You fucks never mention Shakespeare and it’s a crying fucking shame. King Lear is now one of my all-time favorite pieces of lit, right up there with Moby Dick and The Brothers Karamazov. It digs deep into the messy world of redemption and explores the 'foolishness' of trying to be virtuous in a wicked society. The clash between generations, the danger of unbridled passion, and the loneliness of leadership and poverty all weave beautifully into this story.I couldn't help but shed a few tears while reading King Lear. The prose blindsided me with how beautiful they are and in my opinion equal Melvilles prose; it doesn’t even pain me to say that. I read Hamlet the other day too and consider it just as good.I got the Arden edition of KL. Read the Folger edition of Hamlet. The 150-page introductory essay of the Arden is fantastic, covering different interpretations and the play's evolution. It also explored the characters' symbolism and delved into the history of the text, discussing how scholars reconcile the various versions. It’s essentially the play attached to a supplementary text that I found to be wonderful. I will be sticking with the Arden books now and ordered 4 more plays. If you go that direction read the play first before you read the introduction essays unless of course you’ve read them before. We need more Shakespeare on this board. Excerpt example from Edmund the bastard: >This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon's tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.
>>22080372it's ok. the plot is retarded and just an excuse to get the wandering around scenes and the scenes with the blind guy. besides that shit I don't see what is so special about this play. like yeah it has a clash between generations but it doesn't "dig deep" into it.
>>22080372Saying I read Shakespeare doesn’t signal anything so why should I do it?
>>22080388The “plot.”
>>22080372apperently Melville didn’t add Ahab into Moby Dick until he read King Lear which inspired him to do so.
>>22080420I find it hard to believe Melville began writing Moby-Dick without having ever read King Lear
>>22080372I'm glad you're getting into Shakespeare, especially through the Arden editions, but you're clearly both new to this board and new to reading, so you really shouldn't heckle this board when you need to read and lurk more before posting. There's pretty much at least one Shakespeare thread per day from what I recall. And if there's not more it's because more novel and current topics will usually provide more fruitful discussion. It's difficult to find a Shakespeare thread where an anon says something genuinely insightful or original about him, unfortunately.
>>22080513Been on this board for years and rarely is there a Shakespeare thread.
>>22080388Uhoh plotfag detected
>>22080372Wait until you find out about the entire history of drama, poetry aside from the most prominent epics, any novel that has more subtlety and circumspection than a prestige TV series, aphoristic/essay writing, literary criticism before it became retarded, etc. This board is somewhat entertaining if you just want to talk about Greek philosophy, Homer/Virgil/Dante/Milton, and then philosophy/philosophical novels of the 19th and 20th centuries. For anything else it represents only a tiny, tiny percentage of the discussion that could potentially be had on the subject. Your heart is in the right place though, you will find your way to what you love and then probably, unless you are a bitter, obnoxious pedant like me, leave this place to its own devices. >>22080513Anon, I hate to break this to you, but the threads that get a lot of engagement here do not achieve that by virtue of furnishing genuine original insights. The entire corpus of literary criticism on Shakespeare alone is more than enough to keep you busy for a lifetime, of course retarded anons don't say anything new, they don't say anything new about Nietzsche or Hegel or Schopenhauer or Marx or Plato either but they will keep discussing them as long as this site is available because those authors offer a different and more emotionally charged sort of outlet for discussion. Yes OP is obviously new but he's right on the money about this.
>>22080432You’re probably right more like he just took inspiration from Lear though I did read something that said he had a first draft of MD without Ahab and then added it after reading KL. Maybe bs
>>22080876I have read some great literature n my life but KL is the one piece that has made me feel similar feelings as when I read Moby Dick for the first time. A cool moment n my literary journey.
>>22081057Yeah I'm just saying that once you more fully explore the space of what's out there you'll realize the true extent of this board's impoverishment and cease to be surprised by it. Not trying to imply Shakespeare is a lesser discovery by any means, he is recognized as the greatest because he is indeed the greatest. Melville worshipped him so it's likely that much of what you appreciate in Melville flows from Shakespeare originally, though I'm sure Milton was an influence too, either directly or via the Romantics.
>>22080372Some impressions upon finishing the Arden. > the fools in the play were all wise prophets. They were merely foolish as Christ and the prophets were “foolish” for speaking the truth amidst vice ridden devils. > Lear’s title possessed him because he was full of vice.. Even at the end of the play when he clearly wanted to stop being king Cordelia (like Christ) was set upon her mission to keep him holy or bring him to holiness so that he could reclaim his title. The king title could represent Christ countenance, etc.I read that there was a version where the map at the beginning covered the entire stage and it was gradually ripped up throughout the play until it was gone. Interesting way of conveying the play and in conveying text in general. Never knew how nuanced a play could be. I think that this was hidden underneath my learned aversion to theater nerds throughout the years. >There was an aversion to womankind or perhaps nature itself from Lear. The pagan references to gods made me think that his raging against the storm was a reflection of his inner turmoil (obviously) but that it also could have been another example of him raging against the Mother as in Mother Nature, or perhaps his own nature as a child of God. Perhaps his reconciliation with Cordelia was a sort of acceptance of the inner mother or to women in general. We know nothing of his queen or mother. Could be something going on there. >The juxtaposition of Lear being a King but not wanting to and being a prisoner n his own land at the end was also interesting. I got the sense that he was also a prisoner to his own flesh as he descended into madness.” Do not let me be mad” —or something of the sort. When we go against our true nature as sons and daughters of god we enslave ourselves after to vice and that which is against our natural state of being. A lot more to unpack with other characters.
>>22080388>besides that shit I don't see what is so special about this playerrr, does OP's quotation give you any reaction? What other writers reach this level of rhetorical skill?
>>22080372/lit/ Shakespeare posts quite a lot though. Glad you liked it, check out his sonnets too.
>>22081284For me, it's the eighteenth sonnet.
>>22081267I don’t care for that quote because I don’t believe in astrology or blame shit on the moon. The style is better than average but doesn’t raise it to any grand level. How can you seriously pretend that you were moved by some bullshit about astrology that hasn’t been a part of our culture for centuries?
>>22081476The quote is saying in its most basic sense that humans have a tendency to blame shit on external circumstances and that we would blame our own vileness on all but ourselves. The guy saying this in the play is the main villain Edmund who is a bastard. The writing is brilliant. Shakespeare consistently reaching a high level of prose in his writing, the excerpt is just one example among many.
