Talk:Reputation of William Shakespeare

Please don't nominate this for Featured article, just in case anybody drops by and thinks of doing that (a conceited idea, I know!). It's fairly new, it's in flux, and it's far from comprehensive. Please see To-do list below (please help with the tasks!).--Bishonen (talk) 19:29, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC).

And please also see Peer review as per above. I posted it there today, along with an appeal on Talk:William Shakespeare. That's it from me, I'm fresh out of ideas.--Bishonen | Talk 18:20, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Article created

This is a great article. I would like to read a section on the 20th and 21st century reputation as well (in particular the shift from the perception of Shakespeare as populist anti-classicist to the common modern perception of him as associated with intellectual elitism?). The Singing Badger 21:12, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd like to read that, too, absolutely. I'm planning to put in a few lines about the late 19th c Elizabethan Stage Society, that revolutionized Shakespeare production by excavating the plays from under the Victorian scenery and props and brought them out past the fourth wall on to an apron stage again, and returned to something within shouting distance of the original text. At least I think that was it. I've got Michael Holroyd's Shaw biography right here, I think that's where I read about it, I'll check. Hope somebody else does the next 100 years, though. Thanks very much for the compliment!--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 22:19, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article title

Surely this should be titled William Shakespeare's reputation? violet/riga (t) 22:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I hope not. Could you give the reasons why you think so, or point me to a policy that says so? I don't think the principles for naming the main article (William Shakespeare, not Shakespeare) apply here. "William Shakespeare's reputation" isn't to me a phrase you'd come across in normal discourse, as opposed to the phrase "William Shakespeare". And nobody's going to type in "Shakespeare's reputation" hoping to find for instance a page about Nicholas Shakespeare's reputation. Not because Nicholas (British novelist, b. 1957) is a writer to be sneezed at by any means, but because of the Shakespeare household name angle.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 16:04, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My theory being that names of "offshoot pages" should be based upon the full title of the original article. Since this relates to the William Shakespeare article it should be named William Shakespeare's reputation. Leaving this as a redirect would be fine, but I really think we should use the persons full name when referring to them in an article title. violet/riga (t) 20:21, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, no sale. I don't think we should, and the practice is we don't. William Shakespeare already has the "offshoot pages" Shakespeare Apocrypha and Shakespeare's sonnets. Compare also the assumption made about surnames being OK on their own in article titles on this policy page: Use the title of the work as the article's title, following all applicable general conventions. To disambiguate, add the type of literary work in parentheses, such as "(novel)," "(novella)," "(short story)," etc. You may use "(book)" to disambiguate a non-fiction book. If further disambiguation is needed, add the author's surname in parentheses: "(Orwell novel)," "(Asimov short story)," etc. Thanks for bringing it up, though, I hadn't thought about it before.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:43, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fair argument – still am leaning towards the fullname version but you've made some good points. violet/riga (t) 22:36, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rearrangement

I've rearranged the small matter on popularity of staging and trimmed it and mentioned the great critical editors with the textual editors. I've consciously left out some folks like Hanmer and Warburton, as the former used Pope's text, and the latter didn't do much to improve Theobald's, and neither have lasting critical insights. Geogre 03:12, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dueling Shakespeares

