"By the standard you set no period piece would be possible. I get pretty annoyed when I see misrepresentations or anachronisms in movies or whatever, but what you should really judge the work on is its quality of storytelling, not some historical fanboy criteria of accuracy. "

I think you have to look at the purpose of a work. I think that's an acceptable criteria for judging it. Especially because if we value a work for what it says about the human condition, because the author's intent is a reflection of that.

So, with Julius Caesar, the work is not really about Caesar at all, or really any of the Roman characters. The setting of Rome is used as an allegory for Britain at the time it was written. So you cannot judge Julius Caesar as a 'historical' piece, really. But Richard III was explicitly about the time period the story took place in. It was explicitly taking political positions, it's purpose was political. It was also sending a message about fate/divine punishment vs free will. So you have to judge it according to its own explicitly stated purpose.

I don't believe you take a work and simply ignore the author's intent, or gut artwork from its message.

On the other hand, I don't think you can simply admire a work of literature for its message while ignoring its style and form. It goes both ways. On this score Orwell must be dismissed as a horrible writer.

@Frank - Most of my list has been read in the last 20 years and I've been married 22 years, out of college 25, so that should tell you something. I'm surrently reading Les Miserables (the full 1800 page translation, not some stupid abreviated form the musical version) because I *want* too and am enjoying it, although it started off rather slow with the background behind the Bishop of Digne.

So it isn't a list of "had to reads" but a list of "wanted to reads and enjoyed and kept in the permanent library". Of course, I collect antique hardcover's like my "second" edition Ben-Hur (it has the revised dedication that distinguishes it from the brief first printing).

OK, seven hours gone--that was a fruitless job hunt, four busses, East and West side, and nothing to show for it...and the Mets lost, damn it!--so, to catch up, one by one...

@fieldler:

I'm not trying to make everyone agree math's rubbish...because *I* don't think it's rubbish.

I think it's rubbish that *I* should have to learn what I perceive as a specialized level of mathematics--and, again, I hold the same way for those Math majors who might hate Literature classes, and to those who hold the "Well, College Algebra 102 really ISN'T that specialized, Obi" angle, I respond as I have continuously so far, namely, until you can tell me taht MOST people use the Quadratic Formula daily in their lives or that MOST people need to learn Macbeth and the difference between a Marxist and New Historicist interpretation of Macbeth, then those are SPECIALIZED SKILLS and not everyone needs to learn them as 1. Those who don't need it suffer from wasted time they could be spending either developing job skills they'll actually use in THEIR careers or else taking classes that fit with THEIR major and 2. This means that there are those NOT interested int he material in the class, and as my colelge is cutting a TON of classes, and for many WITH the corresponding major it's hard to get the classes they need and want, it seems all the more wasteful to open up said classes to those who don't want to be their and don't need to be there in the first place.

But, no, math is NOT rubbish--MATH IS VERY IMPORTANT!

Without math, heck, I wouldn't be able to send this message right now!

But that doesn't meant that EVERYONE needs to have the same degree of understanding of math, and other than basic addition/substraction/multiplication/division, learning percents, and then some geometry for housework and such...the rest of math is specialized for APPLICATIONS, not just to learn...so if I'm not going to become a systems analyst or a physicist, I fail to see why I should learn math used, when applied in practice, to accomplish a physicist's task when...I'm not, do not have the ability to be, and do not wish to be a physicist! :)

@ulytau:

I'm biased, but it tells me that you need to try another Shakespeare play, particularly if you liked R&J, because there are FAR better works (and leaving Shakespeare, there are far better works of romantic tragedy PERIOD...Tristan and Iseult, Lancelot and Guinevere in Mallory's work, and for a shorter work that I personally like, try the Sherlock Holmes mystery "The Cardboard Box" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or watch the Jeremy Brett TV version...that was the last episode they made of the Brett series, he died shortly thereafter, and they go out with a BANG, it's one of the best episodes, and a really complicated love story with a few sisters, a lodger, and a sailor husband, two severed ears...and all at Christmas time!) :D

Also, to comment very quickly on your assessment of those four philosophers:

