[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

Before Shakespeare began his writing career, presumably somebody else must have been "the best poet ever". Chaucer maybe? So, by your logic Shakespeare himself should not have bothered writing because, well, how could he ever match Chaucer?

And before Chaucer...

Yes, Chaucer is far too recent. And why limit ourselves to English poetry? Quintilian wrote:

“Like his own conception of Ocean, which he says is the source of every river and spring, Homer provides the model and the origin of every department of eloquence. No one surely has surpassed him in sublimity in great themes, or in propriety in small.”

I’m sure many would still agree a thousand years later. Shaun can correct me on this, but I read somewhere that there’s no evidence Shakespeare knew Homer. If true, it may be a good thing.

[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

You all agree with me but insist on writing. This is my confusion. I don't get it.

We agree that Shakespeare is, as the kids say, a ballin' poet. As to the rest of your proposition, I'll let Stephen Fry answer for me, and this will be my last engagement with the topic:

None of these adventures into technique and proficiency will necessarily turn you into a genius or even a proficient craftsman. Your view of Snow on York Minster, whether languishing in the loft or forming the basis of this year's Christmas card doesn't make you Turner, Constable or Monet. Your version of 'Für Elise' on electric piano might not threaten Alfred Brendel, your trumpet blast of 'Basin Street Blues' could be so far from Satchmo that it hurts and your take on 'Lela' may well stand as an eternal reproach to all those with ears to hear. You may not sell a single picture, be invited even once to deputise for the church organist when she goes down with shingles or have any luck at all when you try out for the local Bay City Rollers tribute band. You are neither Great Artist, sessions professional, illustrator or admired amateur.

So what? You are someone who paints a bit, scratches around on the keyboard for fun, gets a kick out of learning a tune or discovering a new way of rendering the face of your beloved in charcoal. You have another life, you have family, work and friends but this is a hobby, a pastime, FUN. Do you give up the Sunday kick-around because you'll never be Thierry Henry? Of course not. That would be pathologically vain. We don't stop talking about how the world might be better just because we have no chance of making it to Prime Minister. We are all politicians. We are all artists. In an open society everything the mind and hands can achieve is our birthright. It is up to us to claim it.

And you know, you might be the real thing, or someone with the potential to give as much pleasure to others as you derive yourself. But how will you ever know if you don't try?

As the above is true of painting and music, so it is true of cookery and photography and gardening and interior decoration and chess and poker and skiing and sailing and carpentry and bridge and wine and knitting and brass-rubbing and line-dancing and the hundreds of other activities that enliven the daily toil of getting and spending, mortgages and shopping, school and office. There are rules, conventions, techniques, reserved objects, equipment and paraphernalia, time-honoured modes, forms, jargon and tradition. The average practitioner doesn't expect to win prizes, earn a fortune, become famous or acquire absolute mastery in their art, craft, sport — or as we would say now, their chosen leisure pursuit. It really is enough to have fun.

—Stephen Fry, The Ode Less Traveled, pp. xiii-xiv.

Getting back to the actual thread at hand—

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

Yes, Chaucer is far too recent. And why limit ourselves to English poetry? Quintilian wrote:

“Like his own conception of Ocean, which he says is the source of every river and spring, Homer provides the model and the origin of every department of eloquence. No one surely has surpassed him in sublimity in great themes, or in propriety in small.”

Over the summer I read The Odyssey, I think for the first time straight through, although I know I read bits of it in undergrad and had a general cultural-zeitgeist level of familiarity with the story. It was such a rich reading experience! I have Fagles's translation, which is pretty prosy poetry, but easily carried me right along the whole time.

We're far in time and culture from the world of The Odyssey but I doubt there are many people who haven't felt the same longing for home that Odysseus feels for Ithaca and Penelope, even to the point of giving up everything else to attain it:

"But if only you knew, deep down, what pains
are fated to fill your cup before you reach that shore;
you'd stay right here, preside in our house with me [Calypso]
and be immortal. Much as you long to see your wife,
the one you pine for all your days . . . and yet
I just might claim to be nothing less than she,
neither in face nor figure. Hardly right, is it,
for mortal woman to rival immortal goddess?
How, in build? In beauty?"
.............................."Ah great goddess,"
worldly Odysseus answered, "don't be angry with me,
please. All that you say is true, how well I know.
Look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you,
your beauty, stature. She is mortal after all
and you, you never age or die . . .
Nevertheless I long—I pine, all my days—
to travel home and see the dawn of my return.
And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea,
I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure.
Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now
in the waves and wars. Add this to the total—
bring the trial on!"

It's moving thread to trace throughout the whole poem, and when he finally attains it... well, the whole latter half of Book 23 is just lovely.

Originally Posted by Shaun J. Russell

Topically, I will concede that Milton rarely writes about love on the interpersonal level of many poets...but when he does, it's gutting. Case in point: Sonnet 23.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great son to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Shaun, that's a beautiful (and yes, gut-wrenching) sonnet; thank you for posting it. Where would you suggest someone start with Milton?

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

something about N's relentless, one-note negativity seems to have been a catalyst to a very interesting, articulate thread, almost as if in defiant contrast.

Fair enough, Mark. I suppose I was saying exactly what I was objecting to N. saying: "Don't discuss what you're discussing! It's not worthwhile!"

As my love of Larkin might suggest, I don't object to negativity. I do object to the shallowness of N's argument and N's repeating it again and again without addressing the thoughtful objections others have raised or in any way developing it.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Max Goodman

What evidence is there that N. is even reading our responses to N. (or that N. has any interest in reading anything, including the plays or poems of Shakespeare)? What purpose is there in disputing with him, rather than continuing our discussion?

