Alasdair Gray is Dead

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Mike Sales
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Mike Sales »

mercalia wrote:well Will didnt write to be read but to be seen and heard on a stage by everyone, who understood his language? So I suspect he might be amused he is now Great Literature. He was the contemporary equivalent of the cinema, out to make a hit to earn his keep at the box office?


He wrote sonnets too.

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (Sonnet 18)
William Shakespeare - 1564-1616

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

If you read the last two lines it's clear he expected them to be read.

The novel had not yet reached England, it had only just been developed by Cervantes.

Shakespeare wrote two longer narrative poems, Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece also to be read.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
mercalia
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by mercalia »

welll why did Will write the sonnets?

one answer here

https://theshakespearecode.blog/2012/08/17/why-did-william-shakespeare-write-the-sonnets/

In so doing he wasnt just engaging in art for arts sake?

They are the twitter of the day?
Last edited by mercalia on 30 Dec 2019, 9:08pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mike Sales
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Mike Sales »

mercalia wrote:welll why did Will write the sonnets?

one answer here

https://theshakespearecode.blog/2012/08/17/why-did-william-shakespeare-write-the-sonnets/

In so doing he wasnt just engaging in art for arts sake?


Does any artist? In any form?
There are many and mixed motives for artistic creation, but if the art is worth anything the artist surely has a desire to create the best work s/he can, as well, of course, as a thorough understanding of that form.
Hackwork will not reach the heights.
It's the same the whole world over
It's the poor what gets the blame
It's the rich what gets the pleasure
Isn't it a blooming shame?
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Cyril Haearn »

Plus One for fiction
Anyone read Kafka? I have a book of his short stories (some very short) but can not really get started
Typically one needs a nudge, a film related to the author, or someone explaining about him
Or maybe a cycle trip up the Elbe to Praha :wink:
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georgew
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by georgew »

mercalia wrote:welll why did Will write the sonnets?

one answer here

https://theshakespearecode.blog/2012/08/17/why-did-william-shakespeare-write-the-sonnets/

In so doing he wasnt just engaging in art for arts sake?

They are the twitter of the day?



What is meant by "just"....as if this was something of no account?

To seriously engage in any creation of "art" has great value... no matter the form this may take.

Society and humanity as a whole are enriched by it, and it provides the means by which we know ourselves and progress.
mercalia
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by mercalia »

georgew wrote:
mercalia wrote:welll why did Will write the sonnets?

one answer here

https://theshakespearecode.blog/2012/08/17/why-did-william-shakespeare-write-the-sonnets/

In so doing he wasnt just engaging in art for arts sake?

They are the twitter of the day?



What is meant by "just"....as if this was something of no account?

To seriously engage in any creation of "art" has great value... no matter the form this may take.

Society and humanity as a whole are enriched by it, and it provides the means by which we know ourselves and progress.


engaging in art for arts sake is a modern invention that has risen with the cult of the celeb? In the olde days you had to have a patron ( in the visual arts ) hence all the portraits of the aristocrats no one cares about.
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Audax67
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Audax67 »

Gray was a warm, funny, intelligent, talented man. I haven't read much of his work, just Lanark, Poor Things and a few short stories, whereof Five Letters... is my favourite.

It's a shame he's gone, although his latter years, spent in a wheelchair with an alarm button round his neck on a string, can't have been much fun.

Re not having any use for fiction: fiction speaks to imagination and inner fantasy, and if you're short on either you won't get much out of it.

Just a sec while I put my hard hat on & take cover...
Have we got time for another cuppa?
mercalia
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by mercalia »

Audax67 wrote:Gray was a warm, funny, intelligent, talented man. I haven't read much of his work, just Lanark, Poor Things and a few short stories, whereof Five Letters... is my favourite.

It's a shame he's gone, although his latter years, spent in a wheelchair with an alarm button round his neck on a string, can't have been much fun.

Re not having any use for fiction: fiction speaks to imagination and inner fantasy, and if you're short on either you won't get much out of it.

Just a sec while I put my hard hat on & take cover...



maybe quite the opposite, you need some one elses imagination and inner fantasy? :wink:
Oldjohnw
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Oldjohnw »

Fiction is hugely important as a tool for exploring aspects of human behaviour. And don't forget how satirical fiction, better than any deeply academic work, can expose dangers: 1974, Animal Farm, Gulliver's travels, much of Salman Rushdie's work, also Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn.
John
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Cyril Haearn »

'It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen'
..
Fiction, faction..
Lots of fiction is reality, the truth can be fantastic enough, no need to invent
Authors do like to bleat about plagiarism
Maybe 'the person who never copied never did anything'
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Audax67
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Audax67 »

mercalia wrote:
Audax67 wrote:Gray was a warm, funny, intelligent, talented man. I haven't read much of his work, just Lanark, Poor Things and a few short stories, whereof Five Letters... is my favourite.

