On Shakespeare's Transcendent Knowledge: No Calibans Allowed
Prospero
On Shakespeare's Transcendent Knowledge: No Calibans Allowed
In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
and Isaac Asimov!!!!
>> that his "comprehensiveness of knowledge," of all facets of human
>> life, is second to none.
>
>Nonsense. He can't hold a candle to Leibnitz, or even to Isaac Asimov.
>
This is the root of the problem between Stratfordians and, in this
case, Bloom and myself. Kennedy believes the kind of knowledge that
Leibnitz and Asimov had in abundance, the kind of knowledge evidenced
by Caliban, of every rock and tree, is the sort of transcendent
knowledge of the Author.
Asimov was certainly loaded with this lower level knowledge. But
seldom, if ever, displays any of the higher kind of knowledge in his
many works and few interviews.
In the Republic an imaginary hierarchy of cognition is built.
Knowledge, it is suggested, begins with a kind of vague comprehension
of cause and effect, what make the car go? You put the key in it and
turn the switch. Then you step on that lever with your fright foot.
The next level up is a knowledge of internal causes, the key causes
the starter to turn over, which cranks the motor, the motor then
drives the car; above this level is the technical level of how voltage
flows and how the motor works and at the top level is the knowledge of
universal causes, of things in themselves.
In our case, of human beings.
No one, particularly not Leibnitz or Isaac Asimov, knows as much about
human beings as did the Author of Shakespeare's works. And you will
never appreciate this following the likes of Kennedy and Northrop
Frye, men almost totally lacking in this higher level of philosophic
knowledge. Men that prove incapable of even recognizing it when they
see it.
Plato easily understood all the "types of people" and put them into
his dramatic dialogues for us to study.
Kennedy, as a Caliban or Glaucon type, will never be able to follow
the master into these realms and will, forever, be barred from these
heights. I suppose Kennedy may prove more like Ion than Glaucon...but
just as Socrates once explained to Glaucon that he could not follow
the master into these realms, Socrates makes it very clear than poor
Ion will never go there either. Puffed up as Ion was with playing the
parts of others.
Real knowledge, at this, the highest of levels, is a knowledge of and
reflection on things as they are. And things are never as they seem
to be. So it is not the knowledge of trivia or an apprehension
similar to sight. Real sight, the kind of sight Shakespeare had,
consists in seen things not as appear to be but as they are. And it
requires in the seer the exercising of the capacity for "wonder."
Caliban and Kennedy do ok on rocks and trees, but both are blinded by
their natures from seeing things not as they are but as they should or
might be. They both lack capacity for wonder.
Seeing us as we should or might be is another way of following Bloom
into seeing that Shakespeare invented the human.
For the Author first and foremost sees in us what we might or should
become.
Even Kennedy and Kathman might in time learn to make the journey, but
for now they must remain behind with Caliban. Creatures without
wonder.
Bloom notes cogently "it is never wise to assume that Shakespeare did
not know anything that was available in or near his world, his
curiosity was unappeasable, his energy for information boundless."
(189) and inexhaustible.
He's certainly right in this observation. Which again puts Bloom at
odds with Stratfordians like Kennedy, Bate and Kathman who must dumb
down Shakespeare to explain him.
Summing up. The Author of these works was the world's wisest man.
And wisdom is the result of reflection on knowledge, not just
knowledge itself. How did the then young Author know the old Falstaff
from the inside out? How could he have know what it was like to be
old, having never been old? This kind of knowing is philosophic
knowing and it resides at a higher level than mere physical or
mechanical knowledge.
It has been my fate to have visited with both Isaac Asimov and Robert
C. Clark, and to have read many of their works. Clark remains far
more perceptive at this level than Asimov, in my opinion, and Asimov
was candid enough to say so.
Yet neither are philosophers in the sense of Plato and Shakespeare,
and both were smart enough to know it.
Lets see what Bloom says, "Shakespeare, who understood everything that
we comprehend and far more (humankind never will stop catching up to
him), long since had exorcised Marlowe, and Christian tragedy (however
inverted) with him."
Bloom quotes Wallace Stevens, who also credited Shakespeare the
invention of the human, and who wrote "before we were wholly human and
knew ourselves [through him]" And A. D. Nuttall, "Shakespeare is out
ahead of us, illuminating our latest intellectual fashions more
sharply than they can illuminate him, and Shakespeare enables us to
see realities that may already have been there but that we would not
find it possible to see without him..." (487)
Again,
"You cannot reduce Shakespeare to any single power, of all his myriad
gifts, and assert that he matters most because of that one glory. Yet
all his endowments issue from his extraordinary intelligence, which
for comprehensiveness is unmatched, and not just among the great
writers....here at last we encounter an intelligence without
limits...we are always catching up."
And right on target, Bloom concludes: "I marvel at critics, of
whatever persuasions, old and new, who substitute their knowingness
(really their resentment) for Shakespeare's woe and wonder, which are
among the prime manifestation of his cognitive power." (271)
Bloom calls this failure to see the Author for what he was
"resentment," but one wonders if this isn't too harsh an assessment?
Is it not more of a simple question of blindness? Lacking greatness
in themselves, these critics fail to see it in others. They are like
those citizens of Abbot's Flatland who lack the ability to visualize
in three dimensions. In this case they are men who will never write a
poem the equal of *Hero and Leander* or *Venus and Adonis* or a play
the equal of *Romeo and Juliet* or even *Aeneas and Dido.*
What fools these mortals be.
My own experience in these subjects tells me we have nothing to loose
and everything to gain by acknowledging greatness in others. The road
to philosophic understanding lies in our ability to work with "woe and
wonder." Shakespeare's works are an endless source of both. And
unless we assume they were produced by witchcraft...we have to concede
a wit well beyond ourselves was at work within them.
I'm reminded of what Edvard Grieg said about himself, citing Goethe,
something in English like, "why are my works touched with genius?
Because I, like other mortals, was once endowed with it...." For
Grieg it was the love of Nina Hagerup, for Berlioz the love of Harriet
Smithson, an Irish actress who Hector had seen as Ophelia in *Hamlet*
in Paris.
I dare say nothing the Strats will ever write today, dumbing down the
Bard as they do, will inspire anyone as much as Harriet inspired
Berlioz...and her impact on him was Shakespeare's magic, because the
spark in her was Shakespeare's fiery lines.
Still feverish...
John Baker
Visit my Webpage:
http://www2.localaccess.com/marlowe
"Chance favors the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur
Erik Nielsen
think even your fellow nuts will be able to defend you, John. Your
"higher level of knowledge" sounds awfully like some kind of crackpot
religion... what, do you propose we sacrifice goats to Shakespeare?
> Summing up. The Author of these works was the world's wisest man.
> And wisdom is the result of reflection on knowledge, not just
> knowledge itself. How did the then young Author know the old Falstaff
> from the inside out? How could he have know what it was like to be
> old, having never been old? This kind of knowing is philosophic
> knowing and it resides at a higher level than mere physical or
> mechanical knowledge.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
Ha, John.
--nielsen
derc...@my-deja.com
Prospero wrote:
>
> On Shakespeare's Transcendent Knowledge: No Calibans Allowed
>
> In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
> comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
> and Isaac Asimov!!!!