-Plato...yes, he does contradict himself here and there, so I can see where the "hypocrite" stance might come from, but remember that his works were written in dialogue form, so what is said in one place might be MEANT to sound absurd or be refuted later, and what's more, he has distinct periods, and those periods don't always mesh, he developed as a writer...for a famous example, in "The Phaedo," Plato has Socrates describe the soul as being infinitely sumple and harmonious, and yet in the slightly-later "The Republic," he says the soul is made up of three parts, Wisdom, Courage, and Temperance (or a likewise-translated word, there are different translation of the third part's name) and these are to mirror the Gold, Silver, and Bronze nature of the "Metals" and the Rulers, Guardians, and Workers in his Republic. So...yes, those two interpretations clash, it can't be both one simple thing and yet also exist in three parts--unless you're a Christian! OH DEAR...! Just a joke, no one jump off a bridge or inton a flame war--but it's entirely possible Plato just changed his mind, for as brilliant as he was, he WAS human, after all...or, as some philosophers and historians read it, the earlier dialogues are to be taken as Socrates' own ideas, and the later ideas are strictly Plato, the dificulty then becomes those dialogues in-between, and these are roughly in the middle of Plato's career. So yes, he might have contradicted what he said, but there ARE possible reasonable explanations as to why.

-That's actually a reason my favorite philosophy professor doesn't care for Nietzsche as much as others; even still, that was just his style, and for whatever it's worth, where my philosophy professors stated he was important but they themselves didn't care for him, nearly all my Literature professors LOVE Nietzsche (well, except one, the Anglophile, but she's so much of a self-hating American and a wanna-be Englishwoman she hates jsut about ANY non-English writer or philospher I bring in...Sartre, Homer, and Nietzsche so far are 0-3 with her...but her reaactions when I dare mention them are so priceless I just have to slip them in every now and again...) ;) Also, on his later works--yes, those WERE corrupted by his sister (and I actually think that led to a great deal of harsher criticism from the 20th Century English philosophers than might have occured otherwise, Russell in particular seems to be responding to the Corrupted Nietzsche rather than the Restored Nietzsche...so yes, most of his later works are NOW restored, as after WWII many scholars, both in Germany and abroad, set to the task of combing through his huge library--which still stands today--and they found some of his original mauscrips and earlier versions BEFORE his sisters' interference, and these versions mesh much nicer with the other works he has and lose that Anti-Semetic stench the sisters tried to cram in there...the one still-iffy work is "The Will to Power," as that was never technically a book, but was compiled from Nietzsche's manuscripts and outlines after he died, so whatever they might have become had Nietzsche lived longer is lost, adn what they are now is essentially the more tangent-happy side of Nietzsche on OVERDRIVE, so it's full of interesting quotes and ideas, but what it gells into is still to be determined.

-Sartre preceded Camus, I believe, so he's not bare-bones Camus so much as Camus is just Sartre "fleshed-out," and that's hard to do without the groundwork, which Sartre would have laid...though I don't think Satre's dull or bare-bones.

-I have yet to read Hegel as well, the one book he has at the Barnes & Noble near me is over $20 with tax--too much for one book for me, generally, and as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both strongly despised aspects of Hegel, so I've heard,m and I've read and liked them...I'm even LESS inclined to spend that $20 on that text with others to choose from! :)

@Mafialligator:

I'm fully aware everyone in the English-speaking world (and beyond...yes, I've seen "The Klingon Hamlet," but ignored both the Literature and Trekker nerd impulses in me and haven't yet picked it up!) likes "Hamlet."

(Well...I've met plenty who haven't, but they're usually the ones who eventually come to me for tutoring because they don't know what a thesis is and can't understand a damn bit of what the text is saying, so I don't know if that counts...then again, I don't know A LOT about math, so I can't get too judgy here.) ;)

But I'm not going to not pick something--I don't care if it's improper grammar, lol--just because it's popular; like you said yourself, not to do so might come across as being pretentious in its own right, to say "Yes, I know I've gone on and on about how I love Shakespeare...but I'm not going to pick HAMLET as one of my most influential and inspirational works...pffff! What a pedestrian choice!"

