#also many ppl have only read snippets of the sequence out of context | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

britneyshakespeare · 6 months ago

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Well I just personally consider plays to be a very different literary form than sonnet sequences, as writers from the English Renaissance also did. The sonnets and the longer poems are obviously part of his canon but they're a different experience. I think of the First Folio as the book that ultimately cements Shakespeare's legacy as an author, and that book makes no reference to the non-dramatic poetry.

I'm curious about people's levels of familiarity; I intend no judgment or elitism and it's absolutely fine not to be a completionist, btw. I didn't think I would've intended to have read them all at age 25; it just sort of happened that after I passed the halfway point in the middle of 2023, I came out of a reading slump and was motivated to finish. Fwiw I consider myself a hobbyist (I am not involved in academia or professional theater) but I realize that that label is usually attributed to people with less experience.

I also have always loved seeing other bloggers' Shakespeare polls where they put certain plays or characters up against each other, but I'm often left wondering if it's really a 'fair' fight all the time if you're putting up something like Hamlet or Twelfth Night against one of the more obscure works, like the Winter's Tale. It's not a grave affront to vote in those polls if you don't know every play, but I am curious about it.

Please reblog for exposure if you vote; I would appreciate it a lot. Also feel free to elaborate on your own Shakespeare journey in tags, comments, reblogs, because I love to hear about other people's personal relationships to literature.

#im also somewhat conservative in that i dont consider two noble kinsmen canonical in this poll #not to say it cant be considered that by anyone. it's just only recently been accepted #when i think of the history of shakespeare publication i think of pericles as the only non-first folio text to be accepted as canon #i guess im also more of a traditionalist in that i think of the sonnets/v&a/lucrece as 'exceptions' in his body of work #the man was a playwright. he dabbled in more courtly poetry as a sidehustle #cont #also many ppl have only read snippets of the sequence out of context #that's different than treating the sequence as a whole as one large work. like the longer poems #bc u can do that w sonnets. so it's almost unfair to include the sonnets bc so many ppl both have and haven't read them

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