The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 17.0257  Friday, 31 March 2006

[1] 	From: 	Hugh Grady <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Thursday, 30 Mar 2006 17:32:03 -0500
	Subj: 	RE: SHK 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)

[2] 	From: 	Marcus Dahl <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
	Date: 	Thursday, 30 Mar 2006 14:57:55 -0800 (PST)
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Hugh Grady <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 30 Mar 2006 17:32:03 -0500
Subject: 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: 	RE: SHK 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)

Today's post raises some interesting issues. Can "aesthetics" exist as a 
concept within Postmodernist discourse?  I hope so.  I'm writing a book 
trying to combine aesthetic and Postmodernist theory, via the Frankfurt 
School aesthetic theory of Adorno and Benjamin. I assure you it can be 
done!  It doesn't mean you have to posit, like Kant, some kind of 
intersubjectively constructed "objective" ranking of authors, of course. 
   Ranking always depends on what your criteria are and is always open 
to dispute. A harmless pastime, perhaps-do you like top 10 lists? But 
cultural prestige can be measured in some ways, and who would contest 
that Shakespeare is at the top of that particular list. And personally, 
I don't know of a better playwright.

Ed Taft, interesting as always, raises the question about genius. Kant 
defined a genius as the artist who creates the rules of a certain form, 
without concepts. That's a definition I can accept. But in our culture 
it seems often to imply a kind of ineffable brain structure, and to me 
this ignores what Thomas Edison said:  Genius is 10% inspiration, 90% 
perspiration. And of course "geniuses" tend to come in clusters--5th 
century Athens, Renaissance Florence, etc.-suggesting to me that 
something other than innate brain-power is at work!

Best,
Hugh Grady

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Marcus Dahl <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Date: 		Thursday, 30 Mar 2006 14:57:55 -0800 (PST)
Subject: 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)
Comment: 	Re: SHK 17.0251 Shakespeare in Time Magazine (Europe)

Dear All,

You know it never ceases to amaze me how people always wish to 
'contextualise' these days.

I am probably the biggest fan of Nashe I know - I read him at least as 
often as Shakespeare and quote him in life far more often. But let's 
face it - he ain't Shakespeare. He doesn't have anything like Hamlet or 
Macbeth. Of course all you in the back - You're right - he only has one 
play - and Greene is dead and so is Kyd and Marlowe et al.

So what. Dead or not we read them and go on to read Fletcher (actually 
quite under-rated and perhaps Shakespeare's true inheritor), Webster, 
Ford, Rowley et al. But once again I say - play cards WITH WHAT WE HAVE 
- and see. Line for line, play for play, Shakespeare wins. Shakespeare 
has more. Shakespeare encompasses.

And Bach invents Mozart. etc. This is the way of the world sorry.

All best,
Marcus (who would give dust a tongue?) Dahl.

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