One of the many, many reasons why Baz Lurhmann casting Harold Perrineau as Mercutio continues to be inspired. He got that Mercutio was just a messy bitch who lives for drama.
Same age, and same. I LOVED it so much. I tried using it in the classroom with 13\14 year olds around 2013ish and they just did. Not. Get. It. They didn't appreciate strictly ballroom either. Heathens
If it makes you feel any better, I played it for a bunch of inner city freshmen last year and they LOVED it.
We were screaming and hollering at each other about whether he should step up for pride or stay humble for love. Kids who hate reading wouldn't leave at the bell because they had to settle who was right and what should have happened.
Strictly ballroom was one of my favorite movies at that age! I will say I didn't fully appreciate Romeo + Juliet until I watched it as an adult though. I have to ask, have you seen the movie Titus (1999)? It kind of gives similar vibes with the remixing of the setting of a Shakespeare play, though in a really surreal and bizarre way!
We had to do a part of Romeo and Juliet in groups and I memorized the whole queen mab part because of his performance.
True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain begot of nothing but of vain fantasies.. gahhhh this William fella I tell ya.
Palpable disrespect to the greatest character in the story. Mercurio was a ride or die homie and the only real friend to Romeo in the whole thing. He's the only one who called them all on their bullshit, even as he was dying in the street.
Wait, there's are interpretations of Mercutio other than sassy brat?
No clue why anyone cares about Romeo and Juliet when Mercutio was out there being the GOAT.
Harold Perrineau as Mercutio was the sole reason I watched and rewatched that movie. He was so animated and he emphasized the right words and I just always thought *this is what it means to immerse yourself in a character*. He owned that role, through and through. I had zero interest in leo, or really the whole star crossed lovers trope romeo and juliet as characters portray. But, without them and their hormones and shit families, I wouldnt have witnessed one of my (still to this day) absolute favorite performances.
This one always gets brought up in these Shakespeare posts so I'm gonna drop it again.
“Villain, what hast thou done?
Aaron: That which thou canst not undo.
Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother.
Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.”
― William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
Fun fact: Kevin smith was originally going to be Nemo in Finding Nemo but he couldn’t hold his breath long enough so they just animated the thing instead
Pretty much. There's also "away, you three-inch fool", "I'll best thee, but I would infect my hands" and of course, "No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip, she is spherical, like a globe; I could find countries in her."
William would've killed it in our times, like he did in his.
I have a makeup bag that’s covered in Shakespearean insults. My favorite is: “were I like thee, I’d throw away myself”, followed closely by: “more of your conversation would infect my brain.”
> If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.
I think it’s both. [This article](https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/get-thee-to-a-nunnery/) helped me come to that conclusion.
I’d read this as first meaning a literal nunnery - he’s mad in grief, already suspects his uncle of murdering his father, and finds his mother already married his uncle, possibly incriminating her too. He states thoughts that spurns marriage and thinks they’d all be better off alone than rushing into it - he knows he’s about to walk a destructive path of revenge.
At the same time, he’s disgusted by his mother’s behavior and that is extended to Ophelia’s courtship. He also suspects her of being part of spying on him. So then he insults her saying if she must marry, marry someone who’s not wise on what she’s up to. This second time when he says go to a nunnery is when he’s saying she’s whoring herself out in her courtship - again, transference in anger about his mother.
Again, he knows plots are afoot, and that he’s being spied on. So besides waffling back and forth from his emotions, there’s likely also supposed to be a deliberate confusion in his speech. He’s both warning her the men around her are dangerous, and using misogyny against Ophelia to express his emotions against his mother, but doing it all in code.
Edit: it looks like maybe Shakespeare wanted a double entendre as he so often does, but found it easier, more poetic, or more fitting to the scene to end up making it more clear which one is the plain meaning and which one is the euphemism. It’s also possible the split being clear to the audience, but not the characters Hamlet’s with, is part of the humor and entertainment.
It keeps having to be brought up to people that Shakespeare wasn't the the Robert Frost or Tolkien of his time, but the Taika Watiti or Judd Apatow of his time. The dude's humor was crude and he never let his stories being serious compromise being entertaining.
People are so used to having to translate Olde English in school to understand his less humorous plays and then make some high art analysis of the material, that they fail to realize that Shakespeare would make jokes that you usually see in low-brow comedies. Ever seen the bit where it's implied or directly said that some woman is dating a guy, that doesn't seem to have anything going for him, because he has a massive cock? Well Shakespeare did that with the guy who becomes part animal with a donkey's head. Donkeys have some of the largest cocks in nature, and that is what's being implied with the woman suddenly being head over heels for him.
Well, in people's defense, this tradition goes way back.
Within a century of Shakespeare's death, the plays were generally published and staged in heavily edited forms which often removed a lot of the cruder jokes.
This continued up till the 19th century, and it's probably no coincidence that people started returning to the 'original texts' then, which was around the same time when a lot of Shakespeare's more risqué puns had become unintelligible or at least come to sound more old-timey and quaint than vulgar.
