Shakespeare

[RiverNotch]

Monoglots, hah, fantastic choice of word, mentally saving that one.
Yeah- I do get this point- but as a tardy person who only speaks one language, I always feel I don't grasp or appreciate the full value of translated work, let alone feeling apt to compare it to works originally written in another language.

Going back to your original post, the tortured rhyme example is spot on w/ the sonnets, throughout my studies I had many painful arguments with other students and professors about the base rubbishness of 95% of them! As I see it, as good an example as you picked, there are so many average parts of those sonnets that you could have also used, hah.

Massively disagree with your initial comment- that Othello is the only play that makes the cut dramatically (you then praise Troilus so assume you have seen a good production of that, and also surely in terms of dramatic critique the acting and direction can more or less make or break any adequate script?). As I mentioned in my lengthier reply, I could discuss this all year- but I feel that surely the fact that so many of his plays have remained successful over 400 years (in terms of number of performances and tickets sold, audiences still enjoying them, and in the recent modern age films of them produced ) suggests that saying only Othello makes the cut is a little ludicrous! When I read Hamlet, bar Ophelia's delicate madness, I thought it was shite. But the Brannagh production was watchable.

It's actually been a good few years since I read or watched live or caught a film or a Shakey play- definitely going to catch a few on cartoon hd and watch with a harsher, more critical eye!

RBJ

Tortured rhyme?

I still don't think it's fair to compare poetry of four hundred years ago to poetry of today, especially stuff so esteemed (imperialism be damned!) -- at least on a level that goes beyond the personal. The constant changes in literature and language make it inevitable that any value judgments away from personal opinion or workshopping end up sounding like ripe old foolishness or ripe old snobbery, and so far this doesn't sound like personal opinion. (but on the other hand, Shakespeare is as peerless as a hawk-eyed falcon -- that is to say, it ain't good to say the inverse, too. And there may have been an admittance to opinion that I have missed, or perhaps it's a key assumption....)