Often subjective?
Cyberpunk! and the future of Sci-Fi
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Often subjective?
Of course. Aside from standards of writing, literature is a matter of opinion or taste.
Those aren't really objective. One man's Finnegan's Wake is another man's garbage.
Actually my respect for Shakespeare increased after school, seeing him performed rather than read out by spotty teens, and the depth of his story telling (especially in light of what we were saying above about literature when it was contemporary). For a good example, watch Ian McKellen's 'Richard III', set in a 1930s fascist England, it's incredibly well acted (it has an amazing cast), and resonates with the power of the language. Had a similar discussion about WS this weekend in my SF reading group at the local library. For a SF group, we talk a lot about history, religion, archaeology, literature and food.
Actually my respect for Shakespeare increased after school, seeing him performed rather than read out by spotty teens, and the depth of his story telling (especially in light of what we were saying above about literature when it was contemporary). For a good example, watch Ian McKellen's 'Richard III', set in a 1930s fascist England, it's incredibly well acted (it has an amazing cast), and resonates with the power of the language. Had a similar discussion about WS this weekend in my SF reading group at the local library. For a SF group, we talk a lot about history, religion, archaeology, literature and food.
For me as well, I find myself finding more and more in Shakespeare as I get older. The power of word. The depth of storytelling. There IS a reason why he's considered one of the greatest English language writers, and not just "because we were taught to think that."
Of course, but there are still standards of writing, otherwise Plan 9 From Outer Space would be on the same level as 2001: A Space Odyssey. That doesn't mean bad stuff can't be entertaining....
Oh, I love Shakespeare, but he's definitely overrated. But the point is that most people think that Shakespeare is the greatest writer not because they've read him or because they know anything about writing, but simply because it's accepted as a given in our culture.Actually my respect for Shakespeare increased after school, seeing him performed rather than read out by spotty teens, and the depth of his story telling (especially in light of what we were saying above about literature when it was contemporary). For a good example, watch Ian McKellen's 'Richard III', set in a 1930s fascist England, it's incredibly well acted (it has an amazing cast), and resonates with the power of the language. Had a similar discussion about WS this weekend in my SF reading group at the local library. For a SF group, we talk a lot about history, religion, archaeology, literature and food.
Of course, but there are still standards of writing, otherwise Plan 9 From Outer Space would be on the same level as 2001: A Space Odyssey. That doesn't mean bad stuff can't be entertaining....
Oh, I love Shakespeare, but he's definitely overrated. But the point is that most people think that Shakespeare is the greatest writer not because they've read him or because they know anything about writing, but simply because it's accepted as a given in our culture.Actually my respect for Shakespeare increased after school, seeing him performed rather than read out by spotty teens, and the depth of his story telling (especially in light of what we were saying above about literature when it was contemporary). For a good example, watch Ian McKellen's 'Richard III', set in a 1930s fascist England, it's incredibly well acted (it has an amazing cast), and resonates with the power of the language. Had a similar discussion about WS this weekend in my SF reading group at the local library. For a SF group, we talk a lot about history, religion, archaeology, literature and food.
Sorry, I've gotta put my two cents worth in here, but overrated? The man basically invented self-analytical fictional characters. The Greek heroes, and Chaucer's characters are all great fun, and compelling as hell, but none of them question their own existence. No fiction writer I'm aware of ever created characters who questioned themselves, analyzed themselves the way real people do, until Shakespeare. He can't be overrated, because he essentially invented the language of fiction. (It's sort of like accusing Orson Welles or D. W. Griffith of being overrated, when the two of them almost single-handedly invented the language of cinema.)
I do, however, agree with you completely that there are objective standards of quality. Obviously it cannot be all opinion, if there is so much consensus regarding what people find inspiring, moving, exciting...
So he comes off as marginally less crazy.
Well... he IS. So regardless if they've read him or not, they're right to think so.
^^ There can be no greatest writer. There are too many of them who have been innovative or influential in too many ways. He deserves as much credit as anyone else, but the truth is that he has evolved this reputation through various quirks of history-- if his pals hadn't put together that portfolio, he might not even be known today except by specialized academics.
As I said, he's great, and he was certainly innovative, as a lot of writers have been, but anybody with a reputation as the greatest writer in history-- or, worse, as the guy who "invented thinking," as one of his worshipers would have us believe-- can't help but be overrated. I believe the term is "Bardolatry."
Some of Shakespeare's characters certainly do exhibit this analysis - partly a product of the English Renaissance.
But you don't think Oedipus questioned his own existence? I thought his horrific realisation and blindness were overtly about this. He answered the Sphinx's riddle ("man"), only to become a riddle himself.
O wild Kithairon, why was it thy will
To save me? Why not take me quick and kill,
Kill, before ever I could make men know
The thing I am, the thing from which I grow?