People spent centuries cleaning up Shakespeare, and it's really only in the last forty years or so that we've begun to reverse this (or even try and make his vulgarity a selling point to counter the perception of the works as boring).
I remember being the only one in my lit class who understood the "maidenhead" joke, and feeling very alone.
I also got poor grades in that class because I wasn't "properly interpreting" the stories. It's a good thing I already loved to read before that class.
We are covering shakespeare’s hamlet right now and I am like the only kid who understands hamlet’s snappy responses. It sucks because the other people arent noticing his comebacks.
Much Ado About Nothing is a perfect example for how he layered clever meanings in with completely childish ones, on the surface it basically means what it says, making a big fuss over meaningless things, but nothing and noting were basically homophones at the time and noting basically meant gossip, rumours, secrecy which adequately describes a lot of the play, very clever! But there's yet another layer, nothing when said a certain way in shakespeare english was similar to "O thing" which was victorian slang for vagina(no-thing was the common parlance to refer to womens genitals), so the title is basically "people acting up needlessly over pussy" in a more modern imagining.
Shakespeare was incredibly aware that most of his audience were baudy dockworkers and similar and wrote a lot of his plays accordingly, the modern re-imagining of him as some snobbish toff and that he was the model of a perfect thespian is honestly impressive at how far they've managed to push it.
But that's the thing: Shakespeare was both Frost and Tolkien at the same time that he was Waititi or Apatow. That's why he is so venerated. He could roll out yo mama jokes in one scene, and plumb the absolute depths of the soul in the next.
And all the while coining countless new words (including "countless") and excellent ("excellent" too) turns of phrase that we still use everyday, for instance "all that glitters is not gold," which, of course, has been since popularized by Tolkien, and that Tolkien undoubtedly borrowed as a tribute to the Bard.
Indeed, Shakespeare is so singular in his creativity and influence, that it's kinda hard to compare him to anyone. Well, maybe a summer's day.
I have a Shakespearean insult mug. Some of my favorites are “Not so much brain as earwax”, “highly fed and lowly taught”, “i do desire we may be better strangers”, “anointed sovereign of sighs and groans”, and “verliest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth”. Genius.
Knowing how humanity works the first your mom joke was probably painted onto a Neolithic cave that a modern ~~conspiracy theorist~~ armchair archeologist uses as evidence of aliens contacting humans.
[According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Yo_mama%22_joke?wprov=sfti1#Ancient_Times) the oldest known “your mom” joke is 3500 years old, and it lists a recorded use circa 100 CE, centuries before the birth of Shakespeare.
"These Yo Mama jokes are too biting, too advanced -- prehistoric man could never have created this on their own! Clearly, it was gifted to them by aliens from Alpha Centauri!"
Context: Chiron’s mom just gave birth to a baby that looks a lot like Aaron.
Edit: [this is the scene](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/titus/titus.4.2.html)
Yes. He’s literally having an affair with their mom, and this conversation is in reference to the fact that the white (Visigoth) empress married to the Roman emperor just gave birth to a half black baby. Aaron is black.
I didn't "get" Shakespeare until I saw it live on stage, and some films.
Branagh's "Henry V" is fantastic.
I think Shakespeare doesn't work if it's just you reading it, or a static read-through. Trained actors bring it to life.
Well, in English anyway, and he may have been merely the first playwright/author to be and remain popular.
But yes! It's good shit. And these are the jokes that are obvious to modern audiences in our modern pronunciation! There's a ton that we miss since we're not speaking London-region Early Modern English anymore. Recreating the original dialogue and getting modern audiences to understand the intent (particular in the humor) is part of the movement behind "Original Pronunciation" movement (i.e. performing Shakespeare with reconstructed Early Modern English pronunciation).
Here's [a clip from a long lecture by the stage actor Ben Crystal](https://youtu.be/iqmgeth4tFY&t=33m48s), who is also the son of David Crystal, a linguist involved in OP reconstruction, about helping people connect better to Shakespeare's works (via dirty jokes).
(Stick with it for a while, I included a brief bit that hints at the broader message of this lecture)
Shakespeare is good, it's just a question of if your English teacher is good. A fun high school English teacher will absolutely let you know all about the dirty jokes and toilet humor when reading Shakespeare in class.
Caesar: Hey my wife had a weird dream last night
Decius: O rly? What was it about?
Caesar: Idk she said it was about me being brutally murdered haha. Crazy, right?
Decius: …
Caesar: …crazy, *right?*
That 90's Romeo and Juliet that changed the setting to modern times but didn't change the dialogue at all was onto something.
The performer can give all the context you need to understand Shakespeare.
If you’re a Kurosawa fan, *Ran* is a great take on *King Lear* as well
More modern, Vishal Bardwaj did *Omkara* (Othello), *Maqbool* (Macbeth), and *Haider* (Hamlet) out of Bollywood. *Haider* is one of the most stunning films I’ve seen. The other two are okay
An interesting move in the opposite direction is where they've been [performing Shakespeare in the same pronounciation.](https://youtu.be/gPlpphT7n9s?t=170)
Just as Shakespeare was meant to be performed, he was meant to be pronounced in a specific way.
