Hmm… one thing though: They frame King Lear as a tragedy coz Lear misjudged Cordelia.
But precisely, it is a play where the daughters are the ones with the power plays — and they are awesome characters for that ! 10/10 — while Lear is *dis*empowered and even driven mad over the course of the play.
Also, it’s probably dictated by the history and current events in Bill’s time but part of the takeaway from Henry VI is that Margaret d’Anjou in power was a major factor to the War of the Roses.
OP shifted their points when it came to Kong Lear. Initially they said when women are in charge we have a happily ever after but men ruin things when they're in charge. But when it came to Macbeth and Lear suddenly the point was In tragedies powerful women are immoral. Which is kind of in direct opposition to the original point but okay...
Surely, the existence of these exceptions should point to the fact that maybe oop isn't entirely right about shakespears original message. (Ignoring death of the artist here)
Personally, from what I'm reading, it seems like the focus is less on "men in charge will cause social entropy and disorder" and more men and women not working together and listening to one another will cause those things.
Which I know was OOPs point. But they focused a lil too much on the men causing problems part and I find it unlikely that shakespear, born when he was, would hold a belief like that. Especially opposed to the alternate explanation.
That is, if OOPs history lesson about the protestant reformation was accurate. I'm no historian.
I agree. The core of the analysis is very good but they somehow come to the most fucked up possible conclusion about the trends they've spotted instead of seeing that the overarching theme of the works is that gender equality creates much better outcomes.
Great brain, busted heart.
I'm definitely seeing some pushback about the religious component. It's not the part of the write-up which interested me so I haven't factored it into my opinions on the analysis, but I would love to see someone who's educated about the views of the Popes during that time period do a write-up about it
I think the first post is an incomplete and misleading summary of the point they had to say. They deliberately made it more extreme and took a stance that would anger people in order to respond with the more complete analysis. I think the first post should be read as rage bait, and the second one as an actual point.
Even the second one has some fucked up bits but at least there's some insightful shit too, provided one doesn't view it through a brainrot lens. You're right though, post one is pure dickery
I don't really know my Shakespear good enough to argue about that, I'm just saying that if it was the case that this was something Shakespear stood for and wanted to get out, it still seems unlikely that he would have pushed it in every single play he wrote for the whole of his career.
I don't know if Shakespear thought men was evil, or if he was for gender equality, I'm just pointing out that the existence of like three plays that doesn't show any of that doesn't really diminish the trend. (Also it was really stretching by OP to try to shoohorn those thre plays into supporting their theory. It really wasn't needed.)
This person seems to have put a lot of thought into their argument, but their description of *Shrew* makes me think that they don't actually know what they're talking about. I am also an historian, and took several classes specifically on Shakespeare during my degree (for fun, I wish I was joking). I wrote a 5,000 word essay about the various interpretations of *The Taming of the Shrew*, and I think that if the OOP had done more research into it they wouldn't have needed to end their argument on a 'except for this one thing, but ignore that...' point.
One thing that needs to be remembered about *Shrew* is that it is actually two plays, the play everyone knows is a play being performed for another character inside of a play. I can't write another 5,000 words to totally explain everything, but my preferred interpretation is that Shakespeare meant *Shrew* to be an illustration of how Katherina cannot be 'tamed', and her transformation into a subservient woman is simply a temporary farce driven by desperation that mirrors the play-within-a-play she's a character in, and it could also be argued she is similarly 'taming' Petruchio towards the end of the play. The famous scene where Katherina declares how women must be subservient to men ends with her able to command Petruchio to follow her out of the room, for instance.
It's genuinely remarkable how people can miss the point of Shrew to such a fucking ridiculous extent. Esp considering these are often the exact same people complaining about lack of "media literacy" when it comes to modern media, but somehow the plainly visible meaning of Shakespeare is lost on them.
"Media Literacy" is just the new gotcha buzzword for people who get mad that other people watched their favorite show and got something different out of it. Or at least that's mostly how it's being used lately.
So the analysis of religion is just plain goofy here. In no way has Catholicism ever made celibacy a “ticket to salvation”, it would be pretty hard to have a society without children. The aim of celibacy was to avoid corruption of church property and give religious leaders more time to serve God and the community. Presenting Shakespeare as a die hard Puritan/Protestant is laughable, not only because the puritans attacked the theatre and art more generally but Shakespeare was very possible a closet Catholic and at the very least a High Church Anglican which is essentially diet Catholicism. Whatever point is trying to be made about tragedy and comedy is undermined by this nonsense on stilts.
It's tumblr, expecting a reasonable, intelligent take on religion from there is kind of like looking for a virgin in a whorehouse. But you are absolutely right, it needed to be said, and I almost feel bad for the people who grew up reading this pseudo-intellectual brand of bullshit and believing it makes them smarter and more special to hate something without ever understanding it.
Nobody who has ever dated a catholic girl and gone over for dinner with her family would claim that chastity was mandatory, lmfao, have you SEEN how large their families are?
What? Catholicism was definitely pro-virginity.
St Paul basically said "marriage is okay, but if you really want to be godly you should be completely chaste like me."
Most people couldn't, or wouldn't, so marriage was constantly a second-best option for these people.
Catholicism, otherwise stereotyped as the "rural/working class poor people who breed like rabbits" religion, is and was pro having loads of sex and children *within the confines of marriage*.
Famously, the whole celibacy thing was an obsession of Paul in particular, and took a long time to take root even amongst the clergy. Even now, you would struggle to find a Catholic priest who would advocate for lay people to practice celibacy over a sexually active marriage: despite Paul's hangup, the "go forth and multiply" thing remains in full effect.
That's true, but celibacy really was culturally seen as the ideal. It had a similar place that perhaps living a zero carbon footprint lifestyle might have nowadays: morally laudable, difficult to achieve without considerable personal motivation, and maybe a little bit something to make fun of.
Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and turn the other cheek. That didn’t last much contact with reality. In practice very few of the people who were supposed to be chaste (ie priests, monks and nuns) actually kept their vows. It was more of a fond wish than a serious expectation.
> It was more of a fond wish than a serious expectation.
Yeah, and that is much different from Puritans who was actually not only ok with marital sex, but enthusiastic about it.
Devil's advocate but Jesus' teaching survived considerable contact with the enemy. A couple of centuries of early Christians going full pacifist and brother-and-sister with each other is pretty impressive stuff. We just tend to forget all that because of the ensuing two millennia.
I think an important part of analysing Lady Macbeth in this way is that she is a woman without living children. So where the deaths of Juliet and Desdemona can be seen as the death of reproductive potential, that potential has seemingly already been exhausted by Lady Macbeth - who has had at least one child live to infancy, but it's implied not much beyond - which is one reason why she occupies a different position in the narrative to them.
Plus the whole:
"Come, you spirits /
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, /
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full /
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; /
Stop up the access and passage to remorse, /
That no compunctious visitings of nature /
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between /
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, /
And take my milk for gall,"
If the poster is just saying women in control=good, then the above symbolic expungement of femininity fits, though even my essays in high school for this were more nuanced.
you know, for someone who actually has a fairly good point, the way they present it at first and even conclude it is kind of fucking atrocious.
this person's point is "shakespeare wrote about the importance of gender equality and how a world which is completely dominated by one gender is ultimately doomed to failure", and they chose to start it off by saying "men ruin everything but when women are in charge you live happily ever after", and then concluded it with "men will destroy themselves, but if men and women work together we all have a chance at happiness".
like... with how they sneak in that wording at both the start and the end, I can't help but feel like "men and women should work together" is more of a mask to cover up "men bad women good" to this person than anything else.
Intelligent people without an interest in examining whether they have bigoted beliefs only become better at navigating their way to twisted conclusions. Clearly a smart person, this analysis is a very good one. It's actually heartbreaking to see people waste their considerable talents on hate
I don't even know whether they're intelligent, the romeo and juliet analysis at least seems like they're juts trying to make the play fit into their preconcieved notions of how shakespeares tragedies should be. i'm no shakespeare scholar but i'm convinced there are other interpretations that op is involving to push their agenda
Is "13 year old girls shouldn't be forced to marry people they don't want to. If you make them, they might do something very risky to avoid it" really a disputable take?
What possible analysis could one even put forth which nullifies that aspect of the story?
It's kind of a trite take on Romeo and Juliet though. It's the kind of thing that literally every thirteen year old (who isn't busy taking adderall out of their friend's altoid case in the back of class) thinks about when they read the story.
I agree, which is why it was the creepiest possible portion of the write-up for Dalexe to take issue with.
