[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

I don't think the "feedback loop" concept explains why only a handful of artists have fallen into that loop

It's not meant to. What it might explain is why the lesser greats who don't fall into the loop might be undervalued.

[Glenn Wright]

Originally Posted by Roger Slater

Glenn, The Merchant of Venice is a comedy. No one dies and there's a wedding at the end. But I agree it's not a very light comedy.

. . .unless you consider Shylock as a tragic hero. The main plot line, set in Venice, involving the bargain with the pound of flesh and culminating in the courtroom scene in Act 4 is tragic. Shylock’s forced conversion, from the point-of-view of a devout Jew and his community, could be seen as a kind of death. Many tragedies don’t end with the death of the tragic hero, but rather with his or her mutilation or enslavement—Oedipus Rex and The Trojan Women, for example.

The other plot line, set in Belmont involving the gold, silver, and lead caskets and the triple romance of Portia/Bassanio, Jessica/Lorenzo, and Gratiano/Nerissa is comic, but it is resolved in Act 3, even though the weddings are postponed until Act 5.

Since WWII and the Holocaust, most productions of the play emphasize the tragic character of Shylock. (Although in Shakespeare’s day, Shylock would most likely have been played by a clown like Will Kemp.). The tradition of playing Shylock sympathetically as a tragic character apparently began in the early 19th century with Edmund Kean’s portrayal of this character. Here is an article on this trend:

https://therogersrevue.com/stc-the-merchant-of-venice/

[Roger Slater]

Certainly it is "tragic" in the generic sense of the word, but I don't know of any literary critic who classifies Merchant as a tragedy. It's often called a "comedy," though I suppose it actually belongs among his "problem plays," the problem being that it doesn't fit the mold of a comedy or a tragedy. Another example of a problem play is Measure for Measure.

My guess is that many Elizabethans probably thought it was a happy ending for Shylock. Even though he didn't get his pound of flesh, he was compelled to be a Christian, which most of the audience probably saw not as punishment but redemption, the unstrained quality of mercy.

[Carl Copeland]

Originally Posted by Nick McRae

Maybe what we're looking at with Shakespeare is a marriage of poetic quality and mass appeal. He was good, but he also wrote many accessible and infectious lines. And he did it at the right time and place.

I’ve always wondered how Shakespeare’s plays were understood by their early audiences. His contemporaries naturally would have understood his language better than we do and would have gotten jokes and topical references that need annotating for us. But the language is often so complex and richly layered that I suspect they missed a lot, especially with spectators milling about, commenting on the action, booing at villains, chomping on applies and swilling ale. And I suspect the plays’ dramatic and poetic subtlety—their greatness—was recognized by scholars of a later time.

[Nick McRae]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

I’ve always wondered how Shakespeare’s plays were understood by their early audiences. His contemporaries naturally would have understood his language better than we do and would have gotten jokes and topical references that need annotating for us. But the language is often so complex and richly layered that I suspect they missed a lot, especially with spectators milling about, commenting on the action, booing at villains, chomping on applies and swilling ale. And I suspect the plays’ dramatic and poetic subtlety—their greatness—was recognized by scholars of a later time.

Maybe Shaun can comment.

On the other hand, I also wonder how the value of the spoken and written word has been devalued in the modern era. I've heard that in the 19th century, when our ability to produce books improved dramatically, the stature of poets rose quite a bit. At the time the written word would have been a major form of entertainment, without much competition.

When entertainment as a whole is scarce, and literature and drama make up a large part of what's available, I can envision a scenario where the complexity and richness of Shakespeare's works were valued even more highly then than they are now.

These days we're so bombarded with information and stimuli that we might have become desensitized to language.

But this is really guesswork.

[Shaun J. Russell]

Originally Posted by Carl Copeland

I’ve always wondered how Shakespeare’s plays were understood by their early audiences. His contemporaries naturally would have understood his language better than we do and would have gotten jokes and topical references that need annotating for us. But the language is often so complex and richly layered that I suspect they missed a lot, especially with spectators milling about, commenting on the action, booing at villains, chomping on applies and swilling ale. And I suspect the plays’ dramatic and poetic subtlety—their greatness—was recognized by scholars of a later time.