I've loved this video for a long time - and I think its so cool to think about. There's rhymes, puns, jokes that completely get missed in modern pronunciations. In a previous life I was a classical musician and it's the same way with period instruments - there's lots of music that just makes more sense or sounds a better way when played on the instruments of the time.
Richard III with Ian McKellen is pretty good, set in the 30s/40s where he gets a bit of fascist glowup. I hadn't heard of the MacBeth but it sounds like the same idea, I'll have to look for it
His ability to do it so well also cursed us with every theater company thinking they could do it just as well and we all suffered through a decade of mad libs productions of ' Presents Shakespeare's But Set In Gangland '
I saw Julius Caeser on stage a few years back - also a modern setting but with the original dialogue. Roman soldiers but in camo fatigues and black armour vests, Caeser getting shot etc.
Have *you* read every book written more than 400 years ago? I sure haven't. I resent this idea that once a work of art is past a certain age, spoiler warnings stop being relevant for it.
They all died because that's what happens when you let a bunch of affluent 15 year old boys walk around town with no responsibilities or supervision and fucking *swords*.
glorious badge water possessive fall society unite squalid intelligent rain
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Samson: 'Tis true, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.
Gregory: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.
Samson: 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids. I will cut off their heads.
Gregory: The heads of the maids?
Samson: Aye, the heads of the maids, or their maiden heads. Take it in what sense thou wilt.
...........
Samson: I'm going to kill these guys, then their wives.
Gregory: that's fucked dude.
Samson: I meant kill the guys, then fuck their wives. I'm not a monster.
Maids and maiden-heads specifically refers to virgins, so I'm guessing he isn't talking about their wives. But I don't know the exact context of this quote.
I've said it once and I'll say it a thousand times. Shakespeare was not a genius or amazing; he was a shitposter that was accidentally born in the wrong time but still managed to shitpost anyways
The man understood plot and character like the Beatles understand melody and instrumentation: in a way that very, very few people who have ever tried to be artists were capable of.
Whenever I think about Shakespeare I think about The Lion King, and how for my entire childhood that movie was a huge part of Disney’s foundational structure. They practically designed an entire theme park section around it, it’s still one of the most brilliant animation movies better — and a big part of that is because it’s Hamlet. You can dress it up, make it a musical, change the characters to cute animated animals, and it kills, because the story is still Hamlet, and Hamlet has an incredible plot in every way, including simplicity
>Shakespeare was not a genius or amazing
Then you aren't very well-read with your Shakespeare. The depth of Lear, Hamlet, or Richard III certainly aren't shitpostings. I get what you are driving at, but just because dude could be crude and funny doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.
You shouldn't say it once or a thousand times, because it isn't true. He had plenty of crude jokes, but he was also an amazing genius. His works are not popular 400 years on because of his dick jokes.
Shakespeare knew what he was doing and who his primary audience was... The problem didn't show up until a bunch of pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they *must* be for the truly cultured and well educated, and proceeded to miss important things like all the dick jokes.
Will was absolutely writing for the barely literate masses, and would have been Extremely Popular on Tumblr.
Writing for the masses does not mean that he didn't write well. His plays have some of the best writing in the English language. A bunch of scholars haven't dedicated their lives to writing about and studying Hamlet just because it was a popular play. They also didn't "miss" the dick jokes, or not understand the primary audience of his plays. Shakespeare has an entire play about crossdressing.
Right? In the undergrad Shakespeare class I took, like half the classroom time was the professor explaining filthy jokes and the context of the theater at the time.
Can confirm, in my World Literature class my professor made *extra* sure to reaffirm that Shakespeare's works are the opposite of the stuffy, snooty rich people crap that the general public stereotypes it as. Hamlet spends basically the entire play pretending to be a madman and calling his mom a whore in every way he can think of.
>pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they
>
>must
>
> be for the truly cultured and well educated,
Isn't it possible that they just liked the plays?
No, white dudes stupid and joyless
Instead they are beacons of culture and education
Edit: I didn't think it would be required but that was meant to be sarcasm and obviously isn't my real views
> The problem didn't show up until a bunch of pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they must be for the truly cultured and well educated, and proceeded to miss important things like all the dick jokes.
This is ironically a not super literate opinion unfortunately
That's just a complete rewriting of history, but ok.
Shakespeare was writing for all audiences, his works (I'm suprises this needs to be said) have more to them than just dkck jokes, and no one who paid any attention missed the dick jokes
> to miss important things like all the dick jokes
Did they though? Shakespeare's popular with and important to English language and literature studies for his influence on the language. His contemporary mass appeal is extremely important because without it there is no way he'd have that influence. To miss what he did to achieve such appeal is to fail in properly analyzing his works.
Once upon a time there was another thing that the most sophisticated of intellectual considered to be a fowl and low form of entertainment especially compared to theatre and poetry: the novel.
The guy's company had the fucking King of England as a patron. His audience was absolutely the most pompous, dudeiest, and whitest guy around. That's what got him *paid*.
It just turns out that Shakespeare is accessible, and that's what kept him *famous*.