>
> >> that his "comprehensiveness of knowledge," of all facets of human
> >> life, is second to none.
> >
> >Nonsense. He can't hold a candle to Leibnitz, or even to Isaac
Asimov.
> >
>
Kennedy is displaying blindness here...
<major snip>
I must say, I had the same reaction -- as I've had to some of Kennedy's
other posts. But instead of replying, I've just thrown my arms up in
the air and said, "oh well."
An analogy might be how different people see, say, one of Monet's
paintings of Rouen Cathedral. Well, it is pretty, surely; masterful
work with color, even. Very, very impressive. Fact be told, though,
it doesn't get the details quite right: can't seem to draw lines
correctly. A great artist, of course (of course), though one might
wonder why he didn't use black or .. I mean, why these artificial
limits? Nothing special in the subject -- not from this view, anyway.
But we know he's a great artist, so sure, it's a great painting.
Really.
So saith the clueless one. Who misses the subjects -- it's about
seeing -- and about light -- and how reality shimmers differently with
the hours -- it's about what we know -- what we can and can't -- and it
celebrates this visionary existence.
But some only see it as an object.. a faulty one, at that, but, thanks
to public opinion, a good faulty one...
Sent via Deja.com
http://www.deja.com/
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
> > comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
> > and Isaac Asimov!!!!
Well, it depends on what you mean by "comprehensive knowledge
of mankind." If it means what it says, then I would hope every
presentday collitch grajerit would have a more comprehensive
knowledge of mankind, thanks to the discoveries of the past
four centuries, than Shakespeare. Of course, Colin, you read
the discussion badly again. Baker was talking about "knowledge
of all facets of human life." That would include all kinds of
stuff Shakespeare knew nothing about, like physics, but Asimov
did.
> > >> that his "comprehensiveness of knowledge," of all facets of human
> > >> life, is second to none.
> > >
> > >Nonsense. He can't hold a candle to Leibnitz, or even to Isaac
> Asimov.
> An analogy might be how different people see, say, one of Monet's
> paintings of Rouen Cathedral. Well, it is pretty, surely; masterful
> work with color, even. Very, very impressive. Fact be told, though,
> it doesn't get the details quite right: can't seem to draw lines
> correctly. A great artist, of course (of course), though one might
> wonder why he didn't use black or .. I mean, why these artificial
> limits? Nothing special in the subject -- not from this view, anyway.
> But we know he's a great artist, so sure, it's a great painting.
> Really.
Not quite. It would be like saying Monet, in view of his
paintings of the cathedral, knew more about cathedrals than
any other human being, which would be idiotic. He was a
great painter of cathedrals like Shakespeare was a great
painter of human nature. But his chief knowledge was of
painting, not of cathedrals; Shakespeare's was of dramatic
writing, not of human nature. I would add that I never
learned anything about human nature from Shakespeare, whose
knowledge seems conventional, heresy though that may seem
to many on my own side of the authorship question. He
was merely sane about human nature. Where he outdid me and
a lot of others was in his capacity to empathize with various
aspects of it, and express it in words.
But here the discussion gets tricky because of the varied
meanings of "knowledge"--and, of course, because John Baker
can't express himself balancedly--he can't say Shakespeare
had a greater writer's knowledge of human nature than anyone
else ever, which may be true; he has to go on about "every
facet of human life.
> So saith the clueless one. Who misses the subjects -- it's about
> seeing -- and about light -- and how reality shimmers differently with
> the hours -- it's about what we know -- what we can and can't -- and
> it celebrates this visionary existence.
>
> But some only see it as an object.. a faulty one, at that, but, thanks
> to public opinion, a good faulty one...
I suspect if you learned how to read, Colin, you might find that
John Kennedy isn't quite as clueless as you think.
--Bob G.
bookburn
>
> In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
> comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
> and Isaac Asimov!!!!
>
> >> that his "comprehensiveness of knowledge," of all facets of human
> >> life, is second to none.
> >
> >Nonsense. He can't hold a candle to Leibnitz, or even to Isaac
Asimov.
> >
>
> This is the root of the problem between Stratfordians and, in this
> case, Bloom and myself. Kennedy believes the kind of knowledge that
> Leibnitz and Asimov had in abundance, the kind of knowledge evidenced
> by Caliban, of every rock and tree, is the sort of transcendent
> knowledge of the Author.
The kind of knowledge Shakespeare had seems transcendent, but instead
of labeling it as a kind of intelligence and comparing it favorably
with philosophical power, I would point out that the English
Renaissance had a lot going for it and Shakespeare surfed some big
waves.
I'm referring to the systematic philosophy, religion, psychology,
sociology--everything--left over from the Middle Ages, fully integrated
so that everything in the Great Chain of Being was coherent as an
ocean; yet waves of innovation were breaking on shores of human
consciousness. So in this sense, Shakespeare was in the right place at
the right time with his surf board and caught some big ones.
That he was the right man may owe to a special capacity for empathy
with mankind, imitative facility, and innovative genius, but that's
apart from knowledge of the seascape he had to work with, IMO.
bookburn
Mark Steese
<95t1ah$n2g$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>:
[snip]
>An analogy might be how different people see, say, one of Monet's
>paintings of Rouen Cathedral. Well, it is pretty, surely; masterful
>work with color, even. Very, very impressive. Fact be told, though,
>it doesn't get the details quite right: can't seem to draw lines
>correctly. A great artist, of course (of course), though one might
>wonder why he didn't use black or .. I mean, why these artificial
>limits? Nothing special in the subject -- not from this view, anyway.
>But we know he's a great artist, so sure, it's a great painting.
>Really.
>
>So saith the clueless one. Who misses the subjects -- it's about
>seeing -- and about light -- and how reality shimmers differently with
>the hours -- it's about what we know -- what we can and can't -- and it
>celebrates this visionary existence.
>
>But some only see it as an object.. a faulty one, at that, but, thanks
>to public opinion, a good faulty one...
Between the Shakespeareans and the antis, a better analogy might be between
people who believe, on the basis of the evidence, that Monet's paintings
are in fact Monet's, and people who believe, on the basis of airy nothing,
that the paintings are the work of Louis Charles d'Orleans, Duc de Nemours
(1814-1896). After all, did Monet have a university education?
By the way, your description of the Monet above is perhaps the worst
imitation of Emily Dickinson I've ever read. As art criticism, it's also
terrible - the kind of thing that makes "the clueless ones" sneer at
Impressionism in the first place. In its details, it is no more
substantial or perceptive than the paragraph that precedes it. Gives an
interesting insight into your personality, though.
Yours,
Mark Steese
--
Bibrau is the name of the girl who sits in the blue
-Runic inscription from Greenland, c. 11th C. A.D.
Ingigerth is the most beautiful of women
-Runic inscription from Maes Howe, c. 1153-54 A.D.
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
Which is about what I said--MUCH less colorfully. Nice job, BB.
--Bob G.
Neuendorffer
> In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
> comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
> and Isaac Asimov!!!!
Last night on the Drew Cary Show Shakespeare couldn't even beat Cary
in a game of Trivial Pursuit.
Art
derc...@my-deja.com
You can't be a great painter of human nature without knowing human
nature, just as you can't paint a portrait without knowing both the
physical nuances of the face AND the paints you manipulate onto the
canvas.
