William Shakespeare

[SuperFob]

You can't claim to be typing Shakespeare himself.

Sure I can. I could claim to type some homeless person off the street without ever seeing him or knowing anything about him at all. It would be a very inaccurate typing, but there's a difference between ATTEMPTING to type someone and being right about it. I'm doing the former. I can claim whatever I want as long as I stay in my place and remember that I'm only stating what I believe. When I start acting like my words are truth and more than just my personal opinion, I cross the line. That is what I cannot do.

In fact, there's really no known way to type people for sure, is there? It's subjective.

You're typing his works... and even that could be debated (INFP or INTP?). You've decided that his works are enough of something to call 'William Shakespeare.'

I'm not typing his works. I'm typing the person who wrote them. His works are a bunch of books/pieces of paper/whatever he used to write on. They're objects. Objects can't be typed. People can. The works came from him, and when you see something that comes from a person, it says something about them. It doesn't say everything about that person, but it says something. As long as you have that something, as little as it may be, you know a bit about that person and you have something to base your opinion of their type on. I like to think of work as deep as Shakespeare's writing as a window into the writer's soul. I look through the window and I see the soul of a very imaginative NF. That's only what I see, though, and other people may see different. That's the nature of opinion.

That's the magic word here: Opinion. As long as you keep everything you say on the level of opinion, you can say whatever you want about types, no matter how absurd it may seem to other people.

 

[dynamiteninja]

Lets assume for this thread that Shakespeare did write his own works, for matters of simplicity, as well aa the fact that most serious biographers of the Bard will contend that there is very little reason for one to doubt WS's authorial authenticity.

I believe that Shakespeare's rather prolific opus of plays and sonnets, combined with the what he do actually know about his life and his family, plus reasonable subjecture, do give one enough material with which to tentatively type the bard. Bear in mind, that legions of weighty biographies have been written about the man.

 

[Salomé]

Now, I admit that I have thought of him as INFP, but only because I often joke that his work is annoyingly schmaltzy

Read Macbeth lately? Or Othello?

I don't know where the idea that Elizabethan England was so F-centric has come from.

As for typing someone from their work - isn't that the basis of most "celebrity typing" ? Why is it invalid?

 

[dynamiteninja]

Oh, my emotionally-stunted, pathetic NT mind was mistaken, then. I thought you were trying to run some kind of experiment to see if it was actually possible.

If we're just going to look at the work, the meter contrivances to make the plays easily memorizable are very Ti. And that was what made Shakespeare so great, while otherwise a lot of his plays were pretty much action-flicks and melodramas from the day...

There have been a lot of ENTP writers, so it's not refutable that it's possible. The thing is, though, is that they tend to be as clever off the page as on the page, but because there's not much known about him personally, it'd be impossible to tell.

Well I balk at the bold text. Those assertions are a matter of opinion that I'm not even going to begin to challenge.

I think it would further your point if you could post the names of some of these ENTP writers.

 

[Haphazard]

Fine.

If we're going to assume that Shakespeare did write all of his own works without plagarising/significant influence by other popular works at the time, I'd go with ENFP.

Why E?

He was too damn prolific to be an INFP.

 

[Haphazard]

I think it would further your point if you could post the names of some of these ENTP writers.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Oscar Wilde
Lewis Carrol

To name a few.

And I know a few ENTPs personally who write...

 

[Salomé]

It was you who took offence at my post, so may I suggest that you lighten up a bit and stop taking everything so seriously?

Don't worry. I'm not in the least offended. Not sure what could have given you that idea. I've been chuckling away to myself.

 

[SuperFob]

I think the idea of trying to simplify the depth, emotional significance, and greatness of Shakespeare to something as shallow as meter is a slightly dry way of looking at it (then again, maybe not so slightly). It makes for an amusing analysis, though

 

[dynamiteninja]

Fine.

If we're going to assume that Shakespeare did write all of his own works without plagarising/significant influence by other popular works at the time, I'd go with ENFP.

Why E?

He was too damn prolific to be an INFP.

Well no, I don't think that was what was meant. What was referred to was the authorship question of whether it was actually WS or another author using WS to release his works behind the works, possibly Marlowe or Bacon.

It is almost certain that WS "borrowed" plots from earlier works, but this can be said of many authors. One of the greatest books of modern times is Ullyeses, which borrows heavily from Homer's Odyssey and Hamlet, to give just one example. Remember that lawsuits did exist in Elizabethan times. WS could hardly have blatantly stolen from his contemporaries works.

WS had to write plays for his company to perform. We was never particularly well off, about middle class by the time he died. This is a great incentive for INFPs to write prolifically. Also, an inspired INFP, as WS undoubtedly was, will have no problem writing like crazy.

Where I see the problem, is getting an ENFP to be introspective enough to write as prolifically as WS!

 

[dynamiteninja]

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
Oscar Wilde
Lewis Carrol

To name a few.

And I know a few ENTPs personally who write...

Well I'll give you two out of three unless you can give me evidence of Oscar Wilde being an ENTP, when I've usually seen him typed as an INFP.

