y ago
      Ok, ok...ok. Hear me out. What about a prequel to Macbeth. Macduff and Macbeth origin stories. Hollywood is where the real money is so we'll skip the stage and go straight to film. Not film. Films. We'll split it into 3 (yes, three!) films since there is so much to be told. But since there isn't that much to be told, we'll import a few characters from other Shakespearian plays ...especially those that don't fit the timeline....Tybalt the thane of East Fife, anyone?
wallscratch 4y ago
This take seems a bit pessimistic about the longevity of society to me. If we still have tens or hundreds of thousands of years to go, just going with whatever was best by 2020 seems a bit ad hoc. Not that I know the future.
- danbolt 4y ago
  If I had a time machine, I’d travel to the year 2300 to read undergrad essays how the Hamlet’s deliberations intersect with the ever-enclosing wall of Fortnite’s storm.
- cal85 4y ago
  What do you mean by “just going with whatever was best by 2020”? I don’t think this theory implies that anyone’s ‘greatest’ status is final and permanent. Just that the mechanism by which such status is attained generally involves remaining culturally relevant for long enough to develop a kind of incumbent power. I don’t see any need for pessimism over this.
21723 4y ago
The issue is that, while writing skill is rare and somewhat objective, writing performance is intensely subjective. The experiment's been done where people take award-winning novels and throw them at the submission process... and don't even get past the query stage, 9 times out of 10. This is exacerbated by a climate wherein the "book buzz" that drives quick sales is generated by people who, while narrowly specialized in their professions and therefore deservingly relevant on specific topics, haven't read for pleasure since they were in high school. Relevance can be measured. On the other hand, aesthetic quality is not only subjective, but highly relevant writing (such as Shakespeare's) changes the aesthetics on which it, as well as everything else, is judged. Of course, most writers secretly long to still be read 100 years after they die, but not only will they never know this (except perhaps in an afterlife) for sure, but it's highly uncorrelated to performance while alive. If you had asked people in the 1920s which books of the time would be remembered in 2022, you'd be read a litany of works almost none of us have heard of... while Great Gatsby, which probably objectively is the great (as in, most relevant) American novel, would not have made the top 20.
hyperpallium2 4y ago
Commentary maketh the manuscript. Like old laws that have been interpreted by the courts in many unantipicated situations - presented as obvious generalization; arguably, judicial legislation. \taunt Arguably, the most influential work of English literature is the King James Version of the Bible.
1123581321 4y ago
This reminds me of the theory that the King James is the best English translation of The Bible because it has heavily influenced the English language. So we intuitively understand the true meaning of KJV phrases better than we do those in a more literally faithful translation. Just passing along a fun idea and not looking for a debate.
- ggm 4y ago
  Related to many prior translations, which are the foundation of anglicised, not latinised bible translations which tiptoed on the precipice of heresy, lacking the kings imprimatur. Finding ur-texts and arguing their role meant combining Aramaic, hebrew, Greek and Latin, all the while watching over your shoulder for the sharp blade. And then, there's the mistranscriptions of the breeches bible, the murder bible, the consequences of a literate non priestly class who could (and did) debate religion as informed opinion not received wisdom...
JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
I think this is a terrible argument.
thaumasiotes 4y ago
> A big, big part of what makes Shakespeare's plays and sonnets "great" is that they've been the foremost works of English literature for hundreds of years. They're known to everyone who attended school in an English speaking country This is far from true, except in the sense that such people know the name "Shakespeare". The percentage of people having ever attended school in an English speaking country who can recite one sonnet by Shakespeare is going to be... low. > they've shaped and influenced our language [and] culture Sure, that's true. > Being familiar with the works of Shakespeare is necessary context for a thousand phrases and references that you'll encounter every day. But that isn't. Most Anglophones, as noted above, already aren't familiar with the works of Shakespeare. But they don't have problems understanding phrases and references that may ultimately trace back to him. You can learn words without learning how the words came to be, and in fact that's the only way you can learn words. (On a side note, this is exactly the problem with the "classic" TNG episode Darmok. The universal translator can translate any language without any prior knowledge being necessary. So it can understand that the sounds the aliens are making mean "Shaka, when the walls fell". It just doesn't know what "Shaka, when the walls fell" means. But that's not how language works. The episode itself makes it very explicit that the aliens speak a language in which Shakawhenthewallsfell is a single word meaning "doom, defeat, and despair". You don't need to know the story of Shaka to know the meaning of the word.)

scotty79 4y ago

So fame creates value?