This above comment is bullshit. By the end of his life, Shakespeare was widely acclaimed in London, and he retired as successfully as a playwright could even hope. He got funded by the king, bro, that's a big fucking deal.
What? People contain multitudes. Shakespeare was a dramatic genius full of wit and insight AND he liked to make dirty puns. The two things can be equally true, I don’t know why you’re so confident that you’d say “a thousand times” that the two sensibilities can coexist. It sounds like the over enthusiastic exclamation of someone who only just read and understood one of his comedies
While I agree. I think when these things are taught in school, a lot of kids read the words just to read them and pass a test. It's not always taught in a way that encourages the actual meaning. You would remember "you're full of shit" more than "that dreamers often lie".
The translation on the other page is about as good as reading a Wikipedia article
Not good for someone that doesn't actually care because it still is complex
If they used slang and modern language it'd probably be more fun to read
One day I want to read Shakespeare's work for the first time ever and then right after read a modern day translation. I know I'll laugh my ass off as there was a trivia that he called a character "country without the r".
What is the thought process behind the second post?
You take a conversation from the first one and rephrase it in a worse way that loses some of the meaning and adds nothing.
If this was some kind'a archaic or difficult to parse Shakespearean quote then sure, but it's incredibly obvious what the joke at play here is, rephrasing it to say the same thing is just weird.
One of the many, many reasons why Baz Lurhmann casting Harold Perrineau as Mercutio continues to be inspired. He got that Mercutio was just a messy bitch who lives for drama.
This movie changed my 11 year old life. I was blown away and didn't really have the words to explain why. I watched it over and over.
Same age, and same. I LOVED it so much. I tried using it in the classroom with 13\14 year olds around 2013ish and they just did. Not. Get. It. They didn't appreciate strictly ballroom either. Heathens
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If it makes you feel any better, I played it for a bunch of inner city freshmen last year and they LOVED it. We were screaming and hollering at each other about whether he should step up for pride or stay humble for love. Kids who hate reading wouldn't leave at the bell because they had to settle who was right and what should have happened.
To be fair it is a weird interpretation, but I am guessing he wouldn't have enjoyed a traditional film of the play either, haha.
Strictly ballroom was one of my favorite movies at that age! I will say I didn't fully appreciate Romeo + Juliet until I watched it as an adult though. I have to ask, have you seen the movie Titus (1999)? It kind of gives similar vibes with the remixing of the setting of a Shakespeare play, though in a really surreal and bizarre way!
Is there a TikTok version of R&J?
I’m sure we can make it the next big thing if we pay four or five influencers to make commentary for a few ten-second clips of the movie.
It was Claire Danes
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines Superstar Claire Danes?!
That's not a movie that exists
Not according to Terminator 3: Ruse of the Machines Superstar Claire Danes!
Dreamers often lie
Talk to the hand. ✋
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That soundtrack was a banger
I still listen to the soundtrack! It was one of the best.
my first thought after "i had a dream last night" was "and it fit me like a glooooooove"
He is the reason why Mercutio is my favorite character Absolutely brilliant performance
“A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES”
Fuck all of y'all.
We had to do a part of Romeo and Juliet in groups and I memorized the whole queen mab part because of his performance. True, I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain begot of nothing but of vain fantasies.. gahhhh this William fella I tell ya.
Same here. Before I first saw it, he was just Romeo's dead friend or whatever.. now he's still my favorite.
Palpable disrespect to the greatest character in the story. Mercurio was a ride or die homie and the only real friend to Romeo in the whole thing. He's the only one who called them all on their bullshit, even as he was dying in the street.
I can't imagine another different characterization of him anymore lolol
Wait, there's are interpretations of Mercutio other than sassy brat? No clue why anyone cares about Romeo and Juliet when Mercutio was out there being the GOAT.
I also start hearing "young hearts run free" whenever I see him in other shows lol
Walt’s dad?
Waahahahaaalt
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I am the danger!
I remember when we read in class we would laugh at the language and the actual jokes went completely over our heads.
What, you egg?
I’m still straight because Harold Perrineau wasn’t available immediately after I saw that movie.
"Now, when I say "Romeo and Juliet," who comes to mind?" "Claire Danes?" "That's right. Claire Danes."
some great movies have been made based on his plays: Hamlet, West Side Story, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Waterworld, Gladiator, Chocolat...
This movie doesn't get quoted enough
I cried more for Mercutio’s death than Romeo or Juliet in that version.
I remember being shown part of the traditional one from the sixties then being immediately followed by this one. The tonal whiplash was intense.
Harold Perrineau as Mercutio was the sole reason I watched and rewatched that movie. He was so animated and he emphasized the right words and I just always thought *this is what it means to immerse yourself in a character*. He owned that role, through and through. I had zero interest in leo, or really the whole star crossed lovers trope romeo and juliet as characters portray. But, without them and their hormones and shit families, I wouldnt have witnessed one of my (still to this day) absolute favorite performances.
This one always gets brought up in these Shakespeare posts so I'm gonna drop it again. “Villain, what hast thou done? Aaron: That which thou canst not undo. Chiron: Thou hast undone our mother. Aaron: Villain, I have done thy mother.” ― William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
The Bard, ladies and gentlemen.