So I guess THAT sys something about me...maybe...? (And to play Devil's Advocate--not EVERYONE likes Hamlet...T.S. Eliot wrote an entire essay entitled "Hamlet and His Problems" in which he notoriously calls the work "an artistic failure"...which is odd, considering ELIOT'S favorite Shakespeare work was "Coriolanus," so...go figure. And Leo Tolstoy--is our Tolstoy related, do you think,? haha--went on to say that he read the works of Shakespeare MULTIPLE times, in his youth, in his prime writing years, and as an old man, and he alays held he felt Shakespeare might have been a good entertainer, but couldn't see why people found anything too worthwhile at all in these plays, let alone why they, why Hamnlet might be considered the greatest work of all-time--and THIS promted yet ANOTHER great writer, George Orwell, to write an entire essay-lenght response to Tolstoy and ave it published saying how wrong Tolstoy was, though Orwell championed "King Lear" in his defense, which HE felt was the greatest work fo Shakespeare--so not quite EVERYONE believes Shakespeare and Hamlet are tops...though I suppose for most such critics to be taken seriously they must be a top-tier author in their own right, if Eliot and Tolstoy are to be taken as examples!) :)

And to avoid the "Why I Love Hamlet" essay--because I REALLY don't want to write one unless I have to, it'd be my longest post ever! Too long even for ME!--I'll give one more reason why I personally connect with and am inspired by Hamlet...

He's a college student who likes to talk about philosophy! XD He's my age and shares my interest! Heck, if he'd lived some centuries later, the way he ends up talking about life and death and man's place in it all, I wouldn't be surprised if Hamlet would've been a Nietzsche fan! (He DID go to school in Germany before the play starts...!) :D

@Frank:

Thanks for the defense and care...but I earn all the negative attention I get (well, most...but then everyone has their trolls...)

I don't have a problem being treated like a jerk because...I am a jerk, and I enjoy being the long-posting, always-talking, Shakespeare/Nietzsche person...better than being anonymous, I enjoy both authors, and maybe I'll learn something from it all (that's the point of any good book or experience, right?)

It wouldn't be fair to post such long-winded responses and trumpet my ideas and tastes if I was also going to run crying every time someone told me I was an idiot or ignorant or whatever...if you're going to try and dish some words and ideas, you'd better be able to take them! (But thanks for the defense...and I'm always reading more, just in the last year I've added dozens of books completed to my bookcase, some for class and some for me, and I'm a lot further along than I was when I joined the site in 2007--I think it was July '07--so in a couple of years...who knows!) ;)

@Putin:

I know why the War of the Roses was important...but again, it's not like we KNOW Richard III was a saint or a great guy, there's a lot of room for dramatic license.

Shakespeare took that licesnse is all...and after all these years, while, again, I don't pretend to be an Englishman and so I can't speak for them, I'd think that the region would have moved on somewhat, and those sides that might have once favored Richard likely have other heroes...

If Shakespeare were alive circa 1920 and wrote a history play called "Jefferson Davis," and it was as well-written and entertaining as "Richard III" is, would people REALLY be in such in uproar about it in 2011?

Maybe a few radicals here and there...but that's jut it, I find it hard to believe MANY folks really care about this man's portrayal, and those that lose their head over it we tend to see as maybe getting a bit too worked up (and, again, I'd think we'd be able to seperate FICTION from FACT in the media by 2011...though I know I'm too optimistic with that one, but still, surely most can tell Richard III wasn't exactly the hunchback monster he is in the play, and if England's as passionate about getting this history right as you let on, surely THEY know...and isn't that what matters?)

@abgemacht:

Guilty pleasure books and such...hmm...

Well, I liked Indiana Jones 4 (come on, if he's met demons, had his heart ripped out, and seen a thousand-year old knight, are space aliens really out of the question for Indy? And with all he survived...sure, why not a nuclear blast too, he's INDIANA JONES, he ALWAYS survives! THough I'd be curious if some of our math and science whizzes could tell me if there's even a .0001% chance he actually COULD have survived a blast in a fridge...I've heard his lungs would be severely damaged, he'd have severe cancer, and almost certainly some huge trauma from being tossed around like that...but is there any chance at all he lives period?)

I LOVE "House M.D.," from my Sherlock Holmes interest...

Guilty pleasure films that aren't perfect but *I* love to watch them:

-Fever Pitch (mostly because replace the Red Sox with the Mets and that guy's like me...only even MORE of a dork!) :p
-Remember The Titans (This actually is a surprisingly good film for Disney...)
-Any Given Sunday (Al Pacino's pre-game speech ALONE is worth it! YOUTUBE IT!)
-The Replacements (Silly, but it has John Madden...and sensing a pattern?)
-Pixar up to The Incredibles (Hey, Toy Story was part of my CHILDHOOD!) :p

And...I don't watch a ton of movies, so that's it there...

