Shakespeare and the other great writers- overrated?

[bluemoonKY]

Edit: I wish this message board would let me edit the title, but it won't. I should have titled this "Shakespeare and the other famous writers hundreds of years ago- overrated?" I should not have called them great writers in the title because my thesis is that they weren't so great.

I have always thought that the most famous writers before the 18th century were overrated. The following is a list of some of the writers that I think are overrated: Shakespeare, John Milton, Virgil, and Dante.

The first reason that I think that the stated writers before the 18th century were overrated is that I have read parts of some of their works, and they are not entertaining to me.

Secondly, I think that there was far less competition before the 18th century than there is now. For one thing, only a tiny percentage of the population was literate back then. There were no major publishing markets. Shakespeare owned the globe theater, and that is why his work was so widely distributed. There was little competition in the 16th and 17th centuries. There were few if any bookstores in those days. Virgil wrote the Aenid, but how many epic poems were made in antiquity? I think very little. I believe that whoever wrote a long poem that was at least a little bit entertaining and could afford to widely disseminate it would be famous.

I think that people just like to say that Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil, and Dante were great writers to sound like they are well-educated and smart.

 

[marcus]

...
I think that people just like to say that Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil, and Dante were great writers to sound like they are well-educated and smart.

It may be quite true that there are MANY people you or I might meet who don't really enjoy Milton or Virgil but say these poets are great primarily for the reason you give: wanting to sound educated. But that's not the case with everybody. I think there's another part to the story you are overlooking.

I fell in love with Dante's poetry only after, as a young person, backpacking around in Italy for a while and picking up some Italian. And then I happened to hear passages of the Inferno and the Paradiso recited. And could understand them in Italian.

It is great. It's a kick. For me (all judgment of greatness is personal and from the heart of the individual.)

About Milton and Virgil, I can't say. Never felt drawn to them. My Latin isn't good enough that I could listen to Virgil recordings and understand the spoken verse. Poetry is the human voice. It is not to read. It is to read aloud, or better: to recite aloud from memory.
If it doesn't make you want to do that it is not "turning you on" the way it should and from your personal viewpoint, to your heart, it is not great.

I'd call Shakespeare a DRAMATIST not a poet. His sonnets are interesting and memorable poems but what he really did best was PLAYS. My love of Shakespeare comes from having seen several of his plays performed, up close in small theaters, by young actors studying in the drama departments of the local college and the nearby university.
There are some scenes you (I, we) just don't forget.
There are some lines that remain in the mind. That recall the feel of the situation and the actor saying them.
Drama is meant to be PERFORMED, not read silently, not even read aloud, or recited, but performed.
Shakespeare also wrote some pretty fine SONGS for the actors in his plays to sing.

About Shakespeare plays in film, a lot of it in my view is bad and won't survive. Branagh did a horrible job with Hamlet, I think. I couldn't watch it. But I liked what he and Emma Thompson did with *Much Ado about Nothing*. If you have NetFlix you might put it on your queue and see if you enjoy it.

I think Shakespeare plays will live as long as people do real stage acting in recognizable English language, which is probably for a long time. I think passages of Dante will be loved and recited aloud by heart as long as people speak Italian.

 

[zoobyshoe]

One thing I need in order to understand why you feel Shakespeare is over-rated is examples of writers you think are actually the best.

If you could post samples of say, three, writers you think are better than Shakespeare it would tell me something.

When I say samples I mean it literally: pick one paragraph from each of the three and post it here.

 

[g.lemaitre]

The first reason that I think that the stated writers before the 18th century were overrated is that I have read parts of some of their works, and they are not entertaining to me.

You're going to have to come up with a better reason than that.

Secondly, I think that there was far less competition before the 18th century than there is now. For one thing, only a tiny percentage of the population was literate back then. There were no major publishing markets.

There was competition but probably not as much. Today the problem is that there is so much information that it's very difficult to rise about the froth. Back in those days the problem was reversed few people read so it was very hard for you to get anyone to listen to you. Seneca's plays were probably never even acted. The average book costs huge amounts of money before the printing press to produce maybe 10,000 dollars in today's money so you had to be the best of the best in order to be published.

