one thing I find hilarious is when Shakespeare quotes are used out of context
like, people are always saying “some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” as if it’s all deep and meaningful when actually it comes from a prank letter in Twelfth Night
and “This above all: to thine own self be true” comes from Polonius in Hamlet wherein the joke is that he’s an old pompous dude giving a long and rambling speech full of contradictory pointless advice to his son
“Brevity is the soul of wit” is another joke, because again, it’s made by Polonius who will just not shut up
it’s “we are such stuff as dreams are made on” not “of “, as in, “such stuff as dreams are built on”
“wherefore art thou, Romeo” doesn’t mean “where are you, Romeo” it means “why the fuck are you called Romeo, shit, I wanted to bang you but I can’t because you’re a goddamn Montague”
all these lines have acquired a kind of dignity in text that they never had in performance or are constantly misinterpreted
It’s not necessarily bad but it is kind of funny, sometimes.
concept: a retelling of hamlet with the frame story that it’s a tabletop rpg being played by a bunch of overzealous college kids and an increasingly frazzled dm trying to keep them all from rushing headlong into situations and dying immediately. horatio is the dm’s vaguely self-insert npc character. thanks
“AND THEN HE GETS KIDNAPPED BY PIRATES”
“um…dude…you can’t just–”
“PIRATES”
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are played by the same player, who keeps forgetting that he’s running two separate characters.
“The ghost awaits a response”
“Horatio, you went to college, you talk to it.”
—–
“You find the skull of the old court jester.”
“I’m going to talk to it until someone stops me.”
“Horatio, you went to college, you stop him.”
—–
“I stab the curtain!”
“Polonius, roll for fortitude.”
——
“I search for a nunnery in the moat”
*sigh* “Seaweed wraps around your leg. Roll for dexterity escape”
—–
“We all drink to Hamlet’s victory.”
“Everyone roll for fortitude.”
*groans amid the sound of rolling dice*
—–
“Sorry I’m late, everyone. Can my Prince of Finland character just show up?”
English Literature now:Shakespeare. Debate. Arguments. Mostly polite.
English Literature in the future:Harry Potter: Yelling. Unfettered Fury. Duels at Dawn. Blood.
Ahhh but there’s nothing polite between the Stratfordians and the Oxfordians. I love Ian McKellen’s story about Derek Jacobi refusing to discuss his Oxfordian beliefs with him because “you’ll only shout at me.” McKellen promised he would do no such thing, but the story ends with him bellowing “OH REALLY DEREK!” (Which, to be honest, is probably how I’d react too.)
Let me offer a small sample of real things that have happened in the world of Shakespeare scholarship recently:
There was a bloodbath over the digital rights to the Oxford Complete Works which ultimately resulted in an entirely new Norton edition
Stephen Marche said of Contested Will that “using a brain like [James] Shapiro’s on the authorship question is like bringing an F-22 to an alley knife fight”
A prominent Jewish scholar was asked about Anonymous and basically called Roland Emmerich a Nazi
It’s an industry full of people who spend their days picking apart plays about cannibalism, gang murder, and dismemberment. Trust me, there’s nothing polite about it.
oh! I have to tell you guys a great story one of my professors told me. So he has a friend who is involved in these Shakespeare outreach programs where they try to bring Shakespeare and live theatre to poor and underprivileged groups and teach them about English literature and performing arts and such. On one of their tours they stopped at a young offenders institute for women and they put on a performance of Romeo and Juliet for a group of 16-17 year old girls. It was all going really well and the girls were enjoying and laughing through the first half - because really, the first half is pretty much a comedy - but as the play went on, things started to get quiet. Real quiet. Then it got up to the suicide scene and mutterings broke out and all the girls were nudging each other and looking distressed, and as this teacher observed them, he realised - they didn’t know how the play ended. These girls had never been exposed to the story of Romeo and Juliet before, something which he thought was impossible given how ubiquitous it is in our culture. I mean, the prologue even gives the ending away, but of course it doesn’t specify exactly how the whole “take their life” thing goes down, so these poor girls had no idea what to expect and were sitting there clinging to hope that Romeo would maybe sit down for a damn minute instead of murdering Paris and chugging poison - but BAM he died and they all cried out - and then Juliet WOKE UP and they SCREAMED and by the end of the play they were so upset that a brawl nearly broke out, and that’s the story of how Shakespeare nearly started a riot at a juvenile detention centre
Apparently something similar happened during a production of Much Ado at Rikers Island because a bunch of inmates wanted to beat the shit out of Claudio, which is more than fair tbh
Did I have time to go see Coriolanus performed in the park across the street? No, no I absolutely did not, I have a presentation to put together about concussed juvenile rats.
Do I regret going to see Coriolanus performed in the park across the street? Not even slightly. Guys, it was GREAT, Sicinia was vicious and funny and sparkling, and Volumina was a wrathful goddess every step of the way, and the actor who played Coriolanus absolutely CRUSHED it, totally made up for the fact that the two senators were a little flat. Aufidius and Coriolanus were played with this gorgeous level of tension somewhere between genuine loathing and lust (c’mon, y’all, Shakespeare would be proud that the two of them are being played with homoerotic tension, Shakespeare would live for homoerotic tension in his plays, read Sonnet 18), and the speech after Aufidius broke Coriolanus’ neck was beautifully delivered, remarkably moving.