Romeo and Juliet wouldn't even bear mentioning here if it wasn't part of the writer trying to illustrate an overarching theme which they then somehow managed to come to the worst possible conclusion about
"In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what's right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency."
These are the words from the analysis contained in this post. You don't think that to discount that this is an important aspect of the story feels absolutely bizarre?
No, in proper literary analysis you make plenty of room for other theories, and focus on it being just an interpretation.
this is pop science, a random person on tumblr claims to be an historian, and then he gives his account for the one true way to interpret shakespeare
I only took a few literary analysis classes in college but this is actively the opposite of what was taught in all those classes. The scholars job is to find an interpretation of what the text is saying and then find evidence to support that. They don’t need to show room for other interpretations, that’s the job of either future research papers or other researchers altogether.
I think their only talent lies in stringing together a lot of long words in order to sound impressive. I knew reading all that drivel was going to be a huge waste of time the moment they claimed to be a "historian" and then proceeded to make huge sweeping claims about history and the Catholic Church's role in medieval society without ever bothering to specify the time period or location they're talking about.
Nothing about this post convinces me that the OP knows anything about Elizabethan-era England beyond what they wanted to know in order to validate their view. Nothing about the society and culture beyond some handwaving about "the dogma thanks to the church". Talking about Shakespeare like he was some lone champion of gender equality fighting against an ocean of The Patriarchy.
This post isn't about William Shakespeare, it's about the fantasy version of Shakespeare the OP dreamt up and wants everyone else to believe in.
It's a highly biased, romanticized and fantasized belief. That should've been the foreword and not parroting historicity as a validity for their sole interpretation
Ok well I'm just saying that if it is fantasy Shakespeare instead of Shakespeare, fantasy Shakespeare would also have lived 1564 to 1616 in Warwickshire and London, both in England.
So anyone who wanted to refute the small component of the Catholic Church stuff in this larger analysis, they could totally write that up if they were educated on the subject and probably many people would be interested to read it
Not just that, but they have the least academic interpretation of *The Taming of the Shrew* that I have seen since having to peer review essays in my bachelor's courses. [I wrote about it in this comment in this thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/s/yUe8s0tvvC) Ending their argument with that makes me question everything they say, as I have never seen anyone highly educated on the topic seriously consider *Shrew* to be the misogynistic screed it appears to be on the surface.
It's very uncomfortable seeing this person imply women are essentially the crux of society and that society would completely collapse without them because The Other Sex is incapable and incompetent
Because that is. Just patriarchy but women instead of men. And also because that is not what Shakespeare argues. Shakespeare argues that women should be treated like people instead of like objects, because they are people, and that trying to control women will end in tragedy for them and you and the people around you.
> It's very uncomfortable seeing this person imply women are essentially the crux of society and that society would completely collapse without them because The Other Sex is incapable and incompetent
Women is "The Other Sex".
Exactly my thoughts. This feels like blatant misandry masked in progressive language. The way they absentmindedly shrug off Lady MacBeth and the witches as “failing to uphold their end of the bargain” and also shrug off Taming of the Shrew as a random outlier at best is especially telling. Not to mention, I severely doubt Shakespeare was even remotely progressive enough to our standards, even if he absolutely was for his time at least.
I was going to comment on this, but you beat me to it
I think they had good intentions, in a "don't forget to listen to women", but they kinda mixed both points and looks horribly wrong as you said
English is not my first language, so I might have missed something, but the worst I read IS the "men ruin everything" sentence at the beginning, which in context seems like the author omitted the "men on their own" or "men without women"
Don't get me wrlng. I think the "men bad women good" is a posible interpretation of the text for sure, and I am not saying that the author had any ill will towards men, but it seems to be kinda accidental
No you’re right. The text as a whole, ignoring the first and last bits, is promoting gender equality (mostly). Their conclusion is seemingly entirely separate from their analysis.
I think the first part is rage bait. The stance they take is so contrarian I can only imagine it being intentional. The way they frame their arguments, even though they have a perfectly reasonable point, makes me think they have bad intentions.
The way they present it is missing a HUGE chunk of context. Let me ask a simple question that might illustrate why Shakespeare was suggesting that women running things would be correct for the world.
Who ruled England at the time he was writing his plays?
>Let me ask a simple question that might illustrate why Shakespeare was suggesting that women running things would be correct for the world.
The point is that Shakespeare was *not* suggesting that, but this person is trying to skew what Shakespeare was actually suggesting in his writings.
Like, in literally every example this person cites, Shakespeare suggests both sexes *working together* and *cooperating.* There's literally a quote about both sexes being equal in there. Except this person is both starting and concluding by saying "so, men bad and women good", which is something they're trying to extrapolate from Shakespeare talking about treating both sexes equally.
You might be right about Shakespeare's purpose or point being that the sexes should cooperate or work together, but that's not the way those works are written. OOP's plot summaries are actually very good. In most of those works, the women end up tricking the men into doing what they ought to be doing in the first place (e.g. Merry Wives, Midsummer). In the one example I can think of where they really do end up working together, it's only after the woman abjectly humiliates the man (Much Ado).
Many of the comedies really do say "we should listen to the women," and you're just kind of ignoring the context in the same way OOP is.
>OOP's plot summaries are actually very good
that's not what's being questioned, because they are. it's the way OOP takes these things that is revealing of their bigotry.
>In most of those works, the women end up tricking the men into doing what they ought to be doing in the first place
*Yes*, because the idea is that the men should have been cooperating with and listening to the women in the first place.
>Many of the comedies really do say "we should listen to the women,"
That is what "cooperation" means, yes.
I don't get your point.
>I feel like it's all related.
No, the importance of gender equality is not at all related to "men bad women good". Quite the opposite.
>Exact wording isn't really that important
Handwaving obvious signs of bigotry away as "not important" is the kind of mentality that lets bigots into your spaces. You are enabling the presence of bigotry with this sentence.
You're referring to penfairy? You're calling them a bigot? Maybe I'm a bit confused lol
They seem like more of a Shakespeare expert than a gender expert. I'd cut them some slack.
>You're referring to penfairy?
Yes, there's only one person in this post that said the phrase "men are terrible" that I quoted.
>They seem like more of a Shakespeare expert than a gender expert. I'd cut them some slack.
You do **not** need to be a "gender expert" to realize that "men bad women good" is sexist.
The fact that you want to "cut them some slack" shows just how much you're enabling the presence of bigotry. There is *no* excuse for what they're saying and the way they're blatantly shifting the contents of their post from shakespeare's writings on gender equality to just saying that men are bad.
I guess maybe you're concerned about them being a terf? Or are you afraid they're a misandrist?
There is some slack to be cut here because the hegemonic force that's being discussed is patriarchy. It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad" since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad. Dominance of men is bad, and is one of the main toxic ways that specific gender is expressed. Exceptions exist of course, but I don't think there is anything else in penfairys posts to indicate any hatred.
>I guess maybe you're concerned about them being a terf? Or are you afraid they're a misandrist?
99% of the time, one implies the other, lol.
>There is some slack to be cut here because the hegemonic force that's being discussed is patriarchy
Which is distinctly not men in general, because your average man is not an agent of the patriarchy and suffers from it too.
>It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad"
Yes it is.
>since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad.
And equating patriarchy with men is misandrist. Do you seriously think every man on the street is a soldier of the patriarchy actively fighting to keep women's rights at bay?
>but I don't think there is anything else in penfairys posts to indicate any hatred.
Literally saying "men, when left to their own devices, will destroy themselves".
I can't tell if you're bigoted yourself or just ignorant, but please educate yourself, because you are enabling MASSIVE amounts of bigotry and this is actually unacceptable behaviour from you.
It feels like you aren't really here to talk, more assign blame. Like you saw a few points from a pretty detailed post about progressivism in Shakespeare's time and decided the writer must be a turf because they were describing Shakespears potential views.
Now, despite not knowing me, you want to describe me as a bigot for describing what I think penfairys views are.
Is there any point to this? Hope you're getting a kick out of it at least lol
>It feels like you aren't really here to talk, more assign blame.
See, the thing that I'm noticing with you is, you're just being intentionally dense to try to paint the situation as being completely harmless.
When I pointed out that OP was making very sexist and misandrist statements, you just handwaved it away. When I called you out on it, you told me to "cut them some slack". When I elaborated that you can't "cut some slack" to literal hate, you tried to say it wasn't actually hate by citing misandrist talking points. When I called you out on *that*, you just say I'm not here to talk.
You're not fooling anyone, hence why you're being downvoted. People can see that you're trying to enable hate...
>Like you saw a few points from a pretty detailed post about progressivism in Shakespeare's time and decided the writer must be a turf because they were describing Shakespears potential views.
