Shakespeare’s Latin and Greek
antigonejournal.com
antigonejournal.com
The argument from Antigone is less compelling. It's just two poets using vaguely similar tropes.
I would say the argument is reason to think Jonson wasn't necessarily dissing Shakespeare's education, but Robert Greene certainly did in his "upstart crow" polemic. Shakespeare never showed great facility in either language. Jonson's praise poem is a bit ham-fisted (as were all praise poems, including Shakespeare's).
‘And though thou hadst small Latin and less Greek’ = ‘even if you had little knowledge of Latin and less of Greek’
The whole argument is just saying that Jonson is using the subjunctive mood, which seems obvious. If he had wanted to use the indicative, he would have written ‘thou hast’ rather than ‘thou hadst’.
If only Jonson had written it in Latin or Greek.
Reading the script is an advanced skill. I think we do a real disservice throwing unedited scripts at students.
As for what to watch, there are many great film versions. Branagh's Henry V and Much Ado About Nothing were my gateway. There is a stunning Titus by Julie Taymor, especially if you like horror -- it's an obscure play but Taymor makes a spectacle of it. There have been several very good Macbeth adaptations recently; I need to catch Denzel Washington's because I've heard it's great. There was also a very good Coriolanus recently (another obscure play given a very modern and relevant performance).
I would watch a film, and if you love it, read the play to find out how it works.
Branagh's Henry V and Polanski's Macbeth were my gateway.
Don't miss the 1995 Richard III adaptation with Sir Ian McKellen. The 2004 film version of The Merchant of Venice is also worth seeing, if only for Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons.
The Polanski Macbeth is a bit dated for my tastes, but it's definitely a great film. Some day (perhaps even now) those Branagh films are going to feel dates as well, which kinda scares me. (None of the adaptations he made after that were extraordinary, either. His Hamlet is certainly important, but I wouldn't recommend it to a new Shakespeare fan.)
One of the delights of seeing a Shakespeare play staged is when you finally hear a quote that you’ve heard a thousand times in context for the first time.
Reading would be perfectly fine if you are happy playing theatre director in your head but if you are unfamiliar with plays I advise you to go and see some before to get a sense of the space. It helps. Reading play is quite enjoyable because they are so short compared to a novel.
I don't really disagree although going to see a theater production is a higher bar than watching a movie--and, unless it's a good professional production, a good version on film will probably be better quality.
In any case, it's written for watching although of course someone may want to read an annotated version for deeper study.
(And if none of the things you can easily try turns out to be satisfactory, well, maybe it turns out you don't like Shakespeare all that much. Nothing wrong with that, either on his end or on yours.)
Even if that's what he's saying, that is a bit of an exaggeration on the part of Jonson.
I was taking a Shakespeare class and a Latin class in college, so it was amusing when I ran across it. You'd really only get it if you studied Latin, but 400 years later, Latin grammar jokes still work.