I just don't get...

[oggbashan]

Original Pronunciation

Shakespeare's plays are old and we don't usually hear them as they were originally performed. English has changed and we miss some of the nuances that would have been obvious to the first audiences.

https://youtu.be/YiblRSqhL04

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K_mZagvy9s

https://youtu.be/WeW1eV7Oc5A

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

This is an interesting topic! (to me, anyway)

Brussels sprouts and related vegetables contain a type of chemical called glucosinolates which gives them a bitter taste. But the ability to taste that bitterness is linked to a specific taste receptor, which for genetic reasons is more active in some people than others. So some will notice that bitterness much more than others, similar to the genetic thing where some taste coriander/cilantro as soapy and others don't.

Also, back around the 1990s, Dutch food scientists started breeding Brussels sprouts to reduce the level of glucosinolates. So even for those who are genetically predisposed to notice them, today's Brussels sprouts are significantly less bitter than they were in Kurt Cobain's time.

So some of the antipathy comes down to genetics, and some of it comes down to the way sprouts used to taste. Probably also some to bad cooking - overdone sprouts aren't great.

I wasn't wild on them as a kid, but my partner cooks some pretty good sprouts.

I remember talking with a pediatrician at Kings College Hospital, in London, a few years ago and we got around to the subject of kids' diets and why they are so 'faddy' when it comes to certain foods, and why greens of any sort are anathema to them. His theory, currently being examined and tested by The Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London, was that all greens taste bitter and unpleasant to children because it's a survival mechanism; if greens taste unpleasant, they'll spit them out, lessening the chances of being accidentally poisoned by something they've eaten. I noticed this in myself; when I was a kid, Brussels Sprouts tasted truly foul, even the smell of them made me sick; I really couldn't understand how my mother could sit down and eat something so nasty and appear to be enjoying it so much. Now, they taste sweet and creamy, and I love them, ditto hubby, who loathed them as a child, but now loves them baked with olive oil, chestnuts and bacon lardons. He and I are the same about most brassicae, what were repulsive objects of hatred we were forced to eat are now delicious additions to any meal.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

I'm a fan of Shakespeare, but I'm avidly contemptuous of how eager snobs are to stake a claim on him as some bastion of sophistication, specifically when they don't want people to portray Shakespeare the "wrong way."

The wrong way usually being any way outside of a narrow deification of the status quo.

Shakespeare was a sensationalist. He was the Elizabethan equivalent of pulp fiction. Sophisticates don't get to own his work.

I also really detest the "he must have actually been a nobleman" theory.

And for those who don't exactly approach 'The Bard' on bended knee, watch the BBC's 'Upstart Crow', commissioned in 2016 to celebrate Shakespeare's 400th Anniverary. The man playing Shakespeare is David Mitchell, a well known comedian, TV quiz show panellist, and radio presenter in the UK.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0125mjZms58

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWArYA6IWgw

 

[oggbashan]

You don't have to 'get' Shakespeare or any other author just because a lot of people do. Your failure to 'get' Shakespeare is shared by many others as well.

Maybe, later, you might, but it doesn't matter if you don't.

Too many people are put off Shakespeare by studying him at school when most people aren't experienced enough in life to understand, or if they are, are repelled by all the critical works surrounding the plays.

To understand Shakespeare it is almost essential to see a competent production. The words on a page aren't enough.

I said competent because I have performed in many of Shakespeare's plays as a walk-on actor - dragged in to make up the numbers. Sometimes I didn't even know which play I was in - I might have a few lines, or none. I did my bit and then went to the nearest pub.

 

[SolarRay]

OTOH [blasphemy alert] not everything Shakespeare wrote was great. A lot of his comedies depend on people being really, reallly, REALLY stupid, fooled by identical twins (who aren't wearing the same clothes and probably don't even have the same accent, but LOL TWINS) or basic disguises.