Also there was a guy behind me who really didn’t realize what he was getting into, because he was talking during intermission about looking forward to seeing how Coriolanus would be reconciled with Rome. Sweetheart. Darling. It’s a tragedy. This isn’t even spoilers, this play is 400 years old, Coriolanus dies.
Also-also, I will never stop being amused by Shakespeare’s No Fucks Given attitude to historical accuracy. Coriolanus is set in ancient Rome, with patricians and senators and tribunes and the whole nine, and the characters are running around talking about the country of Italy and clocks and shit, it’s hilarious. And like if you tell your average non-educated-in-Shakespeare person this, they’ll assume that ancient Rome actually had those things, because they haven’t fully appreciated that the Bard was sort of making it up as he went. Like I’m pretty sure there are historical errors in the Histories, and not just of the “Well, I personally dislike this historical figure so I’m going to make them an asshole” variety.
ppl who dont even like shakespeare: WOW how DARE you alter the original text these are CLASSICS have you no RESPECT, going around DESECRATING these sacred texts in the name of POLITICAL CORRECTNESS!!!!!!!!!
people who love shakespeare: im going to stage a production of hamlet where all the actors are dogs
if we can’t apply modern concepts of sexuality to the ancient world…that means that literally no one was straight. no one. heterosexuals never existed in ancient rome or greece. they didn’t exist until the term was coined in the 19th century.
but for some reason this concept only comes up when people are trying to erase lgbt+ people from ancient history. strange coincidence.
Me, about historical characters: Well, yeah, this person was almost certainly in a relationship with this other person of the same gender, but that would have been viewed differently than our modern perception of ‘gay relationships’–
Some asshole: Because they were straight and friendships just used to be so intense and intimate!!!
Me, unhinging my jaw to scream: ALL YOUR HISTORICAL FAVES WERE GAY. *begins to bludgeon them with Sonnet 18* SHALL I FUCKING COMPARE THEE TO A SUMMER’S DAY?
So last week an email got sent round my college asking if
anyone wanted to read some poetry to primary school kids and I was the only one
who responded and I asked if I could do some Shakespeare, since I have quite a
lot of experience with it, and the teacher said that would be fine.
So I was discussing with friends what I should do and they
said ‘er yeah, don’t do Shakespeare.’ And I was like ‘what why’ and they went ’well,
maybe if they’re over 10 but otherwise you’ll just get blank looks’ and I went ‘well
I don’t want to insult their intelligence’ and then another friend was like ‘hey
you should do that kid’s song ‘When I Was One’, they’ll like that!!’ (it’s a really
babyish song for toddlers with silly actions) and I thought about it and was ‘like
nah actually, I’ll do the ‘Once more unto the breach’ speech’
So I learned that over the week, and I was walking up to the
school, and the whole way I was thinking ‘Oh god this was a terrible idea they’re
going to hate it, they’re going to look at me blankly like those kids in The
Polar Express, my friends were right it’s going to be a disaster’, and I was
there early, so I sat in the classroom for the first half an hour, got given a
cupcake by some kids from a different class, said hello to some of the kids in
my class, they got a look at me.
At half 2 the teacher mentioned I would be reading some
poetry, and I asked if we could go outside, which she was more than happy to
allow, and the kids were all so confused (‘where are we going? Isn’t it only
poetry?’) and we got onto the field, the teacher got them all to stand an arm’s
length apart from each other, so I could walk around them, and I did a brief
overview of where the scene came in the play, how the king is on the
battlefield, talking to his soldiers (“Could all you be the soldiers?” “Yes!!”)
and they’re attacking the French, who are all in a castle (forgot it’s really a
castle town), and they’re attacking them through a gap in the wall, the breach.
Me and the teacher emphasised that if there was anything they didn’t
understand, that was completely fine and they could ask me at the end. I asked
the kids to watch for when I held my fist in the air, which is when they had to
cheer loudly, we had a practise at that, and then I did the speech.
Everything I had been scared about evaporated. All the kids
were totally engaged, they were all watching me, they all listened right the
way through, I saw lots of excited faces, and they all cheered really well at
the end.
Afterwards, there was a lot of chatter, several of them
asked me questions (”how do you remember all those words?”, “what did you mean when you talked about nostrils?”), one boy asked me to do it again, they were all really
lovely and had genuinely enjoyed it. It was so much fun, and they especially
loved it when I told them how my big college friends had told me not to do
Shakespeare because they wouldn’t like it. Those kids 100% proved them wrong
Bless this post.
YES. THIS.
I once took excerpts of Midsummer to do with a group of 8-12 year olds for a week-long summer camp. My TA went “You can’t be serious.” But once the kids had their translations and knew what we were talking about, they took it and freaking RAN. They knew everything they were saying and what’s more, they enjoyed doing it. Kids NEED to be exposed to it before they’re old enough to form the mental block that it is too difficult.