distrill 4y ago
in this instance it creates influence, which is probably very valuable yes.
- coastflow 4y ago
  To add, the Bible is seen by many scholars as one of the greatest works of literature (and is on the St. John's College curriculum) not because the scholars are religious, but in large part due to its influence on other great works of literature (e.g. Milton's Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, much of Dostoevsky's work) and shaping human history.
  - 988747 4y ago
    It's not even about such works as Dante's Inferno, which are directly thematically related to Bible. As with Shakespeare it's all about hundreds of small things, expressions, metaphors. Without Bible words and phrases such as "forbidden fruit", "good Samaritan", "eye for an eye", "Armageddon", "wayward son" lose context, or meaning.
avrionov 4y ago
The value created fame, which increased the value.
lmm 4y ago
It's the artistic world's version of network effects, just like facebook being valuable mainly because everyone uses it.
derbOac 4y ago
Accessibility has value; fame is a form of accessibility.
snowwrestler 4y ago
It’s not just fame, there is a multi-generational cultural inheritance from Shakespeare because so many people have been thinking and writing and talking about it for so long. Any cultural work subjected to that much thought and criticism becomes a mirror, or a lens, through which other subjects can be explored. Essays about Shakespeare written 100 years ago not only enrich our appreciation of Shakespeare, they reveal how people thought about things 100 years ago. The text of Shakespeare doesn’t change, so by observing changes in analysis of Shakespeare over time, we can reveal changes in our own culture over time. You can’t do that with a new piece of writing, even if it were “new to us” despite being written contemporaneously with Shakespeare. It would be analyzed first in the context of Shakespeare, not by itself, because that is a context we all already share.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  It's also worth noting that Shakespeare's cultural significance, as with a few other cultural relics (say, the Mona Lisa), is in certain regards fairly modern. After Shakespeare's life, his works faded from prevalence, at least as represented in the printed record, until the mid-19th century. I'm uncertain of the specific dynamics, but suspect that growing cities and want of lowr-cost and popular known entertainment resulted in a revival of his plays (out of copyright, and hence free to produce). Similarly, the Mona Lisa ascended to popular awareness and fame after it was stolen in the early 20th century, at a time when cheap mass-market newspapers existed, and photgraphic reproductions could be printed. Shakespeare: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Shakespeare&year_start=1500&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=20&direct_url=t1%3B%2CShakespeare%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Shakespeare&ye... Mona Lisa: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Mona+Lisa&year_start=1500&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=20&direct_url=t1%3B%2CMona%20Lisa%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Mona+Lisa&year...
  - cafard 4y ago
    Mid-19th-Century for Shakespeare? Samuel Johnson wrote prefaces for an edition of Shakespeare in the late 18th Century, and Pope had done so earlier. As for the Mona Lisa, have a look at least at https://gutenberg.org/files/2398/2398-h/2398-h.htm#leonardo https://gutenberg.org/files/2398/2398-h/2398-h.htm#leonardo .
vintermann 4y ago
It does for us. It's not the abstract value that matters. A few years in my country, a critic caused some minor furore by suggesting that a beloved (and recently dead) author wasn't all that good. She had been a radio personality and children's literature writer for a generation, and her stories were a kind of sweet, homely social realism, about growing up in an apartment building and playing the violin, for instance. Now the critic suggested that she had gotten chances others hadn't, because of her politics and identity. The public broadcaster at the time definitively saw shaping the country towards the labour party's social democratic vision as their job, and the author certainly fit nicely into that. Now the point is, even if the critic is right and this author wasn't all that great, she can't just be swapped out for me. I grew up with those books, not anyone else's. So did a generation. And so it is with all literature. Should we try to find the authors that got less attention at the time, but maybe would have deserved it? Maybe imagine what could have been? By all means. But what happened, happened. And it's even more important to understand those things.

mftb 4y ago

While I realize that you're overstating both cases for rhetorical purposes, (that these undiscovered works are "better", and that Shakespeare is still "greater") I think that you're short-changing "discovery". We might find that Shakespeare's works were, not just influenced by these unknown works, but outright homages, or that these undiscovered works somehow offer greater context and insight into some previously known author's works. In a similar vein, the linked article spends to much time fearing what's lost and not enough thinking about what we may yet find.

