11-30-2016, 04:18 AM
Yep, his sonnets are basically balls.
Well, they're not horrible and they do kind of transcend time in that they're fairly universal subjects, but they're not spectacular insights into the human condition as the purists will have us believe. The sonnets are basically just famous because people can remember 14 lines pretty easily and figure that quoting Shakespeare is a good way to impress pseudo-intellectuals and maybe get laid. There are much better sonnets than Willy's -- a good many written around the same time that he was writing, too, and using the same rhyme scheme but for some reason morons and Wikipedia think that he was the first one to use it so they call it a Shakespearean sonnet. Wankers.
He could write, though. For me, his appeal is in his understanding of character rather than his fairly ordinary and sometimes (mostly) ludicrous plots. And some of his best poetry is in the plays, especially some of the soliloquies -- Hamlet's isn't crap, despite how bloody annoying Hamlet as a character really is, although frankly if you look at some of the spoilt rich kids these days then you can put Hamlet's sulking into perspective. Lady Macbeth's is pretty exceptional. Romeo and Juliet sounds kind of pretty but it's just icky when you think about a couple of middle-schoolers getting married just so they can get down, then being so emo as to kill themselves.
So -- I do like Shakespeare, and quite a lot, but not for his Hallmark shite.
Well, they're not horrible and they do kind of transcend time in that they're fairly universal subjects, but they're not spectacular insights into the human condition as the purists will have us believe. The sonnets are basically just famous because people can remember 14 lines pretty easily and figure that quoting Shakespeare is a good way to impress pseudo-intellectuals and maybe get laid. There are much better sonnets than Willy's -- a good many written around the same time that he was writing, too, and using the same rhyme scheme but for some reason morons and Wikipedia think that he was the first one to use it so they call it a Shakespearean sonnet. Wankers.
He could write, though. For me, his appeal is in his understanding of character rather than his fairly ordinary and sometimes (mostly) ludicrous plots. And some of his best poetry is in the plays, especially some of the soliloquies -- Hamlet's isn't crap, despite how bloody annoying Hamlet as a character really is, although frankly if you look at some of the spoilt rich kids these days then you can put Hamlet's sulking into perspective. Lady Macbeth's is pretty exceptional. Romeo and Juliet sounds kind of pretty but it's just icky when you think about a couple of middle-schoolers getting married just so they can get down, then being so emo as to kill themselves.
So -- I do like Shakespeare, and quite a lot, but not for his Hallmark shite.
It could be worse