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| Hearsay: |
Nicholas Lezard warns that dumbing down Shakespeare to contemporary language actually removes all value from the work. He’s refering to the UK equivalent of an ebonics translation, but doesn’t his reasoning mean that translating the Bard to ANY language would in essence be killing its worth? Without the language, is Shakespeare “nothing special”?
Apparently he’s also trying to get gangstas n hoodies and people who can only communicate by text into Shakespeare. Yes, fine, and someone called Jacqui O’Hanlon, the RSC’s director of education, has broadly welcomed the book, saying, “Shakespeare is much more than a masterful story teller, it’s the way he uses his stories and the language he uses.”
The two striking things about this statement are (1) its total linguistic and even syntactical poverty, and (2) the fact that it seems to contradict completely the thrust of Baum’s project. Yes, it is about the language Shakespeare uses, and while we appreciate that it’s not easy for modern ears (the miracle is that so much of it is comprehensible after 400 years), without the language he is nothing special.
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April 29th, 2008 at 8:32 am
Well, it’s not as though he’s noted for the originality of his plots.
(Didn’t he get the idea for Macbeth from an old Kurosawa movie?)
April 29th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Nathan, Nathan. That was King Lear. Sheesh.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Kurosawa did both. I think his Macbeth (Throne of Blood, starring Toshiro Mifune – a great, great actor) was better than his Lear.
(Sorry to get all serious.)
And Shakespeare is really popular in Quebec. I always thought it was because he tells huge expansive stories about whole societies. That’s still pretty rare in the theatre.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:40 am
That’s nothing. Hamlet is obviously a total rip-off of Strange Brew. Elsinore Castle, Elsinore Brewery? C’mon!
April 29th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Ran was amazing! Mifune would’ve made it even better but still…
April 29th, 2008 at 11:46 am
“[...]without the language he is nothing special.”
Yet methinks he’s missing the point, in that these are plays and not standalone novellas. While I would wince if I had to read Shakespeare’s dialogue re-written in contemporary English (whatever that would happen to be for the next 20 minutes) as a book (though it’s not incomprehensible), it’s quite different in the context of being performed by a group of really good actors on a stage, as it was intended.
The moral is, we writers all need actors for our work, at least to help gloss over the crappy bits so no one will notice. Poets, you’re on your own [checks calendar...damn, still Poetry Month]. Okay, I take that last part back.
April 29th, 2008 at 11:56 am
“To be or, like, not to be…”
April 29th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I shudder to think that 400 years from now, my post and this thread might have to be “dumbed down” for readers.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
What is so extraordinary about Shakespeare is that his plays work on every level. For those who love theatre they are fabulous embodied on stage, where they really belong, but for those who love language they are extraordinary texts, even in translation. Take away the words and they work as ballet; add music and relatively static staging and they work as operas.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
They could never dumb down this thread.
Shakespeare daily. I am always gobsmacked and left elated. If you are working words it is still of immmediate relevance. Only the most dangerous sort of idiots would mess with it.
Put Polanski’s remarkable Macbeth in the dvd player, sit a couple of 12 year olds down in front of it and tell me if they don’t
follow it … and finish deeply shitbaked.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
The best “dumbed down” Shakespeare:
Richard Curtis’s Skinhead Hamlet
Act 1 Scene 1
[Enter HAMLET, followed by GHOST.]
GHOST: Oi! Mush!
HAMLET: Yer?
GHOST: I was fucked!
[Exit GHOST.]
HAMLET: O Fuck.
[Exit HAMLET.]
April 29th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
All Shakespeare is dumbed down unless read in the original Klingon.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:45 am
I don’t know if it’s dumbed down if it’s not in Klingon, but it certainly has no honour.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I don’t buy the idea that attempting to make Shakespeare relevant (whether by current idiom or with modern dress) automatically equals “dumbing down.” I’ve seen some incredible feats of creativity in the translation of Shakespeare to different time periods (and some that are utter failures, too). I prefer Shakespeare in the original full text and period costume, but that’s kind of beside the point. I like reading Beowulf in Old English too.
If Shakespeare was using sixteenth-century language for effect, then how can we say that translated versions aren’t doing the same? Whether they’re successful or not, whether they work for a given audience or not, is the question.
April 30th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Oh cfg, you just had to go get all discursive on us. Think of the New Critics! What are high school teachers to do if students ask them about the social consensus and production of meaning in Shakespeare’s work, rather than just asking what the symbols mean?
April 30th, 2008 at 7:07 pm
Matt S., don’t I know you? You sat third row back in my Writing and/of Knowledge class. You were the semiotics fan, or did you have a thing for Lacan?
May 1st, 2008 at 12:56 am
Were you the one sitting across the aisle with the “I <3 Bourdieu” t-shirt?