> I would add that I never
> learned anything about human nature from Shakespeare, whose
> knowledge seems conventional, heresy though that may seem
> to many on my own side of the authorship question. He
> was merely sane about human nature. Where he outdid me and
> a lot of others was in his capacity to empathize with various
> aspects of it, and express it in words.
>
Do you really think he was just a wonderful wordsmith with conventional
content? I was recently rereading MidsummerND, and was struck by how
much is commentary on love (for instance, this paraphrase: 'reason
says you are the worthier maid'... said after being hit by love dust;
it's a prescient comment on our general understanding of "reason") and
on the uncertainty of knowledge: what we know, what is real (or was it
a dream?) For me, it reverberates at much deeper levels than a
philosophical treatise with the same insight would -- or a
psychological essay on the simultaneous illusion and power of love,
because it appeals not just to the rational mind, but to the human
experiencing mind as well.
> But here the discussion gets tricky because of the varied
> meanings of "knowledge"--and, of course, because John Baker
> can't express himself balancedly--he can't say Shakespeare
> had a greater writer's knowledge of human nature than anyone
> else ever, which may be true; he has to go on about "every
> facet of human life.
>
> > So saith the clueless one. Who misses the subjects -- it's about
> > seeing -- and about light -- and how reality shimmers differently
with
> > the hours -- it's about what we know -- what we can and can't -- and
> > it celebrates this visionary existence.
> >
> > But some only see it as an object.. a faulty one, at that, but,
thanks
> > to public opinion, a good faulty one...
>
> I suspect if you learned how to read, Colin, you might find that
> John Kennedy isn't quite as clueless as you think.
>
> --Bob G.
I was frustrated when I wrote the above, and even felt bad at the time
for the derision in my tone. But we are at an impasse, if some view
Shakespeare as just conventional wisdom beautifully written, and others
see him choosing a medium to express deep ideas about the human world.
They are too different perspectives.
Colin
MakBane
>I never
>learned anything about human nature from Shakespeare, whose
>knowledge seems conventional, heresy though that may seem
>to many on my own side of the authorship question.
His knowledge of human nature was conventional?! Are you only TRYING to stir up
the hornets' nest? You can't honestly believe that the Shakespearean Canon
reflects the typical outlook of a middle-class merchant (and crypto-poet, of
course) in Elizabethan England. Shakspere was a money-maker and an aspiring
bourgeois. The Author, on the other hand, was a man who could walk with princes
and paupers. The Author crafted immortal word paintings disguised as plays and
sonnets. He conveyed more in a single soliloquy than whole books of
conventional philosophy. He is the epitome of moral philosophy, which is the
final purpose of knowing human nature.
Stratfordians unconsciously cut Shakespeare with sawdust and other fillers, and
draw him back into the circle of plausibility: He's not so great. He's
perfectly typical of his time and class. He was a writer FOR THE STAGE! Nobody
cared for playwrights (except for the Queen and some folks she hung out with).
Nobody kept a letter or a scrap of manuscript having anything to do with him.
Blah, blah, blah.
By the way, did the groundlings ever get a chance to sit during those three
hour plays written for the stage?
Toby Petzold
Ernest Faitos
That's great! As to Robert C. Clark, is he by any chance related to Arthur
C. Clarke?
Just wondering.
I really do appreciate how superior you are, by the way. Although I like to
think that if I were as superior as you, I would find better things to do
then hang around newsgroups trying to convince other people how superior I
am.
ernsign
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > . . . like saying Monet, in view of his
> > paintings of the cathedral, knew more about cathedrals than
> > any other human being, which would be idiotic. He was a
> > great painter of cathedrals like Shakespeare was a great
> > painter of human nature. But his chief knowledge was of
> > painting, not of cathedrals; Shakespeare's was of dramatic
> > writing, not of human nature.
>
> You can't be a great painter of human nature without knowing human
> nature, just as you can't paint a portrait without knowing both the
> physical nuances of the face AND the paints you manipulate onto the
> canvas.
Did I say you could? Try to read, Colin. I said Shakespeare's
CHIEF knowledge was of dramatic writing. He certainly knew
human nature, but his knowledge was a writer's knowledge of
human nature, not a psychologist's knowledge. In other words,
he founded no school of psychology, he merely used his
knowledge of people, which I suspect was not greater than
thousands of people's knowledge of people, to create characters
for his plays--the way a salesman might use his equal knowledge
of people to sell frying pans.
> > I would add that I never
> > learned anything about human nature from Shakespeare, whose
> > knowledge seems conventional, heresy though that may seem
> > to many on my own side of the authorship question. He
> > was merely sane about human nature. Where he outdid me and
> > a lot of others was in his capacity to empathize with various
> > aspects of it, and express it in words.
> >
> Do you really think he was just a wonderful wordsmith with
> conventional content? I was recently rereading MidsummerND,
> and was struck by how much is commentary on love (for
> instance, this paraphrase: 'reason says you are the
> worthier maid'... said after being hit by love dust;
> it's a prescient comment on our general understanding of
> "reason") and on the uncertainty of knowledge: what we
> know, what is real (or was it a dream?) For me, it
> reverberates at much deeper levels than a
> philosophical treatise with the same insight would
> -- or a psychological essay on the simultaneous
> illusion and power of love, because it appeals not
> just to the rational mind, but to the human
> experiencing mind as well.
Sorry, it's no big deal to me. I think these kinds of
thoughts are standard to almost any reflective person.
A psychologist discussing the same "insight" who did no
more than describe it as Shakespeare does would be
worthless as a psychologist--a mere trait-lister. A
real psychologist would explain the thoughts and feelings
involved by means of some systematic theory of psychology.
I am impressed by MND's atmospheric effects and archetypal
richness--and plot twists. I am not impressed by its
knowledge of human nature, however sound, as I believe
that a given for any good writer, or intelligent person.
SNIP
> >
> I was frustrated when I wrote the above, and even felt bad at the time
> for the derision in my tone. But we are at an impasse, if some view
> Shakespeare as just conventional wisdom beautifully written, and
> others see him choosing a medium to express deep ideas about the
> human world. They are too different perspectives.
>
> Colin
Well, I'd say Shakespeare did a lot more than express conventional
wisdom in a verbally beautiful way. He was a great DRAMAtist,
so picked his scenes well, and designed them well; he was a
great architect of plot. He had a superior sense of what is
archetypally significant. He had a well-developed sense of
humor. He was terrific with metaphors, which is different
from just being able to use words well. And he had a broad
sympathy with human beings. As for his conventional wisdom,
he perhaps had more of it than many. I would point out that
expressing even conventional wisdom is probably at least twice
as hard as merely having it. Anyone can know human nature;
few can write well about it.
--Bob G.
John W. Kennedy
> On Shakespeare's Transcendent Knowledge: No Calibans Allowed
> In a recent post John Kennedy suggested that Shakespeare's
> comprehensive knowledge of mankind was easily surpassed by Leibnitz
> and Isaac Asimov!!!!
> >> that his "comprehensiveness of knowledge," of all facets of human
> >> life, is second to none.
To begin with, what a curious sort of mind it is that casually equates
"'comprehensiveness of knowledge,' of all facets of human life" to
"comprehensive knowledge of mankind."