It's a shame he's gone, although his latter years, spent in a wheelchair with an alarm button round his neck on a string, can't have been much fun.

Re not having any use for fiction: fiction speaks to imagination and inner fantasy, and if you're short on either you won't get much out of it.

Just a sec while I put my hard hat on & take cover...



maybe quite the opposite, you need some one elses imagination and inner fantasy? :wink:


Maybe so. Though I've had enough ideas for stories I've never worked one up far enough to publish seek publication. But I always found that writing software satisfied my inner demiurge: maybe if I'd done something dull with my life I might have written to pacify the demon. ;)

Oldjohnw wrote:Fiction is hugely important as a tool for exploring aspects of human behaviour. And don't forget how satirical fiction, better than any deeply academic work, can expose dangers: 1984, Animal Farm, Gulliver's travels, much of Salman Rushdie's work, also Pasternak and Solzhenitsyn.


Good point.
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georgew
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by georgew »

mercalia wrote:
georgew wrote:
mercalia wrote:welll why did Will write the sonnets?

one answer here

https://theshakespearecode.blog/2012/08/17/why-did-william-shakespeare-write-the-sonnets/

In so doing he wasnt just engaging in art for arts sake?

They are the twitter of the day?



What is meant by "just"....as if this was something of no account?

To seriously engage in any creation of "art" has great value... no matter the form this may take.

Society and humanity as a whole are enriched by it, and it provides the means by which we know ourselves and progress.


engaging in art for arts sake is a modern invention that has risen with the cult of the celeb? In the olde days you had to have a patron ( in the visual arts ) hence all the portraits of the aristocrats no one cares about.



God help us.

Such ignorance is beyond redemption.
Cyril Haearn
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Cyril Haearn »

I think no-one is beyond redemption :wink:
Mercalia watches lots of films, what is that if not stories/fiction?

The earliest art known is cave drawings/paintings, of animals and nature, perhaps done for religious reasons
Must have been a lot of trouble to mix the paint

Storytelling has a very long history, started before writing I think (when did people start talking?)
Knowledge about hunting grounds, cures, childbirth etc was recorded and shared
Only recently has a written tradition developed
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Polisman
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by Polisman »

Cyril Haearn wrote:I think no-one is beyond redemption :wink:
Mercalia watches lots of films, what is that if not stories/fiction?

The earliest art known is cave drawings/paintings, of animals and nature, perhaps done for religious reasons
Must have been a lot of trouble to mix the paint

Storytelling has a very long history, started before writing I think (when did people start talking?)
Knowledge about hunting grounds, cures, childbirth etc was recorded and shared
Only recently has a written tradition developed


Most films and TV series are based on written form fiction, ie books. A lot of people imagine film and television just appears as if by magic from a hat.. It doesn't. It all starts with a written version, a script, which more often then not is either inspired by, or an adaptation of a book or a play. We're all consuming fiction, all of the time, written by some normally unknown, unsung genius, somewhere.

Were it not for these people we'd be watching back to back Homes under the Hammer and Strictly. Both of which, I'll wager, are both tightly scripted versions before transmission.
mercalia
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Re: Alasdair Gray is Dead

Post by mercalia »

Polisman wrote:
Cyril Haearn wrote:I think no-one is beyond redemption :wink:
Mercalia watches lots of films, what is that if not stories/fiction?

The earliest art known is cave drawings/paintings, of animals and nature, perhaps done for religious reasons
Must have been a lot of trouble to mix the paint

Storytelling has a very long history, started before writing I think (when did people start talking?)
Knowledge about hunting grounds, cures, childbirth etc was recorded and shared
Only recently has a written tradition developed


Most films and TV series are based on written form fiction, ie books. A lot of people imagine film and television just appears as if by magic from a hat.. It doesn't. It all starts with a written version, a script, which more often then not is either inspired by, or an adaptation of a book or a play. We're all consuming fiction, all of the time, written by some normally unknown, unsung genius, somewhere.

Were it not for these people we'd be watching back to back Homes under the Hammer and Strictly. Both of which, I'll wager, are both tightly scripted versions before transmission.



I have said before thats the role for written fiction - as a source for a decent tv/cinema show. Words are very limited and dont represent how we take in eg descriptive information of a scene.
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