Shakespeare is considered a fantastic plagiarist. Substantial evidence shows that most of his concepts were taken from other works. What about his plagiarism makes his efforts so successful? What about plagiarism has changed so much from his time to ours? What makes his reinterpretations of ancient, and sometimes not so ancient, text so alluring? Yesterday and today I have spent a lot of time looking at the source works from which he may have derived his story ideas. More to come soon…
3 comments:
That is the question. Why worship a plagiarist? Why has Shakespeare survived all these years when many other skilled playwrights of his time are lost? Is it just luck? Is it his catchy name? Is it really in the context?
Thanks Johnny. I think those are some excellent questions. In my next post i hope to address a few of them. I'm looking for that connection between the allure of Shakespeare and the writings. I'd almost say we have studied him for too long, and forgotten why. You say "Shakespeare" and everyone assumes it's great ...they "just haven't read it yet."
From my vantage point, it seems that literary works worth obsessing over are ones that have enough depth that they require obsession.
Thing is, my criteria for criticism is continually changing so I understand why it's easy to disagree with me. Where I once thought verisimilitude was the most important thing, I changed my tune to character development. Another phase I had, I thought that an intriguing story was most crucial for something to be worthwhile. And then there was the time I thought character psychosis/verisimilitude (as opposed to narrative verisimilitude) was most important (since expecting realistic entertainment is just stupid and defeats the point of entertainment in so many ways). However, for about the past two years now I've been of the opinion that worthwhile lit/entertainment is most worthwhile when it is compressed and exposes new layers upon continual observance. "Ode to a Nightingale" is good the first time, better the second time, and godly the tenth time. Same with something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's how I rationalize the existence of a canon and why things like Hamlet are read thirty times whereas things like Steven King novels get read once, maybe twice.
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