Virgil wrote the Aenid, but how many epic poems were made in antiquity? I think very little.

There were quite a lot of epic poets back then. Just read Petronius' Satyricon and you'll encounter several names of poets who are completely forgotten. Before writing you had to convince more or less a cult to memorize your poem, a very difficult task. When writing came around, again you had the problem that publishing was so flat out expensive that only the absolute best of the best got published.

I think that people just like to say that Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil, and Dante were great writers to sound like they are well-educated and smart.

It is certainly true that there is quite a lot of snobbery in the Academic world. I happen to think that Shakespeare is not that good but Milton and Dante deserve their praise.

 

[HallsofIvy]

BluemoonKY, you give the impression that you think that writers (and, I presume everyone else) should be "rated" based on what everyone else thinks of them!

I think that people like to say that Shakespeare, Milton, Virgil, and Dante were great writers to sound like they are well-educated and smart.

And why would you think that saying that would sound "well-educated and smart"? Why Shakespeare rather than, say, Christopher Marlowe?

 

[arildno]

Shakespeare wasn't much played in much of the 17th century, you had a lot of Jacobean playwrights at that time, totally overshadowing him.

Shakespeare's plays reasserted themselves in the 18th century, driving a lot of other playwrights to oblivion.

 

[bluemoonKY]

Today the problem is that there is so much information that it's very difficult to rise about the froth.

Yes; that is part of the reason why I think that the greatest writers today are superior to the greatest writers of antiquity, the middle ages, and the modern period before the 18th century.

Back in those days the problem was reversed few people read so it was very hard for you to get anyone to listen to you.[./quote]

Very few people read, and very few people wrote. This means that there was less competition.

The average book costs huge amounts of money before the printing press to produce maybe 10,000 dollars in today's money so you had to be the best of the best in order to be published.

I agree that the average book before the advent of the printing press cost a huge amount of money to produce, but I disagree with you on what the implications of that were. I think that the high costs to produce a book meant that you had to be the richest of the rich to afford to publish the book, or you had to be a famous scholar (Aristotle, Plato, etc.) to publish a book, or you had to own a major theater (Shakespeare) in order for your work to be widely disseminated.

There were quite a lot of epic poets back then. Just read Petronius' Satyricon and you'll encounter several names of poets who are completely forgotten.

Today in America there are probably tens of thousands of writers of fiction who are trying to be published, and the publishing decisions are made based on the entertainment value of their work.

It is certainly true that there is quite a lot of snobbery in the Academic world. I happen to think that Shakespeare is not that good but Milton and Dante deserve their praise.

If Shakespeare didn't own the Globe Theater, I doubt anybody today would have even heard of him. I know owning a theater and being a playwright in the 16th century was not a sufficent cause to get the reputation of Shakespeare. I know that Shakespeare had to have a modicum of talent, but he was probably only competing with a very tiny pool of playwrights.

 

[g.lemaitre]

Just a minor point because I'm not really all that interested in this debate. Shakespeare didn't start out owning the globe theater. He had to fight tooth and nail until he made it to the top, just like any other actor today. He started out an unknown just like everyone else. And there was a lot of competing acting companies back then, but so many of them had to fold because they just weren't popular.

 

[marcus]

Shakespeare wasn't much played in much of the 17th century, you had a lot of Jacobean playwrights at that time, totally overshadowing him.

Shakespeare's plays reasserted themselves in the 18th century, driving a lot of other playwrights to oblivion.

I remember learning that. It's an important point. His plays fell into obscurity for 100 years or so and then were "rediscovered".
I vaguely recall Samuel Johnson had something to do with this. Maybe to understand why his plays have such sustained life we'd have to go back and learn what motivated their revival.

Another factor is why has Shakespeare been so popular in German translation? The old Shake is huge in some other languages. Why?

It's sometimes said that poetry is what does NOT come across in translation. The translation of a poem has to be a new poem in its own right or it is not poetry at all.

