Hey, let's rewrite Shakespeare

[Locutus]

Attention whoar, your moral and intellectual superior, um, and douchette (sorry, I mean, booker winner, whatever the fuk that is) extraordinaire, maggie attwood will, ahem, pardon me, 'bravely'...yes, bravely, muck around with Will's stuff for glory, accolades and back pats. Cool story eh bros?

Anywho, this asinine tip comes from Fark:

To mark his 400th Birthday, a group of prize-winning writers including the author of "a Handmaid's Tale", are going to re-write some of Shakespeare's most famous works-because apparently somebody, somewhere thought THAT would be a good idea

Two Booker Winners to Rewrite Shakespeare Plays



Man Booker Prize winners Margaret Atwood and Howard Jacobsen, have bravely committed themselves to writing contemporary versions of Shakespeare's plays, in honor of the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death. Jacobsen will rework The Merchant of Venice and Atwood will take on The Taming of the Shrew as part of project put together by Penguin Random House's Hogarth imprint.



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Two Booker Winners to Rewrite Shakespeare Plays - Arit John - The Atlantic Wire

 

[SLM]

Well, there are many people who don't think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare either.

Meh, sometimes you just have to let the classics be classics.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Well, there are many people who don't think Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare either.

Meh, sometimes you just have to let the classics be classics.

Nope, that's been resolved. I was there.

But what's this "going to rewrite Shakespeare?" People been rewriting Shakespeare for centuries, basically since about the time the First Folio came out.

West Side Story is just an update of Romeo & Juliet.

The great sci-fi B-movie classic Forbidden Planet is just The Tempest.

OK, the idea of Margaret Atwood doing it is fairly horrifying, but the Bard has survived worse.

 

[SLM]

Nope, that's been resolved. I was there.

You were there as in you got your time machine working finally. Or as in, I made an argument one way or another and no one had a sufficient rebuttal, so therefore it is resolved.

Lol.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

You were there as in you got your time machine working finally. Or as in, I made an argument one way or another and no one had a sufficient rebuttal, so therefore it is resolved.

Lol.

No, I was at the moot court session where three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Shakespeare's plays were written by a relative non-entity from Stratford-on-Avon named Will Shakspeare, and not by any of the other candidates.

 

[WLDB]

Why not? People have been rewriting the Bible for quite a few centuries. Why not Shakespeare?

No, I was at the moot court session where three justices of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Shakespeare's plays were written by a relative non-entity from Stratford-on-Avon named Will Shakspeare, and not by any of the other candidates.

Well that settles it.

 

[Zipperfish]

I didn't like Romeo and Juliet very much. Which is surprising, because I usually don't mind Leonardo de Caprio. I didn't know it was based on a book though. Was the book any good?

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

I didn't like Romeo and Juliet very much. Which is surprising, because I usually don't mind Leonardo de Caprio. I didn't know it was based on a book though. Was the book any good?

Kinda depressing. Everybody died.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Why not rewrite the works of Shakespeare. They rewrote Mark Twain recently.

 

[SLM]

I didn't like Romeo and Juliet very much. Which is surprising, because I usually don't mind Leonardo de Caprio. I didn't know it was based on a book though. Was the book any good?

Lol.

Kinda depressing. Everybody died.

I've always wondered why two people who are too stupid to check for a pulse are held up as this ideal for romantic love.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Lol.



I've always wondered why two people who are too stupid to check for a pulse are held up as this ideal for romantic love.

I calculate it's mostly people who never saw the play.

 

[SLM]

I calculate it's mostly people who never saw the play.

Probably.

"Romeo and Juliet? Heard of it, kinda remember the Cliff Notes from grade nine. Oh, wait, smoke a lot of pot in grade nine, so no, don't remember it all actually."

Never cared for Romeo and Juliet myself. My favourite has always been Taming of the Shrew. I love his bawdy comedies. Quite the randy fella this Billy Shakes-spear.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Certainly the most "romantic" is Dream. Properly performed, Much Ado is a scream.

 

[BaalsTears]

Shakespeare isn't taught in American public high schools any longer is it?

 

[WLDB]

Probably.

"Romeo and Juliet? Heard of it, kinda remember the Cliff Notes from grade nine. Oh, wait, smoke a lot of pot in grade nine, so no, don't remember it all actually."

Never cared for Romeo and Juliet myself. My favourite has always been Taming of the Shrew. I love his bawdy comedies. Quite the randy fella this Billy Shakes-spear.

Didn't care for it either. Even in Grade 9 I could recognize that story was not a sad love story. I was probably one of the few 14 year olds who did. It was about two teenagers who fall in lust and go overboard. Probably not the best selection to get teenagers to read - then again it is a decent warning. haha

Stereotypical as it may be Hamlet was my favourite.

 

[gopher]

Falstaff having a brew ...

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Shakespeare isn't taught in American public high schools any longer is it?

Don't know. Never went to high school. Didn't miss much from what I read.

 

[Blackleaf]

It's another example of dumbing down. You cannot rewrite some of history's greatest pieces of literature. If you "rewrite" a Shakespeare it won't be a Shakespeare anymore.

I read the comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream when I was at school. Written by Will between 1590 and 1596, it portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set.

Shakespeare invented hundreds, if not thousands of English words and famous phrases.

One famous phrase that Shakespeare gave us which appears in A Midsummer Night's Dream is:

The course of true love never did run smooth—Lysander tells Hermia that they are not the only true lovers who have had troubles.

And I think this quote from the same play is quite nice:

So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So, with two seeming bodies, but one heart

—Helena's description of how close she and Hermia were before all the man-trouble started.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Scene by Scene Plot Summary

 

[WLDB]

Don't know. Never went to high school. Didn't miss much from what I read.

My father dropped out in grade 10 and became an engineer. He became an engineer but no longer has much job security at the moment. He started looking for other similar jobs that wont take him because he doesnt have a high school diploma. Odd. I would think 25 years of experience is more important than knowing the plot and themes of King Lear and Macbeth. Odd how things work.

 

[Locutus]