I can understand that. Although, my reading (maybe just the one I want to self-impose) is that people being really dumb is a perfectly acceptable source of silly amusement for something that sufficiently commits to being intentionally absurdist. In other contexts, or if it fails to embrace what it is, I might not be so forgiving of those things.

There are lots of tropes in Shakespeare that find their way into the Literotica world too.

I get some people don't like it and I don't like all of it. I like some opera for instance, but not others.

Admittedly, the one Literotica story I attempted, centering around the performance of a (made up) bawdy comedy of his, was quite fun to put together. The references were pretty light -- I would have pushed the Shakespeare elements much much farther if I were more adept at it which, alas, I am not. It's true that the theme is not for everyone but I fully expect several authors here could come up with some terrific ideas.

 

[SimonDoom]

I remember talking with a pediatrician at Kings College Hospital, in London, a few years ago and we got around to the subject of kids' diets and why they are so 'faddy' when it comes to certain foods, and why greens of any sort are anathema to them. His theory, currently being examined and tested by The Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, London, was that all greens taste bitter and unpleasant to children because it's a survival mechanism; if greens taste unpleasant, they'll spit them out, lessening the chances of being accidentally poisoned by something they've eaten. I noticed this in myself; when I was a kid, Brussels Sprouts tasted truly foul, even the smell of them made me sick; I really couldn't understand how my mother could sit down and eat something so nasty and appear to be enjoying it so much. Now, they taste sweet and creamy, and I love them, ditto hubby, who loathed them as a child, but now loves them baked with olive oil, chestnuts and bacon lardons. He and I are the same about most brassicae, what were repulsive objects of hatred we were forced to eat are now delicious additions to any meal.

My experience too. As a child I couldn't eat green vegetables. Peas and green beans would make me want to throw up. And then around the time I became an adult it was as though a switch was thrown and all of a sudden I enjoyed bitter foods. To this day I love bitter, as well as extremely spicy, hot flavors.

I suppose appreciation of literature, or any type of art, can be like that, and it can be different for every person, and there's no point trying to reason or argue with someone else's taste. I like the challenge of reading Shakespeare. It gives me pleasure. I love the poetry of his words. To me it's like music. But I can sort of -- sort of -- understand if his words don't hit other people's ears the same way.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think the OP's question was that they couldn't understand all the fuss over Shakespeare and why is he considered the best writer of all time? I have tried to give my slant on that and will leave it there.

Now, if anyone wishes to continue the Dissing Brussels Sprouts discussion, sign me up!

Cheers.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

My experience too. As a child I couldn't eat green vegetables. Peas and green beans would make me want to throw up. And then around the time I became an adult it was as though a switch was thrown and all of a sudden I enjoyed bitter foods. To this day I love bitter, as well as extremely spicy, hot flavors.

I suppose appreciation of literature, or any type of art, can be like that, and it can be different for every person, and there's no point trying to reason or argue with someone else's taste. I like the challenge of reading Shakespeare. It gives me pleasure. I love the poetry of his words. To me it's like music. But I can sort of -- sort of -- understand if his words don't hit other people's ears the same way.

For me, it's the plots. I like the language. But the plots! That's not equally true of all of them, of course. The classic example of it is Romeo and Juliet. For me, it manages to be overly facile, yet overly contrived at the same time. I find it inane in both the sense of mawkishness and the sense of fatuousness. But, people love it! I thought they must love it despite the plot and because of the language, but people keep doing successful modern version of it. I resign myself to just not being able to see it through the eyes of a lover of Shakespeare.

Another thing that truly confuses me is the order of popular preference of Shakespeare's stories. I would expect The Tempest to be far more highly lauded and more popular than Romeo and Juliet, but nope. I think that where Shakespeare was at his best is comedy. The comedy suffers less from ridiculous plotting because everything is supposed to be ridiculous. The banter in the comedies plays to Shakespeare's strengths without leaning on what I view as his weaknesses. Yet, it's not comedies for which he's best known.