So for Shake to be a hit in German, it has to be not his *poetry* but his theater. The poetry is fine OK and lovely but there's more. He sets up these complex emotional situations involving men and women with strong personalities that you would like to know. You would like to know these people or you think you already know them. And the psychology of the situation is dangerous and/or extremely funny and/or sexy and/or fatal. People's egos and sexual and power relationships are not simple---he peels them and plays with them and runs thru variation and variation of them. I'm just sayng the obvious.
This is universal material and it can come across in other languages (given some cultural kinship) like German, Scandinavian, Russian. That's why he's good.

 

[bluemoonKY]

Shakespeare didn't start out owning the globe theater. He had to fight tooth and nail until he made it to the top, just like any other actor today.

I agree that Shakespeare had to fight tooth and nail to make it to the top in the sense of having to make enough money to buy the Globe Theater, but I'm not sure if Shakespeare made the money because of his writing ability. I don't have any strong opinions about this because I know very little about Shakespeare's life. On wikipedia, it says that very little is known about Shakespeare's early life. He might have been a school teacher when he was young. Shakespeare was an actor too. Shakespeare could have earned the money to buy the Globe Theater from acting or teaching, rather than from his writing.

 

[bluemoonKY]

BluemoonKY, you give the impression that you think that writers (and, I presume everyone else) should be "rated" based on what everyone else thinks of them!

Absolutely. I think writers (and everyone else) should be rated partly based on what everyone else thinks of them. For instance, I have never watched Michael Jordan play basketball before and I have never looked at his basketball statistics, but I think that it's safe to assume that Michael Jordan was a better basketball player in his prime than the average person since everyone else seems to think Jordan was such a great basketball player. Do you disagree?

Obviously I don't think that writers should be rated completely based on what everyone else thinks of them, or then I would have never made this thread.

And why would you think that saying that would sound "well-educated and smart"? Why Shakespeare rather than, say, Christopher Marlowe?

If a person said that Christopher Marlowe was the greatest writer ever, it might not sound so educated and smart to most people since most people have never heard of him (as famous in educated literary circles as Marlowe is).

 

[arildno]

I remember learning that. It's an important point. His plays fell into obscurity for 100 years or so and then were "rediscovered".
I vaguely recall Samuel Johnson had something to do with this. Maybe to understand why his plays have such sustained life we'd have to go back and learn what motivated their revival.

Another factor is why has Shakespeare been so popular in German translation? The old Shake is huge in some other languages. Why?

It's sometimes said that poetry is what does NOT come across in translation. The translation of a poem has to be a new poem in its own right or it is not poetry at all.

So for Shake to be a hit in German, it has to be not his *poetry* but his theater. The poetry is fine OK and lovely but there's more. He sets up these complex emotional situations involving men and women with strong personalities that you would like to know. You would like to know these people or you think you already know them. And the psychology of the situation is dangerous and/or extremely funny and/or sexy and/or fatal. People's egos and sexual and power relationships are not simple---he peels them and plays with them and runs thru variation and variation of them. I'm just sayng the obvious.
This is universal material and it can come across in other languages (given some cultural kinship) like German, Scandinavian, Russian. That's why he's good.

Shakespeare was for a long time regarded as coarse and vulgar. Not the least because he does not shy away from being coarse and vulgar.
As well as being everything else.

To me, Shakespeare succeeds on all fronts:
Making damn good thrillers, loads of puns, sexual innuendoes and plain silliness. And, for the recurring reader/viewer, endless philosophical depths.
--------------------------------------------
Art that lacks popular appeal is simply not good art at all, popular appeal is a necessary criterion for artistic quality, but not a sufficient one (and yes, that means that "quality" of art may deteriorate over time, if it loses its popular appeal. Artistic quality is not a static feauture, but still an objective feature).

 

[Evo]

I agree that Shakespeare had to fight tooth and nail to make it to the top in the sense of having to make enough money to buy the Globe Theater,

He didn't own the Globe, he was a small shareholder.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yes; that is part of the reason why I think that the greatest writers today are superior to the greatest writers of antiquity, the middle ages, and the modern period before the 18th century.

Who are they? The greatest writers of today? I asked you for samples.

