For most of my life, Shakespeare’s works have been part of a separate realm of literature. They formed their own little “genre” you could say. I knew about Shakespeare in grade school, but I don’t think I ever read any of his works until I reached high school. I’ve always been a strong reader, and have no problems with most of what I’ve read in school or in my free time. Shakespeare, though, I never really got a full grip on, mostly due to how it was taught to me. My freshman year of high school we read Romeo and Juliet. Just read it, no interpretation, nothing. My sophomore year we started reading Julius Caesar, but only a quarter of the way through the play my teacher fell ill and had to miss weeks of school. Our substitute was not interested in English and basically has us read it aloud in class with little to no interpretation of the text. My junior year we didn’t even touch a Shakespearean text because it was an American literature course and obviously Shakespeare isn’t American. My senior year we studied Othello and it was the first time we actually discussed the text. Not surprisingly, out interpretation focused on the expected—symbolism and the role of race. We spent a lot of time studying Shakespeare himself, but barely connected this knowledge with the writing. Also that year we read Macbeth, but it was on our own time. We were quizzed on the play, but never talked about it in class. (Our teacher also attempted this style of teaching for A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It did not go over well at all.)
And that, sadly, is the extent of my experience with Shakespeare. No, I had never even picked up Hamlet before this class. Why? I can’t begin to explain why Shakespeare was so neglected in my high school, but as for me personally, well, Shakespeare was not on my list of fun free time reading. I always felt the language was too daunting, and I had never learned to read more than what was just on the surface of the Shakespearean text. Needless to say, my Shakespeare reading stage was pretty much at text-self, perhaps occasionally reaching text-text. I knew I was capable of reading and writing at a much higher level, but just never got the opportunity.
My blog entries for this class have been working strongly at a text-text stage, only occasionally lapsing into the text-self stage. My very first blog entry focuses on looking at the movie Shakespeare in Love through a New Historicism approach. I relate the play within the movie (Romeo and Juliet) and the movie itself to power struggles of Shakespeare’s time: “It is not surprising that the main events in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet are set in motion by two conflicting patriarchs, Lord Capulet and Lord Montague. This plot detail no doubt stems from the society in which Shakespeare lived—one that was ruled by white men.” I discuss how the women of this piece are in conflict with the white patriarchal society and that “In an act of rebellion, perhaps, both women fall in love with the one person they should not—Juliet with Romeo and Viola with Shakespeare. This direct defiance of the patriarchal rule carries over from Shakespeare’s world into his play.” My September 25th blog also falls into the text-text stage by addressing historical references within both Romeo and Juliet and Titus Andronicus. I wrote, “Romeo+Juliet, although portrayed in a modern setting, still maintains the Elizabethan language and the historically centered customs of that day. For example, Juliet is still betrothed to Paris, even though arranged marriages rarely [occur] in America today.” These kinds of comments fall into a text-text stage, but have the potential to reach a text-world stage if I had only chosen to expand more on a specific point.
A few of my blog posts fall back into a text-self stage. My blogs on the acting/directing process are mostly I-centered, but include some reflection on how our text(s) were translated into performance. In my September 11th blog I wrote:
“As we saw it, Paris believed that Juliet already belonged to him because despite the fact that they weren’t yet married, Lord Capulet had bequeathed her to him. At this point Juliet was already married and had no romantic interest in Paris; she wanted to avoid him entirely. To get this feeling across, we had Paris slowly advance towards Juliet as he spoke. We wanted him to get uncomfortably close to Juliet, to show the possessiveness of the character. Juliet, in turn, would react by moving away from him, showing her reluctance to even be near him.”
It’s working at a text-self stage, but includes interpretations on translating a text from one format to another. My other text-self blog entries also include hints of outside analysis, but never reach a text-text stage. For example, in my September 17th blog I wrote:
“After today’s class on camp (and parody and pastiche) I’m hoping that some new ideas will come along. I don’t really think Taymor’s version is campy; it’s more on the side of pastiche, if I have to label it. Perhaps if I try to look at the work in another light I can find a vision of it that’s different enough from Taymor’s.”
The more I read and watch Shakespeare, the more comfortable I am working and analyzing the different texts. I’m hoping that as time passes I’ll start working at a text-world level within the Shakespeare realm. For most of my life I’ve been stuck in this mindset that Shakespeare’s works are entirely grounded in his century. I’m realizing now that a lot of the themes and plot details in his plays can be seen in contemporary work and in aspects of our world today. I think watching movies based on Shakespeare’s plays will help me move into the text-world stage. Most of the movies we’ve seen have some sort of contemporary aspect, in the least that they were made into movies, and I’m hoping that this will help me start relating Shakespeare to the modern world. As I wrote in my blog on directing (but can apply to any situation, I believe), “This will probably take more reflection on my part, but I’m confident that eventually it will all come together.”
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