Shakespeare, Should He Be Afeared That We Think He Didn't Write King Lear?

In class the other day, we began to discuss the controversy surrounding whether or not Shakespeare wrote his own plays.  It is true that there are certain scenes in his plays that were clearly written by someone else because they lacked the syntax and finesse characteristic of the rest of Shakespeare's work.  Many people believe that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays because some of them include information that required extensive legal knowledge, indicate that the author was well-traveled, and had a higher education, none of which historians are able to attribute to Shakespeare.  There are no documents pertaining to his plays and nothing written in his own hand.  A handful of Shakespeare's documents have been discovered, including his will and a document regarding financial transactions, but none of them mention his plays.  However, in his defense, in Shakespeare's time, very few records have survived regarding education, and even so, one doesn't have to have attended Harvard in order to write exquisitely.  Also, no one questioned his authorship until around two hundred years later, during a time when people were enamored with conspiracy theories.  Over the years, many people have been proposed as the author of the works attributed to Shakespeare.  They are so numerous that it would be impossible to list them all here, although there are two candidates that are of particular consequence:  Edward de Vere and Francis Bacon.  Below are the links to two interesting articles that discuss this issue.  Read them and decide for yourself whether or not you believe the man we attribute some of the finest literature in to English language to was the  extraordinary wordsmith he has been made out to be.  


  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shakespeare/reactions/murphyarticle.html


  http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2011/10/did-shakespeare-really-write-his-plays-a-few-theories-examined/


I am currently trying to read Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare by James Shapiro, the leading authority on the Pro-Shakespeare argument.  This might take me a while, as it is rather dense reading, but I will do my best to update this post if I discover anything interesting.

Greatest Achievement

An important achievement to me would be for people to remember me in a positive way. As Macbeth says, "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,/ creeps in this petty pace from day to day" (5.5.19-20). In other words, we will all die. Although we don't get to choose how we die, we get to choose how we are remembered. I don't want people, be it my family, my friends, my classmates, teammates, teachers, or coaches, to remember me in a negative way. I want them to remember me as a person who always did the right thing, was hardworking, and was fun to be around. Although some people are not going to see me this way at all, if many remembered me as more of a good person than a bad person, I will have achieved a lot. This helps me to live my life in a way that goes by these values. Of course I have many moments that do not go along with this aim at all, but it helps me think before I act (usually).
I would not cross moral or legal boundaries to achieve my goal because that would definitely not help me achieve it at all.
Other, less "deep" achievements that do not involve other people's thoughts would be to get really good at the things I love like field hockey, piano, and trombone or to get such amazing grades that I could get into any school I want. I would not cross any moral or legal boundaries to achieve these goals because, like Lady Macbeth, I would feel really guilty in the future. Achieving something by crossing legal or moral boundaries is like not achieving anything at all other than proving that you have no conscience or ethics.
However, none of these would be my "greatest achievement" that I could ever accomplish, and I really don't know what would be. My greatest achievement will probably occur much later in life once I know what profession or path I choose. I doubt that my greatest achievement will occur in high school, even if it is to be happy or have me be remembered well. In order to pinpoint my projected greatest achievement at age 15, I would need to look into my future, which is not something I want to do. Therefore, although these are some goals that would be nice to accomplish, I have no idea what my "greatest achievement" will/would be.

Greatest achievement

After pondering the question of what the greatest accomplishment I could possibly achieve is, and after making a mental list of everything that I could possibly want to achieve, I realized that I really just want to achieve happiness. As cliche as that sounds, I believe that accomplishments should really be something to be proud of, something that I can look back on and be happy that I can say that I did that thing, whether it be earning lots of money, marrying the girl of my dreams, saving a baby dolphin, whatever makes me happy or allows me to be happy. I would not cross any legal boundaries in order to achieve this, because those kinds of achievements only grant momentray happinness, for the rest of your life you would be running away from the law or being paranoid of being caught, so that would not bring much pleasure. I don't just want to be happy in the moment of actually accomplishing it, but look back and realize that it wasn't worth much; I want to look back and really appreciate what I had done.