 

[marcus]

"Writer" is a pretty vague category. Like athlete. If we're going to compare works of literature shouldn't we specify a particular type? Like say POETRY.
The OP mentioned 4 people that are often considered *great poets*.

You can't compare poet to novelist any more than you can compare polevaulters to quarterbacks. Or speed iceskaters. Its a different kind of greatness.

Bluemoon should propose 20th or 21st Century POETS that are the equals or betters of Virgil Dante Shakespeare etc.

Maybe there are some!

Let's have some kind of measure. What about this? Being loved and enjoyed by speakers of a living language after 300 years. Snatches of verse still known by heart even after 300 years.

Can Bluemoon or anyone else think of a recent or contemporary poet who you predict will still be known and enjoyed 300 years from now?

 

[marcus]

It's not a completely pointless exercise, to try to think of some lines of verse from today that might live 3 centuries. What about these?

Terza Rima

In this great form, as Dante proved in Hell
there is no dreadful thing that can't be said
in passing. Here for instance one could tell

How our jeep skidded sideways towards the dead
enemy soldier with the staring eyes,
bumping a little as it struck his head,

and then flew on, as if to Paradise.
============================

A WW2 GI, who was in France, later wrote that.
And still later, reflecting that a poet's work in any given language
can live only as long as the language itself, the same person wrote:
============================

To the Etruscan Poets

Dream fluently, still brothers, who, when young,
took with your mother's milk, the mother tongue--

In which pure matrix, joining world and mind,
you strove to leave a line of verse behind

Like a fresh track, across a field of snow--
not reckoning that all could melt, and go.

==================

Of course the Etruscan poets have all been dead for over 2000 years and nobody knows what their language was like. It has all been lost. Does anybody besides me think someone 300 years from now might know and (if there are still keyboards with the Latin alphabet) type the above short verse from memory? Or speak it to a friend?

 

[DaveC426913]

Being loved and enjoyed by speakers of a living language after 300 years. Snatches of verse still known by heart even after 300 years.

+1

Kind of the de facto measure of greatness, innit?

 

[bluemoonKY]

zoobyshoe,

The main reason that I didn't answer you earlier is that you asked for sample paragraphs of my three favorite writers' best writing. That would require me to go to at least one library, and it would require me to photocopy stated paragraphs or to write them down in a notebook. I won't do all that.

The other reason that I didn't answer you earlier is that I don't think anyone but you would find this the slightest bit interesting. Just to clarify, I think that the greatest writers from the 19th century to today are superior to the writers from antiquity to 1600s or so. If I had to pick the three greatest writers of all time, I would pick Stephen King, Lee Child, and Jack London. The answer to your question: IMHO, the three greatest writers of today are Stephen King, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block.

I think that most or all of the most famous writers of the 20th century and the 19th century were superior to Virgil, Shakespeare, Milton, and Dante.

 

[Jobrag]

Stephen King et al are writers of entertainment, and there's nothing wrong with that, who will be forgotten in 50 years, probably less, (who reads Alistair MacLean these days?). Shakespear, Dickens etc are writers who entertain, and address timeless human problems, husband with pushy wife (Macbeth), "mixed" love affairs (Romeo and Juliet), sexual jealousy (Othello).
Frankly if you think a trio of contempory thriller writers can compare with some of the greatest wordsmiths of all time you need to start visiting different shelves in your local bookshop, or get a kindle and download some of the classics for free.

 

[zoobyshoe]

the three greatest writers of today are Stephen King...

This pretty much explains your "thesis".

Stephen King is not a great writer. He's a popular novelist, which is no small accomplishment, but he didn't become that by being a great writer. He's merely a pretty good writer with an uncanny eye for current popular taste. He's firmly stuck to one period in American culture that he really knows how to exploit but he won't outlive it. Once the cultural background changes his appeal will be gone.

In addition to what jobrag said about Shakespeare addressing timeless human problems, there's the more important fact he said what he said so well and eloquently. So many of the speeches can be removed from the plays and taken as classic poems, as Marcus alludes to, that say what they say in an especially remarkable way.