Since that pretty well yanks out the bolt of the trapdoor Baker is
standing on here, I'll address myself further only to incidental
fallacies.
> And you will
> never appreciate this following the likes of Kennedy and Northrop
> Frye, men almost totally lacking in this higher level of philosophic
> knowledge. Men that prove incapable of even recognizing it when they
> see it.
You know nothing of me, nothing of my opinions, knowledge, and damn
little of my life.
> Kennedy, as a Caliban or Glaucon type, will never be able to follow
> the master into these realms and will, forever, be barred from these
> heights. I suppose Kennedy may prove more like Ion than Glaucon...but
> just as Socrates once explained to Glaucon that he could not follow
> the master into these realms, Socrates makes it very clear than poor
> Ion will never go there either. Puffed up as Ion was with playing the
> parts of others.
Still obsessed with the idea that I'm an actor, huh? How many times
have I pointed out now that it's a hobby? (Of course, even as a hobby,
it means that I know things about Shakespeare that no one will never
understand who hasn't thus met him face to face.)
> Caliban and Kennedy do ok on rocks and trees, but both are blinded by
> their natures from seeing things not as they are but as they should or
> might be. They both lack capacity for wonder.
Oddly enough, I auditioned as Caliban last week. (I wasn't going for
the role; that was just one of the the scenes they handed out.) I'm
told I did pretty well, especially since I was reading it semi-cold.
But it was actually my Ariel that the director singled out for praise.
(Not that I got cast as either -- I'm 52 years old and weigh 250 pounds;
I'm playing Gonzalo, which I pretty much expected going in.)
> For the Author first and foremost sees in us what we might or should
> become.
Or what we should not.
> Even Kennedy and Kathman might in time learn to make the journey, but
> for now they must remain behind with Caliban. Creatures without
> wonder.
No, just without the curse of not being able to distinguish fantasy from
fact.
I cannot speak for Dave Kathmann, but as for myself, I program
computers, act, sing, dance a little, arrange music, write fiction (from
horror to Oz), and occasionally dabble in verse. Oh, and 30-odd years
ago I played electric bass and saxophone in a couple of rock bands. And
my favorite 20th-century poet is Charles Williams. And right now I'm
translating "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" into Loglan.
Get a life. Trust me, it's worth the effort.
> Bloom notes cogently "it is never wise to assume that Shakespeare did
> not know anything that was available in or near his world, his
> curiosity was unappeasable, his energy for information boundless."
> (189) and inexhaustible.
The first part, interpreted generously (for, interpreted strictly, it is
nothing short of idiotic), is all but a tautology. "It is never wise to
assume that Shakespeare did not know anything...," forsooth! I have
never assumed any such thing in my life. I have, however, frequently
observed that Shakespeare does not know something or other when his
written works make it manifest that he does not, and I also damn well
refuse to take it as gospel that he is an expert on a subject merely
because he can toss around a few technical terms. If knowing a
half-dozen technical terms of, say, music, makes Shakespeare an expert
musician, why then let us fire all the engineers at NASA and let the
writing staff of "Star Trek: Voyager" take Man to the stars!
The second part could as easily describe me.
> He's certainly right in this observation. Which again puts Bloom at
> odds with Stratfordians like Kennedy, Bate and Kathman who must dumb
> down Shakespeare to explain him.
You know, I'm getting sick to death of this particular pet lie of
yours. It does Shakespeare no honor to call him what he manifestly is
not.
> Summing up. The Author of these works was the world's wisest man.
Piffle. He was a damn good poet and one of the world's very top
dramatists, and a great observer of human nature, but by that very fact,
he could not have been "the world's wisest man" if he had wanted to be.
Pray, what lesson do we learn from "Hamlet"? "If you want to kill your
uncle, seize the first opportunity"? "Always open your friends' mail;
maybe they're plotting to kill you"? "If you feel like shtupping your
mother, don't bring a sword with you"?
> And wisdom is the result of reflection on knowledge, not just
> knowledge itself. How did the then young Author know the old Falstaff
> from the inside out? How could he have know what it was like to be
> old, having never been old? This kind of knowing is philosophic
> knowing and it resides at a higher level than mere physical or
> mechanical knowledge.
Everyone who has ever written fiction is laughing at you now.
> It has been my fate to have visited with both Isaac Asimov and Robert
> C. Clark, and to have read many of their works. Clark remains far
> more perceptive at this level than Asimov, in my opinion, and Asimov
> was candid enough to say so.
I met Asimov once at a performance of "Iolanthe". I was playing Pvt.
Willis.
As to "Robert C. Clark", I suppose you met him at his home on -- let me
see -- Madagascar?
> Yet neither are philosophers in the sense of Plato and Shakespeare,
> and both were smart enough to know it.
Shakespeare is not a philosopher in the sense of Plato, or in any other
sense. He's a gawd-dam writer. A poet. A playwright. Not a
philosopher. Not a biochemist. Not an ecologist. Not a policeman, or
a butcher, or a computer programmer, or a figure skater, or the man who
cleans up after the elephant. A writer.
> Lets see what Bloom says, "Shakespeare, who understood everything that
> we comprehend and far more (humankind never will stop catching up to
> him), long since had exorcised Marlowe, and Christian tragedy (however
> inverted) with him."
The first half is pure intellectual diarrhea. The second half, on the
other hand, you, personally, should take to heart, because Marlowe was
no more Shakespeare than E. R. Eddison was Tolkien.
> Bloom quotes Wallace Stevens, who also credited Shakespeare the
> invention of the human, and who wrote "before we were wholly human and
> knew ourselves [through him]" And A. D. Nuttall, "Shakespeare is out
> ahead of us, illuminating our latest intellectual fashions more
> sharply than they can illuminate him, and Shakespeare enables us to
> see realities that may already have been there but that we would not
> find it possible to see without him..." (487)
And Donald Duck says "Quack!"
> I'm reminded of what Edvard Grieg said about himself, citing Goethe,
> something in English like, "why are my works touched with genius?
> Because I, like other mortals, was once endowed with it...." For
> Grieg it was the love of Nina Hagerup, for Berlioz the love of Harriet
> Smithson, an Irish actress who Hector had seen as Ophelia in *Hamlet*
> in Paris.
Berlioz and Harriet Smithson, eh?
Let's just say that Dante had better luck.
(I would be the last to knock the Way of Affirmations. But blindly
empedestaling the Berlioz/Smithson affair can't really be let pass. It
was a mess.
> I dare say nothing the Strats will ever write today, dumbing down the
> Bard as they do,
Oh _do_ shut up!
> will inspire anyone as much as Harriet inspired
> Berlioz...and her impact on him was Shakespeare's magic, because the
> spark in her was Shakespeare's fiery lines.
Or at least Garrick's....
> Still feverish...
Rather.
--
John W. Kennedy
(Working from my laptop)
john
<efa...@slhlawfirm.com> wrote:
>This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>--------------3BF19974C567A33F89BBA7BE
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>> It has been my fate to have visited with both Isaac Asimov and Robert
>> C. Clark, ...
>
>That's great! As to Robert C. Clark, is he by any chance related to Arthur
>C. Clarke?