The Black Sheep Will Always Roll In Flour

I’m not sure that I could select one achievement to be life’s greatest accomplishment, yet all of the possible answers to this question are essentially the same, so I don’t think that it’s necessary that I choose.  One might say that the greatest accomplishment in life is happiness, achieving world peace, or "enjoying the journey", which is ostensibly how the rest of my classmates feel.  I am very glad that they feel this way, and that their goals aren’t at all  glib.                                                                    

However, I don’t think that it’s possible to respond otherwise without being ostracized.  I think that this question is a tad silly because there really is only one socially acceptable answer.  I don’t think that anyone would say that  the greatest accomplishment one could achieve in life is to be the dictator of Russia and that they would cross any legal or moral boundaries necessary to accomplish their goals, including arranging for the murders of anyone who was in their way.             

This question is nearly identical to a question we were asked a few weeks ago regarding whether or not we would “screw our best friend over to get an ‘A’ in the class”.  It makes me wonder if these questions are being asked to find out whether there are any sociopaths in the class, although I doubt that any sociopath that hasn’t manifested themselves already would be foolish enough to divulge their true nature.  I don’t even think that Macbeth himself would have been careless enough to answer that question truthfully.  The only socially acceptable answer to either question is obviously “no”.  I think that it’s safe to say that no student would admit that they would indeed want to succeed at the expense of others.

The Perfect Accomplishment

It’s funny. I was skimming other people’s blog posts about their greatest accomplishments in life, “to be happy” or “to destroy corruption.” When this question was first posed to me absolutely none of this came to my mind. I’m too selfish for that. I thought long and hard and, realistically, the best thing I could do is become like a world-famous writer. However, realism sucks. Unrealistically, achieving perfection would be the greatest achievement I could ever have – you could even say it is the perfect achievement. I mean, I’d never screw up again. I’d be all A+’s, a pro at love, a killer in the business world. The thing is, I wouldn’t do anything to be perfect. There isn’t any moral or legal boundary I would cross. I mean, perfection insinuates I wouldn’t have to do anything like that to achieve perfection because it would all work out perfectly. However, if that weren’t how perfection worked, yeah, I’d definitely embezzle some money to be perfectly honest. Murder, that’s a route I’d never take for perfection.

Greatest Accomplishment

    I believe that the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in your life is to leave a positive mark on the world. However, the number of people you leave a mark on doesn't determine one's successfulness in life. Whether it be one person, or a hundred people, it is still considered a great accomplishment because your life is now lived through or recognized by someone else's. Realizing that you have everything you need in your life in order to be happy is another great accomplishment. It is when you blow out the candles on your birthday cake and when you make a wish, you don't make one because you realize that you don't have anything to wish for since you already have it all. Although many people think that happiness is the greatest accomplishment in life, I believe that happiness cannot be achieved, but is earned from making other people happy or leaving a positive mark on the world. In order to achieve this accomplishment, one does not have to go to great lengths. One could leave a positive mark on the world by simply smiling at someone and making their day, or one could go to great lengths by creating a charity to help raise money for a disease. One does not have to cross any moral or legal boundaries in order to achieve this accomplishment, since the steps one has to take to make a positive impact on a person is not morally wrong or illegal to do.

Greatest Accomplishment?

I think the greatest accomplishment I could achieve in life is to live a happy life. True happiness is probably one of the most important and hardest things to obtain in life.  I could only hope that I could have it by the end of my life, because it is what makes life worth living.  No matter how selfish it seems, I think that living a happy life for yourself is the most important considering it is your life and you only have one chance at making it a good one. By the end of my life it won't matter what kinds of things I had, but what kinds of relationships I had with people and myself. Also bringing happiness to other people, since that ultimately makes the giver happier. Those types of things are what brings real happiness to life and usually don't require breaking laws or morals.   Those types of things essentially make crossing legal or moral boundaries unnecessary. But if I did something that broke the law to be happy, it would be because I don't agree with a law.   As for breaking morals, it really depends what my morals are.  Something viewed wrong by one person can be considered okay for another.  So in that case, I would never break my own morals but I could break other's.  Overall, I think it depends on what lengths the individual is willing to take in order to reach the accomplishment of being happy.  Breaking laws are possible for me, but breaking my morals are not. 

“What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.”

For me, I think that the greatest accomplishment I could achieve would be to be satisfied with my life and what I have done. I think that even if I achieved great things like finding the cure to a disease or discovering a way to travel to mars, if I was not happy with what I had done, then it wouldn’t be an accomplishment. In terms of what I would consider to be a successful life, I hope to be able to travel the world and experience as many new experiences as possible, as well as meet as many people and learn from everyone along the way. In the same way that I hope to be impacted by these experiences and people, I also hope that I will be able to have a positive impact on them and the world around me as well. I think that if I am able to incorporate these things into my life, no matter what else I do I will be happy with myself and that will be the greatest accomplishment. I don’t really find that this type of accomplishment would require crossing any moral or legal boundaries. I do hope that in the future everything that I do will be legal and “the right thing to do” in terms of the morals of the situation. Overall, although I don’t have any specific idea of what I would like to accomplish in life, I know that I would like to be happy with and proud of what I have done.

