[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

You know, I kind of think you're illustrating Harmon's point . . . "Country matters" is a sex joke from Hamlet. . . . For all your advocacy of emphasizing the simple reading of the plays* as the overriding primary experience, and all your erudition in identifying the other allusions referenced in that post, you seem to have not picked up this fairly basic bit of works-great-on-stage wordplay.

The only point you've proved is that reading the plays does not guarantee total recollection of every line of every play. We'd been talking about JC and I wasn't focusing on Hamlet.

The problem with the point you're trying to make is that it hinges on the idea I've misinterpreted a line. What actually happened, and my effort to understand your friend on his terms makes this clear, is I'd failed to recognize the quote out of context. You're not making a case for the theater versus the page, you're only pointing out that my memory is fallible, and that I'm not googling for answers.

I hold no one at fault for what they might forget. I do hold students responsible for what they refuse to attempt.

When I first read your argument, my first impulse was to complain that the line was difficult to identify because of the usage: "country matters are more clear" as opposed to the meaning of the phrase 'country matters' is more clear."

But that wouldn't be a fair argument for me to make. If that were really true, then you wouldn't have identified the phrase, either.

I'd like to be able to say you'd been disrespectful in using the phrase "for all your erudition," but the truth is, you weren't. Such phrases are usually accompanied by sweeping anti-intellectual put-downs, but you managed to sidestep the temptation gracefully. Props for that.

Every time I see his name, I'm tempted to declaim "Will nobody rid me of this turbulent playwright?" And then write a parody I, Godot musical to the tune of the Alan Parsons Project album.

That's only amusing if you're talking to people who hate the idea of high culture in the first place -- and the funny thing is, Beckett himself's in that camp.

Points of contention: Beckett is anything but turbulent, musicals annoy me as much, perhaps, as Beckett annoys you, and the whole bit about defrocking high culture with guitars and synths is a joke that lived and died with 60s pop culture. There is no more ivory tower. Rock has won, professors actually teach Bruce Springsteen, and nearly every corporate billionaire knows how to rock out. It isn't an anti-bourgeois art form any more.

And as a person who made his living in New York for years as a studio keyboardist, I have to say that, for me, there's more music in Endgame than any Alan Parsons piece I've ever heard. I'm not saying you shouldn't like it. I'm saying we disagree.

I'll scan a couple of sample pages when I've got some more free time to demonstrate how they often work quite well by providing pictures to enhance the words

You yourself seem to be illustrating another of your friend's points (sans the dishonesty-in-quotes charge):

Actually, what's "dishonest" is to say people are making an argument that they are not actually making.

It appears you might have misunderstood something I've said several times. The point is not that theatrical versions, films or even comic books should be disallowed or discouraged as artistic experiences. What I'm saying is that students in school should have to read the plays and not simply see them. Of course they can watch performances; of course they can look at whatever other adaptations they like. I can see great incentive for a student to write about a graphic novel adaptation and perhaps go into the differences and parallels between the play and the adaptation. All I'm saying is this: students should be required to read the plays and that should be the focus.

I've made that point several times in my few posts on this thread. I'd respectfully like to know that you actually heard me and weren't continuing to build a case against a point that wasn't mine -- the idea that adaptations were worthless, unhelpful, sacrilegious, etc., etc.