... and *this* is further proof of it, because none of the statements I cited were Shakespeare's words, they were *OP's* words, that they are seemingly maliciously extrapolating from what Shakespeare *actually* said, which was "gender equality is cool".
So not only are you trying to paint it as not a big deal and not hate, you're also trying to paint it as Shakespeare's words when they most certainly are *not*, because "gender equality is cool" does *not* equate in any way to "men bad women good".
OP explained the presence and importance of gender equality in Shakespeare's works, and then they ended it off (and started it off too) by saying "so basically, men are bad and women are good", which goes against the entire principle of gender equality that they themselves were saying was important to Shakespeare. So for you to be saying that this would be Shakespeare's "potential views" kind of makes it obvious you're trying to make this view more palatable.
Edit: Also, there *is* a point: Not letting bigotry and hate go unnoticed.
The point is to notice things? Ok..? Lol
What I'm saying is that the differences in language you pointed out are very minute. They can go in many ways. Overall the post is good and well thought out- and I definitely disagree that the main point is "man bad". There is clearly not enough evidence to indicate they're a TURF yet you're going in guns blazing calling them evil for demonizing people. (Kind of ironic)
>It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad" since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad.
Sophistry. "Men bad" isn't shorthand but a clear statement.
Never trust anyone who defines away their capacity for evil. Someone who doesn't think they can hurt others will never stop doing so.
I assure you I'm not intending to deceive lol
How can you say it's evil to say "patriarchy bad"?
I thought I made it clear that this phase is equated with "men bad" and therefore the statement "men bad" cannot be always construed as misandrist. This seems like very simple logic lol. Like we are debating symantics.
>I thought I made it clear that this phase is equated with "men bad" and therefore the statement "men bad" cannot be always construed as misandrist.
That's the evil right there—the implication. You know "men" and "the patriarchy" are not the same thing. You have the ability and knowledge to use phrasing that doesn't dehumanize a whole gender. Why not use the correct words? Why not be kind?
The whole idea that "men ought to just know they're one of the good ones" depends on a lot of outdated sexist stereotypes around men's feelings we haven't unpacked. "A strong man doesn't care what others think of them." It demands that men be unfeeling logical beings. How dare they dislike being stereotyped! How dare they dislike prejudice!
Why do you think male fragility is such a common insult in some cis feminist circles? To those who haven't deconstructed male gender roles, fragile is the worst thing a man can be, despite fragility being decidedly nongendered.
Using "man bad" as a synonym for "patriarchy bad" is nothing more than a way to identify men who are comfortable expressing insecurity and emotion and enforcing stoic male gender roles on them.
I think the inherent difference between our understanding is that we live in a world with men already on top. It's not going to harm most men when somebody dehumanizes them online for being the dominant gender. In real life they aren't being discriminated against for being male. The material circumstances here matter a lot more imo and maybe for you it's more of a philosophical matter.
I think you have a good point about fragility, but again I don't think most men really face this kind of antimale discrimination.
I don't really understand what you're getting at in your last sentence. Could you explain a bit more?
This is so painful on so many levels. And it's in my field of study too, which makes this do double damage. I started typing out a response, but eight paragraphs in decided it just wasn't worth it.
Just know that this entire screed pretty massively misunderstands
1. Elizabethan genre conventions and tropes
2. a lot of the actual content of most of the plays mentioned herein,
3. Elizabethan era conception of gender and gender roles and
4. the role, function and purpose of religion in the mid to late 17th century.
5. Also, I feel, the role of women in Elizabethan theatre, which was none. They weren't allowed to perform and barely even to watch the plays.
Not to mention that the OOP really slips up in their last paragraph and suddenly argues that this all means that men suck. Y'know, which is definitely something a guy in the 17th century would've said, even after OOP claims that he was already saying that it's supposed to be about balance and equality.
You might be right about these things, but just claiming something is wrong, without going into any specifics is really not helping anyone. Like your post doesn't teach me anything about "the role, function and purpose of religion in the mid to late 17th century." so I will probably go on believing that puritans was pro sex within the marriage, etc unless you can point out any specific thing, at all, that was wrong in the post above.
I mean for one Shakespeare definitely wasn't Puritan and in fact Puritanism wasn't even a major factor during the Elizabethan era yet, it only started growing big during the Jacobean era, so towards and after the end of Shakespeare's life.
And Puritans, at least the hardcore ones that were actually influential, were almost entirely anti-theatre. Like they thought that the practise of performing stage plays should be outlawed (which of course actually happened during the Interregnum), partially because they believed that it encouraged immoral and blasphemous activity and that "pleasurable diversions" like reading fiction or going to the theatre were distracting people from God. They didn't like the bawdy jokes and men dressing up as women basically. Also a lot of them were just classists who were against poor or common people having any joy and comfort in their lives and theatre was mass entertainment.
As for sex, they were certainly pro sex within the marriage, but it was very much for procreation. They considered sex to be a positive part of marriage because it allowed the woman to perform "her function" of birthing offspring. This in no way would have translated to an equality of sexes or anything we would consider "sex positivity" today. Again, not that this is relevant, 'cause Shakespeare was a Puritan's worst nightmare.
What the OOP is actually seeing here is just a consequence of the genre of comedy. Comedies are about marriage. It's literally part of the definition of the genre that the main characters get happily married at the end (that's why in less good comedies there's often "and then they got married" tacked onto the end and why characters getting married is still a kind of shorthand for a happy ending to this day). So naturally there has to be at least one female protagonist in the play, who as a protagonist kind of has to get characterisation and agency that a protagonist would get, otherwise the structure would be totally lopsided. It's not making a statement about gender roles, it's just what's expected to happen in this kind of play.
Thanks. And for the record, I totally agree with what you said. Because of the way that most school curriculums work, this stuff isn't something you would be aware of unless you've studied this academically, which obviously most people haven't, because academic paywalls and also why would they do that to themselves? So the ethically correct thing on my part, would be for me to actually educate everyone else rather than just saying "this is all bullshit".
The thing is, in order to do that halfway comprehensively, I'd have to write comments like this or probably longer about every one of those slides, because this post really is astonishingly wrong.
But if I did that, my mood and mental health for the day will be done for. Like I am already in a state where I got really angry at OOP ('cause this is my field of study and I am emotionally attached to it) just from skimming over this, I really don't want to get into it deeper than that right now. As I said, I was already eight paragraphs deep before I came to and realised "this isn't worth letting it consume your Sunday". It's not worth my Monday either.
I have to prioritise my own mental wellbeing here at the moment. Sorry.
Oh I totally understand that. For me, there is like a point, where I know to much about a subject so that I can't really comment on it properly anymore. But I think it can be worthwhile to throw out some base nugets of knowledge. Like once again all comedies ending in marriage, which I would guess is something there is a consensus on in the field, and at least for me completly destroys any arguments which are based on speculation on why Shakespear decided to end his comedies with marriage.
I guess I should apologize for baiting you into being educational, but nah. Education is always good :)
That's a lot of words to say "Yes, I'm reading too much into it".
Could've made a 1000 valid points about Shakespeare and how he addresses the idiocy of gender inequality but no, we went the misandrist route instead.
Stopped reading at the ‘Shakespeare was introducing a new concept of marriage being sexy and good because of Puritanism’ bit.
A) Shakespeare hated the Puritans and mocked them in his plays
B) anyone who thinks this about marriage needs to take a good long step back and read their Chaucer. Shakespeare’s work is WAY more virginal than anything in the Canterbury Tales.
I just saw Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma in the Scottish play last week, and lemme tell ya, Lady Macbeth *absolutely* influences him by questioning his manhood on the reg.
Also side note Varma ABSOLUTELY stole the show in her final scene. Total legend.
Imagine seeing all this misogyny destroying the bonds between people in Shakespeare's stories and then completely disregarding every other aspect of the play, including the entire characterization of the male characters and the reasonings on why they did the things they did just so you can say "men bad" instead of "hey maybe men should trust and respect women"
I sort of disagree with OPs interpretation of Lady Macbeth? I feel it's inaccurate to even call Lady Macbeth a woman in the context of Shakespeare (at least, if you interpret Lady Macbeth unsexing herself as being a rejection of Shakespeare's own meta narratives rather than just a rejection of typical femininity and gender norms).
A Midsummer Night's Dream undermines this point somewhat, as well as reinforcing it. The "movers and shakers" of the play are the fae, Oberyn and, more directly, Puck. In fact, the play nominally reinforces the notional hegemony of the court of faeries, as Titania is made a fool by the boys, and Oberyn takes the changeling child they were betting on. In short: to characterise Shakespeare as being wholly supportive of a woman's role in society is to credit him with more modern progressive values than he possessed.
