Shakespeare: A Poor Player who Should Have Strut and Fret his Hour on Stage Before Being Heard no More

Yeah you read me correctly. Much like the infamous "tree burning" incident, the fires of my wrath (the furies of both Hell and a woman scorned pale in comparison) are woven by the opinions of others. And what they leave behind is a man who has always felt that he missed out on drinking the Bard's Kool-Aid, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That'd be me (the man and not the Kool-Aid). Because much like alcohol, strategy games, and U2, I really don't see the appeal. Unlike those things, there is a lot that Shakespeare wrote that is deserving of praise. Just like Dirty Harry is deserving of praise. It's well-written and well-delivered. But you wouldn't give it Best Picture, just like you wouldn't give Best Picture to Spider-Man 2, The Matrix, or Sin City. All of these are some of my favorite films (and certainly better than some of the stuff that's been nominated in recent years, I'm looking at you Crouching Tiger!) but that doesn't mean I'm going to go overboard and say, "OH MY GOD THESE ARE BETTER THAN ANY MOVIES THAT EVER HAVE BEEN OR EVER WILL BE" because that's just preposterous. This is how I feel about Shakespeare. Do I enjoy some of his plays? Absolutely. Do I think they're the best things ever written? Heavens no. (not that I can name what the best ones are, but you only have to be a doctor to find a cure, not recognize an illness)

As an example, let's use Dan Brown. I highly enjoyed reading The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons but not because they're particularly well-written. The stories are really enjoyable and well-crafted, but the writing needs a bit of work. And that's okay! But this is how I feel about Shakespeare, yes he writes very eloquently (sometimes too eloquently) but all of his comedies are pretty much the same (gender crises and marriage mishaps abound) and quite a few of his tragedies are taken from other stories. And his biggest admirers readily admit this. So they know for a fact he used someone else's idea and they still give him all the credit? (try that today, rewrite a John Grisham novel with better language and see who the judge favors) As many know, I'm an avid Lord of the Rings fan, I think it'd be tough to find better films (more like impossible) but go ahead and ask director Peter Jackson if he deserves more credit than J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the original books. Peter adapted the stories incredibly well and made them beyond visually amazing, but he wouldn't have had anything to work with if Tolkien's books didn't exist. So give Shakespeare the credit for the words he uses, but let's not pretend that he came up with too many original thoughts.

My first real exposure to Shakespeare was Romeo and Juliet. Contrary to some popular belief (or popular to some contrary belief, if you will) I was actually going into it with an open mind. That open mind was slammed shut when in the beginning of the play the audience is told that the two lovers are doomed. They ruined the ending! Now, I appreciate irony and foreshadowing. I love the Star Wars prequels because they answer the question: why did Darth Vader become a monster? We know how the story ends, but there are answers that we need. But the opening to Romeo doesn't function like this at all, instead it's just a spoiler. Instead of telling us: "why did Darth Vader turn evil?" it tells us: "Darth Vader is evil, turns good in the end, and then dies" before we've even watched A New Hope! Still, this could have been saved by a riveting story about a couple who knew they were flying too close to the sun but decided their love was too important. Instead, the whole thing reads like something on the CW. It feels like Romeo refuses to give up his relationship with Juliet because she's hot and his hormones won't let him. Where's the poetry in that? In addition, my Creative Writing teacher told me that when everybody dies in the end it means that the author wrote himself into a wall and didn't know what to do. West Side Story does it way better if you ask me, the story may well be just as silly, but at least it's got some great dance numbers to distract from this fact.

Interlude: did you know that Shakespeare didn't actually say that "woman scorned" quote? It was some other guy. Funny how anything relatively profound from that time period is attributed to Shakespeare huh?