>
>Just wondering.
right you are...c what the flew does 2 u?
Arthur C. Clarke...2001...etc.
>I really do appreciate how superior you are, by the way.
is this addressed to me...I don't feel superior to any of these
guys,..and I hand around here to keep my wit sharp...where else can we
chat about these subjects?
> Although I like to
>think that if I were as superior as you, I would find better things to do
>then hang around newsgroups trying to convince other people how superior I
>am.
>
>ernsign
>
>--------------3BF19974C567A33F89BBA7BE
>Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii;
> name="efaitos.vcf"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>Content-Description: Card for Ernest Faitos
>Content-Disposition: attachment;
> filename="efaitos.vcf"
>
>begin:vcard
>n:Faitos;Ernest
>tel;fax:(415) 391-9076
>tel;work:(415) 398-2404
>x-mozilla-html:FALSE
>fn;quoted-printable:Ernest Faitos=3B Sarrail, Lynch & Hall
>adr:;;;;;;
>version:2.1
>end:vcard
>
>--------------3BF19974C567A33F89BBA7BE--
John W. Kennedy
perhaps, more difficult than it first seems. On the one hand, we know
he _wrote_ it better than anyone before him, and at least as well as
anyone after. On the other, there are surely thousands today who are
easily more expert than he was. But how did he stand in his knowledge
with respect to his precursors? Did he write better than others merely
because he was a better writer? Or did he genuinely possess an
awareness such as no one before him had ever possessed?
Formally, the question cannot be answered, for the wisest man in all of
history may, after all, have been some illiterate Mesopotamian priest
whose insight and name perished before Sumer was a crossroads; we cannot
disprove that. But it remains true that there were writers before
Shakespeare, who, it might be thought, could have done what he did, if
understanding such as his were common. However, in actual fact,
psychology took a very long time to grow within literature. (C. S.
Lewis points out that, before allegory provided a tool, there was no
complex literary psychology.)
Shakespeare may have written more clearly because he saw more clearly.
John W. Kennedy
> His knowledge of human nature was conventional?! Are you only TRYING to stir up
> the hornets' nest?
> You can't honestly believe that the Shakespearean Canon
> reflects the typical outlook of a middle-class merchant (and crypto-poet, of
> course) in Elizabethan England.
No, it represents the outlook of a remarkably gifted middle-class
professional playwright in Elizabethan England.
> Shakspere was a money-maker and an aspiring
> bourgeois.
Just like the vast majority of authors.
> The Author, on the other hand, was a man who could walk with princes
> and paupers.
There's no evidence that he ever literally walked with princes, and one
couldn't live in Elizabethan London without walking with paupers.
> The Author crafted immortal word paintings disguised as plays and
> sonnets.
How purely fragrant! How earnestly precious! But it seems to me to be
nonsense.
> He conveyed more in a single soliloquy than whole books of
> conventional philosophy.
Your exercise for the day is to find the soliloquy in which Shakespeare
incorporated A) The Republic, B) the Novum Organum, C) the whole of the
Summa Theologica, or D) The Poetics.
> He is the epitome of moral philosophy, which is the
> final purpose of knowing human nature.
If I thought you were a Christian, I'd accuse you of blasphemy at this
point.
> Stratfordians unconsciously cut Shakespeare with sawdust and other fillers, and
> draw him back into the circle of plausibility: He's not so great.
Never said any such thing.
> He's
> perfectly typical of his time and class.
Never said any such thing.
> He was a writer FOR THE STAGE!
Duh!
> Nobody
> cared for playwrights (except for the Queen and some folks she hung out with).
Define "care for"?
> Nobody kept a letter or a scrap of manuscript having anything to do with him.
That's damn well typical of all writers of the period, yes. The total
volume of manuscripts of Elizabethan printed material is minuscule. The
evidence seems to be that once the printing was done, the manuscript was
not regarded as worth saving unless it has some other reason to be of
value. But whatever the reason, such manuscripts, by all period
authors, are very, very rare.
> Blah, blah, blah.
>
> By the way, did the groundlings ever get a chance to sit during those three
> hour plays written for the stage?
No. They don't at the New Globe, either. Or (often) at present-day
Renaissance faires (the oft-provided haybales are not always preferable
to standing, especially after a rainy week).
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> The issue of Shakespeare's practical knowledge of psychology is,
> perhaps, more difficult than it first seems. On the one hand, we know
> he _wrote_ it better than anyone before him, and at least as well as
> anyone after.
Well, even that is a difficult thing to judge. Possibly it could
be argued that Machiavelli, for instance, wrote psychology better
than Shakespeare--or at least more deeply about some aspects of
it. And, frankly, I can't see that Shakespeare displays more
knowledge of human psychology than the Greek playwrights,
including Aristophanes--per word. (We have more texts of his,
which gives him a big advantage.) But it's difficult to argue,
and I certainly am not familiar enough with Shakespeare's works,
or the works of other before him to more than spout impressions.
I simply remain sure that there is a certain level of psychological
understanding that ALL of us who are reasonably intelligent and
interested in people acquire by the time we're thirty or forty,
and that Shakespeare had that understanding but no more than it.
He didn't seem to have been a formal psychologist even to the
degree that Jonson, with his explicit theory of humours, was
(if he DID have such an explicit theory--it's been too long
since I've read him).
> On the other, there are surely thousands today who are easily
> more expert than he was. But how did he stand in his knowledge
> with respect to his precursors? Did he write better than others
> merely because he was a better writer?
I think so.
> Or did he genuinely possess an
> awareness such as no one before him had ever possessed?
It's possible that his and my understanding of human
nature matches up to where his goes on, and I don't
realize it does because mine has stopped. I just don't
think so. The question gets hugely complicated when
you try to compare knowledge of men at war, say, with
knowledge of men in pursuit of scientific truth, which
Marlowe shows to a greater degree than Shakespeare in
his plays. Certainly there are areas Shakespeare doesn't
discuss, like unconventional sexualities, and--oddly--
what it's like to be a playwright.
> Formally, the question cannot be answered, for the
> wisest man in all of history may, after all, have
> been some illiterate Mesopotamian priest
> whose insight and name perished before Sumer
> was a crossroads; we cannot disprove that.
I think the question is not who was wisest but who
expressed the most wisdom enduringly, a difficult
but not impossible question to answer. I tend to
think that whoever expressed the most wisdom
enduringly would almost have to have been the
most wise because I believe the ability to express
wisdom is much greater than the ability to have
wisdom, and includes the latter.
>But it remains true that there were writers before
> Shakespeare, who, it might be thought, could have
> done what he did, if understanding such as his
> were common. However, in actual fact, psychology
> took a very long time to grow within literature. (C. S.
> Lewis points out that, before allegory provided a tool,
> there was no complex literary psychology.)
Interesting point but I'm not sure I go along with it.
It would still support the idea that it's tools of
expression like allegory that allow improved delineation
of human nature, not improved understanding of human nature.
> Shakespeare may have written more clearly because he
> saw more clearly.
Maybe. And maybe we see as clearly only because of him. Fun
topic to bat around. Wish I had more time to do so (and maybe
even--gasp--do research about).
MakBane
>> His [Shakespeare's] knowledge of human nature was conventional?! Are you
[Bob G.] only TRYING to
>stir up
>> the hornets' nest?