It's a great question, and one that's been mulled over by critics for a good long while. One important thing to keep in mind (which is often forgotten or not known) is that performances featured heavy editing of the playtext. What would happen is that a playwright would frequently have far more material than was typically performed. Case in point: Hamlet. There were several quarto editions of the play produced (read: printed) during Shakespeare's lifetime, and they're all different. The first quarto edition is a whopping 1600 lines shorter than the 4000-line Hamlet we are most accustomed to. It's widely (and understandably) considered far inferior to the version found in the 1623 folio, but in truth, the much shorter version makes a lot more sense in performance. As best we can tell, playgoers did not stick around for four hours to watch a play. Instead, scripts were cut to optimal size for performances, and sometimes they might vary from one day to the next (e.g. an actor is sick? Guess we need to cut his role, or maybe have Bob double up!).

Much has been made of the "two hours' traffic of our stage" line from Romeo and Juliet, and around a decade ago, one enterprising independent scholar (whose name escapes me) did some impressive research on how early modernists counted time. In short, the bell would toll on the hour, and any time between the first and second hour would be considered "an hour," and any time between the second and third hour would be considered "two hours" and so on. So something that was 2.5 hours in fact might have functionally been called "two hours."


But I digress. What the "how the audience understood" question boils down to is likely a combination of the text being "dumbed down" a bit for performance, a reliance on spectacle (costumes, sound effects, basic pyro), and memorable performances. Content would have mattered to many, but the commons could still appreciate the plays for other reasons. A scholar named Lukas Erne has an excellent book titled Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist that gets into the high likelihood that Shakespeare did view his plays as having literary merit. You don't write 3500-plus-line behemoths like Hamlet, Coriolanus, and Richard III if you don't care about 1000 of those lines.

As to in-jokes, there are indeed many...and some that the audience would be aware of. I always find the Arden Shakespeare editions of the plays to be the best by a wide margin, as the critical apparatus is usually huge and informative, catching many such instances. Not all editors are created equal, of course, but the critical continuum of Shakespeare studies is impressive, and you can't turn a page without seeing at least one footnote of interest (and often dozens).

[N. Matheson]

This has not been my experience at all and I am wondering what happened in academia in the past two years apparently. What I was taught was Shakespeare is not merely an artist, but art incarnate. His works are so far removed from us mere mortals that to even think he is capable of being measured is like trying to put a chain around the wind. I recall one quote repeated that said the only person who created more than Shakespeare was God alone. Harold Bloom, who has been mentioned, also relegated every one of his contemporaries to hacks. He dismissed works such as The Spanish Tragedy as nonsense. I fail to see how anything anyone could have written even compares to his on remotely the same level.

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

What I was taught was Shakespeare is not merely an artist, but art incarnate. His works are so far removed from us mere mortals that to even think he is capable of being measured is like trying to put a chain around the wind.

That sounds like lazy teaching.

As a reader/playgoer, you're free to feel that way, but attempting the impossible might lead to greater enjoyment. What is it that you love about Shakespeare? Do you find these qualities equally in every play, every sonnet, every line? Where do they most stand out, and why?

Originally Posted by N. Matheson

Harold Bloom, who has been mentioned, also relegated every one of his contemporaries to hacks..

In the appendix to his Western Cannon, Bloom includes several of Shakespeare's contemporaries. He didn't rate them as Shakespeare's equals, but he found them worth reading and studying.

https://www.openculture.com/2014/01/...oogle_vignette

[N. Matheson]

I was told my opinions were irrelevant. His greatness was an objective fact, If I could not see the genius of every word, the fault was with me.

[W T Clark]

Every mother who has given birth has created more than Shakespeare, though less enduringly.

Academia is fine and all: but his true place is in the air, not the academy.
My difficult friend Bloom says he and Marlowe were racing neck and neck. Doctor Faustus is very funny: I love it a great deal; King Lear is an apocalypse: I HAVE to read it.