SHAKSPER 2001: Shakespeare Bashing

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@ws.bowiestate.edu)
Date: 03/01/01 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 12.0483  Thursday, 1 March 2001

From:           Robert Peters <RobertPeters@t-online.de>
Date:           Thursday, 01 Mar 2001 00:00:53 +0100
Subject:        Shakespeare Bashing

Hi everybody!

I came across these in the German edition of the highly entertaining and
profoundly monstrous book by Karl Shaw "The Mammoth Book of Tasteless
Lists". All quotations are translated by me. Has anyone got the original
words and sources?

Edward Young: "Shakespeare - in general he wrote nothing but rubbish."

Voltaire: "One great manure heap."

Leo Tolstoj: "Primitive, immoral, vulgar and stupid."

George Bernard Shaw: "With the exception of Homer I hate no famous
writer - not even Sir Walter Scott - as profoundly as Shakespeare when I
compare my intellect with his. I would like to excavate him and throw
stones at him."

Samuel Johnson: "Shakespeare couldn't write six lines without making a
mistake. Well, let it be seven lines."

Charles Darwin: "Recently I tried to read Shakespeare but found him so
incredibly boring that I became sick."

Maybe this could be the beginning of a thread about what we Shakespeare
lovers hate about Shakespeare. I, for example, could never read The
Tempest without being disappointed. I've tried a lot of times to find
the play good but, alas, I find it stiff and boring. (Oops, have I outed
myself as a tasteless greaseball?)

Robert Peters
robertpeters@t-online.de


about SHAKSPER | current postings | submitted papers | browse SHAKSPER | search SHAKSPER
  
Copyright © 2002, Hardy M. Cook, design by Eric Luhrs. All rights reserved.