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09-05-2024, 12:00 PM
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Shaun, if a play is written in verse, then it is both a play and verse. So I count all of Shakespeare's writing in verse--including the songs and blank verse of his plays--as poetry. When I talk about Shakespeare's range, I am alluding to the range of human experience that he covers in his plays, and the range of tone and technique that he suits to the range of content. Milton doesn't do comedy, and there are large swaths of human experience that he doesn't touch on. He is moving, impressive, and memorable in what he does cover, but Shakespeare is more versatile.
Susan
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09-06-2024, 05:10 AM
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Thank you for proving my entire point.
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09-06-2024, 05:11 AM
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That's just a long way of saying Milton failed as a poet.
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09-06-2024, 05:18 AM
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Honestly, you are all claiming to disagree with me only to echo everything I am saying. You all agree he cannot be rivalled and there is inherently less value in reading the works of others like Milton. You are just saying everything I am, except you're not saying the quiet part aloud. You all agree you're going to make works inferior to Shakespeare and nobody can ever rival him... but you're still gonna write anyway. That's like building a tower knowing fully a gust of wind is gonna knock it down at any moment. Why are you even bothering when you know the outcome is already failure? I do not understand this!
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09-06-2024, 05:34 AM
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You have developed an elaborate justification for not writing poetry. Really, you don't need one. Just don't write. Nobody will complain.
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09-06-2024, 06:03 AM
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You all agree with me but insist on writing. This is my confusion. I don't get it.
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09-06-2024, 06:32 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by N. Matheson
Honestly, you are all claiming to disagree with me only to echo everything I am saying. You all agree he cannot be rivalled and there is inherently less value in reading the works of others like Milton. You are just saying everything I am, except you're not saying the quiet part aloud. You all agree you're going to make works inferior to Shakespeare and nobody can ever rival him... but you're still gonna write anyway. That's like building a tower knowing fully a gust of wind is gonna knock it down at any moment. Why are you even bothering when you know the outcome is already failure? I do not understand this!
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N., this is patently ridiculous, and I think you know it. I think it's also why I get PM's from members saying you're a "bot" or a "troll." Nobody except you has said anything in the ballpark of "there is inherently less value in reading the works of others like Milton." I have said SO many times in this thread (as have others) that art is not a competition. It's not about who is or is not "the greatest." You have this impossibly limited view that if you can't be better than Shakespeare, you've failed. I don't think a single member here believes that. I have never written to be "better" than anyone, because that's typically not the point of writing (unless that's an inner motivator). Not being "greater than Shakespeare" is not a failure, because (again, again, again) that's not what we write for. There's a reason why the Norton Anthology of Poetry is well over 2000 pages, containing several hundred poets (and just in English). Poets before Shakespeare, poets after Shakespeare, poets few recognize, poets most recognize... Shakespeare gets quite a few pages, but it would be an awfully slim anthology if it were his works alone.
Your analogy about the tower is flawed, but I can fix it for you. What you are actually saying is that the only building in a large city that matters is the tallest one, and anyone who cannot make a tower taller than the tallest is unworthy (but is also somehow foolish to even try). You also seem to suggest that there is no point for any tower but one...and yet a city with a single tower is not a city at all: it's a barren landscape devoid of anything interesting except a single, impressively tall tower! Continuing this analogy, with a fixation on only the tallest tower, you miss the hundreds of other beautiful buildings surrounding it. Some are short, some are tall, some are historical sites, some are brand new, some have different architectural styles, some are worthwhile variations...but they're all different, all unique, and all make up a distinctive skyline, even if one tower looms a little higher than the rest. When we think of Chicago, we might think of the Willis Tower as a distinctive feature -- it's the tallest building, and a tourist attraction. But while the Willis Tower is an impressive spectacle, Chicago is far, far more than just that recognizable landmark.
I know my words here aren't going to sway you, because nothing in this thread has. It feels like a real-life example of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," and I literally feel bad for anyone who has such a closed-minded view of the nature of art. But here's the fun irony: I created this thread as a way to address your perspective in a measured, educational way. The result has been a long, enriching, nuanced thread with some wonderful insights from dozens of Eratosphere members. I'm certain that I'm not the only one who has looked forward to reading others' responses, considering their insightfulness, and weighing in when I figured I had something reasonably intelligent to contribute. And that's thanks to you, N.! This thread wouldn't have existed without me feeling the need to push back on the notion of Shakespeare being the only worthwhile writer. Maybe the thread won't be lauded as the greatest thread of all time in 400 years, but hey, some of us have enjoyed it anyhow.
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09-06-2024, 07:39 AM
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It's hard to take you seriously, N, because your logic is so ridiculous.
Let's, just for argument's sake, say that Shakespeare is the "best poet ever" and that this means there is no point in writing because nobody could ever match him. This seems to be your position. A very odd one for a member of a poetry workshop but there it is.
Presumably, by this logic, you must think that Milton, Blake, Keats, Dickinson, Eliot, Plath (etc etc until today) should not have bothered writing either, since they came after Shakespeare. So you would like the entire history of poetry to have stopped soon after the early 17th century.
Here's where it gets really silly.
Before Shakespeare began his writing career, presumably somebody else must have been "the best poet ever". Chaucer maybe? So, by your logic Shakespeare himself should not have bothered writing because, well, how could he ever match Chaucer?
And before Chaucer...
Do you see how reductio ad absurdum all this is?
Personally, when I write a poem I don't see myself as in competition with anyone. Shakespeare is wonderful but dozens of writers, and individual poems, have given me as much joy and magic. I strive, perhaps, to be somewhere in their company and, importantly, something beyond my control makes me love the act of creation itself. The idea that there is one unattainable peak is beyond silly. It's interesting, I think, that there is no consensus on who the second best poet is. That's because there's nothing scientific or objective about this ranking endeavour. Shakespeare just happens to have been placed at the top because humans have a natural tendency to want to create hierarchies.
If you must write, you will write. It's that simple.
Last edited by Mark McDonnell; 09-06-2024 at 07:56 AM.
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09-06-2024, 08:05 AM
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Shaun, Mark, Chris even,
What evidence is there that N. is even reading our responses to N. (or that N. has any interest in reading anything, including the plays or poems of Shakespeare)? What purpose is there in disputing with him, rather than continuing our discussion?
Those are rhetorical questions, though I suppose if there were answers, I'd be interested in them--maybe in a separate thread, which is where all the is-the-purpose-of-writing-to-defeat-Shakespeare? stuff, IMO, belongs.
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09-06-2024, 08:16 AM
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Quote:
What evidence is there that N. is even reading our responses to N. (or that N. has any interest in reading anything, including the plays or poems of Shakespeare)?
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Very little, Max, it's true. And yes, halfway through writing my post I did wonder why I was bothering. However, something about N's relentless, one-note negativity seems to have been a catalyst to a very interesting, articulate thread, almost as if in defiant contrast.
But I agree, the "is there any point writing" argument is a silly dead end.
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