Plays...I guess "Titus Andronicus" can count as a guilty pleasure, since the main draw is the double-digit, totally-cruel body count...

And books:

ANYTHING by Roald Dahl, he and Twain were my very first "favorite authors," and I must've read his books hundreds of times!

And...yeah, OK, I read the whole Harry Potter series, I won't lie...thoough I WILL say, for any other Potter fans out there--and I'm a very casual fan, I enjoy most the books, but that's about it, i save my nerdom for the four S's: Shakespeare, Sports, Star Trek, and Sherlock Holmes--that Harry Potter coming back to life...

THAT WAS CRAP! Come on! Does HAMLET come back to life? Does Bambi's mom come back to life? Do Gandalf and Obi-Wan (OK, bad example...though my namesake was technically a ghost-thing, so I guess he's really dead...)

But when have these supposed-themes of death and sacrifice running throughout the WHOLE SERIES, and at the end you chicken out and save your ehro for fear of alienating a few fanboys and girls that would cry into their makeshift robes or whatever because their authorn DARED do the correct litearry thing and give her character and awesome death that she's been leading up to and hinting at and building towards for more than a decade...

FAIL!!!!!! LITERARY FAIL!!!!!!!!

And...yes, I think that's an appropriate way to end this LONG post, with the two words that seem to be my calling card for me and others reading this, thinking the same thing of me:

"LITERARY FAIL!"

The End (?)

@ obi-twerp : Hamlet was also an ineffectual, do-nothing pansy, like you. Did you forget that comparison?

Ugh. No I think you're missing the point. First of all, not to nitpick, but Harry never actually dies in the first place. He is momentarily unconscious and has a dream/hallucination. Secondly, I always saw Harry Potter as being about how love is really the only way to overcome death. (Not always literally and not always for yourself) but in this case, Harry, being an exceptionally loving person, had enough other people who also loved him enough to ensure he survived. You can't say that she made an incorrect literary choice, any more than you can say that it would have been a more correct choice for the Mona Lisa to be blonde. She wrote the story she wanted to write and she wanted Harry to survive. Having him survive was a choice. She could just as easily have chosen the opposite, but then it would have been a different story, and not the story she wanted to tell.
To give you an analogy, most, if not all, versions of King Lear before Shakespeare got to it ended with Lear taking his throne back, ruling for a ridiculously long time (he'd have to have been like 80 by then, which is absurd for Pre-Roman Britain), and then being succeeded by Cordelia. Shakespeare make the choice to kill both these characters and have the story end in tragedy. Is the older, happy version wrong? Does it "fail"? No, it's just a different story, with a different meaning than Shakespeare's version. It might be not as good, but arguably that's not what the people telling the story wanted. They wanted a story about the natural order of things restoring itself, (rightful king back on the throne, only obedient daughter is justly rewarded etc.), and that's what they told.

@Obi: "Hamlet" isn't the first work to consider the implications of having an immortal soul. That's kind of my point. And it isn't that you'll think that Plato's stupid, but that he's not the most important book ever. For me the example is "A Distant Mirror" by Barbara Tuchman. It's about the 14th century...but in every chapter, she makes unspoken connections between the 14th century and the 20th. It made me realize that history could be written to teach lessons about the present day. That had a major impact on what I did and read, even though the specific argument of "A Distant Mirror" isn't particularly central to my philosophy/way of life.

mafia - 1 billion, for defending your point brilliantly, then pleading "bitchiness" and backing off.

Fucking useless bone-smoker.

I didn't mean to retract my meaning, I just regretting sound like as much of an asshole as I did. I normally do like to conduct myself politely and tend to regret it when I don't. I'm not backing off from my point, I'm just backing off from my rudeness.

"I know why the War of the Roses was important...but again, it's not like we KNOW Richard III was a saint or a great guy, there's a lot of room for dramatic license.

Shakespeare took that licesnse is all...and after all these years, while, again, I don't pretend to be an Englishman and so I can't speak for them"

No, this wasn't about 'artistic license'. This was Shakespeare entertaining the Tudor Dynasty, and so he had to write black propaganda in order to legitimize their illegitimate rule else he'd probably lose his head. Elizabeth I wasn't exactly tolerant of dissent. I don't know why we have to celebrate a hatchet job on a person who by virtually all historical accounts was a decent and noble King. The atrocities pinned to Richard III were more than likely committed by Henry VII, the usurper who killed him.