Thou dead King, Polybus, thou city wall
Of Corinth, thou old castle I did call
My father's, what a life did ye begin,
What splendour rotted by the worm within,
When ye bred me! O Crossing of the Roads,
O secret glen and dusk of crowding woods,
O narrow footpath creeping to the brink
Where meet the Three! I gave you blood to drink.
Do ye remember? 'Twas my life-blood, hot
From mine own father's heart. Have ye forgot
What deed I did among you, and what new
And direr deed I fled from you to do?
O flesh, horror of flesh!...
You'll notice that he's questioning his fate, which isn't at all the same thing as questioning his own motives, or feelings. All the major Greek tragic characters have a similar speech before they die, and they always ask, essentially, "Why me? Why did fate have to choose me for this horrible role?" There seems to be no room for free will in this questioning, and that makes perfect sense because the Greeks largely didn't believe in free will. Everything is fated. So, sure, they question fate. But they never, ever doubt themselves, their own view of themselves. Without a sense of complete agency, and free will, it would make no sense for a character to question themselves on WHY exactly they are CHOOSING a particular path. Shakespeare's characters are the first major characters, as far as I'm aware, to have that "modern" sense of self-doubt.
In that sense, I'm sorry, I still do have to say that, by definition, he cannot be overrated. Of course he didn't invent thinking. But he did invent fictional characters that, for the first time, employed a certain kind of thinking. In terms of his effect on world literature, he probably IS the single most influential writer. How can you overrate that?
Yes, as suggested by the Renaissance note above, I readily grant the 'modern' point.
But he's not only questioning his fate - he's questioning his ability to see it; to recognise this fate as his, and no-one else's. This is not modern in the Shakespearian sense, but it's less foreign to the modern spirit than your original phrasing suggested.
The Greeks well understood self-analysis. They just had different conceptions of what a 'self' was. (Which you note, of course.)
Likewise for your phrasing here, where you say they didn't question "their own view of themselves." Again, Oedipus 'view' is precisely what's he's questioning: hence the metaphors of blindness. What's different, as you say, is the idea of agency at the heart of it.
Having said this, it's possible - I haven't checked the text in a while - that Prometheus and Medea give fairly strong portraits of agency. Not modern agency perhaps, but agency nonetheless. Interestingly, both are exceptional: Prometheus, because he knows what's fated; and Medea, because she is monstrous (and gets away with it).
By the way, I think you're right about the importance of Shakespeare in the English tradition. (Even if the hype and worship, from some, is clumsy.) I just don't think your original phrasing quite did justice to the Greek dramatists. Your reformulation here is more persuasive.
Interestingly, Bakhtin and Bate both support your claim here. They note the 'many-voicedness' of Shakespeare: the characters that seems to subsist, as free individuals, in the plays. The specifically modern doubt presumably comes with this, i.e. with the idea of being a self, no longer part of a greater metaphysical whole.
Sure, we can quibble about greatest, but what does it matter of the quirks of history? So his friends put the portfolio together, why should that take away from the quality of his work?
It doesn't, it just puts things in perspective. Maybe his next-door neighbor was a better writer, but didn't have any friends. 
The point is, no one person can be the greatest writer. Many famous writers throughout History have been influential-- many obscure writers have been influential, as well. It's those various quirks of History-- the portfolio, the Renaissance fan club and so forth-- that led to his academic, and therefore popular, status as the greatest. His influence therefore snowballed because of that status, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's certainly a very good writer who was innovative in his time, but he's just one of many.
The point is, no one person can be the greatest writer. Many famous writers throughout History have been influential-- many obscure writers have been influential, as well. It's those various quirks of History-- the portfolio, the Renaissance fan club and so forth-- that led to his academic, and therefore popular, status as the greatest. His influence therefore snowballed because of that status, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's certainly a very good writer who was innovative in his time, but he's just one of many.
I mean none of the writer's in the 80's foresaw Google as both a technology and a company.
Ender's Game (1985) anticipates both the mass internet and blogging.
Ender's Game (1985) anticipates both the mass internet and blogging.
I wouldn't have thought Shakespeare was overrated, but this is, admittedly, prior to reading someone glibly state that he's unquestionably better than all three Greek tragedians and the first writer in the history of fiction to suggest the existance of self-doubt.
So yeah. I'll now concede he can get a bit overvalued.
Euripides is particularly good at probing the line between agency and fate. Off the top of my head in Orestes characters conspire to do something monumentally stupid and the gods abruptly intervene so that the myth can continue the way it's supposed to go, in Iphigenia at Aulis doubt is placed on both the justification of the sacrifice and the godly fallout. Things should not go as they do (killing kids to start wars is kind of bad, justifications for such may be not so cool) and they may not go as they say (the second-hand reportage of Iphigenia being spared slaughter by divine intervention may be a lie to please Clytemnestra).
