[Mark McDonnell]

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

I assume this is addressed to me, regarding my catalyst comment. N, of course I was talking about your contributions to this discussion not your entire "existence". At the moment, despite how often you post, you appear to have very little to say about Shakespeare's life and work to the point where it's unclear if you actually know much about either. You mainly just repeat the same obsessive idea about Shakespeare making all further poetry pointless and ignore anyone who raises any objections to this bizarre notion. If you genuinely believe what you said in post 117 then it's very sad and misguided. And now you seem to have entered the "Plan 9 From Outer Space" school of literary criticism.

He was just so perfect, so above us pathetic mortals

Puny earthlings!!


N, I would think you were a troll if it weren’t for the fact that you have posted poems here that do show some actual skill, despite the archaisms that many here dislike. But you’re not going to persuade anybody to your viewpoint. You’re just not.

If I were you, I would stop engaging on this thread and take time to go back and just read it instead. Slowly and carefully, as if it has nothing to do with you. Read the well-meaning, thoughtful responses to your ideas and try to really think about them. Read the fascinating discussion from people who love literature and poetry. Break down your defences and try to listen.

Cheers.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

If that's suppose to comfort me, it doesn't.

The internet and a poetry discussion board in particular are bad places to seek comfort.

Be well.

[Jim Moonan]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

...I read somewhere that there’s no evidence Shakespeare knew Homer.

Perhaps not. But there is evidence Shakespeare knew N. He wrote him into many of his scripts. If only N. would read him more closely he'd see himself as Shakespeare saw himself — a player.

"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."


But N. doesn't want to be a player. N. doesn't accept the script that has been handed to him. N. won't play his part. N. hasn't realized yet that his part is being played by him no matter how much he denies it. He's not willing to learn how to play his part to the best of his ability. He's young yet. Give him time.

.

[Carl Copeland]

If Shakespeare returned from the grave and started submitting to poetry journals and theaters today, I don’t think he’d get very far. The game is different now. Can you write better Elizabethan verse than he did? Probably not, but it wouldn’t secure your legacy if you did. The good news is that many poets after Shakespeare have made lasting names for themselves, but they played the game of their day. A few were ahead of their time, but I doubt any were behind it. Most kept their publishers and readers in mind, as Shakespeare did his producers and audiences. Try beating Shakespeare at your own game. That’s doable.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

Can you write better Elizabethan verse than he did? Probably not, but it wouldn’t secure your legacy if you did.

Actually, while I agree with the sentiment here and what you're going for, I believe many of us actually could write better Elizabethan verse than Shakespeare. I mean that seriously. I still resist Susan's claim that the plays are poetry (it's a valid claim, and defensible, but not one I agree with when trying to delineate genres), so if we restrict ourselves to actual poetic output (i.e. poems qua poems), I would be shocked if many of us couldn't write a sonnet that could pass for Shakespeare.

One avenue that we haven't discussed is how limited Shakespeare's world was, and that relatively few people had the means to purchase books, and relatively few were able to even read and write. Shakespeare was active when there were maybe a few hundred people in his orbit capable of reading or writing poems. Sonnet-writing was often seen as a game -- one that emerged from court tradition dating back to Henry VIII, and continued through the end of Elizabeth's reign. She herself wrote sonnets, though they were unremarkable. Sonnets mostly circulated in manuscript form, often in coteries -- a group of friends (usually high-born) who would send their writings back and forth to one another. Importantly, they were rarely seen as serious endeavors. There was a long tradition of sprezzatura, dating back past Castiglione's Book of the Courtier (which was popular in Elizabeth's court). Anyone who praised a poet's work would be met with the poet's ostensible humility - "Oh this? This little poem? No, it is but a trifle I jotted down before falling asleep!" This is precisely why Sidney never published his marvelous Astrophil and Stella -- it was published posthumously in commemoration of his literary greatness (along with Arcadia and others). Samuel Daniel's Delia was only published because some of his poems were somehow mixed in with the first printing of Astrophil and Stella, and he sought to amend the error (an offense to the Sidney family) by making his edition distinct. The key point is that even if there was a common conceit among poets to have their verses last the test of time (the legacy that N. is going on about), there was a related conceit that their verses were meaningless scribblings.