Frankly Richard III is not a good enough play to ignore the fact that it is pure anti-history. I despise the writing of black propaganda in order to "entertain" to begin with. It's a dishonorable practice. But if you're going to do it, it better be a virtuoso. Richard III wasn't. His anti-historical hitpiece against King MacBeth was much more entertaining.

That's a good point Putin and it would have been very problematic at the time. But 420 years after the play was written (give or take) it doesn't matter anymore. Richard III of England is long dead as are any of his descendants, what does he care? I could say he was a 40 foot purple platypus with pink horns and silver wings. He's been dead for centuries, his body has decayed to dust. It no longer matters. So either save all your righteous indignation about Richard III until someone invents a time machine, or just let it go.

Mafia - Just let Putin have it, he ain't right in the head, alas.

*Sigh* Fine, I'll let him have my time machine.

@mapleleaf:

Well, he didn something in the end to his long-time tornentor...should I follow THAT aspect as well? ;)

@Mafialligator:

Do you have a passage proving he was just unconscious? Because from waht I can remember, he faces down a killing spell--wow I feel like a nerd!--wakes up in "King's Cross" with "Dumbledore" there, and we know HE'S dead--by the way, something I always wondered, British readers: is King's Cross an actual train/metro station in London or wherever?--and after a TALK about life and death...he's alive again.

So it struck me as his being dead, in limbo/heaven with Dumbledore, and then alive.

But in any case...I wanted to see him die anyway, I LOVE epic tragedies and heroes--can't you tell?--and for me, the epic death is a must for just about eVERY great epic hero!

Achilles, Hector, King Arthur and his Knights, Robin Hood, Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth...

And the ones that DON'T die in some blaze of glory...well, I always felt a bit sorry for Odysseus at the end of "The Odyssey," he grows old and pass the torch, but here he is, the man who, by Homer's own admission, was "skilled in all ways contending" and did all this amazing stuff...his peaceful death works for the story, but for the character, it almost seems sad, I always feld Odysseus, after all that, would want to just leave Ithica to his son to rule and go somewhere with Penelope in old age, just boat around the Mediterranean with her until the end...



And...yes, I'd argue "Lear regains the throne" DOES fail as a work of literature, glad Shakespeare changed that, because if he gains everything back and he and Cordelia live happily ever after, ruling the kingdom, and the wicked sisters are defeated...

Where's the drama? Where's the weight to the end of it?

The TRAGEDY is that this man built all of this and deserved everything, and then threw it away on his own pride, and the one daughter who would have seen fit to keep his legacy shining is the pearl he tosses away first...

And to show it's not just my Shakespeare-bias shining through here, another example:

There are many endings to the Quest for the Holy Grail in Arhurian Lore, as it's the most popular and written about story, even more so than the Beginning of Arthur and the Round Table or the Ending at Camlaan, and we all know that it's Galahad who ends up getting the Grail over the likes of Gawain and Lancelot and Percival and Bors and Kay and the rest.

The point of that, artistically, has many layers--Galahad is Lancelot's son, so while the latter is shamed the former helps to redeem that shame, the passing on of honor from father to son, the fact Lancelot, who up to that point and even today by the general public is popularly seen as the greatest of all the knights--I always preferred Gawain, he and Sherlock Holmes I read a ton as a kid, Hamlet and Macbeth came later, lol--but he DOESN'T get the Grail and is PUNISHED for his lust for Guinevere, a lust which ultimately breaks up the Round Table (and I'll go on record as saying that's probably the purest sadness I've ever felt reading something for the first time INCLUDING Shakespeare, Hamlet or Macbeth dying was powerful, but also kind of awesome, Hamlet goes out with a bang and a speech...but the Round Table was so great, all these great friends who had all these awesome adventures and were the epitome of truth and justice and honor and frienship and valor and power and now ALL that is destroyed...and they do it to THEMSELVES! Sad for a couple days after first reading that as a kid...I knew it was a great ending, but so SAD! lol)

Now imagine if Lance instead GETS the Grail--no problems, no consequences, it's jsut the happier ending that all the--albeit Medevial and Renassiance--fans want, right?

Or for a more dramatic and fitting example, of a father casting out a daughter, ruining his kingdom and his legacy, and then getting it back as the non-Shakespeare Lear does...

What if in Episode VI Darth Vader turns good again AND everyone in the Galaxy jsut lets him be the leader and he lives with Luke and Leia and live happily ever after...