This is kind of why Euripides gets signalled out for his deus ex machina conclusions - using the gods as a device to let the story reach its expected end, rather than let the characters continue in the direction they were snowballing towards. That's not quite the same as the tragic irony of Sophocles' Oedipus the King, where in attempting to escape his fate Oedipus completes it. Characters have free will and will screw up the carefully prepared script of the gods if they don't keep meddling to let the stories unfold as they should.
These kind of distinctions can make talking of 'the Greeks' and their monolithic belief in fate a kind of misleading way of talking.
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Um...when did I glibly state that Shakespeare was better than the 3 major tragedians? Actually, if I had to choose, I sort of prefer Aeschylus to Shakespeare. Where could you possibly have inferred that I thought Shakespeare was better than them? Please don't put words in my mouth. I just said he had done things that they hadn't done. I said that, given how influential he was, he cannot be "overrated." Aeschylus, when it comes right down to it, was probably even MORE influential to the history of tragedy than Shakespeare was. So, Aeschylus, too, cannot be overrated.
In terms of your pointing out Euripides as a forerunner to Shakespeare regarding characters and their self-doubt, I will stand by what I said earlier - there is a qualitative difference between the characters of Greek tragedy and the characters of Renaissance tragedy. I never said Shakespeare was better - I simply said that he added something fundamental to tragedy, something that even the great Greeks hadn't done with their drama. This presentation of the modern human doesn't just include self-doubt; it includes self-deception, layers of motivation, questioning of one's own perception of things, questioning one's own motives for doing things. The kind of thing I mean is not just "Should I do this?" but rather "Am I doing this for the noble reasons I tell myself I am doing this, or am I actually doing this for some selfish reason I don't even want to admit to myself?" That's the distinction I'm trying to make. Shakespeare's characters are the first that I am aware of that have this ring of truth about them - the realization that people are so complex that they don't even know themselves what they really feel about things, or why they really do the things they do. That modern sensibility regarding character is an element of Shakespeare that we won't even find in the most modern of the Greek tragedians, Euripides.
Now, again, this has nothing to do with a judgment of aesthetic value. To use a Star Trek parallel, the characters of Deep Space Nine are unquestionably more "complex" than the characters on The Next Generation. They have more layers, more characteristics, and more internal conflict. But that, in no way, implies that they are "better" characters. They're just conceived differently. On some days, I actually prefer the less internally conflicted, less realistic Next Generation cast, just as, given the choice, I'd probably rather reread the Oresteian trilogy than Hamlet. I am in no way saying that one is better than the other. Clearly, the Greek tragedians and Shakespeare are all essential writers, and absolutely necessary in the history and development of tragedy.
Agency? Tamburlaine. Self-doubt? Edward II.
Agency? MacBeth. Self-doubt? Othello.
Shakespeare had predecessors and collaborators, as well as continuity with what went before. The emphasis on originality is not quite as strong as suggested.
So far as depth goes, time has made familiar, and familarity has bred an unconscious contempt. Like General Relativity, it is easy to forget how very peculiar Hamlet, for one, really is. Shakespeare is definitely a product of his time as well as a patriarch of his theatrical posterity. His time is not ours. The real question is why Shakespeare is still supposed by so many to be the profoundest exploration of humanity, not just incredibly influential in the development of the drama. In that sense, Shakespeare really is overrated, and not for good reasons I suggest.
PS An awful lot of Shakespeare really has faded. Lots of it survives by being perpetually reinvented, or at least reupholstered. Some (I'm thinking in particular Troilus and Cressida or The Taming of the Shrew) very likely survives because modern directors, actors and audiences insist on putting in what the text will not bear.
Agency? MacBeth. Self-doubt? Othello.
Shakespeare had predecessors and collaborators, as well as continuity with what went before. The emphasis on originality is not quite as strong as suggested.
So far as depth goes, time has made familiar, and familarity has bred an unconscious contempt. Like General Relativity, it is easy to forget how very peculiar Hamlet, for one, really is. Shakespeare is definitely a product of his time as well as a patriarch of his theatrical posterity. His time is not ours. The real question is why Shakespeare is still supposed by so many to be the profoundest exploration of humanity, not just incredibly influential in the development of the drama. In that sense, Shakespeare really is overrated, and not for good reasons I suggest.
PS An awful lot of Shakespeare really has faded. Lots of it survives by being perpetually reinvented, or at least reupholstered. Some (I'm thinking in particular Troilus and Cressida or The Taming of the Shrew) very likely survives because modern directors, actors and audiences insist on putting in what the text will not bear.
Perhaps not OBJECTIVELY. But then again art isn't very good at the objective. Nor should it.
Oh... A "good" writer...
I'm sorry, he's an extraordinary writer. Fine, to you, he's not the greatest, but he's one of FEW, not many, who have had the influence he has had.