tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post3363652129667825208..comments2024-03-21T10:07:56.198+00:00Comments on The little white attic : Shakespeare’s sonnets: debates and context Hai Di Nguyenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02230670162621139739noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-13501557728303009952021-04-13T00:12:24.953+01:002021-04-13T00:12:24.953+01:00Haha. I think I should reread Tolstoy's essay ...Haha. I think I should reread Tolstoy's essay soon, for fun. Hai Di Nguyenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02230670162621139739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-87054343728887803582021-04-12T20:25:24.395+01:002021-04-12T20:25:24.395+01:00Your dim memory of what Tolstoy said about Shakesp...Your dim memory of what Tolstoy said about Shakespeare clearly trumps my dim memory of what Bloom might have said Tolstoy said about Shakespeare so I suppose I’ll have to withdraw that remark.<br /><br />On the other point, I do see what you’re saying, and do agree.paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08164360742642470200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-22623841768332472292021-04-12T18:51:44.698+01:002021-04-12T18:51:44.698+01:00Did Tolstoy say that? I read his essay so many yea...Did Tolstoy say that? I read his essay so many years ago that I only remember him saying that Shakespeare's characters don't sound realistic, though I think Tolstoy didn't read the plays in English (not sure about this point though).<br /><br />About the films, I didn't mean that. What I mean is that film is itself a collaborative art, there are lots of people involved in the process of making a film, so directors with a strong, individual, recognisable style are more highly regarded than directors who don't have a personal mark over their films. The weakest directors are those who make it obvious that there are too many hands in the making of the film. <br />A writer is the opposite, working alone, so writers who can talk in many voices and enter different characters' minds, such as Tolstoy or Shakespeare, are more highly regarded than writers whose characters all sound the same. <br />So it's hard to make a comparison. <br />Hai Di Nguyenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02230670162621139739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-37759651997598582082021-04-12T14:29:45.833+01:002021-04-12T14:29:45.833+01:00Your remark that Shakespeare has so many individua...Your remark that Shakespeare has so many individual voices reminds me that Tolstoy criticized him on the exact opposite grounds — that all his characters spoke like the same person. (I’m not sure where he said that, but think I read it in a Harold Bloom book -- who also calls Tolstoy’s criticism absurd.)<br /><br />If I’m understanding you rightly, I don’t think that farming out the story element of a film is the same as abandoning an individual style. "There Will Be Blood" and "The Shining" come to mind as films in which the director took the story from someone else (Upton Sinclair, Stephen King), freeing themselves to concentrate on other aspects of the film. Similarly, with Shakespeare, since he begins with this roadmap of where this story will go, in Hamlet, in Lear, he can concentrate on aspects of the drama, like poetry.paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08164360742642470200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-15569281516147121252021-04-09T13:32:54.705+01:002021-04-09T13:32:54.705+01:00I've read too little of Whitman to comment.
Yo...I've read too little of Whitman to comment.<br />Your comparison to film directors is interesting, though I think in film criticism, auteurs (directors with a recognisable style and recurring themes/ ideas) are more highly regarded than those without an individual style, and it is because in film, it's much easier not to have a recognisable style and vision than to have it. Film is a collaborative art. <br />Shakespeare is a playwright, so still a writer. I think the fact that he uses many sources is only part of it, he has the ability to talk in many different voices and disappear in the texts.<br />Hai Di Nguyenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02230670162621139739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-82655926803651703702021-04-09T13:00:07.045+01:002021-04-09T13:00:07.045+01:00Comparing Whitman, it’s interesting that he, claim...Comparing Whitman, it’s interesting that he, claiming to contain multitudes, seems only ever identifiable as himself, Walt Whitman the poet, while Shakespeare, who does seem to have palpably contained multitudes, seems impossible to identify as himself.<br /><br />I think, in his impersonality, Shakespeare is most like modern film directors, whose scripts much of time, are imported from other sources, based on others’ books, and not derived from personal experience. There’s not a “Shakespeare character” like there is a “Hemingway Character” because the stories he used belonged to someone else.<br /><br />With respect to the sonnets, these seem a more personal artform for which you can’t import a text in the same way, but if it were my job to think about these things, I’d be inclined to start searching for such a text nevertheless.paulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08164360742642470200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-62488695370946692902021-04-08T17:17:19.984+01:002021-04-08T17:17:19.984+01:00I'm glad you enjoy them.
I think the thing ab...I'm glad you enjoy them. <br />I think the thing about Shakespeare is that he, to steal Walt Whitman's phrase, contains multitudes and can talk in so many different voices that it's impossible to *know* him in the plays, and now that I'm reading the sonnets, I don't really think they're autobiographical either, or if they are, only partly. Hai Di Nguyenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02230670162621139739noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3901980733463068698.post-63039039402876700082021-04-08T16:01:18.119+01:002021-04-08T16:01:18.119+01:00Last time I read the sonnets was quite a few years...Last time I read the sonnets was quite a few years ago and, puzzled in those days by how little could be known about such a famous personage as Shakespeare, I tried to tease out from them some idea about how the nature of his love and art demanded the sacrifice of his historical or personal identity -- demanded he not exist as a person or personality in the normal sense.<br /><br />I couldn’t say what textual evidence lead me to that conclusion and anyway it’s nonsense and I think your editor has the proper idea, which is in keeping with the plays, that this was an impersonal exercise on his part, telling us more about the development of sonnets as an artform than about Shakespeare personally.<br /><br />Anyhow, thanks for your posts --Paulhttps://anableptw.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com