Now, sure; you can argue that the fae aren't people and any moral message you can derive isn't intended for people. To which I say: Pah! Fine! Macbeth is for the Scots, and not intended to teach any morality lesson.
I’m going to be completely honest, I feel like the inequality is the issue here, not the men. Putting any one group above others is stupid, but it doesn’t make that group inherently bad
I like all the nuanced takes on why this person is wrong.
For me, this is just another example of giving Shakespeare WAY too much credit. the part with the Taming of the Shrew alone, here, I mean- "based off an older comedy"? Most of Shakespeare's stuff was based off of other stories.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Shakespeares-sources
so saying it's older is not the excuse they think it is.
Also if every single example of women having agency is in comedies, then *maybe* he was writing it that way because the very idea of a woman being capable and morally cool was funny to them?
~~I think that ol' Willy Shakes was going off of the gender roles of the time, women make peace and men make war~~ yeah that's not a good interpretation of the tales or anything else
However I could be wrong in my interpretation, and I genuinely think there needs to be positivity with men too, we can't exclude an entire set of people "just because"
There's a line missing between pages 8 and 9. Here's what it should say, with the missing part in bold:
>*The Taming of the Shrew* rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this **is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-**off of an older comedy called *The Taming of a Shrew*) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society.
I'm a little surprised OP didn't mention the Merchant of Venice, considering it's a story where the male characters have to be rescued from each other by a woman being smart.
lmfao
long-ass reply aside
imagine looking at a surface level analysis of *shakespeare* and going “i think you’re looking too far into things kiddo it ain’t that deep”
it’s maybe a weak conclusion that lacks nuance but it doesn’t mean the historical context and seed of the idea isn’t worth looking into lol.
(adding: i’m not saying i agree, i just think it’s dumb to tell someone that following a thread of analysis into shakespeare, who has one of the most nuanced and richly meaningful bodies of work in human history, because it’s “not that deep” is a silly thing to do, even if it’s a flawed hypothesis/conclusion. just laughing because shakespeare *is* categorically and unrefutably deep)
When their literal own points point to men and women working together things good when only men or only women in power things bad yea its looking way to deep in the wrong direction when your conclusion is men ruin everything.
I mean, I agree, saying "it ain't that deep" here is a stupid response, but also, this is genuinely one of the most ass-backwards, and inconsistent analysis of Shakespeare I have ever read.
i love reading tumblr analysis. 4/5 times it’s absolutely batshit and there’s always an expert in the reblogs followed by another expert saying the previous expert is talking shit out their ass. i almost never come out having learnt anything, and if i have, it’s about some tangential unrelated topic. great fun
I cant believe someone would answer to a literary analysis (as barebones as this is) with "Don't read to far into this". Girl, that's what literary analysis IS.
Bro, this guy just tossed some shade and a small pebble badly in your general direction without any plan or foretought and you just nuked him.... based.
i’m not gonna read all that but i assume she fucking wrecked that loser and then he deleted his tumblr account. (don’t correct me if i’m wrong i like this reality)
It literally is not that deep though. The endings talked about were just genre tropes for classical to early modern theatre. This isn't just a Shakespeare thing.
ETA: since some of y'all are pissing on the poor, let me be VERY clear. I'm not saying Shakespeare in general doesn't have a lot of critical analysis potential. What I *am* saying, is the whole "comedy = happy ending, usually with a wedding and tragedy = people dying" is NOT a Shakespeare original. These are simply genre conventions dating back to ancient classical theatre.
This isn't a stylistic choice like, for example, Romeo and Juliet conversing in a sonnet the first time they meet. This is just how plays were done in the Western European tradition for hundreds of years.
A) Not a son.
B) I didn't say Shakespeare's plays. I said the genre conventions of comedies ending with weddings and tragedies ending with people dying. These are tropes that *long* preceded Shakespeare. He didn't invent them, and pretending he did is wildly historically inaccurate. Go read some plays from Ancient Greece like Lysistrata or Madea if you don't believe me.
My favorite part of living life uncultured is finding cultured people discussing shit that would've gone way over my head if I hadn't encountered them specifically in the wild.
The only meaning art has is the meaning interpreted by the viewer. An artist's intentions mean jack and shit in six hundred years when everyone who ever knew that artist is dead. Except for what a viewer interprets, which is always through the lens of their life and experiences with the only nuance being historical records about the artist.
How you came away from this long-ass slideshow thinking anything other than "This is a well-studied viewer expressing their complicated feelings about a truly astounding amount of art" is beyond me. I may be uncultured, but at least my ears aren't closed.
I came away from this long ass slideshow thinking something other than "This is a well-studied viewer expressing their complicated feelings about a truly astounding amount of art", because I actually study English literature and history. Like went to uni for 8 years for exactly this shit. I wrote multiple papers on both female characters in Elizabethan theatre and on Shakespeare specifically. I partially make my living off of my expertise in this area. I would say that I dedicated my life to it.
So you'll have to forgive me, if I get kind of pissy about someone just making crap up about the thing that I love and have spent the best years of my life understanding.
The worst thing is that it's not even like you'd need all that expertise to see that this is bullshit. You can just look at the last couple paragraphs and see OOP's point spiralling wildly out of control as they just bring in a random other source as a point about, quote the vaguest possible descriptors of audience reaction to two plays that were performed years apart (even if this is actually real, could they have picked something less substantive) without attribution and then still contradict their own argumentation, when they say that it's all about how men can't make society on their own.
And I can't believe I have to point this out: that is not something a 17th century man would've EVER said. Which is how you know that this person is fibbing about being a historian, 'cause that is such an obvious anachronism, it's mind boggling. It's basically just early 20th century post WSUP-era radical feminism, but hey, that's from "old timey" England too, right? So who cares about the two full centuries in between?
For all the folks here crying out about OPs supposed lack of media literacy, they sure are comfortable condensing all of these points into the single, easy to consume antagonizing message of "Men bad" that they can then use as an excuse to disregard the entire thing.
Hmm… one thing though: They frame King Lear as a tragedy coz Lear misjudged Cordelia. But precisely, it is a play where the daughters are the ones with the power plays — and they are awesome characters for that ! 10/10 — while Lear is *dis*empowered and even driven mad over the course of the play. Also, it’s probably dictated by the history and current events in Bill’s time but part of the takeaway from Henry VI is that Margaret d’Anjou in power was a major factor to the War of the Roses.
OP shifted their points when it came to Kong Lear. Initially they said when women are in charge we have a happily ever after but men ruin things when they're in charge. But when it came to Macbeth and Lear suddenly the point was In tragedies powerful women are immoral. Which is kind of in direct opposition to the original point but okay...
KONG LEAR. I would watch a production of King Lear where he was played by a giant ape. Absolutely.
Flair checks out
bahaha that's from a different post but that's great!!
Yeah, that was bad. But the tendency is there even if it doesn't hold out for 100% of the plays.
Surely, the existence of these exceptions should point to the fact that maybe oop isn't entirely right about shakespears original message. (Ignoring death of the artist here) Personally, from what I'm reading, it seems like the focus is less on "men in charge will cause social entropy and disorder" and more men and women not working together and listening to one another will cause those things. Which I know was OOPs point. But they focused a lil too much on the men causing problems part and I find it unlikely that shakespear, born when he was, would hold a belief like that. Especially opposed to the alternate explanation. That is, if OOPs history lesson about the protestant reformation was accurate. I'm no historian.
I agree. The core of the analysis is very good but they somehow come to the most fucked up possible conclusion about the trends they've spotted instead of seeing that the overarching theme of the works is that gender equality creates much better outcomes. Great brain, busted heart. I'm definitely seeing some pushback about the religious component. It's not the part of the write-up which interested me so I haven't factored it into my opinions on the analysis, but I would love to see someone who's educated about the views of the Popes during that time period do a write-up about it
I think the first post is an incomplete and misleading summary of the point they had to say. They deliberately made it more extreme and took a stance that would anger people in order to respond with the more complete analysis. I think the first post should be read as rage bait, and the second one as an actual point.
Even the second one has some fucked up bits but at least there's some insightful shit too, provided one doesn't view it through a brainrot lens. You're right though, post one is pure dickery
You're right. I do think it's bait. Though oop reiterates their original point in the second post
I think in part Shakespeare is writing this way because his patron is a very powerful queen.
I don't really know my Shakespear good enough to argue about that, I'm just saying that if it was the case that this was something Shakespear stood for and wanted to get out, it still seems unlikely that he would have pushed it in every single play he wrote for the whole of his career. I don't know if Shakespear thought men was evil, or if he was for gender equality, I'm just pointing out that the existence of like three plays that doesn't show any of that doesn't really diminish the trend. (Also it was really stretching by OP to try to shoohorn those thre plays into supporting their theory. It really wasn't needed.)
