(no subject)
Jan. 21st, 2011 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
proximoceptionNot all bad Shakespeare plays are boring, though it's hard to not find all his boring ones bad.
Still, these ones are boring but probably not bad:
Henry 8; Coriolanus; Pericles; maybe Two Noble Kinsmen
Relatively bad but not boring are:
Titus Andronicus; Henry 6, Part 2; Henry 6, Part 3; Richard 3; John; Taming of the Shrew; Merry Wives of Windsor; Timon of Athens; Henry 5, if I'm allowed to say so; Merchant of Venice, ditto
Bad and boring:
Henry 6, Part 1; All's Well that Ends Well; Two Gentlemen of Verona
Henry 6-1 gets a partial reprieve for starting a non-boring but bad series, but if I ever read those last two plays again it will be out of perversity.
Such is the nature of life that I recommend the second group over the first, actually. But for after one's read and reread the ones I didn't list.
***
Sontag said boredom is a form of frustration, a phrase that's stuck in my head for fifteen years because it's presented with such authority despite so clearly being wrong. I mean, obviously a lot of boring things are frustrating because they're so damn boring.
Of course I see what she means - when you're trying and failing to grasp something, you're bored because you're alone with your own failure. The ungrasped something may be blameless. So there's a lame version of boredom, and I may have this re. Coriolanus. But there is also a completely justified boredom, like trying to wade through the non-Shakespeare parts of Pericles. If that's frustration too, it's a frustration that's a form of boredom.
I've been kind of annoyed with her ever since reading that. Never drop qualifiers - "can be" in this case - from an otherwise sensible statement to get attention. It's frustrating.
Still, these ones are boring but probably not bad:
Henry 8; Coriolanus; Pericles; maybe Two Noble Kinsmen
Relatively bad but not boring are:
Titus Andronicus; Henry 6, Part 2; Henry 6, Part 3; Richard 3; John; Taming of the Shrew; Merry Wives of Windsor; Timon of Athens; Henry 5, if I'm allowed to say so; Merchant of Venice, ditto
Bad and boring:
Henry 6, Part 1; All's Well that Ends Well; Two Gentlemen of Verona
Henry 6-1 gets a partial reprieve for starting a non-boring but bad series, but if I ever read those last two plays again it will be out of perversity.
Such is the nature of life that I recommend the second group over the first, actually. But for after one's read and reread the ones I didn't list.
***
Sontag said boredom is a form of frustration, a phrase that's stuck in my head for fifteen years because it's presented with such authority despite so clearly being wrong. I mean, obviously a lot of boring things are frustrating because they're so damn boring.
Of course I see what she means - when you're trying and failing to grasp something, you're bored because you're alone with your own failure. The ungrasped something may be blameless. So there's a lame version of boredom, and I may have this re. Coriolanus. But there is also a completely justified boredom, like trying to wade through the non-Shakespeare parts of Pericles. If that's frustration too, it's a frustration that's a form of boredom.
I've been kind of annoyed with her ever since reading that. Never drop qualifiers - "can be" in this case - from an otherwise sensible statement to get attention. It's frustrating.
