NYTimes.com: May I make a confession? And I realize that this may be regarded as a heresy by the members of my tribe, by which I mean those of us who were and always shall be nerdy English majors. I don’t care who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
Friday, October 28, 2011
Who Wrote Shakespeare? Who Cares?
NYTimes.com: May I make a confession? And I realize that this may be regarded as a heresy by the members of my tribe, by which I mean those of us who were and always shall be nerdy English majors. I don’t care who wrote Shakespeare’s plays.
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I have to say that I am on the same page as this author. As much as I believe that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, or if others want to believe something else it doesn't really matter. However, against all the conspiracy theorists out their I like and agree with the line, "Truth may never be pure and simple, but it is usually less complicated than idle minds like to make it". I think that couldnt be more on point. But back to what I was saying, it doesnt matter WHO Shakespeare was, it really doesnt. Because it is the words on the page that have, not only survived for hundreds of years, but are still vital and important to people today. This may be my ignorance but I dont think any other playwright has had the same kind of lasting power since Shakespeare. Its his work that is important, and whoever wrote it was a brilliant brilliant mind. Knowing the work makes the man important, not the other way around.
Personally, I think that the public is addicted to a good scandal. It doesn't matter what the time period or the group of people. We are addicted to the imperfection that life brings us. We can't help ourselves. I remember the theories on Shakespeare coming about but I can also remember a time when people just accepted him as the author. I honestly can't understand the purpose for talking about the controversies of Shakespeare. What exactly would change? The stories wouldn't. The fact that they were written and that they hold a strong impression on the literary world wouldn't change. I just don't see the purpose of beating a dead horse. The point, which the author made incredibly clear, is that they affected many lives, the author's life included. Who wrote them shouldn't matter. It has already been done and we should just focus on the incredible work as it is. Those works are the only concrete traces left and that is what we should focus on.
I totally agree with the author here. I have never found the author of Shakespeare's plays to be of a concern for me. The fact of the matter is the plays exits, and someone wrote them. And wether or not it was who we think it is doesn't really matter. They're still darned good work, worthy of their lengthy history of criticism and production. And in some ways it's nice not having a lot of baggage about the author to bring into my reading of the play. Maybe I feel like Shakespeare's works are the one time I'm "allowed" to appreciate a work as it is, without having to go into a deep analysis of the author's personal life surrounding its writing.
I would have to agree with the author and say that it doesn’t really matter who Shakespeare really is. When I think of Shakespeare’s poems and plays, I do not automatically think of the man born in Stratford upon Avon and married to Anne Hathaway. “Shakespeare” to me is simply this mysterious literary character, not a real person, and I like it that way. As is mentioned at the end of the article, seeing great authors in person is always somewhat anticlimactic, because they are never as impressive in person as their works of literature. This is not to say that investigating how an author’s life experience influenced their works is not interesting. But I prefer to keep my relationship with writers defined by their literary works rather than them as a person.
I agree! When I saw a preview to the movie, 'Anonymous,' I was oddly uncaring, because I have come to terms with the fact that the person who wrote Shakespeare's plays may not actually have been William Shakespeare after all, and there's not any forthcoming information that will change that knowledge. I also see the lack of playwright knowledge as a large reason for the widely interpreted Shakespearian plays, and I would not want any new background information to inform how these scripts are performed. The reason I enjoy Shakespeare's plays is how they almost always seem to be original, and while I am curious to know the truth about the playwright, I am not curious enough that I would risk the originality of the Shakespeare plays that have already been produced.
I would agree with many of the other commenters so far in that the author is right, and at this point, it doesn't really matter who wrote the Shakespeare plays, whether it was actually Shakespeare himself or someone else. Sure, it'd be an interesting thing to note, and might give a little background on his plays to know for sure, but the fact is that Shakespeare's work has become so well-known, so studied, so often produced, that finding out that someone other than Shakespeare wrote them really wouldn't do that much to change our perception of the plays themselves. Whoever wrote the plays probably was an ordinary person of the time when they began writing, but they ended up producing some rather extraordinary work, and because it was so extraordinary is the reason that the work itself should be the focus
I agree with sonia and with the Writer to and extent in that the who isnt as important as the works. the works have changed the world in many ways so the name of the author matters a hell of a lot less than the works do (yes i am contradicting myself as a writer but sometimes you gotta play devil's advocate.) but really how much of the works of shakespeare were even written by him, we know many of his works were adaptations or "Rip-Offs" of other works, so who did these adaption doesn't even matter. people take this topic way to seriously is all.
Like Sonia, I'm also on the same page as this author. One point that he made that especially strung a chord with me was that he appreciates the fact that he doesn't have to carry any knowledge of Shakespeare having this affair or doing this awful thing into his reading of one of Shakespeare's plays. We were just talking the other day about the way that knowledge of a playwright and his/her life can color one's analysis of the play. While this type of knowledge can sometimes be enriching, it seems as though most of the time I'd rather just read the play for what it is, not for what statements or commentary it might provide on the author's life. Shakespeare's plays are brilliant, whether the man we know as Shakespeare wrote them or not. So can't we just go on using this man Shakespeare as a recognizable symbol of this body of work? The plays wouldn't have different meanings if they were written by someone else, so let's just accept the truth that we don't know all of the concrete facts but that it seems like this man Shakespeare is the most likely candidate to have written these plays.
*I meant to say "struck a chord", not "strung a chord". Woops!
I agree that in order to perform and watch Shakespeare's plays, it does not really matter who actually wrote the work. However, in terms of analyzing the text and Shakespeare's plays as a group of works, it does matter whether or not they were all written by Shakespeare or not. Many people study Shakespeare's biography in order to extract greater meaning form his texts; if other people wrote his plays, this changes ways how one can interpret the text.
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