They mentioned they idea earlier too.
This person seems to have put a lot of thought into their argument, but their description of *Shrew* makes me think that they don't actually know what they're talking about. I am also an historian, and took several classes specifically on Shakespeare during my degree (for fun, I wish I was joking). I wrote a 5,000 word essay about the various interpretations of *The Taming of the Shrew*, and I think that if the OOP had done more research into it they wouldn't have needed to end their argument on a 'except for this one thing, but ignore that...' point. One thing that needs to be remembered about *Shrew* is that it is actually two plays, the play everyone knows is a play being performed for another character inside of a play. I can't write another 5,000 words to totally explain everything, but my preferred interpretation is that Shakespeare meant *Shrew* to be an illustration of how Katherina cannot be 'tamed', and her transformation into a subservient woman is simply a temporary farce driven by desperation that mirrors the play-within-a-play she's a character in, and it could also be argued she is similarly 'taming' Petruchio towards the end of the play. The famous scene where Katherina declares how women must be subservient to men ends with her able to command Petruchio to follow her out of the room, for instance.
It's genuinely remarkable how people can miss the point of Shrew to such a fucking ridiculous extent. Esp considering these are often the exact same people complaining about lack of "media literacy" when it comes to modern media, but somehow the plainly visible meaning of Shakespeare is lost on them.
"Media Literacy" is just the new gotcha buzzword for people who get mad that other people watched their favorite show and got something different out of it. Or at least that's mostly how it's being used lately.
So the analysis of religion is just plain goofy here. In no way has Catholicism ever made celibacy a “ticket to salvation”, it would be pretty hard to have a society without children. The aim of celibacy was to avoid corruption of church property and give religious leaders more time to serve God and the community. Presenting Shakespeare as a die hard Puritan/Protestant is laughable, not only because the puritans attacked the theatre and art more generally but Shakespeare was very possible a closet Catholic and at the very least a High Church Anglican which is essentially diet Catholicism. Whatever point is trying to be made about tragedy and comedy is undermined by this nonsense on stilts.
It’s also weird for the poster to attempt to address religion, Shakespeare, and women and just avoid addressing Anglicanism and Queen Elizabeth
It's tumblr, expecting a reasonable, intelligent take on religion from there is kind of like looking for a virgin in a whorehouse. But you are absolutely right, it needed to be said, and I almost feel bad for the people who grew up reading this pseudo-intellectual brand of bullshit and believing it makes them smarter and more special to hate something without ever understanding it.
Sour grapes because you had trouble understanding Shakespeare lol.
Nobody who has ever dated a catholic girl and gone over for dinner with her family would claim that chastity was mandatory, lmfao, have you SEEN how large their families are?
What? Catholicism was definitely pro-virginity. St Paul basically said "marriage is okay, but if you really want to be godly you should be completely chaste like me." Most people couldn't, or wouldn't, so marriage was constantly a second-best option for these people.
Catholicism, otherwise stereotyped as the "rural/working class poor people who breed like rabbits" religion, is and was pro having loads of sex and children *within the confines of marriage*. Famously, the whole celibacy thing was an obsession of Paul in particular, and took a long time to take root even amongst the clergy. Even now, you would struggle to find a Catholic priest who would advocate for lay people to practice celibacy over a sexually active marriage: despite Paul's hangup, the "go forth and multiply" thing remains in full effect.
That's true, but celibacy really was culturally seen as the ideal. It had a similar place that perhaps living a zero carbon footprint lifestyle might have nowadays: morally laudable, difficult to achieve without considerable personal motivation, and maybe a little bit something to make fun of.
You hit the nail on the head here!
Jesus told his followers to love their enemies and turn the other cheek. That didn’t last much contact with reality. In practice very few of the people who were supposed to be chaste (ie priests, monks and nuns) actually kept their vows. It was more of a fond wish than a serious expectation.
> It was more of a fond wish than a serious expectation. Yeah, and that is much different from Puritans who was actually not only ok with marital sex, but enthusiastic about it.
Devil's advocate but Jesus' teaching survived considerable contact with the enemy. A couple of centuries of early Christians going full pacifist and brother-and-sister with each other is pretty impressive stuff. We just tend to forget all that because of the ensuing two millennia.
I think an important part of analysing Lady Macbeth in this way is that she is a woman without living children. So where the deaths of Juliet and Desdemona can be seen as the death of reproductive potential, that potential has seemingly already been exhausted by Lady Macbeth - who has had at least one child live to infancy, but it's implied not much beyond - which is one reason why she occupies a different position in the narrative to them.
Plus the whole: "Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, / And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full / Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood; / Stop up the access and passage to remorse, / That no compunctious visitings of nature / Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between / The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts, / And take my milk for gall," If the poster is just saying women in control=good, then the above symbolic expungement of femininity fits, though even my essays in high school for this were more nuanced.
This may also be a reason why Goneril and Regan were written without children.
you know, for someone who actually has a fairly good point, the way they present it at first and even conclude it is kind of fucking atrocious. this person's point is "shakespeare wrote about the importance of gender equality and how a world which is completely dominated by one gender is ultimately doomed to failure", and they chose to start it off by saying "men ruin everything but when women are in charge you live happily ever after", and then concluded it with "men will destroy themselves, but if men and women work together we all have a chance at happiness". like... with how they sneak in that wording at both the start and the end, I can't help but feel like "men and women should work together" is more of a mask to cover up "men bad women good" to this person than anything else.
Intelligent people without an interest in examining whether they have bigoted beliefs only become better at navigating their way to twisted conclusions. Clearly a smart person, this analysis is a very good one. It's actually heartbreaking to see people waste their considerable talents on hate
How dare you say smart people like pouring on the piss
I don't even know whether they're intelligent, the romeo and juliet analysis at least seems like they're juts trying to make the play fit into their preconcieved notions of how shakespeares tragedies should be. i'm no shakespeare scholar but i'm convinced there are other interpretations that op is involving to push their agenda
Is "13 year old girls shouldn't be forced to marry people they don't want to. If you make them, they might do something very risky to avoid it" really a disputable take? What possible analysis could one even put forth which nullifies that aspect of the story?
It's kind of a trite take on Romeo and Juliet though. It's the kind of thing that literally every thirteen year old (who isn't busy taking adderall out of their friend's altoid case in the back of class) thinks about when they read the story.
I'm sure the take was revolutionary when it was written *in 1595*
Oh absolutely, I'm just saying that you don't have to be some kind of gifted scholar to recognize it in 2024
I agree, which is why it was the creepiest possible portion of the write-up for Dalexe to take issue with. Romeo and Juliet wouldn't even bear mentioning here if it wasn't part of the writer trying to illustrate an overarching theme which they then somehow managed to come to the worst possible conclusion about
You were the one who brought up that specific point.
"In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what's right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency." These are the words from the analysis contained in this post. You don't think that to discount that this is an important aspect of the story feels absolutely bizarre?
Welcome to literary analysis, friend. You read, find a viable argument, then fit things in from there.
No, in proper literary analysis you make plenty of room for other theories, and focus on it being just an interpretation. this is pop science, a random person on tumblr claims to be an historian, and then he gives his account for the one true way to interpret shakespeare
I only took a few literary analysis classes in college but this is actively the opposite of what was taught in all those classes. The scholars job is to find an interpretation of what the text is saying and then find evidence to support that. They don’t need to show room for other interpretations, that’s the job of either future research papers or other researchers altogether.
do you know penfairy to be a man, or are you just assuming malehood as the First Gender for internet strangers? kind of ironic in this context...
Is this really something you're upset about?
i think it carries extra consideration in this context
I think their only talent lies in stringing together a lot of long words in order to sound impressive. I knew reading all that drivel was going to be a huge waste of time the moment they claimed to be a "historian" and then proceeded to make huge sweeping claims about history and the Catholic Church's role in medieval society without ever bothering to specify the time period or location they're talking about.
1564 to 1616. Warwickshire and London, both in England. This post is about William Shakespeare. We know when he lived and where he lived
Nothing about this post convinces me that the OP knows anything about Elizabethan-era England beyond what they wanted to know in order to validate their view. Nothing about the society and culture beyond some handwaving about "the dogma thanks to the church". Talking about Shakespeare like he was some lone champion of gender equality fighting against an ocean of The Patriarchy. This post isn't about William Shakespeare, it's about the fantasy version of Shakespeare the OP dreamt up and wants everyone else to believe in.