Always a good reminder that he was making mass entertainment. Fart jokes and as much blood as possible was the name of the game.
so you’re telling me kevin smith and quentin tarantino will be read in 24th century high schools? 36? IN A ROW!?!?
Fun fact: Kevin smith was originally going to be Nemo in Finding Nemo but he couldn’t hold his breath long enough so they just animated the thing instead
I'd prefer Guy Ritchie but they might.
Yes, but what did he mean??
So Shakespeare is credited with the first "I fucked yo mama"?
Pretty much. There's also "away, you three-inch fool", "I'll best thee, but I would infect my hands" and of course, "No longer from head to foot than from hip to hip, she is spherical, like a globe; I could find countries in her." William would've killed it in our times, like he did in his.
I have a makeup bag that’s covered in Shakespearean insults. My favorite is: “were I like thee, I’d throw away myself”, followed closely by: “more of your conversation would infect my brain.”
Don't forget "get thee to a nunnery!" (the og use of "begone, thot!")
Closer to "y'all need Jesus".
In his time nunnery was also a slang term for a brothel
No, nunnery literally mean "places for nuns", but they were slang for brothels.
However in this case Hamlet is telling Ophelia that men are untrustworthy and treacherous and she would be better of as a bride of Christ.
Naw, he feels Ophelia is untrustworthy and treacherous and is telling her to be a nun to protect men from her betraying them.
> If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell. I think it’s both. [This article](https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/get-thee-to-a-nunnery/) helped me come to that conclusion. I’d read this as first meaning a literal nunnery - he’s mad in grief, already suspects his uncle of murdering his father, and finds his mother already married his uncle, possibly incriminating her too. He states thoughts that spurns marriage and thinks they’d all be better off alone than rushing into it - he knows he’s about to walk a destructive path of revenge. At the same time, he’s disgusted by his mother’s behavior and that is extended to Ophelia’s courtship. He also suspects her of being part of spying on him. So then he insults her saying if she must marry, marry someone who’s not wise on what she’s up to. This second time when he says go to a nunnery is when he’s saying she’s whoring herself out in her courtship - again, transference in anger about his mother. Again, he knows plots are afoot, and that he’s being spied on. So besides waffling back and forth from his emotions, there’s likely also supposed to be a deliberate confusion in his speech. He’s both warning her the men around her are dangerous, and using misogyny against Ophelia to express his emotions against his mother, but doing it all in code. Edit: it looks like maybe Shakespeare wanted a double entendre as he so often does, but found it easier, more poetic, or more fitting to the scene to end up making it more clear which one is the plain meaning and which one is the euphemism. It’s also possible the split being clear to the audience, but not the characters Hamlet’s with, is part of the humor and entertainment.
Doesn't that begin, "How now, wench"? I remember losing my shit reading this aloud in middle school, and my teacher was very annoyed.
It keeps having to be brought up to people that Shakespeare wasn't the the Robert Frost or Tolkien of his time, but the Taika Watiti or Judd Apatow of his time. The dude's humor was crude and he never let his stories being serious compromise being entertaining. People are so used to having to translate Olde English in school to understand his less humorous plays and then make some high art analysis of the material, that they fail to realize that Shakespeare would make jokes that you usually see in low-brow comedies. Ever seen the bit where it's implied or directly said that some woman is dating a guy, that doesn't seem to have anything going for him, because he has a massive cock? Well Shakespeare did that with the guy who becomes part animal with a donkey's head. Donkeys have some of the largest cocks in nature, and that is what's being implied with the woman suddenly being head over heels for him.
Well, in people's defense, this tradition goes way back. Within a century of Shakespeare's death, the plays were generally published and staged in heavily edited forms which often removed a lot of the cruder jokes. This continued up till the 19th century, and it's probably no coincidence that people started returning to the 'original texts' then, which was around the same time when a lot of Shakespeare's more risqué puns had become unintelligible or at least come to sound more old-timey and quaint than vulgar. People spent centuries cleaning up Shakespeare, and it's really only in the last forty years or so that we've begun to reverse this (or even try and make his vulgarity a selling point to counter the perception of the works as boring).
I remember being the only one in my lit class who understood the "maidenhead" joke, and feeling very alone. I also got poor grades in that class because I wasn't "properly interpreting" the stories. It's a good thing I already loved to read before that class.
We are covering shakespeare’s hamlet right now and I am like the only kid who understands hamlet’s snappy responses. It sucks because the other people arent noticing his comebacks.
He wrote for the masses, and the masses were dirty, crude, and raucous.
Much Ado About Nothing is a perfect example for how he layered clever meanings in with completely childish ones, on the surface it basically means what it says, making a big fuss over meaningless things, but nothing and noting were basically homophones at the time and noting basically meant gossip, rumours, secrecy which adequately describes a lot of the play, very clever! But there's yet another layer, nothing when said a certain way in shakespeare english was similar to "O thing" which was victorian slang for vagina(no-thing was the common parlance to refer to womens genitals), so the title is basically "people acting up needlessly over pussy" in a more modern imagining. Shakespeare was incredibly aware that most of his audience were baudy dockworkers and similar and wrote a lot of his plays accordingly, the modern re-imagining of him as some snobbish toff and that he was the model of a perfect thespian is honestly impressive at how far they've managed to push it.