 

[atyy]

Of course the Etruscan poets have all been dead for over 2000 years and nobody knows what their language was like. It has all been lost. Does anybody besides me think someone 300 years from now might know and (if there are still keyboards with the Latin alphabet) type the above short verse from memory? Or speak it to a friend?

But the ideas from dead languages can still live on. One of my favourite Sumerian texts is about a boy (girl?) who didn't want to go to school, because his teacher had punished him for being late and for his bad handwriting (or something like that). It seems school kids have always been the same!

http://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/408

 

[bluemoonKY]

Yes, overrated

Shakespear, Dickens etc are writers who entertain, and address timeless human problems, husband with pushy wife (Macbeth), "mixed" love affairs (Romeo and Juliet), sexual jealousy (Othello).

First of all, my thesis is that the famous writers before the 18th century are overrated. Dickens deserves his great reputation as a great writer, but he was a 19th century writer.

Secondly, I could make the same argument for Stephen King. Stephen King is a writer who entertains and addresses timeless human problems, wife with abusive husband (Dolores Claiborne), bullying among children and teenagers (Stand by Me), keeping hope to overcome adversity (Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption).

Frankly if you think a trio of contempory thriller writers can compare with some of the greatest wordsmiths of all time you need to start visiting different shelves in your local bookshop, or get a kindle and download some of the classics for free.

I have visited some of the so-called "different shelves" in my local library. I have tried to plow through the classics of antiquity and the classics made during the middle ages and the
1500s and the 1600s, but they're just too darn dull. I can't bear it.

 

[zoobyshoe]

First of all, my thesis is that the famous writers before the 18th century are overrated. Dickens deserves his great reputation as a great writer, but he was a 19th century writer.

Secondly, I could make the same argument for Stephen King. Stephen King is a writer who entertains and addresses timeless human problems, wife with abusive husband (Dolores Claiborne), bullying among children and teenagers (Stand by Me), keeping hope to overcome adversity (Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption).

I have visited some of the so-called "different shelves" in my local library. I have tried to plow through the classics of antiquity and the classics made during the middle ages and the
1500s and the 1600s, but they're just too darn dull. I can't bear it.

The farther back you go in time the more any given author will have been motivated by a moral imperative to ennoble the reader. People wrote to make the reader a better person, to pull them up out of the cheap, sensational kinds of things that Stephen King wallows in with no shame, and get them thinking on a more disciplined level informed by standards of taste and morality. They were not written as entertainment and the criticism that they're not entertaining is about as off as criticizing math for not being entertaining. If you want to judge Milton you have to be up for examining what Milton is about, what he was trying to do in the age that he wrote. That is necessarily going to be intellectual labor, just as it would be to go back and read Euclid.

It's perfectly OK to say that kind of scholarly discipline is too dull for you, but to turn it around and find fault with those authors for not playing to your need for cheap, effortless thrills here in the early 21st century is pretty dumb.

There are people who won't read a book at all. They find it too boring and tedious. They could easily present a "thesis" that reading is over-rated, that the advent of film and TV rendered it moot, and that those who continue to read are just being pretentious and affected. I think they would be righter, by your logic, than you are.

 

[atyy]

Surely the sleepwalking scene alone makes Shakespeare a great dramatist?

Or was that a standard cheap thrill of the time, like an operatic mad scene?

The other work of his that is either so great or so stupid is the Tempest. Is it a very subtle work, or a very shallow work? I feel the former, but can only make the case for the latter!

Another work that comes to mind is Mozart's magic flute. I am sure it is the most profound work, yet I know some who think it fluff compared to Wagner.

 

[marcus]

Another work that comes to mind is Mozart's magic flute. I am sure it is the most profound work, yet I know some who think it fluff compared to Wagner.

That's OK when stuff is great you can get passionately held convictions either way. Did you ever watch the Ingmar Bergman Magic Flute? His 12yearold daughter is there in the audience during the overture when the camera scans over a kind of group portrait of humanity.
Our family has often sung some of the duets, trios. I sing Zarastro in the shower. It's family music, music to live by. You don't have to have a great voice. Will people still love M.F. in 300 years? Amateur home-singers still want to learn the songs?
Oh I guess so. And does it have silly parts? Sure. Bergman knew how to edit, modernize in subtle ways, but still keep it in its period and without tampering with the essence. Not a *spectacle*. It has a homely universal common touch.

