Talk:William Shakespeare

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Semi-protected edit request on 20 November 2016

Syed Azad (talk) 15:04, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Born April 23 1564

The article currently gives the date of baptism, and states "his actual date of birth remains unknown". There is a citation to William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Revised ed.) to support this claim. You have not provided any source to support the claim he was born 23 April 1564. William Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life (Revised ed.) is published by Oxford University Press, a well-respected publisher. You would have to produce at least one, and preferably more, highly reliable sources to support your claim. In the absence of these sources, the edit will not be made. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:38, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

7 most important plays

At Wikipedia:Vital articles/Expanded/Arts, they include 7 Shakespeare plays among the 17 works in the "Fiction of early printed book era": Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and The Tempest. It does not surprise me so much that Shakespeare is considered to have 7 of the 17 most important works from his era, but are these the most important 7 Shakespeare works? I can agree that 5 of these are among his most important 7, but I am not so sure about A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 22:06, 21 November 2016 (UTC)

Which would you have instead? --Xover (talk) 12:35, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

I am no scholar of Shakespeare, but I was under the impression that Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and Twelfth Night were at least as important as The Tempest and that A Midsummer Night's Dream was no more important than some of these.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:18, 22 November 2016 (UTC)

Xover, any opinion?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:39, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Bertaut, what about you?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 15:41, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Those seven certainly wouldn't be my personal preference (I'm not a fan of Othello for example, and I think Richard II is seriously underrated), but if pressed on the issue, I'd be inclined to agree that they are the most "important." In relation to the two you mention Tony, The Tempest is his last solo work, his most experimental play, one of only two plays he wrote that observes the classical unities, is generally seen as his farewell to the stage, and is pretty much universally recognised as a masterpiece study of any manner of themes (father/daughter relationships, magic realism, revenge etc). Regards A Midsummer Night's Dream, yeah, I've never really understood the appeal myself. I think As You Like It is a far better "forest play." But, generally, Midsummer is regarded as his finest comedy, is seen as one of the best examples in literature of summa epitasis (basically, the use of confusion in the narrative), and also one of the finest example of literary contrast (how the various couples are depicted). Like I said, I think it's overrated, but I'd be very much in the minority. All the other plays you mention certainly have claims to fame (Julius Caesar's depictions of guilt and power, The Merchant of Venice's depiction of revenge and religious conflict and mixture of comedy beside tragedy, The Taming of the Shrew's handling of gender politics, The Comedy of Errors's tight structure and experimentation in terms of casting, and Twelfth Night's handling of gender), but there are very few plays in his oeuvre that don't have some claim to being unique (Richard II's achingly beautiful verse, for example, or Timon of Athens's savage attack on materialism). So in a nutshell, yeah, I'd pretty much agree with those seven as the most important, if not necessarily my own personal top seven. Bertaut (talk) 00:11, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@TonyTheTiger and Bertaut: (apologies for the late reply. my wikitime tends to evaporate unpredictably, and particularly around Christmas) I am, as would be, I suspect, most serious critics and scholars, loath to try to rank them like this (why seven, in particular, for instance?). I'm sure Bloom and a few others have, but as my focus is on the biographical and history side I couldn't point to any off-hand. If there is a genuine need for it, my best proposal would be to try to come up with some kind of objective criteria and then do a survey according to those. Since the result isn't destined for article-space, OR concerns need not be excessive in such an endeavour. In summary, my response is mostly to shrug, and exemplify it by pointing out that I would, personally, argue strongly for The Tempest's primacy over most of the alternate list you gave. --Xover (talk) 10:24, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Is he widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language?

I can't check the sources so I'm not sure whether they support this claim or not. I don't think anyone would dispute that he's widely regarded as the greatest writer of plays and/or poems in the English language, but is he widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language? What I'm driving at is the fact that he didn't write any novels, so he obviously isn't widely regarded as the greatest novelist in the English language, which in turn means that the claim that he is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language is perhaps a little too broad. If you see what I mean? FillsHerTease (talk) 04:58, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, a talk page is for discussing changes and improvements to its associated article, not for generalized discussion. However, very briefly...Shakespeare couldn't be the greatest novelist because the novel form hadn't yet appeared when he was alive. He also couldn't be the greatest graphic novelist or screenwriter. All writers are bound to some degree by the particulars of their respective eras. Only if you believe that a not-yet-invented literary form is especially important should that ever be a factor when determining a given writer's place among peers. Rivertorch^FIRE_WATER 06:04, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Unlike you, I am not having a generalised discussion, I am suggesting a change to the associated article. The question is whether or not the sources support the claim that he is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. As I said, I can't check the sources, but I am guessing they do not support the claim - for the reason I outlined - and I am asking that someone who can check the sources confirm whether or not they support the claim, and update the article if they don't. FillsHerTease (talk) 04:44, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

