Quote:
Originally Posted by N. Matheson
Because I had hoped there were people here who shared my view that someone needs to become a better poet than Shakespeare. Evidently, I was wrong.
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There are many "better" poets than Shakespeare. This thread has largely become about Shakespeare's plays, and that's the context in which I've passively acknowledged that he's potentially "the greatest" playwright in the English language. There's no established criteria, and it's likely folly to try to come up with some that can be universally applied, but sure -- I can't think of anyone else who I could claim is a greater overall playwright than Shakespeare. If we start breaking it down into categories, I would feel
quite comfortable saying there's likely no better English
tragedian than Shakespeare. I wouldn't argue against his largely unrivaled excellence with history plays either (but let's not forget that Marlowe had a hand in much of the three parts of
VI Henry). Comedies? I think there could be some strong arguments in favor of others...even among his contemporaries. But all of this is pretty arbitrary and falls in the realm of "informed opinion" because (for the millionth time), we can't really apply objective measurements to a subjective field.
Shakespeare's Sonnets have been my academic specialty for awhile now. I've published academic articles on them, have presented at conferences on them, am writing a book on them, had a dissertation chapter on them... I don't have the Sonnets memorized, and can't claim to know all 154 of them inside and out, but I
do feel I can talk confidently about their relative merits. And as I said earlier in this thread (an ever-increasing refrain here, I find), I don't think Shakespeare is the greatest poet. He's a great one, sure.
Venus and Adonis garnered Shakespeare his original notability as a writer -- it was far more popular then than it is now (which is saying something). But the more I think about what kind of criteria would constitute "greatest," I can comfortably shuffle a few others above him. Milton and Donne, surely. Probably Sidney. And if we're going beyond the Renaissance, there are many 19th and 20th century poets I could see getting the mantle of "greatest" -- or at least have reasonable claims I couldn't really deny. I still think it's a stupid and pointless endeavor to
seriously pursue the idea that there can and should be only one greatest that the rest must aspire to, but if we're playing that game (and it truly IS a game)...let's actually
play it.
I'll start. I claim that Milton is the greatest poet of all time. From his formative years through to his death, he carefully curated his development as a poet, even as he became a fervent anti-Royalist parliamentarian, often marked by his political pamphlets. His 1645
Poems is a brilliant document of his poetic development to that point, and contains arguably one of the best elegies (and "monodies") of all time in "Lycidas." His sonnets are frequently exceptional, often channeling Spenser and Shakespeare, but improving upon both. But what makes Milton the greatest is his 10565-line masterpiece,
Paradise Lost. The sheer depth and breadth of this work made it essentially the final epic poem -- not in
fact, perhaps, but certainly in legacy. His Satan is the archetype of most Satans (or other devils) in modern media.
Paradise Lost is frequently quoted by people who have never read it, or don't even know the provenance of what they're quoting. And to cap it all off, Milton was
blind when he wrote it. Sure, Shakespeare had 154 sonnets, the popular-in-its-time
Venus and Adonis and the slightly-less-popular
Rape of Lucrece among others...but can those really measure up to the legacy of Milton and his ubiquitous
Paradise Lost?
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