Except for all the kids he murdered..and his Empire probably killed untold numbers across the Galaxy...a twenty-five or so year Reign of Terror...and then there was that "Blew up a whole entire planet thing," but...nah, just go with the happier ending! ;)



Shakespeare's Lear works because it fits the logos of the story's happenings while pulling on the pathos and ethos of the reader.

The Non-WS Lear fails because it doesn't do the first of those three (and I'd argue the last two as well, not as effectively) and the same is the case with Harry Potter...

These Deathly Hallows are NEVER mentioned before in the series--they're her Deux Ex Machina to bring back harry and keep the ending happy, along with there being an extra Horcrux than we were told.



And now, the nerd-meter is off the charts...it's over 9000! :p

@ obi - Yes. Please COMPLETELY emulate Hamlet.

I'll send the flowers to your grieving mother.

"Go, bid the soldiers shoot."

@pastoralan:

I know "Hamlet" isn't the first to consider the immortal soul...I like it and am inspired by ir for more reasons than that (though I will controversially state that I think that IS the most philosophically-entrenched play this side of Godot, and certainly for it's time.)

And...well, to play devil's advocate--what single book, philosophically, has been more impactful in the West than Plato's Works, "The Republic" in particular?

I can only think of one real BOOK--plenty of myths--and judging by your name, you and I are bound to have a fundamental disagreement over THAT book (or books, depending on how you count it?) ;)

THAT book is important...but outside Exodus, very little inspires me, and quite a bit of it actually bothers me, so I can't count THAT as one of my personal Top 5 Most Inspirational/Influential books for ME.

@mapleleaf:

+1 for the reference.

But I'll spare everyone; I have no desire to write--another--37 page essay on Shakespeare (I just got off of midterms for four English classes and three essays for said classes adding up to about 27 pages total, quoting "Hamlet" and, to my surprise, "The Tempest," since one was on my argument for treating and encouraging the John Smith Myth so long as it's KNOWN to be a myth and exaggerated--tying in a bit to our Richard III discussion here?--so I'm in no mood to write an essay...and no one's in the mood to read it...and you're jsut in the mood to mock it.

And you can do that with just a single post as easily, so sorry--my affections do not tend that way.)

"Putin, I'm wondering, have you moved to texts that actually expand Marxism in a meaningful way? Positive scientific works from economists like Kalecki, Kaldor, Pasinetti, Sraffa or Roemer? Or do you preffer normative works that focus on social critique from moral perspective, something that a positive economist like Marx would despise?"

Keynesians aren't Marxists. Read Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the Mixed Economy, by Paul Mattick.

I have no idea what you have in mind when you say "expand Marxism in a meaningful way". By meaningful do you mean academic? Most Marxists would say the most meaningful application/expansion of Marxism is done through political practice, not journal articles. Marx famously said that the whole point was to change the world, not just write or think about it.

Anyway in terms of Marxist work that I think has "expanded Marxism in a meaningful way" and that isn't written by the 5 Heads (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao) I'd point to Harry Haywood's "Negro Liberation" which advances Marxist theories about the national question in the United States. The History of the CPSU - Short Course advances Marxist political thought on capitalism and the development of socialism. On Marxism - by Louis Althusser, advances Marxist understandings of dialectical and historical Materialism. Alexandra Kollantai, advanced Marxist understanding of the women's question ("Social Basis of the Women's Question"). William Z. Foster developed Marxist strategies to the trade union movement in the US ("Strike Strategy"). Nikolai Baranskii advanced Marxism in the field of economic geography.

You'll also have to explain what you mean by "social critiques from a moral perspective" before I can properly respond.

