Milton versus Shakespeare

Could it be that we picked the inferior writer as our national poet?

Who'd win in a fight? John Milton and William Shakespeare

December 9, 2008, is a date that publishers, literary scholars and probably a few others have been looking forward to: it's Milton's birthday. On this day in 1608 he was born in the City of London. Four hundred years later, he is born again in exhibitions, conferences, biographies, the latest scholarly edition of his complete works, and evena live, day-long reading of Paradise Lost, courtesy of the English faculty at Cambridge University.

No Milton in Love, though. No Royal Milton Company. No literary pilgrims traipsing up to Bread Street, where he grew up, to lay wreaths or get some spurious kick of heritage. No Hollywood high-school comedy based on "Comus". (There is the promise of this, however, reasonably categorised by IMDB as drama, fantasy and "horror".) 

In other words, in what an academic might call his "cultural afterlife", Milton has had little to do with the kind of excesses that have made Shakespeare into a heritage industry. This is down in part, maybe, to the biographical facts – Shakespeare was in showbusiness, and Milton was in the Latin Office of the Cromwellian Protectorate – and to the nature of the "high Christian seriousness" on which the latter's reputation has depended. And thanks to which it has now, perhaps, declined.

Whether in art, life or afterlife, the temptation to compare Milton with Shakespeare has been a persistent one. Seriousness, tainted by cultural guilt, partly explains this. Mere drama (you know: Hamlet, King Lear...) is usually thought to occupy a lower place in the aesthetic pecking order than epic. Milton the pamphleteer, the advocate of a free press, the republican, provides a canonical counterweight to Shakespeare, the spokesman for everything and nothing, whose personal views hide behind his dramatis personae. "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties", Milton argued in Areopagitica. "How now? A rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!", wrote Shakespeare in Hamlet, after crossing out "brown cow". No wonder it was Milton whom Wordsworth felt "shouldst" be living in 1802, to see England turned into "a fen / Of stagnant waters".

If that's the sort of invidious comparison that appeals to you, you might wish to ask yourself, along with the Princeton professor Nigel Smith: is Milton better than Shakespeare? Here's how Smith celebates the undiminished currency of Milton's political writings and the "contradictory energy" of his verses:

"However much we celebrate Shakespeare's grasp of humanity or poetry, his troubling displays of power, and his wonderful and delightful exposure of sexual identity, however much great acting companies, actors, and actresses produce staggering performances of his plays, Milton's interrogations of free will, liberty, and the threat to it are more riveting. No student of Milton has left Paradise Lost without feeling such an admiration, indeed an ardour of admiration."

The rest of Smith's introduction can be read here; but so much for seriousness. There are still things for most of us to find out about the birthday boy. For example: the new Oxford biography of the younger man points out how near Bread Street was to a certain theatre, the Blackfriars indoor playhouse, where some of Shakespeare's plays received their first performances. Milton's father became involved in the theatre's business at one point. The City of London was a small place, of course, and ... could there be a personal as well as poetic significance to the fact that one of Milton's earliest poems was a tribute to "my Shakespear"?

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/dec/09/milton-shakespeare-anniversary

What is the difference between Shakespearean tragedy and Greek tragedy?

There are many important differences between Greek tragedy and Shakespearean tragedy. 

Greek tragedy was performed as part of a religious festival (like a church christmas play) - so the stories were already known to the audience, and everyone knew what was going to happen next. 

Elizabethan theatre was commercial entertainment (people paid for their seats - like in a cinema). The stories were usually new, and an element of suspense was nearly always present. 

Greek actors wore elaborate costumes and masks, and parts of the dialogue was sung (parts were even danced). Murders, fights and battles had to take place off-stage (a character would tell the audience what was happening) - as usually happens in opera or a ballet. 

Elizabethan actors wore ordinary clothes (though they might be 'in period' for a historical play). They could scuffle, fight - even 'die' - onstage. (Shakespeare has Tybalt die onstage in Romeo and Juliet, to good effect). 

Because Greek drama was semi-offical, Greek playwrights tended to be highly respected public servants. Most Greek plays take a broadly politically conservative stance (though the best plays can be quite subtle in the points they make). 

Elizabethan players were seen as anti-establishment (they were called 'masterless men'). Many Elizabethan plays are critical of official government positions - though there was rigorous state censorship to make sure they never went too far. Shakespeare's plays, however, consistently adopt a position supportive of the government (and he was far from a "masterless man", being one of the King's Men). 

Another difference is that in Greek tragedies logic over rules emotions (characters try to find out the truth and how things really happened) and in Shakespearean tragedies emotion over rules logic (characters worry about their emotions and what they think is going on rather than finding out the truth).

In Greek tragedy, the chorus is always present on stage as a commentator; in Shakespeare choruses only introduce the scene or the play (see Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Henry IV Part II, and Pericles for examples)

Greek tragedies usually have one continuous simple plot; Shakespeare's plays have complex plots often involving intertwining subplots (e.g. King Lear)

Common Features of the Shakespeare Tragedies

The Shakespeare tragedies share a number of common features, as outlined below:

• The fatal flaw. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes are all fundamentally flawed. It is this weakness that ultimately leads to their downfall. 
• The bigger they are, the harder they fall. The Shakespeare tragedies often focus on the fall of a nobleman. By presenting the audience with a man with excessive wealth or power, his eventual downfall fall is all the more tragic. 
• External pressures. Shakespeare’s tragic heroes often fall victim to external pressures. Fate, evil spirits and manipulative characters all play a hand in the hero’s downfall.