 

[atyy]

That's OK when stuff is great you can get passionately held convictions either way. Did you ever watch the Ingmar Bergman Magic Flute? His 12yearold daughter is there in the audience during the overture when the camera scans over a kind of group portrait of humanity.
Our family has often sung some of the duets, trios. I sing Zarastro in the shower. It's family music, music to live by. You don't have to have a great voice. Will people still love M.F. in 300 years? Amateur home-singers still want to learn the songs?
Oh I guess so. And does it have silly parts? Sure. Bergman knew how to edit, modernize in subtle ways, but still keep it in its period and without tampering with the essence. Not a *spectacle*. It has a homely universal common touch.

I haven't - didn't even know about it. I shall have to look out for it now. Actually, I think I've never seen a Bergmann movie - maybe scared by their reputation for being rather dark.

 

[marcus]

I haven't - didn't even know about it. I shall have to look out for it now. Actually, I think I've never seen a Bergmann movie - maybe scared by their reputation for being rather dark.

No fear. His M.F. is not typical Bergman.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Surely the sleepwalking scene alone makes Shakespeare a great dramatist?

Or was that a standard cheap thrill of the time, like an operatic mad scene?

I'd call it psychological insight hundreds of years ahead of its time, and that is one exceptionally well acted performance of that scene. Thanks for the link!

 

[bluemoonKY]

They were not written as entertainment and the criticism that they're not entertaining is about as off as criticizing math for not being entertaining. If you want to judge Milton you have to be up for examining what Milton is about, what he was trying to do in the age that he wrote. That is necessarily going to be intellectual labor, just as it would be to go back and read Euclid.

You might be right about Milton, Virgil, and Dante, but I strongly doubt you are right about Shakespeare. Did Shakespeare not write to entertain?

It's perfectly OK to say that kind of scholarly discipline is too dull for you, but to turn it around and find fault with those authors for not playing to your need for cheap, effortless thrills here in the early 21st century is pretty dumb.

I resent your calling my desire to read entertaining writings cheap and effortless.

 

[marcus]

First of all, my thesis is that the famous writers before the 18th century are overrated. Dickens deserves his great reputation as a great writer, but he was a 19th century writer.

I'm curious, Blue, who wrote in the 18th Century, that you like? If there isn't anyone, would your claim be that everybody famous before the 19th is overrated?

Secondly, I could make the same argument for Stephen King. Stephen King is a writer who entertains and addresses timeless human problems, wife with abusive husband (Dolores Claiborne), bullying among children and teenagers (Stand by Me), keeping hope to overcome adversity (Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption).

I have visited some of the so-called "different shelves" in my local library. I have tried to plow through the classics of antiquity and the classics made during the middle ages and the
1500s and the 1600s, but they're just too darn dull. I can't bear it.

Were you reading stuff in translation? The local library may have had dull prosy translations. Or you may have randomly chanced on passages of Homer that only a contemporary Greek could have fully appreciated. So you may (thru no fault) have not given it a fair shot. What books of Chaucer did you read?

But anyway, basically you sound like you are speaking your mind and expressing an honest reaction. So I respect that. You might look back at my posts #2, #9, #14, #15, where I'm trying to do the same thing. Tell you what my experience has been.

Also it sounds like you have a strong preference for NOVELS, and that is a fairly new genre. Early on there are only a few to choose from: there's Defoe (Crusoe), Swift (Gulliver), Austen (Pride&Prejudice)...
Your cutoff date (18th C) seems to correspond to the invention of the novel. It was just getting started. And the examples of modern writers you esteem are all novelists.
Maybe that's the key to it, in which case there is not much to argue about. Your taste runs to novels and all the famous English novelists before the 18th (of which there are zero) do not deserve their reputations. No one can argue against a statement about zero writers.

