Each semester someone in the English Department hosts a penny-poll, and this semester it's Donne vs. Shakespeare - the E.M.E. smack-down.
I sincerely believe that Donne will win for one simple reason. So many people don't like Shakspar because they know just enough about him to have been intimidated.
Donne was profound and funny. He thought in words and ideas so entwined together that they resembled the threads in some nautical rope, and from each twist sprouted some new metaphor which may or may not totally redefine the subject. His poetry embodied linguistic and theological complexity, and his ideas warrant nearly as much concentration as Ulysses.
Shekespear was crass and commercial. He wrote fast-talking but believable characters, and mocked his own cast, his critics, colleagues, and occasionally himself. He killed mercilessly and resurrected without a blink. He hosted fairies, demons, witches, bastards, cuckolds, royalty, and soldiers, and even the funny ones weren't safe. For an E.M.E., he was awfully modern.
How would you vote?
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