>
>> You can't honestly believe that the Shakespearean Canon
>> reflects the typical outlook of a middle-class merchant (and crypto-poet,
>of
>> course) in Elizabethan England.
John W. Kennedy responds: >No, it represents the outlook of a remarkably gifted
middle-class
>professional playwright in Elizabethan England.
TP: A professional playwright who left no truly personal evidence of his trade
behind? One who, at the height of his fame, is unremembered and probably living
a hundred country miles away from the great literary scene to which he must
have been SOME kind of contributor? "That famous English Poet Mr. William
Shakespeare" is an apparition. At best, a name attached to a pair of popular
poems. He wasn't very widely known for his plays, and his Sonnets were read by
the halves of dozens (except maybe the sugared ones that Meres claimed were
circulated among friends who don't seem to have known much about him).
>> Shakspere was a money-maker and an aspiring
>> bourgeois.
>
>Just like the vast majority of authors.
But the documentary evidence speaks much more loudly to these pursuits than to
any literary ones.
>> The Author, on the other hand, was a man who could walk with princes
>> and paupers.
>
>There's no evidence that he ever literally walked with princes, and one
>couldn't live in Elizabethan London without walking with paupers.
Mr. Kennedy, this is an old expression my Daddy used to say to me. It means
that a good person will have sympathy and be polite and tolerant, whatever the
class of ones company. An intelligent man will practice politics and know the
viewpoints of rich men and beggars alike. Shakespeare is renowned for his
knowledge of human nature. He is a moral philosopher of the highest order.
>> TP: The Author crafted immortal word paintings disguised as plays and
>> sonnets.
>
>JWK: How purely fragrant! How earnestly precious! But it seems to me to be
>nonsense.
Fragrant is funny. You must belong to that old Stratfordian view that
Shakespeare was really not so much greater than his contemporaries. There's a
tendency to bring him down a bit to shave some of the sheen off his genius. But
that won't work: Shakespeare was a dramatic genius. There is incredible depth
and complexity in his plays that shouldn't be diminished by misunderstanding
his identity.
>> He conveyed more in a single soliloquy than whole books of
>> conventional philosophy.
>
>Your exercise for the day is to find the soliloquy in which Shakespeare
>incorporated A) The Republic, B) the Novum Organum, C) the whole of the
>Summa Theologica, or D) The Poetics.
Would there be some value in attempting this exercise? Do any of these
philosophical works have a tenth of the influence of Shakespeare's Hamlet or
Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet? People today know and care about these plays
because they are visual and aural and cerebral manifestations of the resolution
of moral and ethical dilemmas. They are true to life. The Republic is for
college boys. Shakespeare is for every man.
>> He is the epitome of moral philosophy, which is the
>> final purpose of knowing human nature.
>
>JWK: If I thought you were a Christian, I'd accuse you of blasphemy at this
>point.
I am a Neognostic and believe absolutely in the concept of blasphemy. That's
not a Christian-specific notion.
>> Stratfordians unconsciously cut Shakespeare with sawdust and other fillers,
>and
>> draw him back into the circle of plausibility: He's not so great.
>
>Never said any such thing.
No, but your school of thought has, and often.
>> He's
>> perfectly typical of his time and class.
>
>Never said any such thing.
So you don't believe that your small town middle-class playwright led a typical
existence? That he didn't fall into the same categories that Stratfordians
routinely use to justify the ordinariness of his documented life?
>> He was a writer FOR THE STAGE!
>
>Duh!
Is that so obvious? Shakespeare's imagination ranges farther than any mere
stage.
>> Nobody
>> cared for playwrights (except for the Queen and some folks she hung out
>with).
>
>Define "care for"?
Isn't the old saw that playwrights and actors were looked down on and
practically segregated? I've never been able to get from that to the obviously
high regard that Elizabeth and her court had for drama. If the nobility would
welcome these players into their company, why do scholars say that they were so
despised? It sounds like a lot of crap to me.
>>TP: Nobody kept a letter or a scrap of manuscript having anything to do with
>him.
>
>JWK: That's damn well typical of all writers of the period, yes. The total
>volume of manuscripts of Elizabethan printed material is minuscule. The
>evidence seems to be that once the printing was done, the manuscript was
>not regarded as worth saving unless it has some other reason to be of
>value. But whatever the reason, such manuscripts, by all period
>authors, are very, very rare.
I'm not talking about the wholesale loss of manuscripts to the ignorance or
expedience of cooks and servants; I'm talking about the kinds of ancedotal
evidence found in letters and diaries. We seem to have satisfactory knowledge
of the personal character of many of the writers of the time, but not of
Shakespeare. The story from Manningham (by way of a friend or somesuch) about
Shakespeare getting busy with Burbage's "date" is a complete hoot! I especially
like how the storyteller must explain the hilarity in the last sentence:
"Shakespeare's name [was] William."
Toby Petzold
john_baker
[My records show I posted this last night, but it is still not on my
board, so I'm posting it again...]
I wish your laughter was as infectious as my flu. Unfortunately
it has served only to depress me about the gulf that separate people
like yourself from people like Shakespeare and Plato.
Among my many friends are several world class musicians.
I don't know how many you know, and I'm not boasting, I'm just trying
to make a simple point. It's the same point Good Will Hunting made to
his girl friend in the movie. He could do those equations in his head,
but he didn't know the beans about what makes a piano work...to him it
was "just wood and wires."
Now most intelligent adults, of which I take you to be a member of
both classes, have learned that there are people whose native and
acquired intelligence far exceed their own, as my musician friends do
our limited skills in this area.
Socrates claimed, disingenuously I think, to be less able in all
things than his interlocutors.
Then we have you, who finds it humorous that Shakespeare's knowledge
is considered by people superior to ourselves in intellegence as
transcendent. This knowledge is not of a religious nature.
It doesn't work that way. You have to read Bloom, to see how he uses
"transcendent" in a humanistic way.
Shakespeare knows so much about so many things and it bubbles out so
often and so profoundly that we are moved to say he has "transcendent"
knowledge.
I didn't put examples in my essay. I'd saved them for the replies.
So consider his observation on lechery. He writes in Macbeth,
"Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes desire, but it
takes away the performance." (II,iii,32)
How does he know this? Has he experienced it? Has he held discussion
groups with lechers? What's he doing here? Making it up as he goes
along?
Surely not. Somewhere he's run across this statement in his readings.
Likely classical. He's noted it down and put it into his table book
and waited for the right opportunity to give it a meaningful context.
And it is this context that makes the observation transcendent. You
can jump from this one insight right into the heart of Freud or any
modern psychosexual authority. Lechery does inflame the desire, while
it takes away the performance. And in its self almost any fool could
figure it out. But many non fools succumb to it ravishes
nevertheless. The author clearly and fully understand the effects of
lechery on a personality and has devised entire plays, such as TC, to
deal with it.
As Bloom notes you can take anything to Shakespeare and discover that
he has considered it fully.
What is the motivation of Richard III? Does he not tell us that
lacking the appearance and attributes of a lover he'll have to be a
villain?
"Since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken
days
I am determined to prove a villain." (27-30)
Isn't this what drives Richard and many like him? Isn't this study of
sexual impotence and deformity transcendent of the play itself?
