Serious shortage of Philosopher Kings reported

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Marquis

<img src="http://www.newyorker.com/images/2013/02/11/cartoons/130211_cartoon_095_a17107_p465.gif">

ADGS

<span style="font-family: 'lucida grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', tahoma, sans-serif; line-height: 20.796875px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"Philosophy is not religion with prophets whose authority is to be respected" - well, this was always my understanding, but I find depressingly common the assumption that simply because someone has been a recognised name for a few centuries, their ideas must have some merit. Especially when you consider how much stuff by potentially much better philosophers has been lost in the collapse of the classical world. cf any number of post-apocalyptic stories in which one absurd text from the modern day survives into a future civilisation and is acclaimed as a work of divine inspiration. In what we possess of Aristotle and Plato, I think we have the equivalent of a copy of <i>The World according to Clarkson</i>, and Anders Breivik's manifesto. </span>

kreuzkav

Agree with ADGS's quote.  Shakespeare was a good writer but not a god.  Destroy your idols!

ADGS

Shakespeare is one of the few canonical figures I really do think is everything he was cracked up to be. Also, a man from Stratford who wrote under his own name.

Marquis

Slightly off district, but you may find <a href="http://www.helleniccentre.org/pages/events-culture/upcoming-events/what-can-we-learn-from-the-ancient-greeks-today.php">this event</a> at the Hellenic centre on Wednesday 27 interesting. The content of the lectures can be expected to be biased but I am sure there will be opportunity to discuss all views in a well-informed environment.

miss annie

Shakespeare dismissed as just 'a good writer'? Which author/playwrights would you consider to be better?

Mirandola

I've some sympathy with Kreuzkav here. The Shakespeare cult (hushed voice intoning about the wisdom of the bard) almost kills him for me.

miss annie

Me too but that tends to be just theatrical (or am-dram types) and academics. The Janeites do it too but I still think she's brilliant.

ADGS

I'm with the Brontes on Austen. My only real problem with Shakespeare is when people quote eg 'To thine own self be true' or 'neither a borrower nor a lender be' as the Wisdom of Shakespeare, when in fact both are quotes from lines which, while written by Shakespeare, are not his own opinions, but lines he gave to an idiot. 

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miss annie

There's plenty of room for the Brontes and Austen. I like the high gothic drama of the Brontes and Jane's more subtle observational style. Austen's stories are drawn from the day to day stuff that occupies most people's minds - making enough cash, their social lives, courting and gossip and I often recommended them to teenagers as an easy path into the classics. Teenage girls absolutely adore Wuthering Heights - a lovelorn nutcase looning about on a moor in a blizzard is right up their street.

vetski

@missannie, I think it depends on the teenage girl - I found all the emoting all over the shop so tedious as a teenager that I couldn't finish it! Re-read as adult - barely tolerable. I love Jane Eyre, but didn't like Villette so much.