During that conversation Harry asks "Am I dead?" and Dumbledore says "I think not." Also at the end of the conversation with Dumbledore he asks "Is this real, or is it all in my head?" and Dumbledore says "Of course it's all in your head, by why does that mean it's not real?" Dead means "No more brain function" how could it be in his head if he has no more brain function. He imagined it, while unconscious, he's still alive. Granted that's probably open to more than one interpretation, but I can support mine from the text.
You're missing my point again. The pre-Shakespeare Lear wasn't about dramatic weight. It was a fable about a king's natural place on the throne.
Likewise, Harry Potter was never meant to be quite so bleak as your ending would have it be. That ending, among other things, would mean Dumbledore intentionally manipulated Harry into sacrificing his own life. However, even though the character Dumbledore was a manipulative, calculating chessmaster, I honestly think he loved Harry too much (in a grandfatherly sort of way) to actually manipulate him into killing himself. Rowling never meant for Dumbledore to be that sort of character, so that's one reason, artistically, why she couldn't go with the "Harry dies" ending. There are more. Perhaps there would be a certain meaning and dramatic weight if Harry died, but then it would have been a different story, with a very different meaning. And that's not the story that Rowling wanted to tell. And in this case (and this is where the Lear analogy doesn't translate, because obviously oral tradition parables about the divine right of kings don't generally compare to Shakespeare in terms of quality) the question of whether the tragic ending, or the happy ending is "better" is simply a matter of taste.

@obi

Thanks for sharing those. It makes you seem like a real person : )

Also, obi, you said "Shakespeare's Lear works because it fits the logos of the story's happenings while pulling on the pathos and ethos of the reader." But that's not the end all and be all of literature. That is one way of understanding it, but in a lot of ways, that model fails. Aristotle is not the only person in history capable of literary analysis (not that Harry Potter, or legends about a mythical King of England are literature or anything) and subverting or just outright ignoring his ideas is a totally legit thing to do.

@Putin:

I siagree; taking it as just fiction, or stylized history, I think "Richard III" is a good enough play to stand...granted it's not one of my favorites and I'd put it at the very outter edge of a Top 10 list (at best) but the character is COMPELLING, and, again, I don't think he comes across as a monster so much as he does, for lack of a better analogy, as a Shylock--

Doing bad things--murdering and stealing the throne, going for that pound of flesh and the suffering of the community--because of unfair circumstances, ie, Shylock's being a Jew and so being slandered, hence he strikes back, and Richard's appearance makes him the subject of jokes, make dogs bark as he crosses the street, and makes him totally out of place and worthless in a psot-war era where his cunning can now be overshadowed by the shallower view the world has on him, based on his features alone.

Richard is made COMPLEX by Shakespeare's play--and that's better than "he was just plain evil!" AND "he was just plain good!"

@Mafialligator:

Two deal directy with the quotes:

"Am I dead?"
"I think not."

I took THAT as the cue for him to be in limbo, the same way sometimes folks say they approach white light and then come back to life (and please don't tell me, anyone, that the white light is due to some medical pheneomenon, I know, I've heard that can be the casue, we have so many threads going already--inspirational books, a War over Richard, Harry Potter, why these books are powerful or not--that we don't need an afterlife discussion on top of it...unless someone REALLY wants one, but I think we got that out a while back...)

And as for the "Is this all in my head?" "Of course." bit...well...

Dumbledore admitted in the PAST he lied for the benefit of Harry's happiness, or because he feared he wouldn't udnerstand or didn't want to tax his wearied mind further...I think the same may be read here, especially as once he gets out of Limbo Harry has to fight Voldemort AGAIN--talk about not needing deep thoughts weighing you down! ;)

You yourself believe he loved Harry a lot, enough to prevent some suffering--sacrificing himself--so why not this? Seems just as valid.

As for the tone...well, I just read Harry a bit bleaker and more Gothic than you, I guess...

As for a "matter of taste," that assumes that there's nothing to the story in terms of importance or weight, that it's jsut for entertainment and so on.

While I won't say I think HP has a lot of literary weight, I WILL say I think that if it has enough to try and send a message PERIOD--you say it's the importance of love in the face of or as a means of defeating death properly, I say sacrifice and so on--then it at that point becomes subject to proper criticiscm as to the literary MERIT of the ending, as that would convey the message, which you and I seem to agree, whatever it is and in whatever limited capacity, is important.

It comes off as a cheat and I think it really hurts and undermines the ending, the WAY Harry lives...if she had written a GOOD way for Harry to live, fine, I'd still PREFER he die epicly, but I could see that working (what's a "GOOD" way for him to live? I don't know, I don't have to know a good way to know this way wasn't what I'd consider good...)

As a final point--Voldemort shoots that killing spell at him, right?

So...why isn't he dead, if you say he's not in Limbo and dead but just unconscious?

When that happened as a baby, we ahve the whole "his mother's love protected him" bit (which I dislike stylistically and found hackneyed, but pick adn choose your battles, I suppose.)

No one is sacrificing themselves this time...they make it clear Voldemort has his blood now and so gets around that convenient plot point...so...

