Dare I Say This??

Madeleine · Post by **Madeleine** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 4:54 pm

I've never been able to get on with Shakespeare.

As for Austen, I enjoyed P & P and Sense & S..., but as for the others - keep em! Mind you I was forced to read Emma and Persuasion for A level English and I do vaguely intend to re-read them (many) years later to see if I feel any differently about them, but as for N Abbey and Mansfield Park, I was bored stiff.

And if I hear of one more dramatisation either film or Tv of an Austen, I scream: why? How many more times can you film P & P etc.

I love the Brontes although I have to admit that Jane Eyre has also been over-filmed.

I've never really read Dickens apart from Oliver Twist although I have several of his on my classics shelf.

EC2 · Post by **EC2** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 5:15 pm

[quote=""Divia""]I've seen em and I still hate em. Sorry I dislike Shakespeare with a passion. It doesnt meatter if I read or watch, its still painful.[/quote]

We appear to be kindred spirits Divia

I'm the same with Shakespeare, whether read or performed - yuk. Having said that, I do have a soft spot for Roman Polanski's Macbeth as a film. This is because it stars Jon Finch, who was gorgeous back then. If no other play, I am very well versed in 'The Scottish One.' LOL!

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 6:32 pm

Oh my!!! I love Shakespeare!! I adore Shakespeare

. There is such depths to it, such psychology and such poetry!! I cannot think of a single writer whose lines so often echo in my head to describe so many emotions or situations. The understanding he has of human nature is, to me, timeless. I am thinking particularly of the tragedies - the saying that there are 6 stories in the universe and we are all working out our version of one of them. seems so clear in these plays.
I must, however, make one exception for which I find it hard to forgive Shakespeare and that is his terribly distorted portrayal of dear Richard III!
We, too, read a Shakespeare play every year at school, from the age of eleven, and each year I loved the one we read more than I had loved the last - culminating in my favourites "King Lear" and "Hamlet". I saw Derek Jacobi perform in the latter at the Grand Theatre in Leeds and it literally left me speechless it was so powerful!

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 6:56 pm

[quote=""Christina""]I saw Derek Jacobi perform[/quote]

I am insanely jealous. I'd watch him read a phone book.

Christina · Post by **Christina** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 10:46 pm

Yikes, I must be showing my age!! That was over 25 years ago (of course, I was only a babe-in-arms!! LOL!!). He was brilliant. His silences were even stronger than his words. I wish I could also recall the actress who played Ophelia because she created so tense an atmosphere that the entire theatre was absolutely silent.
And speaking of Derek Jacobi (apart from I Claudius, didn't you just love his performance of Cadfael?

Ash · Post by **Ash** » Sun December 7th, 2008, 11:56 pm

Oh yes. I read the books after watching the series, and realized not only how wonderful Jacobi was, but how really well done the adaptations were to the books. It was funny, as I read I could see and hear Jacobi on every page! There is also a production of him as Cyrano de Begerac that is just magnificent. I cannot find it for love or money, I know it was on the Bravo channel about 8 years back, and I still remember how wonderful it was.

pat · Post by **pat** » Mon December 8th, 2008, 3:47 am

I could never understand Shakespeare, apart from R & J, until we did Macbeth at college. The tutor broke it down for us, and showed us a BBC adaptation as we went. We then watched it all through, and went to see a live play in Stratford with an all star cast. Loved it. Could understand it! We had a de-briefing on the way home too!

Cant get the other plays though! As for the sonnets...my tutor never asked my opinion!!!

Margaret · Post by **Margaret** » Mon December 8th, 2008, 4:28 am

I'd watch Derek Jacobi read a phone book, too. Some people can act. Others can mesmerize. When he played Claudius in Kenneth Branagh's version of Hamlet, suddenly this character I had previously found boring and beside the point turned out to be the most fascinating in the whole play.

Telynor · Post by **Telynor** » Mon December 8th, 2008, 4:52 am

it took me a loooong time to start liking Shakespeare, and it was the film versions that swung me around. Especially the Mel Gibson version of Hamlet, which took and made sense of the story, and the later version with Kenneth Branagh -- very overdone, but you got to see the whole damn thing played out. My favourite, weirdly enough, is Ian McKellen as Richard III -- he plays it to the hilt, and the setting of a neo-fascist Britain is chilling. Definitely not for the young -- it gets pretty gory in spots.

But there are two Shakespeare on film that I loathe -- Midsummer's Night Dream and Love's Labour Lost. They were awful!

Vanessa · Post by **Vanessa** » Mon December 8th, 2008, 9:52 am

I definitely prefer the Brontes to Austen, they're darker. Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are great stories. I don't like E M Forster, I find the females in his books very wittery and twittery. I'm not a Shakespeare fan either.