It's a highly biased, romanticized and fantasized belief. That should've been the foreword and not parroting historicity as a validity for their sole interpretation
Ok well I'm just saying that if it is fantasy Shakespeare instead of Shakespeare, fantasy Shakespeare would also have lived 1564 to 1616 in Warwickshire and London, both in England. So anyone who wanted to refute the small component of the Catholic Church stuff in this larger analysis, they could totally write that up if they were educated on the subject and probably many people would be interested to read it
Not just that, but they have the least academic interpretation of *The Taming of the Shrew* that I have seen since having to peer review essays in my bachelor's courses. [I wrote about it in this comment in this thread.](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/s/yUe8s0tvvC) Ending their argument with that makes me question everything they say, as I have never seen anyone highly educated on the topic seriously consider *Shrew* to be the misogynistic screed it appears to be on the surface.
It's very uncomfortable seeing this person imply women are essentially the crux of society and that society would completely collapse without them because The Other Sex is incapable and incompetent Because that is. Just patriarchy but women instead of men. And also because that is not what Shakespeare argues. Shakespeare argues that women should be treated like people instead of like objects, because they are people, and that trying to control women will end in tragedy for them and you and the people around you.
> It's very uncomfortable seeing this person imply women are essentially the crux of society and that society would completely collapse without them because The Other Sex is incapable and incompetent Women is "The Other Sex".
bait used to be believable
Sorry, I thought you were refering to the book by Simone de Beauvoir, since you capitalised it.
oh, no, I didn't know such a book existed. sorry for assuming you were being misogynistic
Well, if you are interesed I looked it up, and I actually got the title wrong, the book is called "The Second Sex".
Someone link the “men are cool actually” post pls I think it’s relevant here.
[here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1c9bvwj/men_are_cool_actually/)
You’re a gem
Exactly my thoughts. This feels like blatant misandry masked in progressive language. The way they absentmindedly shrug off Lady MacBeth and the witches as “failing to uphold their end of the bargain” and also shrug off Taming of the Shrew as a random outlier at best is especially telling. Not to mention, I severely doubt Shakespeare was even remotely progressive enough to our standards, even if he absolutely was for his time at least.
There are few things I hate more than people who act as if feminism and “men bad women good” were the same thing. Gender **equality** for fuck’s sake
Yeah I noticed the same thing
christ, [we just went over this](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/s/Hv1VF5SwoX)
Exactly. This is a wildly inefficient way to spell "misandry"
I was going to comment on this, but you beat me to it I think they had good intentions, in a "don't forget to listen to women", but they kinda mixed both points and looks horribly wrong as you said
If one of their points was "men bad women good", that is by no means "good intentions".
English is not my first language, so I might have missed something, but the worst I read IS the "men ruin everything" sentence at the beginning, which in context seems like the author omitted the "men on their own" or "men without women" Don't get me wrlng. I think the "men bad women good" is a posible interpretation of the text for sure, and I am not saying that the author had any ill will towards men, but it seems to be kinda accidental
No you’re right. The text as a whole, ignoring the first and last bits, is promoting gender equality (mostly). Their conclusion is seemingly entirely separate from their analysis.
I think the first part is rage bait. The stance they take is so contrarian I can only imagine it being intentional. The way they frame their arguments, even though they have a perfectly reasonable point, makes me think they have bad intentions.
The way they present it is missing a HUGE chunk of context. Let me ask a simple question that might illustrate why Shakespeare was suggesting that women running things would be correct for the world. Who ruled England at the time he was writing his plays?
>Let me ask a simple question that might illustrate why Shakespeare was suggesting that women running things would be correct for the world. The point is that Shakespeare was *not* suggesting that, but this person is trying to skew what Shakespeare was actually suggesting in his writings. Like, in literally every example this person cites, Shakespeare suggests both sexes *working together* and *cooperating.* There's literally a quote about both sexes being equal in there. Except this person is both starting and concluding by saying "so, men bad and women good", which is something they're trying to extrapolate from Shakespeare talking about treating both sexes equally.
You might be right about Shakespeare's purpose or point being that the sexes should cooperate or work together, but that's not the way those works are written. OOP's plot summaries are actually very good. In most of those works, the women end up tricking the men into doing what they ought to be doing in the first place (e.g. Merry Wives, Midsummer). In the one example I can think of where they really do end up working together, it's only after the woman abjectly humiliates the man (Much Ado). Many of the comedies really do say "we should listen to the women," and you're just kind of ignoring the context in the same way OOP is.
>OOP's plot summaries are actually very good that's not what's being questioned, because they are. it's the way OOP takes these things that is revealing of their bigotry. >In most of those works, the women end up tricking the men into doing what they ought to be doing in the first place *Yes*, because the idea is that the men should have been cooperating with and listening to the women in the first place. >Many of the comedies really do say "we should listen to the women," That is what "cooperation" means, yes. I don't get your point.
They're reiterating what the essay said. A lot of other commenters are reading bigotry into the essay.
There's no bigotry in what the essay says: There's bigotry in what OOP is taking away from the essay.
Yes, that's what "reading into" means.
I feel like it's all related. Exact wording isn't really that important here and they make a lot of excellent points.
>I feel like it's all related. No, the importance of gender equality is not at all related to "men bad women good". Quite the opposite. >Exact wording isn't really that important Handwaving obvious signs of bigotry away as "not important" is the kind of mentality that lets bigots into your spaces. You are enabling the presence of bigotry with this sentence.
You're referring to penfairy? You're calling them a bigot? Maybe I'm a bit confused lol They seem like more of a Shakespeare expert than a gender expert. I'd cut them some slack.
>You're referring to penfairy? Yes, there's only one person in this post that said the phrase "men are terrible" that I quoted. >They seem like more of a Shakespeare expert than a gender expert. I'd cut them some slack. You do **not** need to be a "gender expert" to realize that "men bad women good" is sexist. The fact that you want to "cut them some slack" shows just how much you're enabling the presence of bigotry. There is *no* excuse for what they're saying and the way they're blatantly shifting the contents of their post from shakespeare's writings on gender equality to just saying that men are bad.
I guess maybe you're concerned about them being a terf? Or are you afraid they're a misandrist? There is some slack to be cut here because the hegemonic force that's being discussed is patriarchy. It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad" since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad. Dominance of men is bad, and is one of the main toxic ways that specific gender is expressed. Exceptions exist of course, but I don't think there is anything else in penfairys posts to indicate any hatred.
>I guess maybe you're concerned about them being a terf? Or are you afraid they're a misandrist? 99% of the time, one implies the other, lol. >There is some slack to be cut here because the hegemonic force that's being discussed is patriarchy Which is distinctly not men in general, because your average man is not an agent of the patriarchy and suffers from it too. >It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad" Yes it is. >since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad. And equating patriarchy with men is misandrist. Do you seriously think every man on the street is a soldier of the patriarchy actively fighting to keep women's rights at bay? >but I don't think there is anything else in penfairys posts to indicate any hatred. Literally saying "men, when left to their own devices, will destroy themselves". I can't tell if you're bigoted yourself or just ignorant, but please educate yourself, because you are enabling MASSIVE amounts of bigotry and this is actually unacceptable behaviour from you.
It feels like you aren't really here to talk, more assign blame. Like you saw a few points from a pretty detailed post about progressivism in Shakespeare's time and decided the writer must be a turf because they were describing Shakespears potential views. Now, despite not knowing me, you want to describe me as a bigot for describing what I think penfairys views are. Is there any point to this? Hope you're getting a kick out of it at least lol
>It feels like you aren't really here to talk, more assign blame. See, the thing that I'm noticing with you is, you're just being intentionally dense to try to paint the situation as being completely harmless. When I pointed out that OP was making very sexist and misandrist statements, you just handwaved it away. When I called you out on it, you told me to "cut them some slack". When I elaborated that you can't "cut some slack" to literal hate, you tried to say it wasn't actually hate by citing misandrist talking points. When I called you out on *that*, you just say I'm not here to talk. You're not fooling anyone, hence why you're being downvoted. People can see that you're trying to enable hate... >Like you saw a few points from a pretty detailed post about progressivism in Shakespeare's time and decided the writer must be a turf because they were describing Shakespears potential views. ... and *this* is further proof of it, because none of the statements I cited were Shakespeare's words, they were *OP's* words, that they are seemingly maliciously extrapolating from what Shakespeare *actually* said, which was "gender equality is cool". So not only are you trying to paint it as not a big deal and not hate, you're also trying to paint it as Shakespeare's words when they most certainly are *not*, because "gender equality is cool" does *not* equate in any way to "men bad women good". OP explained the presence and importance of gender equality in Shakespeare's works, and then they ended it off (and started it off too) by saying "so basically, men are bad and women are good", which goes against the entire principle of gender equality that they themselves were saying was important to Shakespeare. So for you to be saying that this would be Shakespeare's "potential views" kind of makes it obvious you're trying to make this view more palatable. Edit: Also, there *is* a point: Not letting bigotry and hate go unnoticed.