Ignorance is Bliss?

If one believes that one can't alter one's own fate, that fate is the life's irreversible course, that fate is simply the knowledge of what the future most definitely holds, then would you or would you not want to know yours?

Personally, I think that if my fate was in my favor, then it might be a relief to know parts of it.  If I knew that I would be successful no matter what I did, then I think I would be happier because I wouldn't have to worry (although worrying is a pointless emotion anyway because it doesn't accomplish anything).  It would be easier to live in the moment, to be spontaneous, to walk outside and dance in the leaves and appreciate the moss on the trees and breathe the crisp air.  Who wouldn't want to be that free?

On the other hand, if I found out that despite all of my efforts, I would amount to very little, if they told me that me that I would end up sitting in a windowless room doing some stranger's accounting, if someone said that my greatest joy in life would be eating leftover tofu, I think that I would rather not know.  My mentality is that you're not sick until you start coughing.  Why would anyone want to be burdened with the knowledge of the ill that would certainly befall them in the future before said dreadful event actually happened?  I don't think that it's possible to completely prepare oneself for tragedy.  It's much better to enjoy what is happening now than to fret about the future. 

Greatest Achievement

Frankly, I am not very original, and I do not like to stray from the pack, so I started to read some other posts on the blog about this topic and they all were the same. Happiness, and Helping Others are the two acceptable topics to write about in this prompt, but I think there could be more to this. I am not saying anyone is wrong. Its an opinionated prompt, nevertheless I hope to come across as different from the rest

            The greatest achievement in life is to make so many mistakes that when you get old you will never make one again. Now I do not mean illegal mistakes, or the ones that cost you your job or home, but little ones. Ones that make a person grow more familiar and more comfortable with their self. For example when the mistake I made when I tried to write a research paper in one night. That’s one I will not repeat that, because I have learned that it does not work out well for my paper, or for any other home due the next day. I have learned that I’m not a fast typer and I should manage my time a bit better, at least doing the research before hand. Its important to know everything there is to know about your self, because you only get one self and every day for almost a century you have to be yourself. By making mistakes, you figure out what you can and cannot do and then make adjustments based on what you know. Somewhat like a life long science experiment, and the sooner you make all your mistakes the sooner you can live a fulfilling life. This is explains the term "young and reckless" means making mistakes while you are young is a necessity in order to cease to make them when you get older. The expression "old and wise" comes into play later in life and implies that you know everything about yourself because at one point the you were once young and reckless and had your fair share of mistakes. Once you make enough mistakes and learn from them you can finally achieve happiness and lead a more complete life and come to terms with everything around you.

Greed of Power

"She should have died hereafter. / There would have been a time for such a word. / Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time, / And all our yesterdays have lighted fools / The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! / Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more. It is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, /Signifying nothing," 

Throughout Macbeth, Macbeth has changed completely. In the beginning he could not even stick up for himself to his wife, and he let Lady Macbeth boss him around. We see the first change for him after he killed Duncan, because obviously taking someone's life will affect him. After he decides to have people kill Banquo, another change for Macbeth is apparent. At that point he is more relentless and decisive. That could be the case because now he is knee deep in achieving and maintaing his ultimate goal of being king and having heirs. Therefore, there is no going back. He has already killed people to aid his success and he has to continue to kill people to ensure his absolute rule. It is strange to think how he seemed like the underdog  and weak male in the beginning, but power hunger has turned him into a heartless man.  Macbeth says the quote above in Act 5 scene 5. He is saying that life is nothing more than an illusion, and its a tale told by an idiot. Furthermore, he is expressing that while life is full of noise, problematic situations, obstacles, their is no true meaning of any of this at the end of the day. 

On a different note, it is interesting to look at how power can affect people. Macbeth is the prime example through out the play, as he originally seems so weak, but ends up becoming a whole different person due to power. However, the irony here is that when Macbeth started to gain power as King, people started to dislike him such as Malcolm. By the end of Macbeth, Macbeth's head is on a platter because of Macduff, and Malcolm is now king. ITS ALL A VISCOUS  CYCLE. No matter what anyone says, everyone is affected by power, its in our human nature. Unfortunately, everyone in one way or another changes because of their greed for power, and this is a never ending cycle. 