Why would he NOT be dead, what would SAVE him from Limbo, as I suggest?

@abgemacht:

I'm not a real person--I'm just an incredible simulation...you have no IDEA how much math the mad scientists who cooked me up had to figure out... ;)

Adendum @Mafialligator:

I agree--there are more critical approaches than Aristotle's.

Biut msot, if not all, still USE Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, it's just how they use them and to what affect and other parts they add which makes them differ from Aristotles; few are the critics who say "The logic doesn't matter whatesoever in this story" or "It doesn't matter if you connect emotionally with any facet of the story in any way whatsoever" or "The ethics and message championed by the author are totally irrelevantto the meaning and worth of the work."

You're not a real person? That explains a lot.
The books make it clear, Voldemort using Harry's blood to effect his return (back in book 4) actually allowed the whole "Harry's mother saved him with her sacrifice" thing, to continue protecting Harry up to the end. That's why he lived. Whether that qualifies as a good reason (Voldemort's own ambition and arrogance proving his undoing) is again up to you. I think our differing interpretations of the message explain perfectly well why we disagree about the merit of the ending. If I say the books are about love defeating death, and then have the main character die anyway, what the hell kind of an ending is that. Whereas for you the books are all about sacrifice, and if the ending of a story about sacrifice is that the main character doesn't really need to make a sacrifice, obviously that's no good either. But I think my interpretation is more thoroughly born out by the text as written. Naturally, you disagree, which, I would argue, is why you find the ending so dissonant.

OMG! Are we actually talking about Harry Potter as if it were The Lord of the Rings? <*shakes head in dismay and bewilderment*>.

While I'm on the topic of LotR, there was a good show on EWTN (not being Catholic, I don't usually watch Catholic TV, but...). It was all about Tolkien, his work (and the Catholic aspects of it) and his friendship with C.S. Lewis. It was interesting in how they dramatized some of C.S. Lewis's letters with regards to his conversations with Professor Tolkien regarding the Professor's views that myth is where truth lies and not in materialism. Awesome show.

"Biut msot, if not all, still USE Ethos, Pathos, and Logos, it's just how they use them and to what affect and other parts they add which makes them differ from Aristotles; few are the critics who say "The logic doesn't matter whatesoever in this story" or "It doesn't matter if you connect emotionally with any facet of the story in any way whatsoever" or "The ethics and message championed by the author are totally irrelevantto the meaning and worth of the work." - You should read more Ionesco.
= P In all seriousness though, what my response in this case to that would be then is that the ending that Rowling wrote does follow the logic of the story, love defeats death. (Yay!) I was very happy that Harry got to survive, thus I connected emotionally (Yay!) and the last one is more complicated and I'm not entirely sure how to respond to it cause I'm not entirely sure what that means (Yay!).

@ Obi, I don't get where you have this impression that Richard III is a 'nuanced 'portrayal of the King. Shakespeare has Richard use his deformity to gain sympathy from people, but Shakespeare makes it clear that Richard is being manipulative and exploiting his deformity in a Machiavellian scheme to gain power. That's the main theme of the work, doing whatever you can and saying whatever you can to gain power.

@Mafialligator:

"what my response in this case to that would be then is that the ending that Rowling wrote does follow the logic of the story, love defeats death. (Yay!) "

Except it's NOT "love defeats death," otherwise Lily and James wouldn't have DIED...

If love plays any role, it's Love/Good defeats Evil...that does NOT preclude the possibility of death...plenty of OTHER characters die, adn they exhibit love, love didn't defeat death for them...why should that be the case for Harry, unless he has Super-Love magical powers? ;)

@Putin:

Yes, Shakespeare makes it clear WHAT Richard is doing...I'm just saying he also gave him a complex motivation.

So I'm not saying that Shakespeare didn't make Richard out to be a villain, but that he made him out to be a human being FIRST and a villain SECOND...it's rght there in his opening speech, menat to grab sympathy to some extent, and that's not delivered to a character to gain anything...

That's delivered to the AUDIENCE, so WE gain sympathy for Richard...or at least understand why he's doing what he's doing, instead of him being some cartoon charicature of a generic evil bad guy.

Ugh, way to be super-literal and completely incomprehensible at the same time. I'm done debating this with you. I've spent far too long debating children's literature with you as if it were a serious topic, can we move back to the general discussion please?