🚀 go-pugleaf

Panu wrote:
> On Mar 1, 9:53 pm, Harlan Messinger
> <hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Panu wrote:
>>> On Mar 1, 3:41 pm, "bobgrum...@nut-n-but.net" <bobgrum...@nut-n-
>>> but.net> wrote:
>>>>> Of course we have heard of Oscar Wilde (an Irishman), George Bernard
>>>>> Shaw (another Irishman), Eugene O'Neill (an American), Tennessee
>>>>> Williams (another American), and Arthur Miller (another American).
>>>>> August Wilson is unknown to me, but Tom Stoppard sounds vaguely
>>>>> familiar.
>>>>> It is obvious that Americans excel in drama,
>>>> Actually, America has not yet produced a first-rate (performed)
>>>> playwright.  WIlliams, O'Neill and Miller aren't even second-rate.
>>>>> because their culture has
>>>>> been cross-pollinated by so many non-English cultures. American
>>>>> theatrical tradition and film were obviously vitalized by immigrants
>>>>> escaping from Nazi Germany and its dominions.
>>>>> As regards good literature, there is obviously a lot of it in
>>>>> civilized languages, such as German and Polish, to mention just two of
>>>>> them.- Hide quoted text -
>>>> I'm curious, Panu, as to (1) what authors of any kind in English you
>>>> find to be first-rate, and (2) why Shakespeare is not.
>>> Well, I like John McGahern's novel "Amongst Women", for instance, and
>>> William Butler Yeats has written some fine poetry.
>>> As regards Shakespeare's greatness, I think the burden of proof is on
>>> those who profess to believe in it.
>> I'm sorry, I didn't realize that for everything I like in life, I have
>> any obligation to prove to anyone else that I like it or that I have any
>> basis for liking it.
> 
> I am always happy to tell people why I like a particular writer. I
> might even have a vivid memory of reading his works for the first
> time.

I'm glad it makes you happy. That's a far cry from a burden of proof.
> 
>>> When asked why Shakespeare is so
>>> great, their answers usually boil down to the fact that they were
>>> taught so.
>> Really? Fascinating. I'm sure lots of people openly explain that they
>> like this or that because someone taught them that they like it. As
>> though people even think that way about the things that they like.
> 
> In my opinion, the evidence for Shakespeare's greatness presented in
> this thread boils down exactly to that.

You are supposing that anyone has presented anything they consider to be 
"evidence" of his greatness or that they had any burden to provide such 
evidence.

> The fact that people
> unwittingly quote Shakespeare all the time only shows that they were
> brought up among the cultists.

Now you're going to tell us that people actively discard vocabulary that 
comes from literary works that they realize they don't care for. I've 
also found through the years that my vocabulary incorporates all kinds 
of turns of phrases from the New Testament, and I am most assuredly not 
a New Testament cultist.