OI! AMERICA! That Will Shakespeare fella' is ours, not yours!

Well, of course, he belongs to everyone, or at least, to those who can be bothered to read him or better still take the risk of watching him performed!  Even so, James Shapiro, an American writer and Shakespearean scholar of great repute, has written another book on his 'hero', this time reminding Americans that in many ways 'old Will' is important to America;

Mark Twain devotes several chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to mocking the sham pretentions of the antebellum South in the form of a pair of Arkansas swindlers claiming to be European aristocrats. Posing as the Shakespearean actors David Garrick and Edmund Kean, the duke and dauphin decide to put on a performance for local edification and their enrichment, to include not only the sword fight in Richard III and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, but also Hamlet’s soliloquy, with the duke promising he will “piece it out from memory”. The speech he gives is pieced out indeed: “To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin/That makes calamity of so long life;/For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane/But that the fear of something after death/Murders the innocent sleep…” Twelve people attend the show, laughing heartily at the absurdity. “So the duke said these Arkansaw lunkheads couldn’t come up to Shakespeare,” Huck reports: “what they wanted was low comedy.” And the duke and dauphin provide it, offering next a silent naked farce.

I am an enormous admirer of James Shapiro and having read a couple of his earlier books on Shakespeare I can vouch that he knows where-of he writes!  Of course, the very first English settlers, being of Puritan stock, were rabidly anti-theatre so it took some time for 'Old Will's' works to be studied and performed 'over there' but once it happened there was no stopping!  Not the least of the encouragement his plays received was due to those damned "events, dear boy, events" which mirrored so many that occured in American history,

Please read Sarah Churchwell's excellent essay at The New Statesman - yes, I know, I know, but just don your 'HazMat' gear and you will be safe!

 

 

 

Comments

[Steve T.]

After the way that TNS treated Sir Roger Scruton I would never look at it again - unless they started selling copies to use as toilet paper!

[David Duff]

Hmmmn! Can't argue with that, Steve!

[missred]

I can't read TNS but I did come across this today
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/america-s-love-hate-relationship-with-shakespeare?fbclid=IwAR3TrsIJNIrENZqjwXJl7eK6dbio0UApjdMIiINmyAK3dgbu5bEf3PUjfJ8

I may have a slightly different relationship with Shakespeare as I was sent to school in Scotland at the tender age of 13 for a few years. My Irish nun English and History teacher loved the Bard

[David Duff]

Yes, Miss Red, I saw that one in 'The Speccie'. I hope your teachers imbued you with affection for the old scribbler. In my experience, the best way to appreciate him is to act him!

[diplomad]

Hey! Back in ol' Will's day, Britain and America were both under the same Crown. We, hereby, lay claim to Will!

[David Duff]

Dammit, Sir, you have me on the hip!

[Michael F Adams]

The first English settlers in America were in Virginia, were Anglican, not Puritan. By the eighteenth century, there were some rather POSH theaters in Williamsburg. Also, the English spoken in parts of the South retains a good many Elizabethan features. No, Will is not ours, but we do speak his language, and love his plays.

[Whitewall]

In the Spectator US:
‘What I like about coronavirus’ by Slavoj Žižek. “I think that Europe is so weakened that it will not be able to react in a unified way, and that’s what I mean when I say coronavirus gives a new chance to communism.”

Optimism!

[misssred]

Dear Duffers, Mother Culhane did instill a love for the Bard, and insisted we act out the plays while we studied them. Thus I became a party piece for my parent's dinner parties. LOL