Mark's answer is also my answer, and echoes a comment I made a few days (or pages) ago: this thread isn't about N., and never was. Even if he (?) had a post that inspired me to create it, it's the dogmatic idea -- that there is ONE greatest and no one can ever be better, so it's not worth even trying -- that has given this thread its life. Mark's "catalyst" comment is almost literally true, because a catalyst itself doesn't change, even as it causes a reaction around it. N. doesn't seem to be changing at all, but this thread has been a joy to read and contribute to as it has evolved.

Originally Posted by Carl

Shaun can correct me on this, but I read somewhere that there’s no evidence Shakespeare knew Homer.

Well...Troilus and Cressida is an account of events in the Iliad, though through the lens of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (when I was a Ph.D. student, I actually wrote a comparative analysis of the two). George Chapman was one of Shakespeare's contemporaries and likely a friend/acquaintance. His translation of the Iliad came out in 1598, so I doubt Shakespeare wasn't aware of it. Harder to pin down The Odyssey, however. Shakespeare loved the classics (especially Ovid), but I think (but am not 100% sure) that the general consensus is that Shakespeare didn't know Greek. His drawing from Plutarch was always from North's English translation. There's a book I've come across before that was called something like Shakespeare's Books, but I looked for that title recently and couldn't find it (there's another book with a similar title, but it's not the one I was thinking of). But yes, Shakespeare definitively knew SOME Homer through translation, but probably not all.

Originally Posted by Christine

Where would you suggest someone start with Milton?

I would 100% suggest the 1645 Poems. I say that not because I have a particular interest in that volume (I presented on it at Renaissance Society of America's conference this past March, and will be doing so at RSA again next year), but because Milton's fingerprints are all over it, which was at least slightly uncommon of poetry editions by that time. He has a few explanatory headnotes to some poems, and one in which he admits to the reader that it was a poem that he abandoned because he had been too young to do the subject justice (which begs the question why he included it in the first place!). There's a great 20th century reprinting that's been long out of print, but is relatively cheap and available if you look for it. The editor is Cleanth Brooks. Here's a link to a copy I just located on Abebooks (my go-to for used scholarly books), but the link will probably expire when someone buys that copy, so mea culpa if it's nullified soon.

[Christine P'legion]

Originally Posted by Shaun J. Russell

Here's a link to a copy I just located on Abebooks[/url] (my go-to for used scholarly books), but the link will probably expire when someone buys that copy, so mea culpa if it's nullified soon.

$13 for the book and $32 to ship to Canada—woof. I'll have to pass on that particular copy, but I'll definitely keep an eye out elsewhere. Thanks!

EDIT:

The collection can be downloaded as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31706

For those who prefer to listen, there is a public domain LibriVox recording available as well: https://archive.org/details/miltons_...1911_librivox/

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Christine P'legion

EDIT:

The collection can be downloaded as a free ebook from Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31706

For those who prefer to listen, there is a public domain LibriVox recording available as well: https://archive.org/details/miltons_...1911_librivox/

That's actually a completely different collection...which is completely fine, of course, but the 1645 Poems specifically have the poems (and two masques) in a particular order, likely curated by Milton himself (or in consultation with bookseller Humphrey Moseley). If you're just reading his poems as poems, any collection is fine...but if you want to see them as Milton first published them, you really can't beat the 1645 Poems via the edited/reprinted edition I noted above.

[N. Matheson]

I think I should defend myself from people saying things about me. First of all, I hold this standard to every field, so I am not arguing this is unique to poetry or playwriting. I believe that the only thing in existence that matters is legacy. Nothing else matters. I don't think happiness, children, health, etc. any of that matters when put against legacy. And the only way to secure a legacy, truly, is to become the greatest in your field. Shakespeare achieved total mastery to the point later readers elevated him to the status of a god. He will never leave that position and will be remembered forever in that role. If he can't be usurped from the role, then you cannot acquire that legacy yourself, so there's no point in conducting your field if there's no more room. I do not know why people are disagreeing with me on this. Legacy is the only thing that can outlast you. We're all flesh and bones that will turn into dust, but legacy will outlast all of that. We should be dedicating ourselves solely to this pursuit above all other things. This is why poetry and all art is a competition, because if you fail to be remembered, then your life will have been a few decades and then dust. I don't know how else to describe that other than failure. This is why I am trying to tell you all that if you can't surpass him, there's not much point. Because if it can't surmount his legacy, then it's doomed to oblivion. A life forgotten isn't much different than a life that never existed to begin with.

[Glenn Wright]

I wonder if Shakespeare was very concerned with his legacy. He did absolutely nothing to preserve his plays for posterity after his death. In fact, he took pains to keep his plays from being published during his lifetime because there were no copyright laws to protect him from rival theater owners mounting productions of his plays. Shakespeare seems to have been more interested in making money to support his wife and children.

You might enjoy this short short story by Isaac Asimov, “The Immortal Bard.” It discusses how Shakespeare might react to being transported to the present day and learning about his legacy.

https://www.ntschools.org/cms/lib/NY...tal%20Bard.pdf

[N. Matheson]

Then the fact he got by accident what people have bled for is even sadder. He was just so perfect, so above us pathetic mortals, he achieved godhood without even trying. If that's suppose to comfort me, it doesn't.

[N. Matheson]

I'm glad you consider my existence to amount to no more than a firestarter.