[Max Goodman]

My disclaimer will be more self-indulgent than Shaun's: I'm an amateur admirer of Shakespeare, but one that's spent a lot of time with his work, and written about and with it.

The sonnets interest me far less than the plays, and (probably because our view of story has changed since Elizabethan times) the plays impress me less as complete works than as holders of extraordinary things: characters, lines, thoughts, passages, scenes, actions.

Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell

his contemporaries ... also have a strong command of character...

Character may be even more subjective and harder to talk about than the other qualities under discussion. Harold Bloom credited Shakespeare with "the invention of the human." If I understood and remember well, he meant that Shakespeare's were the first fictional characters capable of change.

It seems to me that most of Shakespeare's characters are more lifelike than most fictional characters I encounter elsewhere. It's possible, of course, that this impression results from the feedback loop Shaun mentions; there are few or no non-Shakespearean characters I've spent as much time with.

[Roger Slater]

I don't think the "feedback loop" concept explains why only a handful of artists have fallen into that loop and been declared to be among the greatest ever. I think it's far more plausible to conclude that Shakespeare's plays are actually, by and large, better than those of his contemporaries, and that these other writers were not, as you say, equally talented. I would make the same claim for Dylan and the Beatles. This doesn't mean that others have not written truly great plays or songs, but I am certain that my response to Shakespeare, Dylan, and the Beatles is one that is true to my sense of great art and not because I have been subject to the feedback loop that tells me what to think and how to feel. As evidence for that, I observe that there are many other "greats" I've never taken to in nearly the same way. For example, I have never fallen deeply into the feedback loop of Tennyson or Hardy, though each has written poems that I admire.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I don't think the "feedback loop" concept explains why only a handful of artists have fallen into that loop and been declared to be among the greatest ever. I think it's far more plausible to conclude that Shakespeare's plays are actually, by and large, better than those of his contemporaries, and that these other writers were not, as you say, equally talented.

So before I respond, I must first say that I do believe that Shakespeare is one of the best writers in the English language. I can say it quite confidently about his plays, though I'd probably say he's "among" the best sonneteers. There's a certain subjectivity there, of course, but I think there's always a slight danger in conflating endurance and popularity with concepts like "best" and "greatest." Endurance is one metric we can use to say someone's work is great...but it's not the only one (and yes, I know that wasn't your claim).

I've been in the academic game for long enough now that my thoughts on the matter have generally settled...but here's an illustrative anecdote. When I was still a Ph.D. student, I had to get through the hurdle of "comprehensive exams," which is quite a misnomer. For my field of early modern literature, you have to create a list of pertinent text of around 130-150 works -- about 2/3 of those being primary sources (plays, poetry collections, some prose), and the other 1/3 being critical texts on various elements of the field. I think I had eight Shakespeare plays on my list, and perhaps thirty by other playwrights. Since poetry was and is my specialty, I already knew most worthwhile works by early modern poets, but still had a few to discover. Going into the process, I expected to read a bunch of early modern non-Shakespeare plays and come out of the process saying "Yes, Shakespeare's unquestionably better." Instead, I came out of the process saying "Yes...Shakespeare's better. Usually." This is a subtle but important distinction, and it surprised me. There is a certain je nais ce quois to Shakespeare, and I'll never try to pretend that there isn't usually some superiority to his language/characterization/plotting etc. over his contemporaries. And yet when you start to read through the various works by said contemporaries, it's remarkable how strikingly similar they often are in most respects. Again, I'm talking about the plays here, as I think the poetry question is a lot thornier.

What I hope my posts have conveyed (and perhaps I've done a lousy job of it) is that Shakespeare is certainly great, and for plays, perhaps the greatest. However, it's not a case of him being so far ahead of the rest that there's not room for discussion. This semester I happen to be teaching Marlowe's Doctor Faustus as well as Shakespeare's The Tempest, and I fully plan on informally asking my class at the end which of the two they thought was "better." I'll be shocked if some don't choose the Marlowe. That won't mean that "Marlowe is better than Shakespeare," but rather that there's a lot more nuance to the idea that "Shakespeare is the greatest ever."

[Yves S L]

I will talk about Johann Sebastian Bach. During my teenage years, I fell asleep listening to his keyboard music. I was not much swayed by the mythology that grew around his genius, as I was not myself socially immersed within the culture of European classical music that might have challenged me to conform to what other people might say (I did not care how I might appear to other people who are socially immersed in that culture). I had not done a comparative study of his peers to judge how much he pushed against the established conventions of his time versus how much he innovated or was simply a better technician: to compress without speaking of any details, the music strongly spoke to my own sense of aesthetics. The talk about Shakespeare is as if someone can mandate that everyone find the same face beautiful, so strongly is the topic settled, and sure enough, the Europeans will choose a European face or similar, and likewise with other cultures.