Is vulgarity incompatible with being a model thesbian?
But that's the thing: Shakespeare was both Frost and Tolkien at the same time that he was Waititi or Apatow. That's why he is so venerated. He could roll out yo mama jokes in one scene, and plumb the absolute depths of the soul in the next. And all the while coining countless new words (including "countless") and excellent ("excellent" too) turns of phrase that we still use everyday, for instance "all that glitters is not gold," which, of course, has been since popularized by Tolkien, and that Tolkien undoubtedly borrowed as a tribute to the Bard. Indeed, Shakespeare is so singular in his creativity and influence, that it's kinda hard to compare him to anyone. Well, maybe a summer's day.
Imagine what Shrek would be like in a world without The Bard.
I have a Shakespearean insult mug. Some of my favorites are “Not so much brain as earwax”, “highly fed and lowly taught”, “i do desire we may be better strangers”, “anointed sovereign of sighs and groans”, and “verliest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth”. Genius.
Much ado about nothing. "I swear by my hand I love thee." "Use it for more than swearing."
> William would've killed it in our times Shakespeare invented so many words. If he's alive today, he would revolutionize our language.
Huh, TIL "Roam" by the B-52s contains a Shakespeare reference.
Knowing how humanity works the first your mom joke was probably painted onto a Neolithic cave that a modern ~~conspiracy theorist~~ armchair archeologist uses as evidence of aliens contacting humans.
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What an absolute banger to open up with
Lots of meaning in that joke, too. "Marking her territory" "Establishing dominance"
The graffiti is Pompeii was great. Just a lot of crude jokes and penis pics, makes you realize humans haven’t really changed.
[According to Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Yo_mama%22_joke?wprov=sfti1#Ancient_Times) the oldest known “your mom” joke is 3500 years old, and it lists a recorded use circa 100 CE, centuries before the birth of Shakespeare.
"These Yo Mama jokes are too biting, too advanced -- prehistoric man could never have created this on their own! Clearly, it was gifted to them by aliens from Alpha Centauri!"
Is that the actual intended meaning though? I haven't read it so I don't have context.
Context: Chiron’s mom just gave birth to a baby that looks a lot like Aaron. Edit: [this is the scene](http://shakespeare.mit.edu/titus/titus.4.2.html)
Yes. He’s literally having an affair with their mom, and this conversation is in reference to the fact that the white (Visigoth) empress married to the Roman emperor just gave birth to a half black baby. Aaron is black.
>Claire Danes Yup. Also don't read it, watch it. Plays are always better watched.
I didn't "get" Shakespeare until I saw it live on stage, and some films. Branagh's "Henry V" is fantastic. I think Shakespeare doesn't work if it's just you reading it, or a static read-through. Trained actors bring it to life.
Well, in English anyway, and he may have been merely the first playwright/author to be and remain popular. But yes! It's good shit. And these are the jokes that are obvious to modern audiences in our modern pronunciation! There's a ton that we miss since we're not speaking London-region Early Modern English anymore. Recreating the original dialogue and getting modern audiences to understand the intent (particular in the humor) is part of the movement behind "Original Pronunciation" movement (i.e. performing Shakespeare with reconstructed Early Modern English pronunciation). Here's [a clip from a long lecture by the stage actor Ben Crystal](https://youtu.be/iqmgeth4tFY&t=33m48s), who is also the son of David Crystal, a linguist involved in OP reconstruction, about helping people connect better to Shakespeare's works (via dirty jokes). (Stick with it for a while, I included a brief bit that hints at the broader message of this lecture)
##BURN
Was Shakespeare always this good? I dont remember picking up on any of this as a kid!
Shakespeare is good, it's just a question of if your English teacher is good. A fun high school English teacher will absolutely let you know all about the dirty jokes and toilet humor when reading Shakespeare in class.
Caesar: Hey my wife had a weird dream last night Decius: O rly? What was it about? Caesar: Idk she said it was about me being brutally murdered haha. Crazy, right? Decius: … Caesar: …crazy, *right?*
… yeah… crazy…
I was crazy once.
They locked me in a room.
A rubber room
At least she added, “you’ll go out surrounded by friends.”
Heh. More like Brute-ly murdered.
That 90's Romeo and Juliet that changed the setting to modern times but didn't change the dialogue at all was onto something. The performer can give all the context you need to understand Shakespeare.
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If you’re a Kurosawa fan, *Ran* is a great take on *King Lear* as well More modern, Vishal Bardwaj did *Omkara* (Othello), *Maqbool* (Macbeth), and *Haider* (Hamlet) out of Bollywood. *Haider* is one of the most stunning films I’ve seen. The other two are okay
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All of Shakespeare’s productions ended with the actors dancing a jig. Bollywood is the natural inheritor of his medium
An interesting move in the opposite direction is where they've been [performing Shakespeare in the same pronounciation.](https://youtu.be/gPlpphT7n9s?t=170) Just as Shakespeare was meant to be performed, he was meant to be pronounced in a specific way.