Drury Lane and Covent Garden did the competing Shakespeares. However, I can't find, yet, the exact seasons. This was Rich vs. Cibber, and this was Garrick vs. all comers. Bishonen, do you know when this happened? This is what I got from the fusty musty 1911:
"Rich's management occurred the rival performances of Romeo and Juliet--Barry and Mrs. Cibber at Covent Garden, and Garrick and Miss Bellamy at Drury Lane--and the subsequent competition between the two rival actors in King Lear. "
Bad old 1911 habit of perpetuating the 18th c. habit of not giving women's names. Figured this might ring a bell for you. Geogre 14:29, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• I don't know what season that was, I don't have the relevant volume of the London Stage here. But most often such things are a measure of the heat of competition, more than of an author's dominance. From 1695 on, nobody had any rights to any particular authors or plays any more, so it was the law of the jungle, and sometimes a company would be quite willing to lose money, if they had it, in a bid to drive the other house out of business. Listen to what daddy Christopher Rich did in 1695, when he had capital and the other house didn't: hearing that Betterton's company at Lincoln's Inn Fields was to act Congreve's The Old Bachelor on a Monday and Hamlet on the Tuesday, Rich announced that Hamlet would be acted at Drury Lane on the Monday. Betterton, who was naturally playing the lead in both plays, replied by cancelling The Old Bachelor and moving Hamlet to the Monday also. Then Drury Lane shifted The Old Bachelor to the Monday, and announced that Powell would play the lead in it and mimick Betterton in doing so. That was right there in the announcement, "Powell to mimick Betterton". They weren't playing games, those guys, they were trying to kill each other. I don't know about the double 1740s performance, but my guess would be it was something of that nature.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 17:59, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, by now we have the seasons in question, as well as (and I don't feel like stating it, as it's irrelevant except to this talk page) that it was Mrs. Theophilus Cibber that would have been the draw. The reason that I thought the dueling Shakespeares was a good thing to put in, though, is that, while we know that it was a theater war, it's also a sign of Shakespeare's reputation that both houses felt that Shakespeare was the cudgel with which to beat the other guy. I.e. rival Lillo's wouldn't have gotten an audience sufficient for anyone to care, but a rival Shakespeare was the talk of the town. The implication is that everyone wanted to see the great actor play the great role, the great actress in the great part. Therefore, I think that this use of Shakespeare testifies to the regard in which he was held in the 18th c. Geogre 17:01, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Btw, I'm going to mention Nicholas Rowe's edition of 1709, that's the one everybody talks about as the first "modern" one. (I think you sort of hinted at that before.) I'm writing a separate section about the split between Bill on the stage and Bill for reading, that appears so early and becomes so wide (but that's maybe healing now). If anything comes of it. I'd like to stick in a bit more about Tate's and Lee's editions (the years, the nature of them) that you mention in there, but I can't find the info. (Google has a field day with anything like Shakespeare + Tate + edition. Even if I minus "King Lear!") Do you remember where it's from, or have you got the years?--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 22:17, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

20th century

Any plans for a 20th century section? I could probably add a few lines on the modernists and bollocky bill from over the hill. Filiocht 15:32, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Hi, Filiocht, that would be great, a 20th c section from you, I couldn't have hoped for better. See The Singing Badger at the top of the page, and me talking about the Elizabethan Stage Society and hoping somebody else will do the next 100 years? Not that you're not welcome to do the 19th century too, very much so. (The ESS wasn't in Holroyd like I'd hoped, so I've lost a bit of momentum there.)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 16:24, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I'm knee deep in The Cantos at the moment, but will do some reading around 20th c. Bill, maybe this weekend. Things that spring to mind are: modern dress productions. Pound, Eliot and Joyce and their use of WS. Louis Zukofsky on WS: sound and sight. Basil Bunting's plan to rewrite the sonnets removing all the padding. WS and film. Filiocht 08:48, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

I started that up for you guys. I've always wanted to use the word "punk" in an article on Shakespeare :> The Steve 05:23, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Thesteve, I noticed and appreciated it. I'm kind of proud of getting the word "adhockery" into the Restoration section, also. (Well, it'll have to go, but I'm leaving it for a while, I like it.) Thanks for your help.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 06:21, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

On the 20th c., it's one of those potentially very touchy things. I mean, on the stage, the biggest thing seems to me the advent of psychoanalytic approaches and Marxist approaches to the plays. Hamlet we all know about: everyone wants Oedipus in there. Seems to me that if the article goes into any depth on the 20th c. stage vs. page, we get the fact that the stagings seem to respond to the challenges/innovations of Freud and Marx in one broad swathe, but then that two other swathes exist. One is the a democratic impulse, where various nations established programs to try to get Shake performances out to children, and free or low-cost productions about (Shakespeare in the Park in NYC is one good example of this, but just one), while some nations also set up official Shakespeare theaters, with the Royal being most important. These theaters do nothing but Shake and pals. Also, some libraries, like the Folger Library in Washington DC, do nothing but work on getting absolute authority of text and times. (As for the High Modernist reading, Hamlet, in particular, as a victim of "dissociative sensibilities" and the indecisive prince is kind of It.) Random thoughts, but all things in there, I suppose. Geogre 21:06, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's Folger Shakespeare Library in wiki-speak, though everyone I know just calls it "The Folger" or "The Folger Library." Anyhow, it's a perfect example, being 1918 or thereabouts and being an institution dedicated to getting absolutely every textual variant ever in one place. Geogre 05:44, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