In the last few years, using subtitles, I watched a historical Korean drama of many episodes which spoke to me emotionally much more than I have ever experienced of the English tradition as expressed through what I have gleaned of Shakespeare. It is obvious in the different music of different religions that different cultures do not express or are touched by similar emotions. The focus on the surface of language does not touch why different works of art evoke different responses in different people. To hint at what I am talking about, the English translation of the drama, and the voices of the English voice actors left me totally cold, and not wanting to dirty my lovely memories of my original experience watching the series (bear in mind I don't know Korean).

Now it might just be that the kind of folk who go deep into academia are such that they intellectualy/emotionally respond to Shakespeare's English. And that is fine.

Addendum: A person's use of English exhibits a person's cognitive/emotional patterns. Call it mental music. What is Shakespeare's mental music, and how does it correspond to the typical mental music of academicians?

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I don't think the "feedback loop" concept explains why only a handful of artists have fallen into that loop

It's not meant to. What it might explain is why the lesser greats who don't fall into the loop might be undervalued.

[N. Matheson]

This has not been my experience at all and I am wondering what happened in academia in the past two years apparently. What I was taught was Shakespeare is not merely an artist, but art incarnate. His works are so far removed from us mere mortals that to even think he is capable of being measured is like trying to put a chain around the wind. I recall one quote repeated that said the only person who created more than Shakespeare was God alone. Harold Bloom, who has been mentioned, also relegated every one of his contemporaries to hacks. He dismissed works such as The Spanish Tragedy as nonsense. I fail to see how anything anyone could have written even compares to his on remotely the same level.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

What I was taught was Shakespeare is not merely an artist, but art incarnate. His works are so far removed from us mere mortals that to even think he is capable of being measured is like trying to put a chain around the wind.

That sounds like lazy teaching.

As a reader/playgoer, you're free to feel that way, but attempting the impossible might lead to greater enjoyment. What is it that you love about Shakespeare? Do you find these qualities equally in every play, every sonnet, every line? Where do they most stand out, and why?

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Harold Bloom, who has been mentioned, also relegated every one of his contemporaries to hacks..

In the appendix to his Western Cannon, Bloom includes several of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He didn't rate them as Shakespeare's equals, but he found them worth reading and studying.

https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/...oogle_vignette

[N. Matheson]

I was told my opinions were irrelevant. His greatness was an objective fact, If I could not see the genius of every word, the fault was with me.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

This has not been my experience at all and I am wondering what happened in academia in the past two years apparently. What I was taught was Shakespeare is not merely an artist, but art incarnate. His works are so far removed from us mere mortals that to even think he is capable of being measured is like trying to put a chain around the wind. I recall one quote repeated that said the only person who created more than Shakespeare was God alone. Harold Bloom, who has been mentioned, also relegated every one of his contemporaries to hacks. He dismissed works such as The Spanish Tragedy as nonsense. I fail to see how anything anyone could have written even compares to his on remotely the same level.

Max and Cameron pretty much said the thing, but I'll say it a bit more directly...


Who gives a damn what your professors said? Any professor worth their salt will encourage you to draw your own conclusions. And you are 100% wrong about Bloom. He valued Shakespeare more highly than his contemporaries, true...but that's part of why I created this thread. I value Shakespeare more highly as well, but I insist that it's not a case of Triton among the minnows -- it's more like a great white shark among tiger sharks. All of them are impressive in their own right.

And let me make something very clear: Shakespeare had collaborators. We don't actually know the sheer extent of those collaborators, but at least five of his canonical plays were actually co-written (I mentioned Macbeth above), and some critics have asserted that number can be at least doubled. Middleton, Fletcher, Peele, Marlowe -- all of them wrote sections of plays attributed to Shakespeare. It's a fool's errand to try to separate the Shakespearean wheat from the ostensible collaborator chaff (though many have gamely attempted it), so...where's Shakespeare's overwhelming singular genius in those situations? And what do we make of something like Timon of Athens? I have a soft spot in my heart for the play, and yet it's clearly very flawed -- there is virtually no plot development in the last three acts.

So again, Shakespeare's great. Perhaps the greatest playwright of all time -- you certainly won't find me arguing against that. But bardolatry is pointless idol worship, when there's a world of amazing literature out there that is not by Shakespeare. And you don't want to get me started on the relative quality of Shakespeare's sonnets; I adore them, and they've been my major academic interest for a long time...but are they the "best" ever by any objective measure? Not on your life.

[N. Matheson]

Then what about verse or poetry in general? Who would you rank the highest?