How fancy should ones writing be? (and everyone sucks somehow)

While this is arguably a good point, I think it's the wrong perspective.

It's not "are you Shakespeare?", it's "are you writing for Shakespeare's audience?" He could get away with that sort of thing because of who he was writing for, and now because he's got a grandfather clause protection. A modern author, no matter how good, isn't going to be nearly so blessed.

...Illiterate, uneducated peasants?

I mean, I have nothing against the sixteenth century lower class, and due to the method through which they were entertained they were surely more adept at understanding Shakespeare than a modern day scholar who doesn't focus on that sort of thing (By jove, they could understand—and speak—enough words per minute to have even the longest plays done in the time we take to have commercials. These being the long plays that take High School through College students weeks to analyze); it just seems amusing to me how much our standards have changed over the years of intellectual and educational renaissance. A bit sad, really.

edited 24th Sep '12 5:08:53 PM by Rem

We spend so much time analysing Shakespeare for exactly the same reason it would take future generations months to analyse the movies we have now - cultural references. Shakespeare's plays and a lot of our movies/shows are full of them. "She hath Dian's wit" - from Romeo and Juliet - at the time the audience would have got it instantly, WE had to learn about the Roman Goddess Diana (goddess of the moon, the hunt and CHASTITY) to understand it.

Fast forward a few years and kids may well be having to spend time finding out what "He's Tully's Mini-Me!" means. (Being Human).

I don't think that's entirely accurate - why do we analyze Shakespeare, but not any of his contemporaries (or at least not any to nearly the same extent)?

edited 24th Sep '12 5:42:00 PM by nrjxll

I was commenting on why it takes so long to analyse Shakespeare, not why Shakespeare is chosen over the likes of Kit Marlowe etc.

And on the latter, I'm at a loss. It'd be like future generations spending their time analysing "The Young and The Restless" or "Days of Our Lives" or some other such overly melodramatic and heavily contrived nonsense aimed at the Lowest Common Denominator.

That said, Shakespeare had something of a genius for characterisation.

Sturgeons Tropes.

And, as they said earlier, it's not just your ability as a writer, it's also the context in which the work is released. Writing is a communication between you and the audience. So, yeah, if someone even dared write a modern military drama in the style of the Iliad, if there was no Iliad to imitate, they'd get spit at. Even with there bing an Iliad to homage, only a special kind of cultural hipster would be interested in such a work. Terrible pacing.

edited 27th Sep '12 4:02:53 AM by TheHandle