Greatest Accomplishment

“What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.”

There are many levels of accomplishments that I would hope to achieve during my lifetime, whether it be something in the short term such as somehow passing my biology class, or long term such as getting into a good college that leads to an interesting job that involves something other than sitting in a cubicle all day. However, as for the greatest accomplishment I could imagine, it would have to be something that involved helping mass amounts of people. This could be something like the stereotypical greatest goal of ending world hunger, or finding an easy cure to cancer, or all diseases for that matter. Morally, I don't think that there would be much I wouldn't be willing to do to achieve something like that. If the end result helped more than whatever I did that crossed a moral or legal boundary, then I would be willing to do it. Although there aren't many examples that I could think of involving morality for the cancer cure example, if it was something like having access to someone else's research only I couldn't have their approval, I would probably do it since it the end it would save tons of people. As for legally, I would not be as likely to break the law. For example, if the cure involved using illegal or dangerous materials, then I would probably stay as far away from that as possible. Basically, I think that as long as the end result made up for the measures that it took to get there by a decent amount, it would be worth it.

Life's Greatest Accomplishment

Life is composed of a wide range of epochs all interconnected. At each time one has a different attitude, mindset and opinion regarding their decisions. While some may argue fate yields all accomplishments and decisions inconsequential, I would imagine at this point everyone has some sort of idea of their goals. 30 years from now I hope to be successful. I hope to make a change in the world for the better. Whether in medicine, education, or law I hope to have my work influence a wide variety of people. The greatest accomplishment, at least in my eyes, is one that aids others in reach their accomplishments. From being a teacher and showing someone their true potential to a doctor saving someone with an ailment I hope to be in a career that allows me to do something meaningful.

While everyone hopes to impact the world morally, everyone also hopes to have the same comforts of life they were endowed with as children. When I am an adult I hope to be able to provide for my family everything I have been given. I hope to have a home and enough money to be able to allot my children to do what every they may please.

Unlike Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, I would not be willing to cross moral and legal boundaries to reach my goals in life. By trying to be successful, I would not want to impede the progress of other people. I believe that half of success is the pride one has from earning something. By trying to reach a goal by doing something illegal, I would know that I did not deserve what I have. This guilt would fuel a dissatisfaction in my possessions and lead to further criminal activity.

Contrary to the blog posts of others I do not believe that happiness is the indicator for success. While looking up the meaning of the word happiness, I come across a pertinent article on LifeHacker. The article told of Harvard psychologist, Shawn Ancor. He spent more then 10 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts researching happiness and success. He concluded that happiness does not arise from success and is not a symptom of it. He concluded that "When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work". He implied that when we are happy we can foster success. 

Happiness Article: http://lifehacker.com/happiness-isn-t-the-outcome-of-success-it-s-the-fuel-1653915516

“What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.”

I think my greatest accomplishment would be to have an impact on a social issue in the world today. Whether I help fight ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, sickness, poverty etc., I think that is truly the greatest accomplish I could achieve. This is going to sound really cheesy, but I think we all have some sort of power for change. No matter how small, we can change something. I hope in life I will be able to use that power for change for a great purpose. 

As for boundaries, I wouldn't cross drastic moral and legal boundaries (i.e murder, cheating,). It wouldn't be needed to make any sort of change. If I were to commit murder or cheat in order to achieve my goal, I'm not really achieving my goal. I would be causing more harm than good, which goes against my original accomplishment. Although, people in the past have disobeyed the law to start a movement, like Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, so I think I might cross some legal boundaries if they weren't harmful.     

Greatest Achievement Response

What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.

For me, the greatest achievement I can think of would be helping others as much as possible. I find it very hard to live in a world with such corruption and suffering and I want to do as much as I can to ease it. Depending on what kind of lengths, I think I would go pretty far to make the world a better place, including environmental issues and racism and such. Basically, I want to make the world as perfect as possible. I have seen many responses about how being happy with yourself is considered the greatest achievement, but I can't be happy while I see others who aren't. I believe I would find my happiness in helping others and therefore I could basically get two birds with one stone. Any legal or moral boundaries I could cross would probably end up hurting someone and whatever boundaries I'd cross would have to depend on who was affected in what way. 