As I mentioned in my Bob Dylan post, I think a lot of people are expecting Shakespeare to be excellent because everyone else says so, and when they read it and just see a bunch of overly hyperbolized (strangely not a word) jargon with more adjectives than plot progression, they just assume it must be over their heads. I luckily don't have this problem, because with rare exception I value most people's opinions on about the level of one of Jane Goodall's pupils. In addition, although I do find plays like Macbeth, Richard III, and parts of Julius Caesar to be quite good (I like Hamlet, but it's the most overrated of all. In modern day terms, it's a two-hour movie living in the skin of a four-hour movie.) that doesn't mean that everything the man did was brilliant. People try to find every excuse for why something is good, and refuse to see the truth. Even I can do this with things I love, watch:

I love the whole Matrix trilogy, but good Lord what is up with that four minute rave scene in Reloaded? It serves absolutely no purpose.

I love the Harry Potter books but you know what? That confrontation with Voldemort at the end was anti-climactic. The one at the end of the first book was better.

I love The Dark Knight but (brace yourself) I would actually change four seconds of it. Because I hate that during the beginning of the motorcycle chase, little kids are making shooting noises and motions with their fingers right before cars explode. It removes you from the moment, and I don't like it. Thankfully the other 131 minutes and 56 seconds are great.

So as you can see, even though these are some of my favorite and most nostalgic things, I can admit that there are parts that aren't perfect. And why? Because they were written by human beings. Shakespeare had writing deadlines the same as everyone else, and he had a mortgage to pay I'm sure. So if something feels like a rushed ending, it probably is. And The Winter's Tale is just bad, can't we all agree that his good stuff is still good and also admit that a lot of it is bad too? The fabric of the universe won't unravel, he'll still be a great writer. Why does he have to be so untouchable among other writers? I personally find Dante to be ten times the writer that Shakespeare was, and he took a bunch of ideas from other people too (unless he was the sole author of Christianity, Greek Mythology, and History itself).

To me, you could have the greatest visual film of all time, but if there's no story then it's enjoyable but not really very good. At the same time, you could have an incredible script in the hands of a great director, but a mediocre cast. It's not every day that Casablanca or Ben-Hur shows up. Which is why they're so rightfully praised. However, I feel like Shakespeare is one of those guys with nothing to say, but also a lot of nice ways to say nothing (he should've been in politics). All of his plays are filled with long soliloquiys, some of which are excellent and rightfully famous such as "All Our Yesterdays" from Macbeth or "Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears!" from Julius Caesar. However, one must remember that there are also a ton of soliloquiys that no one remembers from each play because they're not particularly interesting. For some modern day examples, in the movie 300, after you see it the first time or two, the first half an hour isn't as interesting and you're kind of waiting for the good stuff. And when it gets good, it gets really good (as it's a surprisingly moving, heroic, and inspiring film). But that doesn't mean every scene in the film is equally as good as everything else. Whereas in V for Vendetta (I got tired of using LOTR all the time, although it's really all one needs) if the scene isn't a fascinating philisophical conversation, it's a well-done fight scene or (ironically) a well-placed quote from Shakespeare that aligns perfectly with the character's revenge. The scenes are all different, but they're all excellent. I don't know that any author has achieved this, probably not, but that doesn't mean we have to pretend that Shakespeare is like that. He's more like 300, there's good stuff, but you find yourself waiting for it through some of the other fluff.

Who'd have thought even I would compare Shakespeare to 300? Ah well, better than a friend of mine's teacher who said, "Shakespeare is like global warming." Try wrapping your head around that one.

So do I really hate Shakespeare all that much? No, much like many of the other things I complain about, I mostly dislike the response to him. And since everyone wants to "hear my opinion" in class and "there are no stupid comments" it's surprising how often I have to keep my mouth shut. Because telling the truth about Shakespeare just isn't worth getting stoned to death by an angry mob of beatniks and starving actors. (They'll probably find me anyway, between the postal service, the orthocons, and everyone else that's after me there are probably a few Shakespeare fans.) If there was any justice in the world, I could badmouth Titus Andronicus while sitting by the fish tank in my apartment and watching a documentary entitled "Pluto, the ninth and best planet." Sadly, I must confine my ideas to this blog, in hopes that I can preserve them before the pod people find me and Ipcress a love for Shakespeare right into my brain.