International Billy

That sound great, Filiocht. I'm also painfully aware of how London-centric the article is at this moment, I'm hoping you will redress that somewhat in the projected 20th-century section. It would also be a very good thing if anybody had any input to giv e about Billy's rep in the rest of the world in the 18th-19th centuries. (How about the lively 18th c Dublin scene, Filiocht, do you know if it just reflected London, Bill-wise?) At a pinch, I could put in something myself about French neoclassical stand-offishness and German Romantic bard worship (worst case of bardolatry anywhere, I believe), I suppose, sigh... but real French and German contributors would do it better, and, anyway, coverage would still be very patchy. What about the U. S. in the 19th-c, did that merely reflect the British scene? Maybe I need to take International Billy to the Pump.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 12:39, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have a little book at home called 'Shakespeare in the New World' I'll root through. Wasn't Harley Granville Barker involved with the ESS? Maybe a bio of him would be good. For Ireland, a number of the articles on List of Irish theatres and theatre companies may contain some relevant material, but mostly Dublin imported London players and productions. Filiocht 13:19, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

G-B may have been a little too young, I believe (but I mention him as a "bridger" in the Stage and Study section). William Poel is the big ESS name. Shaw was very, very interested in the ESS. I have a little book of Shaw's theatre reviews, which was probably where I knew about ESS from, rather than Holroyd's biography as I thought. But Shaw's reviews aren't that useful as a source, especially not in non-searchable form (that's the trouble with little books). Dublin mostly imported London players, really? You're kidding. I keep seeing references to a brain drain in the other direction, with London theatre companies importing Irish actors. A steady stream of them in the 1690s for instance. And there seems to be this Restoration + 18th c idea that to be any good as an actor, a person would have to, if not be Irish, then at least have Irish ancestry. :-)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 14:07, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ah yes. As I remember, Peg Woffington was pretty good, and a Dublin lass, but it's a while since I last saw her on stage. Wonder if she's still working. Seriously, I'm not quite that old, but feel ancient in the (virtual) company of Wikipedia's brilliant band of 13-year-old editors. I'll try to do some digging around between reading cantos. The beauty of little books is that you can take them to bed/the toilet/etc when you want to do research, and I prefer them to online reading, which again reflects on my age. My first port of call will be modernist responses to WS. Filiocht 15:34, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Yeow, gross! You do your research where? As I mentioned on WP:FAC, I was 110 at the time of the 1973 oil crisis, that's how I remember all the Barries and the great Barton Booth.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 18:20, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

P. S. Well, I got that wrong, I see, Booth was from Lancashire. The 1911 EB has topped me up on him: he never had a superior as the ghost in Hamlet, and played to perfection the gay Lothario.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 18:36, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I saw it in a moooovie

Kind of a warning. I think we need to think about whether Shake in film is a good thing or not. Once that can of film gets opened, a lot of stuff will come flying out. My suggestion is that Shake on Film be only a hint in this article -- just as it relates to his reputation -- with possibly some suggestion that the number of adaptations (from West Side Story to King of New York) -- but that it transclude to another, separate article. Shakespeare films is either already or should be a separate, full length article. Geogre 21:09, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tolstoy

The article probably needs something on Tolstoy's extensive (and vitriolic) criticism of Shakespeare. Haukurth 22:10, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It seems to have been the time for it, then, I suppose: G. B. Shaw has some zingers, too. Do you want to put in some Tolstoy stuff? --Bishonen | Talk 23:39, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to but I don't know enough. All I've read is Orwell's essay on Tolstoy's writings on Shakespeare. Someone should look this up in (I think) Tolstoy's letters to get closer to the source. I prefer editing articles where I'm more of an expert.Haukurth 20:56, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Critical quotations

If you work on this article, and look things up and stuff, maybe you'll come across some cool passages about Shakespeare. Please consider adding them to the Critical quotations section! It only runs from 1668 to 1775 right now, it could sure stand extending in both directions.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 15:46, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

BTW, superb article. Not far from being featured, in my view! I'm thinking of someone doing stagecraft in Shakespeare - now here's a good candidate. Mandel 19:36, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Mandel. I hope this gets a chance to get a lot more comprehensive before it gets nominated for FAC, though. It has a problem of proportion (Rest + 18th c, which is my baby, being much fuller than the other sections, and comprising the whole of the Critical quotes section), and of being Anglocentric, no, England-centric, no, London-centric. Well, centric is OK, I guess, but it shouldn't be exclusively London, that's absurd for a world heritage writer whose plays are performed worldwide, no, Western-world-wide, no, I dunno where. I'm hoping more people will pitch in.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 00:03, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm, you're right. I remember the Romantic German critics being one of the first to establish Shakespeare's reputation, and the fact that he transposes so well into other cultures (including those which seems remotely English, like in Kurosawa's Japan or Africa) attests to his lasting influence as a playwright and chronicler of human nature. Hopefully, those parts'll come. In the meantime, keep up the good work. Mandel 08:25, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Critical quote from de Quincey