Something that I don't often see mentioned is that a lot of his plots were not all that original. I'm not talking about the endless debates about who wrote Shakespeare's work. I accept that's an interesting point to plenty of people, but all that matters to me is the work itself. I mean that many of the plots were not original in that they were re-dos or tweaks of story lines already making the rounds or taken from historical pieces.

R&J relied very, very heavily on a poem, The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, which was written only a couple of decades earlier by a guy who ripped it off from a French author who ripped it off from an Italian author, (or maybe it was vice versa) who probably also ripped it off from someone. I'm pretty sure that at some point, someone just wrote down and formalized a story that had been around since the minstrel circuits. But Shakespeare's plot and Arthur Brooke's plot are damned near identical. (I can't claim to have Brooke's name rattling around my head. I looked it up.)

I'll give A Midsummer Night's Dream credit for being a pretty original mashup of a bunch of old stuff with some apparently new stuff.

Okay, I'm going to take R&J off into the corner and quietly kick it some more before the angry mob comes to get me.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I think the OP's question was that they couldn't understand all the fuss over Shakespeare and why is he considered the best writer of all time? I have tried to give my slant on that and will leave it there.

Now, if anyone wishes to continue the Dissing Brussels Sprouts discussion, sign me up!

Cheers.

An organized debate on the subject of Brussels Sprouts, especially including the science behind the ick (or deliciousness to some poor, misguided souls), could be highly entertaining. You could open for team anti-Brussels Sprouts.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

My experience too. As a child I couldn't eat green vegetables. Peas and green beans would make me want to throw up. And then around the time I became an adult it was as though a switch was thrown and all of a sudden I enjoyed bitter foods. To this day I love bitter, as well as extremely spicy, hot flavors.

I guess it was around the time puberty struck that I began appreciating things like collards, cabbage, spinach, curly kale; the childish urge to eat mushy, bland or sweet foods gave way to an interest in the dark green, crisp, interesting flavors and textures of brassicae and spinach, whether cooked or raw and crisp. My approaching adulthood seemed to demand I indulged in more adult foods, and even the background bitterness of brassicae became delectable, while things like asparagus and raw peas and beans, Okra and zucchini and squash, foods I'd avoided when I was a kid because 'they tasted weird' definitely became more interesting.

 

[Javahead]

My experience too. As a child I couldn't eat green vegetables. Peas and green beans would make me want to throw up. And then around the time I became an adult it was as though a switch was thrown and all of a sudden I enjoyed bitter foods. To this day I love bitter, as well as extremely spicy, hot flavors.

I guess it was around the time puberty struck that I began appreciating things like collards, cabbage, spinach, curly kale; the childish urge to eat mushy, bland or sweet foods gave way to an interest in the dark green, crisp, interesting flavors and textures of brassicae and spinach, whether cooked or raw and crisp. My approaching adulthood seemed to demand I indulged in more adult foods, and even the background bitterness of brassicae became delectable, while things like asparagus and raw peas and beans, Okra and zucchini and squash, foods I'd avoided when I was a kid because 'they tasted weird' definitely became more interesting.

I was a weird kid - I hated most greens, but loved spinach and Brussels sprouts.

Now? I love them all, though I’m getting a little bored with the fad for things like chopped kale salads. What’s wrong with cooking your brassicae? Not a fan of raw food diets.

(Well, OK, sushi and carpaccio. And I like a good salad. And cole slaw. But moderation in all things.)

 

[Damoiselle]

Iambic pentameter though, that's the sheet.

If anyone plays video games, the game Dragon Age: Inquisition is kind of mediocre in terms of gameplay but the character Solas often speaks in iambic pentameter and it's wonderful.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

Iambic pentameter though, that's the sheet.

If anyone plays video games, the game Dragon Age: Inquisition is kind of mediocre in terms of gameplay but the character Solas often speaks in iambic pentameter and it's wonderful.

