So it isn't just me
by Tom Temple
30 June 2005
Slate on Shakespeare for the masses. You know, for people who aspire to being “middlebrow”.
In 7th grade or so, my parents took me on a real culture kick with that stuff. I’ve generally disliked going to Shakespear plays although I pretended not to so I wouldn’t look stupid. By the end, if the acting was really good, I could follow enough of the language to catch some subtext or word-play. Up until then it took everything I had to follow everything that they are saying openly. The only times that I enjoyed it was if I had just, as in during the few days, read the thing in a copy that had good footnotes.
Jun 30, 12:37 PM
Oh, it’s definitely not just you. To truly appreciate Shakespeare, you have to do more than just read the text and glance through the footnotes—you also need to know the political background of his time, and the classical stories from which he drew his material, and a fair bit about the lives and language of English society in the 16th Century.
Most people aren’t interested in putting in that much effort, and who could blame them? Very few people want to spend that much time and effort, and yet, without it, his plays seem dry, inscrutable, and far out of touch with modern reality.
I think it’s worth the effort, but my priorities are all screwed up. I’m much more interested in stories than I am in reality.
Jul 5, 01:17 PM
“To truly appreciate Shakespeare, you have to do more than just read the text and glance through the footnotesâ€â€you also need to know the political background of his time, and the classical stories from which he drew his material, and a fair bit about the lives and language of English society in the 16th Century.”
This is exactly the sort of statement that fuels the rampant anti-intellectual sentiment in this country. I don’t NEED to know how to program in order to use a computer any more than I NEED to read Dekker and Marlowe to understand Shakespeare.
There’s nothing more off-putting than telling someone they need to do homework before they can be “allowed” to appreciate something.
Also: Shakespeare’s “dry, inscrutable and out of touch?” Geezum crow. He’s dry if you hate love triangles, murder and madness, sure. He’s inscrutable if he’s being performed by amateurs, ok. And he’s out of touch because he’s SHAKESPEARE and LIVED FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO. In breaking news: Sun hot, more at eleven.
Jul 5, 05:21 PM
If you can appreciate Shakespeare in complete ignorance about the language, history, politics, and social mores of his time, then more power to you. Nobody rational is going to suggest you have to do any of those things. You’re welcome to remain as ignorant as you like.
Furthermore, please read carefully: I said Shakespeare’s plays seem dry and inscrutable to people who lack background material; they are not in fact dry or inscrutable once you know how to read them.
I recommend you take a deep breath and relax a bit, you’re obviously completely hysterical.
While you’re calming down, let’s take a look at your claim that don’t need to know how to program to use a computer. You’re wrong. The level of sophistication you can achieve in the use of a computer without learning how to program gets as far as shooting zombies and typing up memos in a word processor. If that’s all you want, more power to you. You’ll forgive me if I’m not terribly impressed.
Jul 5, 09:33 PM
My point was exclusively language. It’s just hard to tell what they are saying a lot of the time.
He wasn’t yelling. He just didn’t know that the way you do emphasis is {underscore}emphatic text{underscore}. You have to click on the tiny little question-mark to see that. I’ll try to put a little text there later.
Word processing is so hard to make it look like you want. Email and Zombies are the edge of my comfort zone. Ideally more zombies and less email.
You make it sound like that isn’t enough. Every couple years they come out with zombies with better graphics. And if you get tired of zombies, you can get one with aliens instead. Or Nazis. Or Terrorists. I mean there’s more than enough of stuff to shoot to keep me happy.