Maybe this could help fill a gap in the critical quotes between Johnson and Carlyle. On the other hand, it's pretty darned fulsome, which is why I didn't just go ahead and paste it in:

Thomas de Quincey, "On the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth" (1823) (concluding paragraph):

O, mighty poet! Thy works are not as those of other men, simply and merely great works of art; but are also like the phenomena of nature, like the sun and the sea, the stars and the flowers,--like frost and snow, rain and dew, hail-storm and thunder, which are to be studied with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the perfect faith that in them there can be no too much or too little, nothing useless or inert--but that, the further we press in our discoveries, the more we shall see proofs of design and self-supporting arrangement where the careless eye had seen nothing but accident!

If that's just too much, there's probably something in Lamb that's a little more restrained that would fill the gap too. PRiis 05:32, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Too much, how could it possibly be too much? Throw off your cultured restraint, Peter, wild and crazy bardolatry is what we want here. It couldn't be better, especially the "phenomenon of nature", I was already thinking about sticking in a few 20th c de-naturalizing Shakespeare bits. You know, Cultural Materialism and that. It would be great to be able to make a real contrast with this Romantic rhapsody of yours, I'm sticking it right in. Thanks very much. (Please feel free to follow and add a full-text link like the other quotes have, if you've got it.)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 17:04, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The quotes have moved

I have just created breakout article Quotations about Shakespeare and moved the critical quotes to it, please add to it!--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The nomadic quotes have moved on

Quotations about Shakespeare has been moved to Timeline of Shakespeare criticism, in the hope that under this title, it will be the less likely to offend as being not a proper article (in contrast to, say, List of books with the subtitle "Virtue Rewarded") and get transwikied to Wikiquote. The reason I broke out the quote section at all, if it needs stating, is that Shakespeare's reputation is already long (nudging the recommended 32k limit) and will clearly need to be longer before it's comprehensive. Notable gaps: international perspective, Elizabethan theatrical conditions, most of the 20th century.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 18:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Is Quotations about Shakespeare now an orphan? If it serves no purpose, I can speedy delete it, as it has been superseded by Timeline of Shakespeare criticism. Geogre 20:36, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Unless you count Talk pages. Compare "What links here".--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Well, it's just a redirect now, and, as they say, "redirects are cheap." I don't figure there's much need to kill the redirect, as there isn't any duplicated content. I'm not sure that anyone would type "Quotations about Shakespeare" into a search box, but, if they do, they'll go to the right place. Geogre 02:29, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Emphasis

• The Carlyle quote appears in the introduction as well as the last paragraph. Use it once for punch - otherwise it loses its effectiveness. The "emblem of pride" appears again in the para at the end of the 19th century. So...he's been pretty consistent as an emblem of pride, yes? Why not state it that way? Throughout his time, Shakespeare has consistently been an emblem of pride?
• What's the article's focus? On his reputation as a writer? Or his reputation as a theater dramatist? Remember: In an age when books were hard to come by, households often kept two books and two books only: The Bible and a copy of Shakespeare. This held true for centuries. You are relying on your strength here - as a historian of the British theater - instead of stretching your wings and presenting a more encompassing view of the Shakespeare who was a primary literary source. Does that go a long way to explain why he wasn't as popular in the Puritan era?
• I think you're doing yourself a disservice by breaking this down into centuries, instead of by the highs and lows of his popularity - both in theatre - and as an "emblem of pride." You know that centuries don't begin with dates - they begin with movements. For example, we can debate when this century began - 2000 was relatively unremarkable. 9/11 however, was the defining moment. So it was with the 20th c. Edwardian era v. WWI was the defining moment of the 20th c. The point? You are creating artificial boundaries by keeping within these "century" definitions and it's strangling you.
• You make a lot of literary references to why he's the crowning glory of the British empire but you don't touch why he has endured four centuries. Why? What is it about Shakespeare? He's not easy to read, yet we still do...And you are corrrect- actors still jump through hoops to play Shakesperian roles on the stage.
• your citations: you could find a dozen written within the past five years. That alone is a testament to his reputation. --allie 10:16, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)