Shakespeare

[Ruan Chun Xian]

I think it's a matter of the plays being around for so long that a simple production of the play in its true form sounds a little...tame and boring? I'm sure professional theatre companies still put on productions of the actual play themselves, but with actual performances, you have to go to the theatre to see them. Whereas you get movie adaptations that are more widely exposed, or productions that are adaptations that just get more publicity because there's something new to talk about. I don't know.

I guess my thoughts now are if plays are meant for being seen and acted, then why do some people only read & analyze them?

Because when you see the play, you end up analysing the acting and production aspects, whereas from a literature point of view, it's easier to analyse when you read the play. Half of my A1 books were plays so I have to say I was a little tired of them by the end really.

[may]

Unfortunately i have not studied Shakespeare as much as i'd like to. i've read only 3 of his plays, and a number of his sonnets. indeed, it's more 'easy' and apparent to understand his genius from his sonnets. i think that the way Shakespeare is taught in schools is very significant in order to grasp the beauty.

[Amber]

My teacher said there were def better writers in his time, but the thing with his plays are, we can still relate to them. The feelings that the characters have, they are forever. Example Romeo and Juliet. We still have parents who don't want us to date a certain someone..

[Jason08]

Well, this is a subjective forum, anyways great question... i really like Shakespeare even though i don't understand like half of the words from the plays, but when i read the translated modern version, i think about and i say WOW... my favorite is a mid summer nights dream and i absolutely adore the way he writes.

[x___x]

i consider him as a great playwright. most people think that not only he left a great bunch of wonderful plays and peoms, but he also made great contributions to the English language as a whole. I cannot really give my opinion on that, since i only read his plays translated in Arabic (i wouldn't dare touch the original English scripts!).

I read Macbeth and some Acts from Hamlet. Macbeth was definitely worth reading.

i also read Romeo and Juliet, and found it amusing, too.

[Daedalus]

I always thought Shakespeare had mediocre plots and storylines and stuff like that. Lots of characters speaking similarly. For someone used to reading novels his plays as stories never worked out that well for me. But his poems, esp. his sonnets, are brilliant. And I think the most amazing thing about his writing is his ability to exercise the imagination - he understood language like nobody before or since. Never used hackneyed, overused metaphors, unless they've become so since because of him. Just the sheer versatility of his wordplay and stuff... I think a lot of people get put off because some of the language is outdated, and they can't connect so fluidly. But every writer has something to learn from Shakespeare. Literature would not be the same without him.

[Tsubaki]

To be honest, I find that his plays are very hit or miss. I really, really enjoyed Macbeth and Julius Caesar; they are engaging and interesting, and their characters are deep and three dimensional. On the other hand, plays such as A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest (especially The Tempest) don't seem to me to be very interesting, and are driven primarily by flat, boring characters. Not exactly the hallmarks of good plays. Of course, this is just my impression of them; a lot of people seemed to like A Midsummer Night's Dream when we did it in class.

The problem I have with Shakespeare is his lack of stage direction and scene description, compared to, say, George Bernard Shaw, (who wrote Pygmalion, a play I feel is genuinely better than many of Shakespeare's, and certainly more worthy of study than some of them) for example. My teacher tried to shrug off this lack of stage direction by saying that it would be unnecessary, because we can tell what the characters are doing based on what they are saying, and while I acknowledge that there is some merit to that argument, it speaks more of laziness to me than anything else. It also leaves character interpretation more open than in a play in which every action is in the script, which is fine if you want to take the play in a different direction when you're putting it off, but it makes it impossible to study effectively, as far as I'm concerned. If Shakespeare had choreographed his plays more specifically, I would probably find them more tolerable (and the ones I like, I would enjoy more) because it would be easier to tell what, exactly, is going on. They're his characters and his ideas, and as such it shouldn't be on the audience to figure out what's going on.

So, uh... Yeah. He wrote some good plays, he wrote some awful plays, and he could have put some more stage directions in.

[megr315]

The only reason I enjoy Shakespeare is because he is fairly easy to analyze, as opposed to other works we have done like "Meridian".

[JWL]

Another interesting Shakespearian play is Twelfth Night;

but tbh, if you find Shakespeare hard, read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and you'll wish you were doing Shakespeare instead...

[Lindsay]

I think Shakespeare's use of language is really extended and impressive, his use of descriptions for many things are quite intriguing. As for his actual plays, some are quite depressing such as "Macbeth", but each play of his is supported by a moral of some sort. Therefore despite the fact that it is harder to understand, it does come with its own pleasure in reading once you understand it a little more.

[JennIB12]

I think if you were to build anyone a monument you would probably had got CAS hours

I think the reason we just have to study Shakespeare is as Alice said, he did have quite an impact on the English language.