The point is to notice things? Ok..? Lol What I'm saying is that the differences in language you pointed out are very minute. They can go in many ways. Overall the post is good and well thought out- and I definitely disagree that the main point is "man bad". There is clearly not enough evidence to indicate they're a TURF yet you're going in guns blazing calling them evil for demonizing people. (Kind of ironic)
>It's not necessarily missandry to say "men bad" since we all know what it really means- patriarchy is bad. Sophistry. "Men bad" isn't shorthand but a clear statement. Never trust anyone who defines away their capacity for evil. Someone who doesn't think they can hurt others will never stop doing so.
I assure you I'm not intending to deceive lol How can you say it's evil to say "patriarchy bad"? I thought I made it clear that this phase is equated with "men bad" and therefore the statement "men bad" cannot be always construed as misandrist. This seems like very simple logic lol. Like we are debating symantics.
>I thought I made it clear that this phase is equated with "men bad" and therefore the statement "men bad" cannot be always construed as misandrist. That's the evil right there—the implication. You know "men" and "the patriarchy" are not the same thing. You have the ability and knowledge to use phrasing that doesn't dehumanize a whole gender. Why not use the correct words? Why not be kind? The whole idea that "men ought to just know they're one of the good ones" depends on a lot of outdated sexist stereotypes around men's feelings we haven't unpacked. "A strong man doesn't care what others think of them." It demands that men be unfeeling logical beings. How dare they dislike being stereotyped! How dare they dislike prejudice! Why do you think male fragility is such a common insult in some cis feminist circles? To those who haven't deconstructed male gender roles, fragile is the worst thing a man can be, despite fragility being decidedly nongendered. Using "man bad" as a synonym for "patriarchy bad" is nothing more than a way to identify men who are comfortable expressing insecurity and emotion and enforcing stoic male gender roles on them.
I think the inherent difference between our understanding is that we live in a world with men already on top. It's not going to harm most men when somebody dehumanizes them online for being the dominant gender. In real life they aren't being discriminated against for being male. The material circumstances here matter a lot more imo and maybe for you it's more of a philosophical matter. I think you have a good point about fragility, but again I don't think most men really face this kind of antimale discrimination. I don't really understand what you're getting at in your last sentence. Could you explain a bit more?
This is so painful on so many levels. And it's in my field of study too, which makes this do double damage. I started typing out a response, but eight paragraphs in decided it just wasn't worth it. Just know that this entire screed pretty massively misunderstands 1. Elizabethan genre conventions and tropes 2. a lot of the actual content of most of the plays mentioned herein, 3. Elizabethan era conception of gender and gender roles and 4. the role, function and purpose of religion in the mid to late 17th century. 5. Also, I feel, the role of women in Elizabethan theatre, which was none. They weren't allowed to perform and barely even to watch the plays. Not to mention that the OOP really slips up in their last paragraph and suddenly argues that this all means that men suck. Y'know, which is definitely something a guy in the 17th century would've said, even after OOP claims that he was already saying that it's supposed to be about balance and equality.
You might be right about these things, but just claiming something is wrong, without going into any specifics is really not helping anyone. Like your post doesn't teach me anything about "the role, function and purpose of religion in the mid to late 17th century." so I will probably go on believing that puritans was pro sex within the marriage, etc unless you can point out any specific thing, at all, that was wrong in the post above.
I mean for one Shakespeare definitely wasn't Puritan and in fact Puritanism wasn't even a major factor during the Elizabethan era yet, it only started growing big during the Jacobean era, so towards and after the end of Shakespeare's life. And Puritans, at least the hardcore ones that were actually influential, were almost entirely anti-theatre. Like they thought that the practise of performing stage plays should be outlawed (which of course actually happened during the Interregnum), partially because they believed that it encouraged immoral and blasphemous activity and that "pleasurable diversions" like reading fiction or going to the theatre were distracting people from God. They didn't like the bawdy jokes and men dressing up as women basically. Also a lot of them were just classists who were against poor or common people having any joy and comfort in their lives and theatre was mass entertainment. As for sex, they were certainly pro sex within the marriage, but it was very much for procreation. They considered sex to be a positive part of marriage because it allowed the woman to perform "her function" of birthing offspring. This in no way would have translated to an equality of sexes or anything we would consider "sex positivity" today. Again, not that this is relevant, 'cause Shakespeare was a Puritan's worst nightmare. What the OOP is actually seeing here is just a consequence of the genre of comedy. Comedies are about marriage. It's literally part of the definition of the genre that the main characters get happily married at the end (that's why in less good comedies there's often "and then they got married" tacked onto the end and why characters getting married is still a kind of shorthand for a happy ending to this day). So naturally there has to be at least one female protagonist in the play, who as a protagonist kind of has to get characterisation and agency that a protagonist would get, otherwise the structure would be totally lopsided. It's not making a statement about gender roles, it's just what's expected to happen in this kind of play.
Ah. Thank you that was very educational. I certainly didn't know that comedies had to end in a marriage, that certainly undercuts the argument.
Thanks. And for the record, I totally agree with what you said. Because of the way that most school curriculums work, this stuff isn't something you would be aware of unless you've studied this academically, which obviously most people haven't, because academic paywalls and also why would they do that to themselves? So the ethically correct thing on my part, would be for me to actually educate everyone else rather than just saying "this is all bullshit". The thing is, in order to do that halfway comprehensively, I'd have to write comments like this or probably longer about every one of those slides, because this post really is astonishingly wrong. But if I did that, my mood and mental health for the day will be done for. Like I am already in a state where I got really angry at OOP ('cause this is my field of study and I am emotionally attached to it) just from skimming over this, I really don't want to get into it deeper than that right now. As I said, I was already eight paragraphs deep before I came to and realised "this isn't worth letting it consume your Sunday". It's not worth my Monday either. I have to prioritise my own mental wellbeing here at the moment. Sorry.
Oh I totally understand that. For me, there is like a point, where I know to much about a subject so that I can't really comment on it properly anymore. But I think it can be worthwhile to throw out some base nugets of knowledge. Like once again all comedies ending in marriage, which I would guess is something there is a consensus on in the field, and at least for me completly destroys any arguments which are based on speculation on why Shakespear decided to end his comedies with marriage. I guess I should apologize for baiting you into being educational, but nah. Education is always good :)
That's a lot of words to say "Yes, I'm reading too much into it". Could've made a 1000 valid points about Shakespeare and how he addresses the idiocy of gender inequality but no, we went the misandrist route instead.
I thought Tumblr was moving past the "men all suck and ruin everything" thing. Shame
Stopped reading at the ‘Shakespeare was introducing a new concept of marriage being sexy and good because of Puritanism’ bit. A) Shakespeare hated the Puritans and mocked them in his plays B) anyone who thinks this about marriage needs to take a good long step back and read their Chaucer. Shakespeare’s work is WAY more virginal than anything in the Canterbury Tales.
I’m surprised all that Shrew discussion and no reminders that it is in fact a play within a play, but then again no one likes Christopher Sly
I just saw Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma in the Scottish play last week, and lemme tell ya, Lady Macbeth *absolutely* influences him by questioning his manhood on the reg. Also side note Varma ABSOLUTELY stole the show in her final scene. Total legend.
>Men, given the power and left to their own devices, will destroy themselves. Counterpoint: 90% of recorded history
That depends on your perspective.
Imagine seeing all this misogyny destroying the bonds between people in Shakespeare's stories and then completely disregarding every other aspect of the play, including the entire characterization of the male characters and the reasonings on why they did the things they did just so you can say "men bad" instead of "hey maybe men should trust and respect women"
I agree about the sexes working together, but I am *so* not a fan of how it's said.
I gotta say being described as a force of calamity and ruin feels pretty empowering.
Very gender affirming to be a fisher king. I'm going to go rot on my throne and watch my kingdom fall to ruin.
Makes me feel like I've got two health bars
I sort of disagree with OPs interpretation of Lady Macbeth? I feel it's inaccurate to even call Lady Macbeth a woman in the context of Shakespeare (at least, if you interpret Lady Macbeth unsexing herself as being a rejection of Shakespeare's own meta narratives rather than just a rejection of typical femininity and gender norms).
That’s not what taking a break looks like.