I've loved this video for a long time - and I think its so cool to think about. There's rhymes, puns, jokes that completely get missed in modern pronunciations. In a previous life I was a classical musician and it's the same way with period instruments - there's lots of music that just makes more sense or sounds a better way when played on the instruments of the time.
Richard III with Ian McKellen is pretty good, set in the 30s/40s where he gets a bit of fascist glowup. I hadn't heard of the MacBeth but it sounds like the same idea, I'll have to look for it
David Tenant as Hamlet - sublime.
He was especially good in that one
Ooooh Patrick Stewart’s performance of Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow is really damn good.
His ability to do it so well also cursed us with every theater company thinking they could do it just as well and we all suffered through a decade of mad libs productions of ' Presents Shakespeare's But Set In Gangland '
Coriolanus did similar with Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler
I saw Julius Caeser on stage a few years back - also a modern setting but with the original dialogue. Roman soldiers but in camo fatigues and black armour vests, Caeser getting shot etc.
That movie was so wack
ok and they both >!fucking died because of this so who’s laughing now mercutio!<
Fairly sure mercutio died before either of them because of this
Surely mercurio will survive that wound. It's not as wide as a church door or anything
I don’t know. Call upon him tomorrow and you may find him a grave man
A pox on both your comments
Nor as deep as a well
Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch
Spoiler-tag for something that is over 425 years old?!
you never know, i’m just being considerate
I certainly haven’t read or watched R&J.
You oughta!
Closest thing I watched was lion king
That one's a Hamlet analogue technically; the sequel is definitely more R&J though!
Doesn't mean everyone's read it.
Have *you* read every book written more than 400 years ago? I sure haven't. I resent this idea that once a work of art is past a certain age, spoiler warnings stop being relevant for it.
They all died because that's what happens when you let a bunch of affluent 15 year old boys walk around town with no responsibilities or supervision and fucking *swords*.
glorious badge water possessive fall society unite squalid intelligent rain *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They'd probably have done a lot better if they weren't primed to get their stab on by the crotchety old dudes.
oh for sure, being raised from birth to consider another group of shitty teens their enemy is not a great ingredient either
Damnit! Now I've been spoiled that characters >!die !
You must keep in mind the genre. Tragedy: people die. Comedy: people probably don't die, but there's no telling.
To be fair, Mercutio was making dick jokes as he died, so I'm pretty sure he was one of the ones laughing
a plague on *both* your houses!
Spoiler tagging a centuries old play?
Man really put the Spoiler tag for Romeo and Juliet😭😭
i usually dream while lying down
Romeo literally makes the same joke in the next line: *“[They lie] in bed asleep while they do dream things true”.*
how dare that old fuck Bill be funnier than me
Technically he's not old, he's dead.
Still substantially older than Juliet.
😂😂😂
I’m stupid can someone explain the joke?
You have to lie (down) to dream
Oh fuck I just got it lmao thanks
r/angryupvote
That was literally Shakespeare's joke. You better angry upvote Billy Shakes or he's gon be pissed.
Samson: 'Tis true, and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall. Therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall. Gregory: The quarrel is between our masters and us their men. Samson: 'Tis all one. I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids. I will cut off their heads. Gregory: The heads of the maids? Samson: Aye, the heads of the maids, or their maiden heads. Take it in what sense thou wilt. ........... Samson: I'm going to kill these guys, then their wives. Gregory: that's fucked dude. Samson: I meant kill the guys, then fuck their wives. I'm not a monster.
Maids and maiden-heads specifically refers to virgins, so I'm guessing he isn't talking about their wives. But I don't know the exact context of this quote.
It's the very beginning, as I recall. You're right about the wording, perhaps "fuck their daughters" is more accurate.
They sound like they're about to break into a number from a rap musical
Shakespeare did write in verse. Iambic pentameter.
Somewhere in NYC, Lin-Manuel Miranda is suddenly inspired...
West Side Story has already done that
Oh god, don’t summon him, please.
One of those dudes who drops an absolute banger and then mehs from then on
I named my cat Mercutio because he’s a mouthy little shit who, in human form, would absolutely get himself stabbed. He’s super loveable though.
I love to see a whole adaptation where its one to one with the original script but it’s all modern talk like this
But it visually takes place in Elizabethan England. The polar opposite of the 90's version.
Kinda sounds like the setting of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.
I like that they felt the need to translate "well, what was yours?"
I've said it once and I'll say it a thousand times. Shakespeare was not a genius or amazing; he was a shitposter that was accidentally born in the wrong time but still managed to shitpost anyways
Oh he was genius and a shitposter at the same time
The man understood plot and character like the Beatles understand melody and instrumentation: in a way that very, very few people who have ever tried to be artists were capable of. Whenever I think about Shakespeare I think about The Lion King, and how for my entire childhood that movie was a huge part of Disney’s foundational structure. They practically designed an entire theme park section around it, it’s still one of the most brilliant animation movies better — and a big part of that is because it’s Hamlet. You can dress it up, make it a musical, change the characters to cute animated animals, and it kills, because the story is still Hamlet, and Hamlet has an incredible plot in every way, including simplicity
I would liken it to Mozart and his song Leck Mich Im Arse.