For Old Mac, The Farm Wasn't Enough

Honestly, after finishing Macbeth, I am overwhelmingly puzzled by the play, its plot, characters, and supposedly flowery Elizabethan language (I can barely comprehend it, much less truly appreciate it).  I am not really sure what kinds of messages Shakespeare was trying to convey.                                                                             

Although I am not particularly well acquainted with the form of classic Greek tragedies, it's possible to draw a few parallels, such as the use of three fates, the idea of of bad things happening to good people, and that favorite humanist theme of a man a the height of power losing it all.  Shakespeare uses the porter, and later the dialogue between Lady Macduff and her son as comic relief, but I didn't find his ribald sense of humor particularly comedic.                                                

Macbeth starts out as a potentially heroic protagonist, but his character quickly shifts into that of a heinous villain.  This occurs after he meets three cotton tops on the side of the road who think they know something about his future.  For a thane of Scotland, Macbeth is pretty gullible.  Just because they tell him that he will be king, he decides that makes it okay to massacre his fellow countrymen, including assassinating the king, who was doing a perfectly fine job of ruling Scotland, and his best friend, Banquo.  Macbeth doesn't stop to consider for one moment that those pruny old ladies could have no idea what they are talking about.  He also automatically assumes that he has to murder everyone he comes in contact with in order to fulfill their prophecy.             

Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, contrasts the cultural and historical roles of women in her character.  In order not to hurt her feelings, let's start by complimenting her leadership skills.  While most women in medieval Scotland stayed home and cared for children, with little to no influence on their husbands’ actions, Lady Macbeth rules the roost.  She adroitly manipulates Macbeth into doing what she wants him to do, whether or not he has any qualms about it.  She is also an unconventional woman because she defies the status quo of women's traditional roles.  Lady Macbeth is ambitious and realizes that there's more to life for a woman than having children, like orchestrating assassinations and plotting ways to obtain power (of course).  She is so steadfastly loyal that she would rather smash out a baby's brains than break her word.  Most people can't claim to have a modicum of her dedication.  However, she's stuck playing the traditional role of woman as temptress, which is pretty stereotypical.  (I mean, we've seen this since Adam and Eve.  Everyone knows that women are the root of all evil in the world.  That's just so obvious.  Why else would we have war, plagues, and death?)                                   

Macbeth does have some redeeming qualities, though.  All of the important characters die in the end, which is perversely amusing.  I was at least able to understand that much of this inscrutable play.

Life and Wu

The greatest achievement in life is to live morally and in balance. To live by your own code of morals, so long as it isn’t at the expense of others, no matter who is or isn’t watching until death is the greatest feat a human can accomplish. Following these rules does not always lead to happiness, but rather satisfaction or peace with oneself. It is simply not possible for a human to follow these morals since birth to death, so to accept that there is no way to reach this perfect balance, is the key. In essence, to come to peace with yourself is the most difficult as well as most venerable achievement in life. Accepting all of your flaws and realizing that not only is perfection non-existent in humanity, but also unobtainable, should be considered the highest tier of human achievement. Like the Zen masters say, the result of years of meditation is Wu, or nothingness. The Zen Koans exemplify that life’s peak comes from when one accepts they cannot comprehend life.

Greatest Accomplishment

I believe that the greatest accomplishment that I could achieve in life is being comfortable being myself, as well as what everyone else was saying, which is happiness.  I think that being comfortable and proud of who you are, is the greatest achievement that you could ever gain in life. This is because, if you are proud of who you are, then you will be happy, and good things happen to those who are optimistic. I’m not saying that all good things happen to all good and happy people, that’s not true; a lot of horrible things happen to very good people. But, if you are happy, then you will realize that this one bad event should not define you or your life. I think that if you are proud of who you are, this leads to a chain reaction of positive things, which leads to a good life, and the only thing that you are really going to care about when you are on your deathbed is not whether of not you won that trophy in sixth grade, but whether or not you are proud of who you were and what you did with your life. Because this accomplishment is all based off of you, there would not be many ‘great lengths’ that you would have to go to, in order to achieve this accomplishment. However, if someone told you that if you cheated on this one test, you would get in to college and be happy and have a lot of money; I would not do it. This is because in the end, you  would not be happy because your whole life would be based off a lie and you could never be proud of who you are/were. Lastly, I would not cross any moral boundaries to achieve this. This is because, if you don’t stay true to your moral boundaries, then you will never accomplish this goal/achievement in the long run. It isn’t about short term happiness or short term acceptance of yourself, it’s about being happy and proud of yourself overall.