Copied from:

http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_difference_between_Shakespearean_tragedy_and_Greek_tragedy

http://shakespeare.about.com/od/thetragedies/a/Shakespeare_Tragedies.htm

Intertextuality in Fowles' The Collector

            The Collector of John Fowles, who is generally attributed as a Post-Modernist writer, was published in 1963. While writing to book, Fowles was inspired from a real story of Bartok’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle with a contemporary newspaper report. He says in Woodcock (1984; 27) that: “ a boy who captured a girl and imprisoned her in an air-raid shelter at the end of his gar- den ... there were many peculiar features about this case that fascinated me.” In the novel some characteristics of Post-Modernist Literature is used such as intertextuality . Shakespeare's play The Tempest, The Old Man of The Sea in story of Sinbad the Sailor from One Thousand and One Nights, Jane Austen's novel Emma are some of the most significant literary works which are mentioned in The Collector.

             The first inter-text in The Collector is Shakespeare's play The Tempest, which is obvious through the Miranda' s and Fredrick Clegg' s names. Firstly, Miranda is the daughter of the Prospero in The Tempest. She is stucked in an island, because his father is exiled from Milan where he was a duke in the play. Similarly, Miranda inThe Collector is abducted by the anti-hero of the novel and stucked in a cellar. The lowering standards of being in an island is not so different than being kept in a cellar. They both are isolated from the civilization where they are supposed to belong because of their gender. While Miranda in The Tempest reaches to happiness and gets married to man she loves, Miranda in The Collector dies because of malaria without seeing the light which she looks forward to from these quotations: “ The thing I miss most is fresh light. I can’t live without light.” and “ I could see daylight through a keyhole.” Secondly, the name of anti-hero Fredrick Clegg is also an inter-text to the Shakespeare's play since the first name of Fredrick Clegg is Ferdinand, who gets married to Miranda in The Tempest ,and Clegg hopes to make Miranda falls in love with him. In the novel it is seen in this quotation:

“What’s your name?” she said. Clegg, I answered.“Your first name?” Ferdinand.However, unlike Ferdinand, Clegg never achieves his aim. Furthermore, after he reads Miranda's diary and learns what actually she thinks about him and hates her.

            In addition to his first name, Clegg is called Caliban in Miranda's diary, which creates another inter-text to The Tempest. Prospero tries to teach Caliban religion and language, but after Caliban tries to rape Miranda, he is treated like a monster. In The Collector, Clegg is tried to be educated by Miranda. She tries to increase his humanity and intellectuality.“You have money - as a matter of fact, you aren’t stupid, you could become whatever you liked. Only you’ve got to shake off the past. You’ve got to kill your aunt and the house you lived in and the people you lived with. You’ve got to be a new human being.” He is given a book which he stops reading. He also uses bad English which can be easily understood when his writing and Miranda's diary are compared. Clegg doesn't rape Miranda while Caliban in The Tempest tries it. However, he is still called as Caliban because of his narrow-mind, and psychological disorder by Miranda.

             Lastly, G.P whom Miranda loves in the novel can be linked with Prospero in The Tempest . They both are not young characters. Prospero has a daughter and lives in an island for years. G.P is earns his own money and he is elder than Miranda. Both of the characters are well-respected. Miranda praises G.P' s ideas about the collectors in the novel. “ G.P. saying that collectors were the worst animals of all. He meant art collectors, of course. But of course, he is right.” Prospero is the play's protagonist and he is a moral man. He admits to stop spell after he takes what he deserves and gives lesson to everyone. G.P 's name might also refer to Prospero as Great Prospero because sorcerers are generally called as great.

The second inter-text in The Collector is Jane Austen' s Emma. The heroin of Austen's novel is described as “handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable homeand happy disposition.” Miranda thinks herself like Emma and states her admiration that a few time in the novel. “I am Emma Woodhouse. I feel for her, of her and in her. I have a different sort of snobbism, but I understand her snobbism.” In this quotation, Miranda feels an instant connection between her and Emma because sometimes she looks down on Clegg who doesn't understand neither art nor literature like Emma's behaviors to lower class people. Miranda also tries to justify Emma's wrongs, which shows how she feels close herself to Emma.

“I know she does wrong things, she tries to organize other people’s live.Creative, determined to set the highest standards. A real human being. Her faults are my faults: her virtues I must make my virtues.” After finishing to book, Miranda matches the people in her life to the characters in the novel Emma. “Emma. The busi- ness of beingbetween inexperienced girl and experienced woman and the awful problem of the man. Caliban is Mr Elton. Piers is Frank Churchill. But is G.P. Mr Knightley?”

               Finally, the third inter-text in the novel is to the story of Sinbad the Sailor andOne Thousand and One Nights. In one of Sinbad's quest he is captured by Old Man of the Sea and makes him drunk to kill him. Miranda thinks Clegg is like Old Man of the Sea because he doesn't let her go. “I know what you are. You’re the Old Man of the Sea. The horrid old man Sinbad had to carry on his back. That’s what you are. You get on the back of everything vital, everything trying to be honest and free, and you bear it down.”

               To sum up, Fowles uses interxtuality in The Collector thanks to The Tempest, Sinbad the Sailor and Emma, which can be seen in the examples that I mentioned. 

Cengiz Güler