I find it odd that for IB, the Shakespeare plays studied usually just revolve around Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, and Romeo and Juliet. I hardly hear anyone study any of the others.

Seeing as my teacher was a drama-orientated, we had to pleasure of doing 2 Shakespeare, both tragedies, which IMO was one too many. Honestly one Shakespearean tragedy was about all I could handle. So I enjoyed Macbeth but didn't particularly care for Othello even if the movie version was slightly more interesting.

My IB class looked at Hamlet and As You Like It. Other classes I know have looked at A Winter's Tale and the Tempest.

[Avan:)]

I thought I would never understand any of his plays, but that was until I read the comedy of errors and I swear

I never laughed so hard reading a book, since Catch 22 which I read 3 years ago! lol he is quite funny

and it is really fun analysing his plays and poems, because he had a knack in writing them and they are very cleverly written on inspection ...

[kuc]

The thing with Shakespeare is, that he's really intriguing. We don't know a lot about him and what we do know is full of paradoxes - eg. altough he wasn't very well educated, he wrote amazing, intelligent plays and poems The other thing is that the plot of his plays is not complicated, just normal romantic stuff; but those pieces are full of references to other artists' works, politics, history etc... And Shakespeare was quite funny, too; at least in 14th century

[Arrowhead]

I am a die hard Shakespeare fan, read all of his plays, never held much stock for his sonnets. Yeah I prefer some plays over others, but his work is classic (but I am biased seeing as my mother wrote her Master's thesis on his plays and pretty much indoctrinated me thereafter, and I wrote my EE analysing Julius Caesar, so yeah...)

There's a certain rhythm to his work, the dialogue, it's in iambic pentameter, which for the record, is obscenely difficult to reproduce. Maybe it's because people spoke more in that beat in his time than they do now, but memorising Shakespeare was, as my drama teacher put it, "in the heart beats."

Really, I never cared much for reading his plays, they're plays after all, they aren't meant to be read. You have to see them be performed. Now that I'm in London full-time, and one of my flatmates is a complete theatre/musical buff as myself, we often go to the Globe or other local theatres to watch Shakespearean productions. Most of the companies are new, or old with new actors, trying them out, so it's very hit and miss sometimes. But watching a Shakespearean comedy unfold with actors that have impeccable comic timing is divine, a tragedy with long soliloquies that rent your heart, or better yet, directorial artistic licence and dancing nude women in the thematic backgrounds. You gotta love Shakespeare.

[Sandwich]

Really, I never cared much for reading his plays, they're plays after all, they aren't meant to be read. You have to see them be performed. Now that I'm in London full-time, and one of my flatmates is a complete theatre/musical buff as myself, we often go to the Globe or other local theatres to watch Shakespearean productions. Most of the companies are new, or old with new actors, trying them out, so it's very hit and miss sometimes.

I love those £5 standing tickets at the Globe! I went to see several last year (and one this year but it was in Spanish so I only understood bits of it!) and I have to say, seeing it performed by top class people brings out a lot more of the story and a lot more of the meaning than seeing flat performances and somehow helps to break the 'language' barrier that you often get when people try to act it out and actually they don't really understand what it is they're saying. Shakespeare's plays have never gripped me reading them but they're a lot more interesting being acted properly in front of you.

One interesting one I went to go and see is the version of Julius Caesar they have on at the moment at the Noel Coward theatre. I'd never read Julius Caesar before I went so it was all new to me, but they seem to have a really relevant take on it, the whole thing is a sort-of parallel to African military dictatorships and the whole thing has an African theme which just goes to show how versatile these plays can be. In a way I think the lack of direction mentioned by somebody earlier in this thread is actually a strength, you can have so many takes on what are basically strong universal stories. Andrew French (the guy who plays Brutus (and is also in Green Wing which is where I recognised him from before)) does a stellar job, it's really a great individual performance. My friend got tickets on offer for like £7 down from £40 so if you love Julius Caesar as one of your favourite plays and haven't gone to watch it yet, you should see if you can bag a ticket! I really enjoyed it anyway. (:

[JoeZell]

We have to read Merchant of Venice over the summer, and I'm doing my EE on Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I liked them before the IB, hate them now, and will like them again after the IB.

[EllieHinzRadue]

I am a first year IB teacher looking for perspectives from students on studying the Bard: I have always put my students on their feet, taken them to our stage and discussed the plays from an actor's point of view. What do you find are the most intimidating factors of your study?

[Kiara5]

I have a project to do for him and I need some suggestions and help...

We are reading Hamlet, and in this play the author, Shakespeare uses many allusions. One of them is Poebus, in Act III scene II. Why is it significant (in this case)? and, why is it important to add these allusions?

help anyone?