Friday Five 22-April

[elusivek]

This week's Friday Five questions are a little tough

1) What was the first Shakespeare play you read or seen preformed?
I don't remember if it was The Merchant of Venice or A Midsummer Night's Dream. School literature. Definitely sure abridged versions.

2) What is your favorite Shakespeare play?
Don't have a favourite one.

3) What is your least favorite Shakespeare play?
I haven't read a lot of his works, so not sure about that either. But I suppose Romeo and Juliet would be really long-winded.

4) Who do you think wrote Shakespeare; are you a Stratfordian or Oxfordian?
I have no idea what this is asking... I suppose it has to be true literary enthusiasts that would know?

5) Which Shakespeare plays have you read or seen or seen preformed?
For school I've read The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night's Dream. There's one I went to a couple years back, but I don't recall which of the Shakespeare stories it was. It was something about trying to court a lady but using reverse psychology? Maybe it was Taming of the Shrew. I could be interested in Macbeth, but I don't think I'll have the patience to read through a play book.

Comments

[lavenderspark.livejournal.com]

I struggled with this one too! I feel bad since I was a huge fan in HS.

#4 I think is referring to the idea that Shakespeare was simply a pen name and not the author's real name. Theories of who he might have been put him in different places.

Plays take some adjusting to. I remember at first I found it so much easier to read because I always knew who was speaking, but then it gets hard to remember what exactly is going on.

[notte0.livejournal.com]

that's exactly why I dislike reading plays. I don't mind watching a play though :-)

[tediousandbrief.livejournal.com]

Hi! I'm the person who wrote this one and I saw you were confused on question four.

There is a (few?) theories that Shakespeare didn't actually write Shakespeare. The idea goes that the Earl of Oxford actually wrote the plays but since being a playwright was such a lowly profession he had Shakespeare claim the plays were his. That is the Oxfordian theory.

Stratfordian comes from the idea that Shakespeare wrote his own plays. It is called that since Shakespeare was from a town called Stratford upon Avon.

[suckyfucky.livejournal.com]

I am totally intrigued by this and have been nerding out on Wikipedia for a hot minute, but I didn't get that de Vere and Will were friends? Or acquaintances at least, enough that he could claim the plays were his... So they knew each other and he was covering for him? Or did he just use his name as the pen name? Like a joke?

And is this what that terrible movie with Rhys Ifan was about? I fell asleep on a plane watching it, but dude the more I think about it the more I think it is. Holllllyyy shiittt. Mind = blown.

Sorry to nerd on you, but if you know the answers to my questions, please share!

[notte0.livejournal.com]

oh I see! In that case, I indeed hold no particular opinion. Back then in school we only went over the 2 plays I mentioned (Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night's Dream) but never went further than that.

Thanks for explaining it :-)