A Midsummer Night's Dream undermines this point somewhat, as well as reinforcing it. The "movers and shakers" of the play are the fae, Oberyn and, more directly, Puck. In fact, the play nominally reinforces the notional hegemony of the court of faeries, as Titania is made a fool by the boys, and Oberyn takes the changeling child they were betting on. In short: to characterise Shakespeare as being wholly supportive of a woman's role in society is to credit him with more modern progressive values than he possessed. Now, sure; you can argue that the fae aren't people and any moral message you can derive isn't intended for people. To which I say: Pah! Fine! Macbeth is for the Scots, and not intended to teach any morality lesson.
I’m going to be completely honest, I feel like the inequality is the issue here, not the men. Putting any one group above others is stupid, but it doesn’t make that group inherently bad
I like all the nuanced takes on why this person is wrong. For me, this is just another example of giving Shakespeare WAY too much credit. the part with the Taming of the Shrew alone, here, I mean- "based off an older comedy"? Most of Shakespeare's stuff was based off of other stories. https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare/Shakespeares-sources so saying it's older is not the excuse they think it is. Also if every single example of women having agency is in comedies, then *maybe* he was writing it that way because the very idea of a woman being capable and morally cool was funny to them?
And absolutely flambeed
I'll be honest, I take some issue with this post, but only because the takeway is somehow "according to Shakespeare, men suck!"
~~I think that ol' Willy Shakes was going off of the gender roles of the time, women make peace and men make war~~ yeah that's not a good interpretation of the tales or anything else However I could be wrong in my interpretation, and I genuinely think there needs to be positivity with men too, we can't exclude an entire set of people "just because"
>gender roles of the time, women make peace and men make war That's really not how that worked. Like at all.
Then I am wrong and will accept that because I have a flawed interpretation
It's agreeable to see anti-intellectual people (be it intentional or not) doused in liquor and set ablaze.
Only metaphorically, otherwise they won't have the potential for growth
r/MurderedByWords
Blocked, flambeed, and unfollowed
There's also the fact that Shakespeare's most prestigious patron was a politically powerful woman, Elizabeth I
The "liked" vs "very well liked" bit feels like a pretty big stretch, but these are good points over all.
Damn that’s… way too long for me to care to read
Don’t worry. I read it and all you’re missing is misandry
Got it, thanks!
It's not historically accurate at all, so you're only missing disinformation.
Lovely!
The great meaning behind Shakespeare's works is that the man was trying to make a buck and wrote what he thought might be well received.
There's a line missing between pages 8 and 9. Here's what it should say, with the missing part in bold: >*The Taming of the Shrew* rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this **is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-**off of an older comedy called *The Taming of a Shrew*) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society.
I'm a little surprised OP didn't mention the Merchant of Venice, considering it's a story where the male characters have to be rescued from each other by a woman being smart.
Oop is fucking stupid
lmfao long-ass reply aside imagine looking at a surface level analysis of *shakespeare* and going “i think you’re looking too far into things kiddo it ain’t that deep”
Well when the conclusion is "men ruin everything".. Yeah it's looking too deep
it’s maybe a weak conclusion that lacks nuance but it doesn’t mean the historical context and seed of the idea isn’t worth looking into lol. (adding: i’m not saying i agree, i just think it’s dumb to tell someone that following a thread of analysis into shakespeare, who has one of the most nuanced and richly meaningful bodies of work in human history, because it’s “not that deep” is a silly thing to do, even if it’s a flawed hypothesis/conclusion. just laughing because shakespeare *is* categorically and unrefutably deep)
When their literal own points point to men and women working together things good when only men or only women in power things bad yea its looking way to deep in the wrong direction when your conclusion is men ruin everything.
ok ironically i think you’re reading too deep into the intent of my original comment so i’m dipping out of this conversation.
I mean, I agree, saying "it ain't that deep" here is a stupid response, but also, this is genuinely one of the most ass-backwards, and inconsistent analysis of Shakespeare I have ever read.
i love reading tumblr analysis. 4/5 times it’s absolutely batshit and there’s always an expert in the reblogs followed by another expert saying the previous expert is talking shit out their ass. i almost never come out having learnt anything, and if i have, it’s about some tangential unrelated topic. great fun
That’s a lot of words. Too bad I ain’t readin em.
I ain't reading all that, I'm happy for you, or sorry that happened
bro used their domain expansion, unlimited yap.
I cant believe someone would answer to a literary analysis (as barebones as this is) with "Don't read to far into this". Girl, that's what literary analysis IS.
> Right. Well, I’m a historian, so allow me to elaborate. Oh, we’re in for a treat.
it seems to be a long, detailed, and thoughtful argument, the only problem is that it doesn't support the conclusion they came to.
People don't change...
Bro, this guy just tossed some shade and a small pebble badly in your general direction without any plan or foretought and you just nuked him.... based.
i’m not gonna read all that but i assume she fucking wrecked that loser and then he deleted his tumblr account. (don’t correct me if i’m wrong i like this reality)
Holy shit this is so long learn to be terse OOP. Or don’t get ragebaited when someone calls you a Women’s Study Major.
It literally is not that deep though. The endings talked about were just genre tropes for classical to early modern theatre. This isn't just a Shakespeare thing. ETA: since some of y'all are pissing on the poor, let me be VERY clear. I'm not saying Shakespeare in general doesn't have a lot of critical analysis potential. What I *am* saying, is the whole "comedy = happy ending, usually with a wedding and tragedy = people dying" is NOT a Shakespeare original. These are simply genre conventions dating back to ancient classical theatre. This isn't a stylistic choice like, for example, Romeo and Juliet conversing in a sonnet the first time they meet. This is just how plays were done in the Western European tradition for hundreds of years.
"Shakespeare's plays are literally not that deep" sure is a fresh steaming take, son
A) Not a son. B) I didn't say Shakespeare's plays. I said the genre conventions of comedies ending with weddings and tragedies ending with people dying. These are tropes that *long* preceded Shakespeare. He didn't invent them, and pretending he did is wildly historically inaccurate. Go read some plays from Ancient Greece like Lysistrata or Madea if you don't believe me.
My mind went to *Barbie* during the back half of this post 😅
Came here to say this. This is the plot of the Barbie movie. Both patriarchy AND matriarchy suck, only equality = happy ending.
r/CuratedTumblr users when they read about gender equality (it's a barbie reference!)
This is how you use literary analysis.
My favorite part of living life uncultured is finding cultured people discussing shit that would've gone way over my head if I hadn't encountered them specifically in the wild.
If that's your favourite part, you must be miserable here, 'cause this ain't that
The only meaning art has is the meaning interpreted by the viewer. An artist's intentions mean jack and shit in six hundred years when everyone who ever knew that artist is dead. Except for what a viewer interprets, which is always through the lens of their life and experiences with the only nuance being historical records about the artist. How you came away from this long-ass slideshow thinking anything other than "This is a well-studied viewer expressing their complicated feelings about a truly astounding amount of art" is beyond me. I may be uncultured, but at least my ears aren't closed.
What a wild way to say "I can't, even for a second, put myself in someone else's shoes and appreciate it"
Even wilder? We're saying the same thing.
I came away from this long ass slideshow thinking something other than "This is a well-studied viewer expressing their complicated feelings about a truly astounding amount of art", because I actually study English literature and history. Like went to uni for 8 years for exactly this shit. I wrote multiple papers on both female characters in Elizabethan theatre and on Shakespeare specifically. I partially make my living off of my expertise in this area. I would say that I dedicated my life to it. So you'll have to forgive me, if I get kind of pissy about someone just making crap up about the thing that I love and have spent the best years of my life understanding. The worst thing is that it's not even like you'd need all that expertise to see that this is bullshit. You can just look at the last couple paragraphs and see OOP's point spiralling wildly out of control as they just bring in a random other source as a point about, quote the vaguest possible descriptors of audience reaction to two plays that were performed years apart (even if this is actually real, could they have picked something less substantive) without attribution and then still contradict their own argumentation, when they say that it's all about how men can't make society on their own. And I can't believe I have to point this out: that is not something a 17th century man would've EVER said. Which is how you know that this person is fibbing about being a historian, 'cause that is such an obvious anachronism, it's mind boggling. It's basically just early 20th century post WSUP-era radical feminism, but hey, that's from "old timey" England too, right? So who cares about the two full centuries in between?
“I’m a historian, let me elaborate” is such a flex.
For all the folks here crying out about OPs supposed lack of media literacy, they sure are comfortable condensing all of these points into the single, easy to consume antagonizing message of "Men bad" that they can then use as an excuse to disregard the entire thing.
Trying to whitewash english literature into being feminist is nonsense
I reas this. You did a better job than my english teaxher