Kranar 4y ago
>We might find that Shakespeare's works were, not just influenced by these unknown works, but outright homages Shakespeare's works are already known to be homages and heavily influenced by existing works to the point that the stories are pretty much considered English stage adaptations of existing literature, much of which was not originally written in English. Hamlet is based on the Legend of Amleth, Macbeth and King Lear are both adaptations of Holinshed's Chronicles, Romeo and Juliet is based on Mariotto and Ganozza. Shakespeare was not the only one who made stage adaptations of classic literature, there are dozens of playwrites who each have their own version of the above listed stories adapted to their specific audiences, language and cultural customs.
- darkerside 4y ago
  Sigh. Another reboot? Why can't we write anything original anymore?
  - mathgladiator 4y ago
    Because there may not be that many themes.
  - jnsie 4y ago
    Ok, ok...ok. Hear me out. What about a prequel to Macbeth. Macduff and Macbeth origin stories. Hollywood is where the real money is so we'll skip the stage and go straight to film. Not film. Films. We'll split it into 3 (yes, three!) films since there is so much to be told. But since there isn't that much to be told, we'll import a few characters from other Shakespearian plays ...especially those that don't fit the timeline....Tybalt the thane of East Fife, anyone?

wallscratch 4y ago

This take seems a bit pessimistic about the longevity of society to me. If we still have tens or hundreds of thousands of years to go, just going with whatever was best by 2020 seems a bit ad hoc. Not that I know the future.

danbolt 4y ago
If I had a time machine, I’d travel to the year 2300 to read undergrad essays how the Hamlet’s deliberations intersect with the ever-enclosing wall of Fortnite’s storm.
cal85 4y ago
What do you mean by “just going with whatever was best by 2020”? I don’t think this theory implies that anyone’s ‘greatest’ status is final and permanent. Just that the mechanism by which such status is attained generally involves remaining culturally relevant for long enough to develop a kind of incumbent power. I don’t see any need for pessimism over this.

21723 4y ago

The issue is that, while writing skill is rare and somewhat objective, writing performance is intensely subjective. The experiment's been done where people take award-winning novels and throw them at the submission process... and don't even get past the query stage, 9 times out of 10. This is exacerbated by a climate wherein the "book buzz" that drives quick sales is generated by people who, while narrowly specialized in their professions and therefore deservingly relevant on specific topics, haven't read for pleasure since they were in high school. Relevance can be measured. On the other hand, aesthetic quality is not only subjective, but highly relevant writing (such as Shakespeare's) changes the aesthetics on which it, as well as everything else, is judged. Of course, most writers secretly long to still be read 100 years after they die, but not only will they never know this (except perhaps in an afterlife) for sure, but it's highly uncorrelated to performance while alive. If you had asked people in the 1920s which books of the time would be remembered in 2022, you'd be read a litany of works almost none of us have heard of... while Great Gatsby, which probably objectively is the great (as in, most relevant) American novel, would not have made the top 20.

hyperpallium2 4y ago

Commentary maketh the manuscript. Like old laws that have been interpreted by the courts in many unantipicated situations - presented as obvious generalization; arguably, judicial legislation. \taunt Arguably, the most influential work of English literature is the King James Version of the Bible.

1123581321 4y ago

This reminds me of the theory that the King James is the best English translation of The Bible because it has heavily influenced the English language. So we intuitively understand the true meaning of KJV phrases better than we do those in a more literally faithful translation. Just passing along a fun idea and not looking for a debate.

ggm 4y ago
Related to many prior translations, which are the foundation of anglicised, not latinised bible translations which tiptoed on the precipice of heresy, lacking the kings imprimatur. Finding ur-texts and arguing their role meant combining Aramaic, hebrew, Greek and Latin, all the while watching over your shoulder for the sharp blade. And then, there's the mistranscriptions of the breeches bible, the murder bible, the consequences of a literate non priestly class who could (and did) debate religion as informed opinion not received wisdom...

JohnJamesRambo 4y ago

I think this is a terrible argument.

thaumasiotes 4y ago

> A big, big part of what makes Shakespeare's plays and sonnets "great" is that they've been the foremost works of English literature for hundreds of years. They're known to everyone who attended school in an English speaking country This is far from true, except in the sense that such people know the name "Shakespeare". The percentage of people having ever attended school in an English speaking country who can recite one sonnet by Shakespeare is going to be... low. > they've shaped and influenced our language [and] culture Sure, that's true. > Being familiar with the works of Shakespeare is necessary context for a thousand phrases and references that you'll encounter every day. But that isn't. Most Anglophones, as noted above, already aren't familiar with the works of Shakespeare. But they don't have problems understanding phrases and references that may ultimately trace back to him. You can learn words without learning how the words came to be, and in fact that's the only way you can learn words. (On a side note, this is exactly the problem with the "classic" TNG episode Darmok. The universal translator can translate any language without any prior knowledge being necessary. So it can understand that the sounds the aliens are making mean "Shaka, when the walls fell". It just doesn't know what "Shaka, when the walls fell" means. But that's not how language works. The episode itself makes it very explicit that the aliens speak a language in which Shakawhenthewallsfell is a single word meaning "doom, defeat, and despair". You don't need to know the story of Shaka to know the meaning of the word.)