Why do these takes keep popping up? Where is this nonsense coming from? I responded with this:
>Poorly read brainlets always try to imply giants of the Western Canon were widely maligned pop shit in their time, usually to justify reading pop genre shit themselves. No idea where these baseless angles come from. No, Shakespeare was very much a revered genius in his time. No, he was not a “Hollywood sell out” in any way. You probably meant to use this erroneous argument for Dickens (where, again, it’d still be wrong—yes, he was popular; no, reddit, that does not = Brandon Sanderson.) I hate Yea Forums threads outside of Yea Forums.
only to discover that I had been banned from both /pol/ and Yea Forums for three days for participating in threads about the new T Swift video, which in both cases were on topic to the board. But anyway, I wanted to get this out there and ask what I asked above. What is fueling these retarded “le great writer of the past was just le pop culture of his time” takes?
Do not suffer them. If you see such takes, crush them. We cannot allow the good name of these men to be besmirched.
Why do these takes keep popping up? Where is this nonsense coming from? I responded with this:
People hate contemporary culture and wrongly attribute the past with superiority of the two
There’s an effort to devalue Western culture in general. I was recently in an argument with someone at a party who was saying anyone could be the next Mozart if they put in the work, and that talent was an “eighteenth century myth”. And everyone agreed until I was like, Then do it? And when he had be to be like, “O I just don’t care to, I don’t have the passion for it, but if I did and I put in the work, I could.” everyone realized he was retarded.
It’s a side effect of the same frothing egalitarianism that’s infected the West at large, ie all men and races and both sexes (or excuse me, every imaginable “gender”) is inherently equal. Therefore, how can there be talent?
But if there isn’t talent, how can there be Shakespeares and Mozarts and so on? Usually the response is either like the guy I described above, “Anyone could do it if they tried,” or the guy in the pic, “They were never great to begin with.” It’s not even malicious in most cases, they’re just sheep, and the shepherds are leading them a certain direction, so they’re going.
It's not worth the time caring about the opinion of someone that hasn't read Shakespeare outside of a classroom.
Yeah, but a talented person with no drive or passion is effectively no different than the rabble.
There’s nothing wrong with thinking hard work and effort is superior to other traits that lead to genius works, but to use it as an excuse to be a lazy piece of shit is the gravest fucking insult. From this we can conclude that people definitely aren’t egalitarian in passion.
THere's a new t swift video??
I think Shakespeare was a bad writer because his characters are so unnatural and will act in such absurd ways for the sake of plot. Like at the start of King Lear, the king loves his daughter and he eventually asks her if she loves him. She gives him a careless or clumsy reply and this reduces the king into a ridiculous and frothing rage, and just like that, he no longer loves her. Shakespeare's comedy or jokes are really obnoxious too with the way he always has character interjecting with little quips in the middle of conversations no matter tonally inappropriate to the scene it is.
>"I could be anything if I just tried! I just don't care and it's MY CHOICE to be a fucking subhuman who will never accomplish anything!"
It's basically "people" rationalizing why they're fucking worthless.
What the fuck are you doing in /pol/ of all places? It's where counter culture and contrarian mindset is adapted with little to no original thought behind it. So I don't know why you are surprised someone would post something idiotic on there.
In Shakespeare's time there was no "pop culture" and no "canon" the way these things exist now, so you're both wrong. The Bible and the Greek and Roman classics: that was the canon. That's it. Drama was degenerate. Shakespeare turned to it to make money because there was no money in poetry. After his death his plays were published as in a book called the First Folio, and people thought it was highly unusual because plays weren't considered lofty enough to present this way. There was never any question, during Shakespeare's time, of Shakespeare joining Sophocles in a canon that would include both of them. It was unthinkable. That came way later. But there was also no "pop culture" back then, so comparing Shakespeare to today's mass art is retarded.
I think if anything it's hard work getting you to the same level that's an 18th Century myth, it's implicit in the whole "each man is master" enlightenment project. I cannot quite put into words my beliefs, but I also don't believe there's no merit in what the guy's saying. We're always having to carry an existential burden, and if we can deal with that we can work towards being a Mozart (for a broad definition of Mozart).
That said Mozart was damned talented and pretty lazy if some of the anecdotes are to be believed. Like writing his pieces last minute and all that jazz.
Her name is Tay Tay
>She gives him a careless or clumsy reply and this reduces the king into a ridiculous and frothing rage
She gives his, what he perceives as, a very deliberate reply that he takes as a slight, then gives her an opportunity to clarify, and she proceeds to gives him no reason to assume otherwise.
>Drama was degenerate
I'm not sure about England, but in other European countries during that period the peasant tongue and the way nobles communicated was almost non comparable. Theater plays were only enjoyed by the higher class, and given they were degenerates behind doors, the act of seeing a play was looked as a patrician pastime.
I was talking about England specifically.
It doesn't matter because even if she didn't love him and wanted him to know it that's not how humans work.
Damn dude I guess you cracked the code, turns out fucking Shakespeare’s a retarded hack all along, thanks!!
t. tolstoy
That's oddly aggressive but okay.
So one dude thought he was sick shit and everybody at this party saw through him and your conclusion is muh degenerative egalitarianism?
I’m aware of everything you’re saying and there’s no reason to accuse otherwise. You’re going out of your way to try to find a way that I’m “wrong”, for some reason. I’m using certain terms from the perspective of the time that I’m living in, believe it or not. It’s easier to say Shakespeare is a god of the Western canon and that he wasn’t producing “pop” than it is to spell out the trivial nuances like the Western canon being a later concept, and pop culture not existing; we can easily understand that all I’m saying is that he was an esteemed artistic genius whose name was expected to be immortal, and that he wasn’t at all producing hackery like the poster in the pic implied.
Wtf are you talking about retard? You’re the thread’s token brainlet.
You had high plays for the Court known as Masques, and you had broad appeal plays like Shagspire's that were for all sorts. You also got Mystery plays and I guess stuff like Punch and Judy.
No? It wasn’t even about him thinking he’s “sick shit”, the point was that his argument collapsed. And his argument itself being agreeable to the party beforehand is the point, it’s my own anecdote to the larger predicament. This shouldn’t be confusing.
Also just hamstering away that people AND peoples can be superior. Because once you allow for exceptional people, you have to wonder why some races have way more than others, in every field. Not to harp on the politics, but the point is, to answer OP, it’s all under the same egalitarian umbrella, all society’s ills. People aren’t equals and the sooner Western civilization realizes it the sooner the next renaissance.
Because everyone props him up like he's a fucking god and tries to make you feel bad for not getting him
They're not trivial nuances. When you say Shakespeare wasn't making pop this is true in the sense that in Elizabethan England there was nothing like today's pop culture, but it's true only in that sense. In a different sense, in the sense that Shakespeare was making art that was popular, lucrative, and not even considered in the same breath as the classics, he was making pop. That's why I said you're both wrong. In a way Shakespeare was pop, but not in the way that poster said.
Shakespeare was not celebrated in his time as "an esteemed artistic genius." This is what I was trying to say. You have to appreciate how sharply divided Shakespeare's drama was from what was considered high art back then. Drama was entertainment. He was celebrated as a genius only by other dramatists. It was Ben Jonson who said he was "not of an age but for all time." We remember his words because we made them true; we started to consider entertainments as art; but few people were thinking the way Jonson was at the time.