Doesn't it, for example, apply to poor Sir Robert Cecil and
dangerously so? And to Hitler, of course.
Do you want to know what its like to murder someone in cold blood in
your own home, while they sleep? Take it up with Lady Macbeth.
Do you want to know what its like to be totally in love and have your
stars crossed? Take it up with Romeo and Juliet. Do you want to know
what happens when you start to suspect your wife of infidelity? Take
it up with Othello. Do you want to know what happens when you set
yourself up to be judge, jury and executioner? Take it up with
Hamlet.
Do you want to know what happens when you aren't promoted when you
think you should be? Take it up with Iago.
Its just not possible to think of a meaningful human context that
Shakespeare has not explored fully and completely. But you are
welcome to try, Eric.
And it is this comprehensiveness of knowledge, brought back to us,
lovingly, by the Author, shared with us fools in our caves, over and
over again, which separates him from the likes of you and me.
I'll never know as much as he knows and, like Bloom, I'll always be
catching up with him. I can write for the rest of my life and I'll
not produce a canon as good as his...and I dare say the same thing is
true for you Eric, though I sincerely wish it weren't. Since I'd be
the first to welcome another Bard.
So I'm sorry. I wish it wasn't so. But its true, its just not likely
you'll ever understand the gulf that separates you from him...any more
than I'll understand why I haven't solved Fermat's Last
Theorem....yet.
Still sick,
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> I wish your laughter was as infectious as my flu. Unfortunately
> it has served only to depress me about the gulf that separate people
> like yourself from people like Shakespeare and Plato.
I really laughed at this one, John. It's such a tough
life, seeing these gulfs. Much better to be a dolt like
I am and not see much gulf, if any, between Eric and
Shakespeare and Plato so far as simple human knowledge
goes. I suspect he's much saner than Plato. And he's
young, so might go on to write better than Shakespeare--
or already does, for all we know.
> Among my many friends are several world class musicians.
This is funny, too.
Skip to:
> I didn't put examples in my essay. I'd saved them for the replies.
>
> So consider his observation on lechery. He writes in Macbeth,
>
> "Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes desire,
> but it takes away the performance." (II,iii,32)
>
> How does he know this? Has he experienced it? Has he held discussion
> groups with lechers? What's he doing here? Making it up as he goes
> along?
To save Eric the trouble of quoting the passage in context:
Macduff: What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter: Faith, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes: it provokes the
desire, but takes away the performance.
End quote.
Conclusion: learn to read, John, and you may find that
Shakespeare's "transcendent knowledge" is not much
different from that of Mr. Anybody down at the local bar.
Erik Nielsen
BobGr...@Nut-N-But.Net wrote:
>
> > I wish your laughter was as infectious as my flu. Unfortunately
> > it has served only to depress me about the gulf that separate people
> > like yourself from people like Shakespeare and Plato.
>
> I really laughed at this one, John. It's such a tough
> life, seeing these gulfs. Much better to be a dolt like
> I am and not see much gulf, if any, between Eric and
> Shakespeare and Plato so far as simple human knowledge
> goes. I suspect he's much saner than Plato. And he's
> young, so might go on to write better than Shakespeare--
> or already does, for all we know.
Well, I somehow doubt that... as of now, I'm just a mediocre author, an
indifferent poet, an occasional playwright, an undistinguished
cartoonist...
And, of course, my friends include no world-class musicians. A pity. I
suppose I will not become Shakespeare after all.
But my problem with John is not his suggestion that Shakespeare was more
attuned to human nature than most people -- of course he knew about it,
as all great writers do. It is this veneer of mysticism with which he
coats it, as well as the farcical suggestion that he could only have
learned of human nature by reading Greek literature. If this is true,
where did the Greeks learn of human nature? Shakespeare was just
naturally gifted, both in the understanding of life and in the use of
words. There's no need to rave and say silly things like "And it is
this comprehensiveness of knowledge, brought back to us, lovingly, by
the Author, shared with us fools in our caves, over and over again,
which separates him from the likes of you and me." It's merely a matter
of degree, John.
--nielsen
John W. Kennedy
> So consider his observation on lechery. He writes in Macbeth,
>
> "Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes. It provokes desire, but it
> takes away the performance." (II,iii,32)
>
> How does he know this? Has he experienced it? Has he held discussion
> groups with lechers? What's he doing here? Making it up as he goes
> along?
>
> Surely not. Somewhere he's run across this statement in his readings.
> Likely classical. He's noted it down and put it into his table book
> and waited for the right opportunity to give it a meaningful context.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! (Insert one entire page of Michael Moorcock's "The
Final Programme" here; those who have read it will know the page I
mean.)
Baker, you are a supreme idiot. A mindless twit. An utter and absolute
fool, and illiterate, to boot. My gawd! but you're stupid!
Or, to put it another way, not only is your conclusion so blindingly
imbecilic that I find it difficult to believe it actually came from a
human mind, you don't even understand the literal meaning of the line.
You've just established a new low for HLAS, beating Stephanie's Caxton
claim by a mile. (At least her gaffe was partly non-Shakespearean.)
John W. Kennedy
>
> > The issue of Shakespeare's practical knowledge of psychology is,
> > perhaps, more difficult than it first seems. On the one hand, we know
> > he _wrote_ it better than anyone before him, and at least as well as
> > anyone after.
>
> Well, even that is a difficult thing to judge. Possibly it could
> be argued that Machiavelli, for instance, wrote psychology better
> than Shakespeare--or at least more deeply about some aspects of
> it.
Unless you're referring to "Mandragora", we're talking about two
different things.
> And, frankly, I can't see that Shakespeare displays more
> knowledge of human psychology than the Greek playwrights,
> including Aristophanes--per word.
Well, I know the Greeks only in translation, but I really don't see
that. Euripides was getting there (especially on the female side), but
I think he stops short of Shakespeare's level. I certainly don't see it
from an actorly viewpoint.
> (We have more texts of his,
> which gives him a big advantage.) But it's difficult to argue,
> and I certainly am not familiar enough with Shakespeare's works,
> or the works of other before him to more than spout impressions.
> I simply remain sure that there is a certain level of psychological
> understanding that ALL of us who are reasonably intelligent and
> interested in people acquire by the time we're thirty or forty,
> and that Shakespeare had that understanding but no more than it.
All I can say is that there is a sense in which Shakespeare is easier to
act than most playwrights (and all before him, that I know of), because
he's already done so much of the work for you. Not that he doesn't
require lots of hard work -- but psychologically, he's usually a
straight downhill run. To use a horribly mixed metaphor, his characters
are the opposite of, "There's no there, there."
> He didn't seem to have been a formal psychologist even to the
> degree that Jonson, with his explicit theory of humours, was
> (if he DID have such an explicit theory--it's been too long
> since I've read him).
I'm talking about what he does, not what he says.
> Certainly there are areas Shakespeare doesn't
> discuss, like unconventional sexualities, and--oddly--
> what it's like to be a playwright.
Did anyone do that (apart from satire and explicit criticism) before the
Romantics?
> Interesting point but I'm not sure I go along with it.
> It would still support the idea that it's tools of
> expression like allegory that allow improved delineation
> of human nature, not improved understanding of human nature.