 

[Haphazard]

Well no, I don't think that was what was meant. What was referred to was the authorship question of whether it was actually WS or another author using WS to release his works behind the works, possibly Marlowe or Bacon.

It is almost certain that WS "borrowed" plots from earlier works, but this can be said of many authors. One of the greatest books of modern times is Ullyeses, which borrows heavily from Homer's Odyssey and Hamlet, to give just one example. Remember that lawsuits did exist in Elizabethan times. WS could hardly have blatantly stolen from his contemporaries works.

WS had to write plays for his company to perform. We was never particularly well off, about middle class by the time he died. This is a great incentive for INFPs to write prolifically. Also, an inspired INFP, as WS undoubtedly was, will have no problem writing like crazy.

The problem is that, well, if you look at movies now, most of them are based off of short stories (most people don't read short stories anymore, so they can get away with this and the public thinks of them as 'original'). How much personality is in the way things are put together in a story? How much in the language? What about lawsuits across countries? They had difficulties enforcing those even in Dickens' time. What about many people working under one name? Etc, etc, etc.

About being inspired and writing like crazy... no. Just no. Just because an INFP is inspired doesn't mean that they'll allow their works to be published (or preformed, in this case) imperfect, which means dedication, dedication, dedication to just a few works...

 

[Haphazard]

Well I'll give you two out of three unless you can give me evidence of Oscar Wilde being an ENTP, when I've usually seen him typed as an INFP.

I've seen it a few places.

If you want another supposed ENTP, we've got Sir Walter Raleigh.

 

[dynamiteninja]

The problem is that, well, if you look at movies now, most of them are based off of short stories (most people don't read short stories anymore, so they can get away with this and the public thinks of them as 'original'). How much personality is in the way things are put together in a story? How much in the language? What about lawsuits across countries? They had difficulties enforcing those even in Dickens' time. What about many people working under one name? Etc, etc, etc.

About being inspired and writing like crazy... no. Just no. Just because an INFP is inspired doesn't mean that they'll allow their works to be published (or preformed, in this case) imperfect, which means dedication, dedication, dedication to just a few works...

I'm really not sure what it is that you are trying to say here :/

But Shakespeare had deadlines. Plays would be performed by a certain stage whether he liked it or not. So his perfectionist streak was curtailed in that way I think. Second of all, there is a lot of evidence that he would go back and perfect manuscripts of plays that were already out "in the ether" if you will. An INFP of Shakespeare's genius could certainly produce drafts that they would not considered perfected that could still be performed. There is evidence that WS didn't actually have a lot of control over his works, as they were owned by the theatre company, not by himself.

 

[dynamiteninja]

I've seen it a few places.

If you want another supposed ENTP, we've got Sir Walter Raleigh.

Look, I'm open to being persuaded, but not without evidence for these typings. I googled Wilde's type, and all I found was this, crediting him as an INFP Famous INFP along with WS.

 

[Haphazard]

There is evidence that WS didn't actually have a lot of control over his works, as they were owned by the theatre company, not by himself.

This would drive an INP to insanity (Of course, there's always that a man's got to eat, but if there's a type that needs to eat the least, it's an INP.)

Typing by writing is even more difficult when people are sped through it...

 

[Haphazard]

Look, I'm open to being persuaded, but not without evidence for these typings. I googled Wilde's type, and all I found was this, crediting him as an INFP Famous INFP along with WS.

Fine then. Oscar Wilde:


Philox connecting European students. Tips and tools for studying abroad, Erasmus, internships and career.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache...+wilde+myers-briggs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us

ENTP | Prelude Consulting

 

[dynamiteninja]

This would drive an INP to insanity (Of course, there's always that a man's got to eat, but if there's a type that needs to eat the least, it's an INP.)

Typing by writing is even more difficult when people are sped through it...

Well what I mean is, that Shakespeare's genius is such that he could create what an INFP would consider a revised draft of a play, that other members of his company would consider finished. It's still a perfectly accurate means by which help can be assertained in typing the bard.

WS got over these frustrations by continually editing his plays after their publication.

 

[Haphazard]

If you're going to insist,

I'll settle on INTP and use Keirsey as my reference.

 

[dynamiteninja]

Fine then. Oscar Wilde:


Philox connecting European students. Tips and tools for studying abroad, Erasmus, internships and career.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache...+wilde+myers-briggs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us

ENTP | Prelude Consulting

Well I always considered him ENTP, but you haven't substantiated Sir Walter Raleigh's type yet.

Also, the last website you link to also claims WS as an INFP

If you're willing to consider these typings of Wilde as evidence of his type, why not WS, who has plenty of sites typing him as INFP?

 

[Haphazard]

Well I always considered him ENTP, but you haven't substantiated Sir Walter Raleigh's type yet.

MBTI

Personality-tests Myers Briggs MBTI Famous personalities for famous ENTP

Myers-Briggs Profiles - entp - The Inventors - The BBA Class of 2003! HTW Chur Switzerland

I find it a bit... suspicious, I guess, that Shakespeare was typed an INFP by Isabel Myers, an INFP, and by Keirsey, an INTP, as an INTP.