Why We Mostly Stopped Messing with Shakespeare's Language
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
I consider myself fairly well schooled and read and don't dislike Shakespeare. However, despite going through the high school forced march of one Shakespeare a semester/year and having read some plays solely out of interest ... I've read (and reread) significantly more Ibsen plays than those of Shakespeare. It's true they're shorter and prose and Ibsen's best work is spectacular (well with a good translation) but still if Shakespeare is this shining light on a hill why aren't more people reading him in English?
I once saw a performance of the "bad quarto" of Hamlet and it was a terrific play, even though the language was all over the place.
Kurosawa's Throne of Blood is a great version of MacBeth even if it's in Japanese. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throne_of_Blood
re: Throne of Blood. Yeah it's great and that's sorta the point of wanting modern translations. Shakespeare, freed from the yoke of Old Elizabethan, can be more vital and approachable to modern audiences.
I have always thought it ridiculous that anyone would actually behave (assuming the play-worlds take place in our own or a similar world) in the manner that I have seen many Shakespearean plays acted out. I guess it is all for dramatic effect?
It helps that when I studied Shakespeare I saw most of the productions in Stratford on Avon, but lots of plays are available on DVD now. In the old days, eg to take in Grigori Kozintsev's Hamlet, I had to go to the cinema three nights in a row....
Not to derail the discussion (and you make excellent points), but Bud Light has an underrated quality of its own. Its drinkability quietly belies the delicacy that goes into a well-crafted lager -- as opposed to the contaminated dreck that microbreweries pass off as special release sours.
Part of the reason for Bud Light's enduring appeal is the same reason people go back to Coca-Cola or Heinz ketchup: it achieves a magical, happy balance of taste and mouthfeel that artisanal formulations usually can't.
Correspondingly (bringing the discussion back on-topic), it is likely that a modernization of Shakespeare that achieves any lasting popularity will be infused with subtle skill that goes unnoticed by casual readers, even if dismissed by more serious scholars. (This is a difficulty faced by all translators of great works, and researching which translation to use is often as enjoyable as reading the work itself.) That being said, I'm unsure that the "translation by committee" approach proposed here is going to bear any fruit.
Just to pick one example, Marlowe seems to have been considered to be at the same level as Shakespeare by their contemporaries; however, I've met few people who have read his stuff (or can even name his stuff). And that's picking someone from the same time period and same country. Imagine how many authors across the world and from a period of hundreds of years most of us have missed out on.
>What is genuinely radical in the commission is not the process but the people involved... more than half of the selected playwrights will be women, and more than half will be writers of color. Shakespeare’s scripts have always resulted from collaborations among playwrights, actors, and editors... those collaborators were white men.
I'm a very big Shakespeare fan, and think his words are among if not the greatest words written in English, but this whole debate is absurd. It's art. Let artists create art. People who will enjoy it will enjoy it, those who won't won't. I don't expect every Jane Austen fan to enjoy "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" or Doris Kearns Goodwin to appreciate "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" (actually, I bet she loves it), but so what? The source material is public domain, so let's enjoy the beauty of the commons.
Was not the point of the quoted paragraph that, in the past, collaborators on Shakespeare's works were restricted to white men but that's no longer the case? Is there a debate there or is that uncontroversial?
The modern pronunciation we're familiar with kills much of the rhyme and meaning.
Obviously somebody else's existing translation isn't the same or they wouldn't be doing it again.
Translators.
Thankfully, we don't need to read Shakespeare in the original Klingon but even then, the first English translation is already 400 years old. And it shows.
As a non-native speaker of English, the standard English version that is written adds another difficulty for enjoying his works. You not only need to look up all those obscure mythological references but also you need to understand the small but important differences in language. English has changed since the days of Shakespeare and as even native speakers struggle with that, it is even harder for non natives.
German has a long tradition of translations of Shakespeare (the first one dates from 1604!). The German "standard" translation is the Schlegel-Tieck joint translation from 1826 although it has been updated in parts ever since. But there are other translations as well. Wikipedia claims that the sonnets have been translated into German almost 50 times since 1967.
I think some native speakers have a problem with "translating" Shakespeare into modern English as the English of Shakespeare is still quite understandable. Just let English develop some 200 or 300 years longer and such translation will become a non-issue.
Unless the English speakers do something similar like the Greeks did and let old classics influence how they develop their language. But given the laissez-faire attitude of the English native speakers in the past and the influence of L2 speakers on the English language, I don't expect this to happen.
To what degree is it really true that there isn't a history of women or black men re-interpreting Shakespeare? I would be pretty surprised to learn that was the case. Now, it would certainly be interesting if this work was being approached by folks with a strong background in the artistic and poetic traditions that originate from various colored communities. But that wasn't what the article said and you cannot presume it. It is certainly not the case that any given black lit-nerd can rap.