But to bring this back around to my earlier point, when you have a limited number of people able to write poetry, and small groups that essentially egg each other on, the output is impressive for what it is...but is hardly representative of what is capable in the style and form itself. Nowadays, with high literacy and over a billion people on this planet who speak English, it is hard to imagine that some especially creative people could write Elizabethan sonnets as well as Shakespeare. Naturally, as Carl (and others) has said, there's not much reason to want to write Elizabethan sonnets these days, because our language has evolved, as has the breadth of our preferred tropes. That doesn't mean that Shakespeare isn't a great sonneteer, but context is vital.

[N. Matheson]

If such a thing were possible, in 400 years we would have expected to find a superior poet. No such person has arisen.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

If such a thing were possible, in 400 years we would have expected to find a superior poet. No such person has arisen.

Incorrect. Such a thing most certainly is possible - nay, probable - nay, likely! In fact, I bet that if I were to put you in a room with nine of Shakespeare's lesser-known sonnets (really, only around 30-40 of the 154 are widely familiar and/or regularly anthologized) and one by a skilled poet familiar with Elizabethan grammar, you would not be able to tell which was not by Shakespeare. I could actually administer this test now, and would if it weren't for the online environment and the ease of Googling.

The very important point I made above (and in other posts here, but c'est la vie) is that context is everything. Shakespeare is of his time. His expertise has echoed for centuries, but he's gradually becoming less and less accessible, hence the abhorrent No Fear editions of his plays (which "modernize" his language). Put Shakespeare in the 18th century and he's outre. Put him in the 19th and he's gauche. Put him in the 20th or 21st century and he's quaint and archaic. Only when we put him in the context of his time can we really appreciate what makes him so great.

This thread isn't about N. Matheson, but I'm admittedly curious: how many of Shakespeare's plays and poems have you read? Whether your answer is "all" or "few" isn't going to change anything I and others have been talking about, but it might help explain why you seem to be hung up on the idea that nobody in any era is a better poet than Shakespeare.

[Roger Slater]

I don't think N's problem is that he thinks Shakespeare towers above all other writers. That's a defensible position to take, I suppose. The problem is that N thinks Shakespeare's genius means that all other writers are abject failures who have no reason to exist. Rather than being excited and grateful that a writer like Shakespeare came along, N seems to think it was a death blow to his own purpose in life since he modesly acknowledges that he will never be as good as Shakespeare.

N, even if Shakespeare had never existed, isn't it very unlikely that you would have been next in line as the GOAT? So really, how does it hurt your reputation that Shakespeare now holds that title?

[N. Matheson]

Do I really need to explain the fact that nobody outside of poetry scholars and the like knows a single poet besides Shakespeare? If nobody outside of maybe a handful of people know you even existed and wrote, then what justification did you have for even existing?

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Do I really need to explain the fact that nobody outside of poetry scholars and the like knows a single poet besides Shakespeare?

Where do you even get that idea? Most people learn some poetry in high school, usually more in college (for those who go). There are dozens of poets people hear about through cultural osmosis, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly. I really think at this point you're just making stuff up to support a wholly baseless claim.

Honestly, I don't know you, but I'd really love to have you as a student. I mean that. Last week I spent two classes teaching some poems by Edwin Arlington Robinson to non-English-majors who barely had any experience with poetry. By the end of the second class, discussion was lively, debating the finer points of why Aaron Stark laughs at the sound of pity, or what makes Cliff Klingenhagen so "happy." Even if those students never take a true poetry class (this is an American Lit / advanced writing course), they've had a memorable experience with an underrated poet. I daresay if someone were to ask them in a few years who their favorite poet is, one or more might well say "Robinson" because of an extended (and unpretentious) deep dive into his poems. If you were my student, and experienced poetry as a joyous genre to analyze and discuss, rather than a foolish game that none can win because one poet looms above all, you might actually abandon that idea.

As it stands, I'm starting to think that you don't really know the works of Shakespeare (or not many), but are simultaneously bedazzled and crestfallen by his literary stature. One of the many interesting things I've noticed about this thread is that "greatest poet" is thrown around willy-nilly, but we've barely talked about the distinction between "greatest" and "favorite." It's come up in passing a few times, but isn't having a "favorite" poet more valuable than decrying that there is only one "greatest?" If you want to talk about legacy, thousands of poets have been beloved by thousands, hundreds of thousands, and even millions of readers. Movies are routinely made about many poets not named William Shakespeare. Rudyard Kipling's "If" is a mainstay of high school graduation. Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and Poe's "The Raven" are so deeply ingrained in the American psyche that any random fork in the road or corvid immediately brings the respective poem to mind. The world of poetry is large. It contains multitudes. (Hey, look, another allusion most people would get!). It's silly and pointless to claim otherwise.