This could spin out of control into a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf
hypothesis and the nature of thought.
John W. Kennedy
> TP: A professional playwright who left no truly personal evidence of his trade
> behind? One who, at the height of his fame, is unremembered and probably living
> a hundred country miles away from the great literary scene to which he must
> have been SOME kind of contributor? "That famous English Poet Mr. William
> Shakespeare" is an apparition. At best, a name attached to a pair of popular
> poems. He wasn't very widely known for his plays, and his Sonnets were read by
> the halves of dozens (except maybe the sugared ones that Meres claimed were
> circulated among friends who don't seem to have known much about him).
Stop lying.
> I am a Neognostic
Somehow I'm not surprised. Someday I've got to finish a
Renaissance-Faire skit I've been working on. Here's an excerpt:
Leonard: Get your gooseberry fool. Fresh gooseberry fool.
[walks away from Lord Julius]
Lord Julius: [reading from the paper that Leonard gave him]
Z…V-B-X-R-P-L. I believe I saw a church dedicated to
that saint in the Polish lands. Ho, Pastry. What is
this mirage thou hast handed me? I comprehend it
not.
Leonard: Oh, that is not the true name of the Savior; 'tis the
name of the Savior's code. Look you in your Book of
Jêu.
Lord Julius: What meanest thou, "code"?
Leonard: Aye, look you in the Book of Jêu. 'Twill tell you
the true Savior's true name.
Lord Julius: Well, I haven't got any Book of Jêu.
Leonard: You no gotta Book of Jêu.?
Lord Julius: Wottest thou whence I can obtain one?
Leonard: [opens pushcart] Well, just by hap I think I got one
here. Here you are, milord. [holds up the book]
Lord Julius: How much is it?
Leonard: Gratis, milord.
Lord Julius: I thank thee. [takes the book from Leonard]
Leonard: Justa one-pound scribe's copying fee.
Lord Julius: Well, give me thou one sans copying. I tire of
copying. [tosses the book back to Leonard]
Leonard: Aw come on, you want to be saved.
Lord Julius: Yea, forsooth, I would be saved.
Leonard: Well then, you got to have this.
Lord Julius: I would be saved, but I would not have the savings of
this life wiped out in a twinkling of an eye.
[takes his money out secretively and gives it to
Leonard] Here.
Leonard: Thank you very much. [goes back to his pushcart]
Gooseberry fool! [exits, singing "Fresh Gooseberry
fool!"]
BobGr...@nut-n-but.net
> > Well, even that is a difficult thing to judge. Possibly it could
> > be argued that Machiavelli, for instance, wrote psychology better
> > than Shakespeare--or at least more deeply about some aspects of
> > it.
>
> Unless you're referring to "Mandragora", we're talking about two
> different things.
Probably. I included "Mandragora" but was thinking of
Machiavelli as a psychologist of of the drive ot power or
something--but I've never read The Prince. But a point
of mine is that a psychologist tells us how men act,
he does depict how men act, as Shakespeare does. But I
know the work of Shakespeare's predecessors too scantily
to say much more here. I do want to ask about Montaigne,
though: he seems pretty psychological in the Shakespearean
way.
> > And, frankly, I can't see that Shakespeare displays more
> > knowledge of human psychology than the Greek playwrights,
> > including Aristophanes--per word.
>
> Well, I know the Greeks only in translation, but I really don't see
> that. Euripides was getting there (especially on the female side),
> but I think he stops short of Shakespeare's level.
> I certainly don't see it from an actorly viewpoint.
Maybe. The problem here is that drama became more complex
between the Greeks' time and Shakespeare's--and more
concentratedly verbal--so a good playwright in Shakespeare's
would be automatically a better psychologist, without really
knowing more about the human psychology. (A side-thought
would be that maybe the Greeks expressed terrific psychological
understanding with the dance and song that were much more
a part of their plays than ours.)
>
> > (We have more texts of his,
> > which gives him a big advantage.) But it's difficult to argue,
> > and I certainly am not familiar enough with Shakespeare's works,
> > or the works of other before him to more than spout impressions.
> > I simply remain sure that there is a certain level of psychological
> > understanding that ALL of us who are reasonably intelligent and
> > interested in people acquire by the time we're thirty or forty,
> > and that Shakespeare had that understanding but no more than it.
>
> All I can say is that there is a sense in which Shakespeare is easier
to
> act than most playwrights (and all before him, that I know of),
because
> he's already done so much of the work for you. Not that he doesn't
> require lots of hard work -- but psychologically, he's usually a
> straight downhill run. To use a horribly mixed metaphor, his
characters
> are the opposite of, "There's no there, there."
Maybe. But is it his psychological knowledge or his
playwriting skill? For instance, just being a master
scene-maker can help with characterization by putting
a character in a context that deepens him before he
even speaks.
> > He didn't seem to have been a formal psychologist even to the
> > degree that Jonson, with his explicit theory of humours, was
> > (if he DID have such an explicit theory--it's been too long
> > since I've read him).
>
> I'm talking about what he does, not what he says.
Right, which gets back to a main point of mine, which
is that being a master psychologist has to do with
saying what's what concerning the human psychology
and is different from being a master dramatist and
using psychology.
> > Certainly there are areas Shakespeare doesn't
> > discuss, like unconventional sexualities, and--oddly--
> > what it's like to be a playwright.
>
> Did anyone do that (apart from satire and
> explicit criticism) before the Romantics?
Not that I know of.
> > Interesting point but I'm not sure I go along with it.
> > It would still support the idea that it's tools of
> > expression like allegory that allow improved delineation
> > of human nature, not improved understanding of human nature.
>
> This could spin out of control into a discussion of the Sapir-Whorf
> hypothesis and the nature of thought.
I'm sure you mean "spin further out of control." From my
end, at least.
David L. Webb
Kennedy <jwke...@mailbox.bellatlantic.net> wrote:
[...]
> Baker, you are a supreme idiot. A mindless twit. An utter and absolute
> fool, and illiterate, to boot. My gawd! but you're stupid!
>
> Or, to put it another way, not only is your conclusion so blindingly
> imbecilic that I find it difficult to believe it actually came from a
> human mind, you don't even understand the literal meaning of the line.
>
> You've just established a new low for HLAS, beating Stephanie's Caxton
> claim by a mile. (At least her gaffe was partly non-Shakespearean.)
Yes, but Stephanie still gets kudos for consistency. She almost
*never* posted anything that didn't have some farcical factual blunder,
so her uninterrupted reign as Queen of Error should not be challenged
by parvenu pretenders.
Moreover, some of her arguments were *really* entertaining, and
deserve some sort of brilliancy prize even if they don't measure up to
Baker's standard. I particularly liked her post on Oxford's French
(the shared vocabulary with the French in _Henry V_ -- "avec," "je,"
etc. -- was striking) and the post in which Stephanie tried to infer
that the dowager Countess of Oxford was married to Tyrrell because she
referred to him in a letter as "Mr. Tyrrell" -- because, as Stephanie
so memorably put it, "that is a not uncommon way that wives referred to
their husbands in correspondence at that time."
Besides, Stephanie is sane and literate and writes gracefully
enough, so Baker has an unfair advantage.
David Webb