William Shakespeare

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Oh, don't even bother trying "my teachers are better than your teachers". You will lose in a most embarrassing way.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Oh, don't even bother trying "my teachers are better than your teachers". You will lose in a most embarrassing way.

Did I say that? I ws just saying "don't think you're the only one with school clout around here."...besides, this is also Al Gore college.

[Count Comfect]

I think my Shakespeare prof believes Shakespeare to have been at some level cryptoCatholic. I disagree, though. There was enough residual Catholicism a) in English society outside the Church and b) in the practices of the Anglican Church under Elizabeth to account for the not-particularly-huge references to Catholicism in the plays (on top of which, of course, a lot of the plays are set before Protestantism existed).

[hectorberlioz]

You're right, the Church in England was still holding onto some of the traditions .

[Count Comfect]

If by "holding onto some of the traditions" you mean constantly threatening to kick out anyone who wouldn't wear surplices, yes. Although Shakespeare lived in a relative dip in the intensity of what would later be identified as the low church/high church war. (Mostly) after Foxe, Goodman, and the other radicalized Marian exiles and before Laud, Milton, and the radicals on both sides.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Anyone who wouldn't put on a surplice, and anyone who wouldn't take off a chasuble. Good ol' via media.

I don't think Milton was CoE; he would have been a heretic according to them, retaining the threefold ministry of bishop priest and deacon. For Milton, even the Presbyterian church structure was too centralised, organised, hierarchical, what have you.

The ghost in Hamlet, who died unshriven, seems to indicate a belief in something other than heaven and hell as possible destinations for the souls of the dead. While the Articles of Religion do not completely rule out the possibility of such a place, they do condemn the Romish doctrine of purgatory, and prayers for the dead were excised in the '52 BCP, which indicates (though, granted, does not absolutely demonstrate) a move away from alternatives to a strict heaven/hell divide. It would be a stretch to refer to this as being retained in the practices of the Anglican Church, though to attribute it to residual Catholicism still in the ideas of the people seems reasonable.

It was, I believe, customary at the time to portray Catholicism in a highly negative light; most people in society were Protestant or atheist, neither of whom had a high view of the Roman Church. But Friar Lawrence is a sympathetic character in Romeo and Juliet, in an age when Catholicism was in poor favor with society as a whole (even if they did retain some residual Catholicism). His mother also was, apparently, a member of a prominent Catholic family. If Shakespeare was not Catholic, it seems improbable that he was not at least sympathetic to Catholicism.

Of course, he was also gay, too.

[Count Comfect]

Atheism was considered as dangerous as Catholicism - witness Kit Marlowe being investigated for having given "the atheist lecture" to Walter Raleigh - and the two were often linked, ironically enough, in popular superstition. However, I don't think Elizabethan audiences were likely to have trouble with a Roman swearing by Jupiter or a Catholic crossing himself or worrying about last rites; the theater of the time seems to have swarmed with characters who would not have been accepted in contemporary culture. Perhaps this even served as a release. At any rate, I would hesitate to take any (Shakespearean) character's existence as an argument for Shakespeare's or his society's views towards any religion, although they are obviously examples of what sort of ideas were known (if not approved of or tolerated) in his day.

As for Milton, he would have told you he was Church of England, just that he believed the Church had to be further Reformed (by, say, abolishing the hierarchy and the Popish influences). This was part of the normal variation in Renaissance England, although he was an extremist of one party. Especially during Milton's life, violent (sometimes physically violent) disagreement about doctrine was a centerpiece of what it meant to be part of the English church.

[Count Comfect]

GW - am now in a Milton class here at grad school, and realizing that you may be righter about Milton than I thought. I still think I'm right about how he would have described himself, but others would probably have described him (and did; yay pamphlet wars!) the way you do.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

If you wait long enough, it always turns out I was right.

[Rían]

Milton? OMGoodness, some of his lines in Paradise Lost bring me to tears ...

[Pitchike12]

I don't really like William Shakespeare in my real life, but have to read it to school. Plus it's kind'a boring to me. Everything is only play.

[EllethValatari]

Originally Posted by Pitchike12

I don't really like William Shakespeare in my real life, but have to read it to school. Plus it's kind'a boring to me. Everything is only play.

Only play?

I haven't read much. Julius Caesar was very well-written and entertaining, but R&J was too romantic for my tastes. I am, however, very fond of his sonnets. My favorite is Sonnet 8-I liked it so much I memorized it .

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Why lovest thou that which thou receivest not gladly,
Or else receivest with pleasure thine annoy?
If the true concord of well-tuned sounds,
By unions married, do offend thine ear,
They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds
In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear.
Mark how one string, sweet husband to another,
Strikes each in each by mutual ordering,
Resembling sire and child and happy mother
Who all in one, one pleasing note do sing:
Whose speechless song, being many, seeming one,
Sings this to thee: 'thou single wilt prove none.'

[Gwaimir Windgem]

But the play is the fun part!

I also love the Sonnets, Elleth. My favorite of the plays is Lear; Hamlet and Julius Caesar are probably tied for my second favourite.

[GrayMouser]

Given the weather lately, this is the one that comes to mind right now:

When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

[Rían]

I just took a break from doing the dishes to check the Moot, and I see ... dishes!

*goes back to the pots*

(but I'm not greasy)

[Varnafindë]

See, there's not only play, there's also poetry!

[inked]

Shakespeare, you know, had a good bit to do with standardization of English, as did the King James Version of the Bible - from the same era. So, I thought I would give access to some interesting information in this the 400th year of the KJV and note its importance alongside William. (There are theories that Bill helped with the phraseology and hidden messages asserted to be placed by Bill in the KJV text!)

See here:
NYT http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/the...on/09sun3.html

BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12205084

NPR http://www.npr.org/2011/01/09/132788...-Prior-Version

NPR2 http://www.npr.org/2011/01/07/132737...00-Years-Later

Freely borrowed from hogwartsprofessor.com where there is much more about shared texts:
http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/the...ars/#more-2805