""" I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women glide in gilded halls. From out the caves of evening that swing between the strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land? """ -- WEB DuBois, whom you should all totally read if you like a certain delicious if ornate style of prose.
The bit you quoted does not say that.
It's really frustrating that all the top-voted comments on this fascinating article are nitpicking over the writer's racial politics in the last paragraph.
(Edit: Parent was the top comment at the time I posted.)
I'm not sure why you would be surprised, but through most of history most of scholarship in the West has been done by white men. Even now, in some departments (math, for example), women are rare and in most departments minorities are rare.
DuBois was notable as an exception. Look at all the other scholars of his time; do you notice something odd about the demographics?
I am a man of color and an immigrant. I am sick of the trend of people praising a work simply because its author happened to be of a different skin color or gender.
Judge us on our merits. Not on our fulfillment of your agenda.
The deliberate inclusion of more women and POC is a conscious choice to combat this. Their works will be judged on their merits - but first they must have the opportunity to be judged, and that's something to which they do not have equal access compared to white men.
What bugs me about this is that the people who would have benefit from these policies, such as my ancestors, are long dead and gone. The people who oppressed them are also dead.
While I can buy your argument for poor people in general, I can't understand applying a non-meritocratic basis on the basis of gender or race. A rich minority boy or white girl has access to a great deal of resources more than a poor backwoods white boy.
And the sort of symbolic victory style stuff that goes on in both academic circles and in magazines just doesn't help us at all.
I would have given anything for there to be resources about how to dress well in western clothing, find and eat healthy religiously-acceptable food, and understand the intricacies of western culture. But instead I got a self-congratulatory lecture on embracing our native culture. What good is that at all?
Apparently it's not about actually helping people, let alone poor people or minorities. My guess is that those measures are about signalling one's factional allegiance.
See also http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/09/politics-isnt-a.html
In a way, public policy can still reward your ancestors and punish their oppressors, despite their death. I'd bet your ancestors would have wanted opportunities for their descendants, just as we do for our kids and grandchildren.
At least in the US, Brown v. Board of Education was 1954, and the Little Rock high school integration was 1957. As far as I know, all nine of the students are still alive. People who are now 75 were born at the same time as the black students who had to be escorted by US Marshalls to attend a previously all-white high school, so it's not really ancient history yet.
It's current events; though things have improved, discrimination still is widespread.
I don't think the facts support that. Look at political leaders, business leaders in SV and elsewhere, the film industry, and, I expect, the voices on HN, both in the articles and discussions; they are overwhelmingly white males. Those are the stories we hear and the perspectives we unconciously accept.
If we don't make an effort at diversity, then history shows that this non-meritocratic, race and gender-based system will persist.
The people who directly benefited (or suffered) from de jure discrimination by race in the US aren't even dead and gone -- there are people alive today that were adults when those policies existed -- much less the people that indirectly benefited by way of, e.g., having an advantage (resp., disadvantage) in opportunity because their parents wealth/education/etc. was directly influenced by those policies.
You are tasked with hiring a few people to design a bridge that you will build. Say that two people design a bridge. One was a ['privileged' group] and the other was an ['unprivileged' group]. The ['unprivileged' group] designer's bridge is proven to be less stable than the other design.
What bridge do you pick to build?
This is fundamentally the same idea.
Written works and ideas are what we use as a basis to solve problems around us. If you are blocking yourself from the consumption of good works on the misguided crusade to 'help under represented' people then you are not only harming yourself, you are harming everyone who has to deal with the fallout of your actions.
I am certain that some people I have made the acquaintance of would choose the ['unprivileged' group] bridge, even though it could end up harming others.
I don't however think that good ideas have been 'ignored'. Even if so, the way the initial argument was presented seems to imply that the bridges cannot stand on it's own and needs others to help it.
If I was a [unprivileged group] and a writer, bridge builder, or a general do-er I would be offended by that insinuation. It implies that [unprivileged group] people cannot succeed on their own ideas.
The reality is, we live in a market of ideas and the best ones are usually chosen.
If you think that is not the case, then I would like you to name at least 2 fields without a prominent [unprivileged group] person with leading theories and ideas. The thing is you cannot.
For instance, my love of literature not only centered around Poe but also Douglass, my life is filled with carbon-filament light-bulbs, and some of my long distance relatives had their lives saved by soy-based fire prevention systems in the navy during WWII.
Is that a joke? What's important to this conversation is that drawing from the the group ∪{N(x), ∀x} will unquestionably give you the best bridge designs and limiting yourself to some N(i) will tend to give you a worse subset of designs.
> I don't however think that good ideas have been 'ignored'.
