The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 14.0143 Tuesday, 28 January 2003
From: Bob Grumman <
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Date: Monday, 27 Jan 2003 16:31:34 -0500
Subject: 14.0135 Re: Shakespeare Usurped
Comment: Re: SHK 14.0135 Re: Shakespeare Usurped
>The question Sam Small raises-and it is important-is finally a question
>of genre. The work of epic (from *Gilgamesh* to *The Lord of the Rings*
>on film) is to reassert the most deeply held communal values of the
>society to which the particular poem belongs. (I'm aware of the
>ambiguities of that last phrase.) Along the way, the epic text may
>question, even challenge, those values. But it does, finally, enact and
>endorse them. The work of drama (from Aeschylus to Caryl Churchill) is
>to interrogate the most overtly held values of the society to which the
>work belongs. Along the way, the drama may affirm those values. But it
>does not, finally, unequivocally enact and endorse them.
>
>Tolkien, the student and writer of epic, and Shakespeare, the student
>and writer of drama, inhabit substantially different esthetic, moral,
>and social realms. I have never had the least difficulty in finding
>central places for both their ouevres in my own reader's and
>theater-goer's life, nor felt the least compunction about introducing
>both of them to my children. I hope I have also been wise enough to know
>that no work of art by itself (not Shakespeare, not Tolkien, not the
>Bible, not the Koran) adequately accounts for all that goes on in the
>world in which we have to live. But I find the visions of Tolkien and
>Shakespeare more instructive about that world than many other visions.
>
>Dogmatically,
>David Evett
I'm afraid I have to disagree with most of the preceding. For me, an
epic is a story in verse or some modern equivalent thereof that is told
by a single person; a play is a story in verse or prose that is acted
out by more than one person. Period.
As for Rowling, Tolkein and Shakespeare, I like them all. Again:
period.
--Bob G.
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