Why Shakespeare?

[owlfish]

I spent Saturday afternoon in the park with a picnic, a play, a smidgin of rain, and approixmately eighteen people, almost all of whom were previously strangers to me. We read A Midsummer Night's Dream, with parts of costumes and props and improvised acting, music, and dancing. It was a rather impressive production under the circumstances,

Comments

[gillo]

It's a fascinating topic - in the later years of his career he was respected as a good, but not-quite top-notch playwright - almost, but not quite, as good as Beaumont and Fletcher.

The metamorphosis seems to have happened gradually - the publication of the First Folio, seven years after his death added to his intellectual respectability. He was very much regarded as a "natural" poet, without much technical skill
(
Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child
Warbling his native woodnotes wild
as Milton said in Lycidas.)

After the Restoration his plays were mined for usable bits, rejigged to suit modern tastes. Possibly the most important steps were the work of early editors like Rowe, Theobald and Pope, who had varying degrees of reverence for the text, but talked up its importance like nobody's business! Certainly by about 130 years after Shakespeare's death he was firmly at the heart of the canon, though often in forms we would shudder at now, like Nahum Tate's
King Lear with a happy ending

[owlfish]

Thank you! That's a useful outline, passel of names, and bibliography.

[owlfish]

See, while all that's true, it's a little too close to saying their quality/his genius explains everything.

[owlfish]

I hope you are wrong, because it was a great deal of fun! You might be out of luck on costumes, but if you *are* in luck, there should at least be a great deal of humor to it.

[steepholm]

As others have said it's a complex subject, but after Heminge and Condell you've got to look at the Restoration, which is where he gets the much-needed boost that carries him all the way to Garrick and the Bardolotary of the bicenenary, after which it's self-sustaining

[steepholm]

Er, I mean between London and Stratford, of course...

[owlfish]

Thank you for helping to fill in the narrative gaps! I appreciate it.

[moon_custafer]

Well, I was in a production of Volpone once, and I'd say Shakespeare is way more actable than Johnson. It just flows better.