It’s still Shakespeare innit?
Satirist Martin Baum is to publish a compendium of Shakespeare – with a difference. He has re-written 15 of the plays in the kind of language which makes your parents groan and your grandparents stare blankly at you as if you’re from another planet. Hamlet becomes ‘Amlet, and “To be or not to be” becomes “To be or not to be innit?” The Two Gentleman of Verona” morph into “geezas”, and the synopsis of Romeo and Juliet is…
Verona was de turf of de feuding Montagues and de Capulet families, and coz they was always brawling and stuff, de prince of Verona told them to cool it or else they was gonna get well mashed if they carried on larging it with each other.
I have no problem with the many modern adaptations of the Bard’s plays, and I laud any attempt to make Shakespeare more accessible to young people, and more enjoyable as a school text. I think Baz Lurmann’s movie of Romeo and Juliet is exciting, passionate and loads of fun. However, I take umbrance at Baum’s claim that his abridged versions retain the essence of the originals, including “the important sexist, duplicitous, cross – dressing and violent moments that made William Shakespeare well wicked” (quoted in The Australian, 26/4/08, p. 13).
As far as I’m concerned, Shakespeare’s mesmerisingly beautiful language is the essence of his plays. Take that away and the power and the wonder is irrevocably diluted. If Baum’s compendium is used to amuse and gently introduce students to the characters and plot of some wonderful stories so that they can understand the plays in their full glory – fantastic. If it’s used as a substitute for the real thing, burn it!
I’m glad I’ve got that off my chest. Anyone care to challenge me to a duel? (Of course the keyboard is mightier than the sword!)
Mrs Sweeney
April 29th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
More accessible? I doubt it. Rather than taking the level of literacy down to those foolish, time-wasting ‘class-clowns’ that would have no intention of reading Shakespeare (with no care as to how simplified or adapted it is), wouldn’t it be more approriate to allow those who desire to read great and evocative literature read it. I understand that they could very well do this in the current situation, but how long would it be before such material seeped its way into schools? And even if a choice was made by students between the classic actually written by Shakespeare or the more ‘modern’ version, how do you think a class conversation would fare?
I agree with Mrs. Sweeney (assuming that she understands that the elimination of Shakespeare’s original and authentic wording would altogether destroy the effectiveness of Shakespear himself) and believe that such a book would damage the literacy of our nation.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
I don’t think anything can compare to the real versions of the texts but i found it really refreshing to see a more light hearted version of the plays, when i first read Shakespeare it took me a while to get into it, it was a pretty full on novel.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Like tyrone has just said, the people aimed at in the making of this book, wouldn’t waste time reading shakespeare. I think there are plenty translations of shakespeare into modern english and this one, judging by the extract, is pretty hard to understand for any normal person. So i agree with tyrone the idea of this book is ok but i dont think it is needed. At all.
May 23rd, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I think that this could be the beginning of a new era. Think about it. We could liberate street gangs by using THEIR language. Modern Inglish will be transformed! This is the future.
What an inspiring vision! Street kids spouting Shakespeare at eachother and graffiting their versions of ‘Wherefore art thou Romeo’, or ‘My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse’ all over the subways…I like it!
What would their versions of those quotes be?
Mrs Sweeney