He doesn't need to have written novels -- his contributions to the genres he did write in influenced almost all later English novelists (whether they realize it or not). "Greatest writer [in general]" is not the same as "greatest writer of all genres." To draw a comparison with martial arts, Bruce Lee didn't (to my knowledge) study Capoeira or Krav Maga, but he probably would have beat the ever-loving hell tar out of someone who studied both of those. And even that comparison falls short because Shakespeare is responsible for modern orthography and made significant contributions to English vocabulary as well. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:34, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

@FillsHerTease: I can answer this, as I was involved when the text and cites were added, and in subsequent discussions (including at PR and FAC). The cited sources (and several others) support the claim, and as we found, few other similar works on other writers do (or they judge their subject relative to Shakespeare; i.e. they effectively support the claim). There have been discussions on whether it was necessary to include, and the conclusion was that it is such a central aspect of the topic that not mentioning it would actually be misleading. I understand why you react to having this claim in the article (as would I, for any other subject), but it is actually appropriate here and has been thoroughly discussed (you'll find some of these in the archives to this talk page, and some more in the articlehistory-template's links to PR and FAC archives). --Xover (talk) 10:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Xover (talk) - Thanks very much for that. Just out of interest ... how did you access the sources? Is there some way that I can access them myself? Not so that I can check up on you! If this was discussed and agreed to previously then obviously that's fine with me. You never know until you ask! However I have encountered this a few times before - i.e. situations where I can't view the references - and it would be easier and faster if I could do it myself, rather than having to ask, and then wait for someone who understands what I'm asking! :-P Cheers ... FillsHerTease (talk) 10:09, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

P.S. In hindsight I recognise that I wasn't very clear when I started this new Section. All I wanted to know was whether or not the sources supported the claim because I couldn't access them myself. My personal opinion - which is clearly new research - is obviously completely irrelevant and I only included it because it was my basis for thinking that, potentially, the sources might not support the claim. I simply wanted them to be confirmed. However I can see that it might have appeared that I was trying to debate the topic, but that isn't what I was doing. I apologise for the misunderstanding... FillsHerTease (talk) 10:24, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

@FillsHerTease: Don't worry too much about whether your initial query was clear. It's always hard to perfectly envision how others will understand subtext or implicit parts of what you write, unless you happen to be very familiar with the audience. And in this case you happened to wade into an article (set of articles, really) that has been plagued by… less constructive contributions… in the past. When I step in it in this way (which I do with alarming regularly) I try to just chalk it up as an opportunity to learn for the future. In any case, I wouldn't worry about it.

As for the cited sources, in this particular case I didn't actually check them since I happen to have been involved when this was added (back in 2007 I think), so unless someone snuck a change in without me noticing (which it doesn't look like has happened), they ought still to support it. There is no universal way to access cited sources in Wikipedia articles (the requirement is to identify the source, not that it be easily accessible for anyone), so the same applies here as anywhere: book stores, libraries, journal publishers, and so forth. For quickly verifying a single point (a single page, typically) in a book you can sometimes look it up on Google Books or Amazon.com and use the preview function, but often they won't have the page you want. For journal articles, your local University library (and sometimes also general public libraries) have subscriptions to online journal services like JSTOR or Project MUSE. And Wikipedia has a limited number of accounts for partnering publishers that editors may apply for through The Wikipedia Library. The latter project also tries to facilitate resource sharing between editors: for example, I have access to JSTOR, Project MUSE, and Oxford Journals online and can look up things for you there (and the books in my personal library are listed here; feel free to ask me to look stuff up in any of these works).

Finally, it never hurts to double check the sources. There are any number of reasons why my assertion regarding the sources here might be incorrect. I might be lying or deliberately misrepresenting them, sure, but even when assuming good faith I might have a bias I'm not aware of, or simply misunderstanding them, or, as is the case here, it's been 10 years since I actively looked at them and it's entirely possible my memory plays tricks on me. There is a reason why verifiability is a core content policy on Wikipedia: multiple editors (and readers) double-checking (verifying) claims is the only way to ensure accuracy in an encyclopedia that "anyone can edit". Never feel bad about wanting to verify cites, it's a healthy impulse that helps improve the encyclopedia and nobody should feel offred their time to help out in that way. Some tact may of course sometimes be needed when broaching an issue, but that's true of any venue. In any case, feel free to "… check up on [me]"; I would appreciate the extra quality control! :-) --Xover (talk) 16:18, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

Different citation needed at end note 5

The citation supporting Shakespeare's disputed authorship in the opening paragraph (endnote 5) would be much better-supported with reference to

Shapiro, J. (2010). Contested will: who wrote Shakespeare?. Simon and Schuster.

...rather than to Shapiro's 2005 book "1599."

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dudleymq (talk • contribs) 16:17, 25 January 2017 (UTC)

This article reached WP:Featured Article status several years before Shapiro published his SAQ book. The citation is sufficient, scholarly, and does not lend a bias to the reference, which could be the case were it cited to a book totally devoted to the SAQ. The mention in the article refers the reader to the Wikipedia page on the topic, which does include Shapiro's later book. Tom Reedy (talk) 17:41, 26 January 2017 (UTC)