BTW have you read Pride and Prejudice? Moral clarity, hilarious deadpan humor, perfect expression. Might not be so much to your taste if it runs, say, to modern Gothic, the heart wrenching, the gruesome, the mad, or the supernatural. Jane Austen doesn't do the full spectrum. I think you probably have, but I'm curious to know for sure and what you think.

We must be right around the 200th anniversary of P&P. Doesn't 1812 sound right for Jane Austen?
EDIT: Yes! I checked and Pride and Prejudice was published January 1813.

 

[DaveC426913]

I resent your calling my desire to read entertaining writings cheap and effortless.

Well, the word "entertaining" does have an implication of immediate visceral gratification. That would be distinct from the timelessness of the subtext seen in Shakespeare.

I'm not saying any writing can't be both; simply that they are distinct. If what you value is entertainment, then it's not a surprise that Shakespeare is not at the top of your list like it would be for someone who values timeless stories about the human condition.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You might be right about Milton, Virgil, and Dante, but I strongly doubt you are right about Shakespeare. Did Shakespeare not write to entertain?

Entertainment was high on his priorities but still secondary to the moral or lesson. Shakespeare felt he was performing a social/human service: raising people's awareness by showing them themselves. This comes out in Hamlet's direction to the actors he's hired. Hamlet is, on one level, is a play about what plays are about:

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this
special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature. For
anything so o'erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both
at the first and now, was and is, to hold as 'twere, the mirror up
to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image,
and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

I resent your calling my desire to read entertaining writings cheap and effortless.

I value cheap, effortless novels a lot and read as many as I can find. There's no shame in it for me because I know they're cheap and effortless and I don't mistake them for great writing. I've read a lot of Stephen King. I call your desire to read entertaining novels an indulgence in the cheap and effortless because I know mine is. Check out Preston Douglas. He's my new favorite author: pure entertainment. Much better than Stephen King.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Well, the word "entertaining" does have an implication of immediate visceral gratification. That would be distinct from the timelessness of the subtext seen in Shakespeare.

I'm not saying any writing can't be both; simply that they are distinct. If what you value is entertainment, then it's not a surprise that Shakespeare is not at the top of your list like it would be for someone who values timeless stories about the human condition.

Shakespeare's stories, the plots, are not necessarily better than anyone else's. What sets him apart is the eloquence and originality of how he expresses things. Anyone, for example, can conceive of a man spiraling down into complete black depression upon hearing that his wife has died, but the way Shakespeare expresses that man's downward inner fall is, to me, exquisite:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

 

[bluemoonKY]

I'm curious, Blue, who wrote in the 18th Century, that you like?

I don't know, but there might be some.

If there isn't anyone, would your claim be that everybody famous before the 19th is overrated?

Yes.

Were you reading stuff in translation?

I never have read any literature in any language except English.

What books of Chaucer did you read?

Only one. I read The Canterbury Tales.

Also it sounds like you have a strong preference for NOVELS, and that is a fairly new genre. Early on there are only a few to choose from: there's Defoe (Crusoe), Swift (Gulliver), Austen (Pride&Prejudice)...
Your cutoff date (18th C) seems to correspond to the invention of the novel. It was just getting started. And the examples of modern writers you esteem are all novelists.
Maybe that's the key to it, in which case there is not much to argue about.

Then the writings of 19th and 20th century writers tend to be more entertaining than the writings of writers before the 18th century because writers before the 18th century did not write novels.

BTW have you read Pride and Prejudice? Moral clarity, hilarious deadpan humor, perfect expression. Might not be so much to your taste if it runs, say, to modern Gothic, the heart wrenching, the gruesome, the mad, or the supernatural. Jane Austen doesn't do the full spectrum. I think you probably have, but I'm curious to know for sure and what you think.

We must be right around the 200th anniversary of P&P. Doesn't 1812 sound right for Jane Austen?
EDIT: Yes! I checked and Pride and Prejudice was published January 1813.

I have read Pride and Prejudice. It was not my cup of tea.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

I'm guessing you would like "Frankenstein" by Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley. She was only 19 when she wrote it.

I wonder how Shakespeare would have felt if he knew you liked Stephen King more than him.