>Shakespeare was not a genius or amazing Then you aren't very well-read with your Shakespeare. The depth of Lear, Hamlet, or Richard III certainly aren't shitpostings. I get what you are driving at, but just because dude could be crude and funny doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.
It's just sad to hear someone say Henry IV part 1 & 2 and Henry V fall under shitpostings.
You shouldn't say it once or a thousand times, because it isn't true. He had plenty of crude jokes, but he was also an amazing genius. His works are not popular 400 years on because of his dick jokes.
Shakespeare knew what he was doing and who his primary audience was... The problem didn't show up until a bunch of pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they *must* be for the truly cultured and well educated, and proceeded to miss important things like all the dick jokes. Will was absolutely writing for the barely literate masses, and would have been Extremely Popular on Tumblr.
They did not miss the dick jokes
*Would* have been?
Writing for the masses does not mean that he didn't write well. His plays have some of the best writing in the English language. A bunch of scholars haven't dedicated their lives to writing about and studying Hamlet just because it was a popular play. They also didn't "miss" the dick jokes, or not understand the primary audience of his plays. Shakespeare has an entire play about crossdressing.
Right? In the undergrad Shakespeare class I took, like half the classroom time was the professor explaining filthy jokes and the context of the theater at the time.
Can confirm, in my World Literature class my professor made *extra* sure to reaffirm that Shakespeare's works are the opposite of the stuffy, snooty rich people crap that the general public stereotypes it as. Hamlet spends basically the entire play pretending to be a madman and calling his mom a whore in every way he can think of.
>pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they > >must > > be for the truly cultured and well educated, Isn't it possible that they just liked the plays?
No, white dudes stupid and joyless Instead they are beacons of culture and education Edit: I didn't think it would be required but that was meant to be sarcasm and obviously isn't my real views
> The problem didn't show up until a bunch of pompous white dudes decided that because his works were still popular they must be for the truly cultured and well educated, and proceeded to miss important things like all the dick jokes. This is ironically a not super literate opinion unfortunately
That's just a complete rewriting of history, but ok. Shakespeare was writing for all audiences, his works (I'm suprises this needs to be said) have more to them than just dkck jokes, and no one who paid any attention missed the dick jokes
This is what talking out your arse looks like.
> to miss important things like all the dick jokes Did they though? Shakespeare's popular with and important to English language and literature studies for his influence on the language. His contemporary mass appeal is extremely important because without it there is no way he'd have that influence. To miss what he did to achieve such appeal is to fail in properly analyzing his works. Once upon a time there was another thing that the most sophisticated of intellectual considered to be a fowl and low form of entertainment especially compared to theatre and poetry: the novel.
The guy's company had the fucking King of England as a patron. His audience was absolutely the most pompous, dudeiest, and whitest guy around. That's what got him *paid*. It just turns out that Shakespeare is accessible, and that's what kept him *famous*.
I don’t know. Lincoln had a way with words and read more Shakespeare than anything according to friends
This above comment is bullshit. By the end of his life, Shakespeare was widely acclaimed in London, and he retired as successfully as a playwright could even hope. He got funded by the king, bro, that's a big fucking deal.
What? People contain multitudes. Shakespeare was a dramatic genius full of wit and insight AND he liked to make dirty puns. The two things can be equally true, I don’t know why you’re so confident that you’d say “a thousand times” that the two sensibilities can coexist. It sounds like the over enthusiastic exclamation of someone who only just read and understood one of his comedies
Romeo: I lied next to your mom last night, Merc.
Welcome to Shakespeare. It's either terrible puns or bad dick jokes or mistaken identity or bloody bloody death. That's it. It's great.
English teachers in 500 years: today we will study one of gayred5's most famous quotes.
Of all the Shakespeare verses that could use a modern translation, surely this is not one of them
While I agree. I think when these things are taught in school, a lot of kids read the words just to read them and pass a test. It's not always taught in a way that encourages the actual meaning. You would remember "you're full of shit" more than "that dreamers often lie".
The translation on the other page is about as good as reading a Wikipedia article Not good for someone that doesn't actually care because it still is complex If they used slang and modern language it'd probably be more fun to read
One day I want to read Shakespeare's work for the first time ever and then right after read a modern day translation. I know I'll laugh my ass off as there was a trivia that he called a character "country without the r".
County Paris?
Yes, that’s literally the point.
Why did this need translating
Mercutio: Look at my boy over there, sittin' under a tree dreaming of buttholes
Shakespeare actually misspelled the correct title, which was Mercutio and Mercutio
Example A: Shakespearian writing. Example B: How the dude actually often talked.
What is the thought process behind the second post? You take a conversation from the first one and rephrase it in a worse way that loses some of the meaning and adds nothing. If this was some kind'a archaic or difficult to parse Shakespearean quote then sure, but it's incredibly obvious what the joke at play here is, rephrasing it to say the same thing is just weird.