It IS good. I liked Dragon Age: Origins better, though. Maybe I had my hopes up too high for the sequel. The characters are great, and like you said, a lot of work went into some of the dialog.

 

[Javahead]

Iambic pentameter though, that's the sheet.

If anyone plays video games, the game Dragon Age: Inquisition is kind of mediocre in terms of gameplay but the character Solas often speaks in iambic pentameter and it's wonderful.

Bringing it back to Shakespeare, I remember being taught that the regular meter in his play was an aid to memory for actors. If you know the rhythm, you can more easily remember what comes next, or at least improvise something.

 

[Javahead]

Sorry for the double post - I was on my phone

 

[Handley_Page]

An organized debate on the subject of Brussels Sprouts, especially including the science behind the ick (or deliciousness to some poor, misguided souls), could be highly entertaining. You could open for team anti-Brussels Sprouts.

I'll volunteer to be on the "opposition" bench.
I have never liked them; I only ate a few at Christmas to keep my wife happy.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I guess it was around the time puberty struck that I began appreciating things like collards, cabbage, spinach, curly kale; the childish urge to eat mushy, bland or sweet foods gave way to an interest in the dark green, crisp, interesting flavors and textures of brassicae and spinach, whether cooked or raw and crisp. My approaching adulthood seemed to demand I indulged in more adult foods, and even the background bitterness of brassicae became delectable, while things like asparagus and raw peas and beans, Okra and zucchini and squash, foods I'd avoided when I was a kid because 'they tasted weird' definitely became more interesting.

Olives. Couldn't stand them, now they're fine.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think the OP's question was that they couldn't understand all the fuss over Shakespeare and why is he considered the best writer of all time? I have tried to give my slant on that and will leave it there.

Now, if anyone wishes to continue the Dissing Brussels Sprouts discussion, sign me up!

Cheers.

This is still on topic. We're talking about our salad days.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

This is still on topic. We're talking about our salad days.

Ha! We see what you did there!

I try a pickle about once a year just to see if I still hate it. I always do, but hope springs eternal. Everyone else enjoys them so much. I'm not volunteering to go to a Shakespeare production once a year, though. The thing about these productions is that the audience is chock full of people. It's dreadful!

 

[oggbashan]

Ha! We see what you did there!

I try a pickle about once a year just to see if I still hate it. I always do, but hope springs eternal. Everyone else enjoys them so much. I'm not volunteering to go to a Shakespeare production once a year, though. The thing about these productions is that the audience is chock full of people. It's dreadful!

That's why I was dragged in to perform Shakespeare. Hs plays have far more characters than modern playwrights can afford.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

That's why I was dragged in to perform Shakespeare. Hs plays have far more characters than modern playwrights can afford.

You were the pickle?

Kidding.

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

.....

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I guess it was around the time puberty struck that I began appreciating things like collards, cabbage, spinach, curly kale; the childish urge to eat mushy, bland or sweet foods gave way to an interest in the dark green, crisp, interesting flavors and textures of brassicae and spinach, whether cooked or raw and crisp. My approaching adulthood seemed to demand I indulged in more adult foods, and even the background bitterness of brassicae became delectable, while things like asparagus and raw peas and beans, Okra and zucchini and squash, foods I'd avoided when I was a kid because 'they tasted weird' definitely became more interesting.

So, like 15 years ago?

 

[Rustyoznail]

So, like 15 years ago?

Her pet vampire numbats are practically immortal, and Lori's been looking after them since she was young.

I'll go back into hiding now...

(Just kidding )

 

[ElectricBlue]

Her pet vampire numbats are practically immortal, and Lori's been looking after them since she was young.

I'll go back into hiding now...

(Just kidding )

Too late, mate. La Hoosier can spot a small furry animal popping its head up a mile off. You're spotted.

You know you never question a young lady's age, and never ever until they self declare they're no longer twenty-five, having celebrated that birthday at least twice, possibly three or more times. How long have you been married? Surely you know that by now?