Year 1, Day 28: Shakespeare Institute -

It has been a long weekend spent in the classroom, for a class called Shakespeare's Legacy.  It was five two-hour sessions, which will be repeated again in four weeks time, all about that which was Shakespeare's body of work, and what is has become in the five centuries since his death.  The recount of what was discussed in class would, indeed, take another ten hours of my time to relive, repeat, and regurgitate on to the page... so, instead, I will sum up in the format of questions I have written to be answered at a later date (or to be ignored entirely.)

What is Shakespeare's Legacy?  What can it be classified as?  Something he left, or rather bequeathed, to us?  Is the only worthwhile contribution to that legacy made up of Shakespeare's work?  As that work has gradually trickled down through the ages, and influenced so many other artisans, playwrights, poets, actors, and storytellers, is it also their legacy we are inheriting?

Is Shakespeare's Legacy truly threatened by pieces of work that we do not agree with?  Easy answer: No.  William Shakespeare is too much a part of our culture to be threatened by any one piece, or even seventeen hundred separate works of art.  Like it was observed in my class, if we tried to extricate William Shakespeare from world vernacular, we would not have a giant hole left by his absence, we would simply have an entirely different culture.  So, another question arose from this...

If his work or influence in our culture today is unquestionable, why is it there are so many people disclaiming 'adaptations' and 're-imaginings" as something that is distinctly, "Not the way Shakespeare should be done?"  I'm essentially asking the question that have plagued many critics, theatre-goers, theatre practitioners, and Shakespeare scholars for over a few centuries...

What is the correct Shakespeare?  The answer to which I have only one answer, and it seems to be everyone else's answer as well... It's "my Shakespeare."

According to Ben Jonson, a contemporary of our beloved Mr. Shakespeare, written in his eighty line poem, "TO THE MEMORY OF MY BELOVED MASTER WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, AND WHAT HE HATH LEFT US"...

"...I therefore will begin: Soul of the age!
The applause ! delight ! the wonder of our stage!
My SHAKSPEARE rise ! I will not lodge thee by
Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie
A little further, to make thee a room :
Thou art a monument without a tomb,
And art alive still while thy book doth live
And we have wits to read, and praise to give." -- Ben Jonson, 1623.

This poem is to be found as an accompanying piece to the First Folio of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare in 1623.  Though he spells Shakespeare rather differently, they all did back then, and I think we know to whom he is speaking.  The point of this passage is not to showcase Ben Jonson's poems, or even to lend him authenticity in mentioning that his words ended up inside one of the greatest books ever written.  It is to point out that even five years after his death, Mr. Shakespeare began to be possessed by the world that knew and loved him.

"My Shakspeare rise!"

It is "my Shakspeare" that is the best, most pure, and the only Shakespeare that matters.  Mr. Jonson wrote these words very selfishly but ended up being one of the very first to make this very famous writer into a possession.  Something to be traded as currency, or collected with rapacious fervor, as one might collect sports collectibles, fast automobiles, or even, movies of every kind in every format (which is a perfectly normal obsession, thank you very much.)

What is the purpose of this Shakespeare?  Rather out of context from my previous passage, this question arose we began to discuss what has become of Shakespeare in the more modern ages. The "corrected", and yet no longer "adapted," Shakespeare of the early to mid-18th Century.  The authors of the Romantic Age did in fact adapt many of Shakespeare's plays into short stories, with a couple of edits for content, so that families and the women who so avidly read back then, might enjoy Mr. Shakespeare's stories.  People such as Charles and Mary Lamb, and Henrietta Maria Bowdler who wrote "The Family Shakespeare," a book which made Shakespeare appropriate for a more modern age.

The question then arises that if they were editing it for families, what exactly is the purpose of this process?  What is the purpose of this Shakespeare?  Which is a question, strangely enough, we are still asking to this day.  Why would, for instance, Charles and Mary Lamb rewrite The Merchant of Venice so that Shylock could be depicted as a bastion of evil, with no room for reinterpretation?  Why would Mary Cowden Clarke feel the need to write a complete prehistory of Isabella, from Measure for Measure, as she did in her story, Isabella, the Votaress?

Why is it necessary to depict the three witches of Macbeth as three old hags, standing on a heath in the middle of Scotland, stirring a cauldron?  When they say, "fire burn and cauldron bubble," do they mean an actual cauldron, or are they referring to a lesser known bubblegum brand of the late 17th century?  What is the purpose of this Shakespeare, you say?  Well, they are obviously witches, and there is obviously a cauldron, and why not have them on a damn heath!?!?

Right.  There are plenty more things to be said about Shakespeare, and I will say them in due course, but not now.

Me and Stanley Wells.

On a fun note, having just returned from the Stratford-upon-Avon Shakespeare Film Festival showing of Henry V, where Russell Jackson, the text advisor to Sir Kenneth Branagh (whom he calls, "Ken") gave a talk back to an audience made up of mostly Shakespearean Scholars regarding the making of Henry V.  Immediately prior to the film, a short clip of Sir Kenneth Branagh himself appeared on the screen, apologizing for not being able to be there (as he was to be a special guest speaker), and giving a little personal history of the making of the film.

I was giddy as a freakin' school girl.

Once having seen the film on the big screen, which I gotta say was truly a great experience, I got a picture with one of the celebrities there tonight.  I promised pictures before, so here's one of me and Stanley Wells, the general editor of the Oxford and Penguin Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

"Men of few words are the best men." -- Henry V, Act III, Sc. II

Year 1, Day 28 -- Words Written: 0, Term Paper Topics: 0 (I changed my mind from before.)