Think what you like, you are simply wrong here as a historical fact and basic logic. The most obvious counterexamples are productive people who, due to discrimination, had their careers ended (e.g. Alan Turing, Jewish scientists killed in the holocaust) but it should be equally obvious that after given access, people from previously excluded groups had valuable contributions that would otherwise have taken longer to discover. I can't believe I have to spell this out...
> Even if so, the way the initial argument was presented seems to imply that the bridges cannot stand on it's own and needs others to help it... It implies that [unprivileged group] people cannot succeed on their own ideas.
You can keep writing that word salad as much as you like, it's not true. The fact is good bridge builders from [unprivileged group] were being excluded. Despite your fantasies to the contrary, you were not living in a meritocracy where [privleged group] earned all the bridge contracts. You were living in a degenerate system where [group 1] rigged the system so that [group 2] and [group 3] were unable to win contracts even if their bridges were better.
> If you think that is not the case, then I would like you to name at least 2 fields without a prominent [unprivileged group] person with leading theories and ideas. The thing is you cannot.
Lol, a ridiculous standard you pulled out of thin air. Discrimination exists, is widespread and has substantial negative effects on our society. Those are real facts that matter.
That is the entire point of my statement. The initial problem you are attempting to address is willful ignorance based on arbitrary groups. Recreating theses groups in an attempt to 'even out the playing field' makes no sense.
> Think what you like, you are simply wrong here as a historical fact and basic logic. The most obvious counterexamples are productive people who, due to discrimination, had their careers ended (e.g. Alan Turing, Jewish scientists killed in the holocaust) but it should be equally obvious that after given access, people from previously excluded groups had valuable contributions that would otherwise have taken longer to discover. I can't believe I have to spell this out...
And yet Alan Turing had a successful carrier helping the British government, Albert Einstein is heralded as one of the forefathers of modern day physics, and Hooper is considered to be the grandmother of CS.
> You can keep writing that word salad as much as you like, it's not true. The fact is good bridge builders from [unprivileged group] were being excluded. Despite your fantasies to the contrary, you were not living in a meritocracy where [privleged group] earned all the bridge contracts. You were living in a degenerate system where [group 1] rigged the system so that [group 2] and [group 3] were unable to win contracts even if their bridges were better.
I'd pay to see proof of this. Please if you would present some information to contradict my statement. You have, up to this point, only used conjecture. I have presented (at this point) six different people who have succeeded from minority groups you say need help.
> Lol, a ridiculous standard you pulled out of thin air. Discrimination exists, is widespread and has substantial negative effects on our society. Those are real facts that matter.
Well if it is so prevalent surely you would not have a difficult time providing factual evidence of it? Wouldn't it be easy for you to comply with my request?
I do agree that there is discrimination, but the evidence I have seen to date has pointed to the fact that people who have determination and the mind to back up their statements always win.
Parent and I argue that automatically taking a minority-designed bridge is equally bad, because it's equally likely to lead to a faulty bridge. Bridges should be evaluated according to their quality/safety independent of who designed them.
So what's your plan to fix it? Part of the plan other people have come up with involves taking overt positive steps to directly counteract the discrimination endemic to the system.
I think this is a common misunderstanding. It assumes that the judgment to hire is on merit.
The assumption behind affirmative action is different; it's that the judgment has been based on race and gender, and on the network of those in power (which, due to prior discrimination, is of one race and gender). I think that is much more realistic than the meritocratic model:
* If there wasn't discrimination, why would 33% of the population (white males) still hold the great majority of power, wealth and opportunity. Certainly we know discrimination has been widespread and still is in many places.
* We all know that 'who you know' and networking is far more important than 'what you know' when it comes to getting jobs, business deals, getting into college (consider children alumni and big donors), etc. The current network, due to historical and current discrimination, is mostly white males.
On that basis, choosing the best minority options improves quality. For a simple but imperfect example, think of the integration of baseball: Before 1947, black and Latino players weren't allowed to play in the Major Leagues.[1] At that point, if you hired the best excluded players based simply on the fact that they were excluded, would you improve your team? Certainly; there were Hall of Fame level players that were excluded, and the players they would replace, the ones you would fire, would be the guys at the bottom of your roster who would have been minor-leaguers if not for the discrimination.
[1] And after 1947, it took 20 years or more before the opportunity to play was equal. At the end of 1947 only 2 non-white players played. It took until 1959 for the last two teams to integrate. From what I've read, if you were black and hit like an all-star then you could find a job. If you were an average hitter, they would take the white guy.
I think Shakespeare is wonderful, but like many things in life (craft beer included) we sometimes mistake obscurity for artistry. It's not good art because it's an acquired taste, it's good in spite of this.