brianvds
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My experience with Shakespeare was thus: in my final year of high school, English studies included a Shakespeare play; that year we did Macbeth (they cycled through several different ones). Now I was lucky: I had an excellent teacher, who explained the whole thing in detail, line by line. And I think the grisly subject matter also helped, so I actually rather enjoyed it.
But not so much that I really desperately wanted to read any of his other plays. I have occasionally tried, but find it pretty much incomprehensible. It's even worse when trying to watch film versions, where one cannot slow down and try to make sense. I thought it over a bit today and realized that with filmed versions of Shakespeare plays, I quite literally understand less than I do of most films in foreign languages (assuming no subtitles).
Which is to say, I understand literally not a single sentence of Shakespeare when delivered rapid-fire in a film. I get most of the words, but cannot make any sense whatever of what is being said. And what makes the Shakespeare more difficult than the hypothetical foreign-language film is that it is heavily based on dialogue; in most other films simply watching the action will give one a gist of what the story is about!
As I noted before, in the end I have to ask myself whether it is worth the effort, given that none of us have infinite time. With effort I can make better sense of Dickens (though I very often run into sentences that I simply cannot parse any meaning from, no matter how slowly I read them over and over.) So yes, I could probably plow my way through more of his novels. But is it worth it? A friend of mine lent me a copy of Great Expectations, but one of those condensed versions in which they shorten the story a bit and rewrite the sentences in modern English and so on. I had no trouble at all reading it, but it left me cold - I developed no desire to go read the original.
Within another generation or two, Shakespeare will begin to pass into history, and become like Chaucer - something only a few specialists can readily read and understand. Unless, of course, we rewrite his work into more modern English. Sacrilege? Impossible? Not sure, but I ask myself whether "blown up by his own bomb" is really any less clever and funny and poetic than "hoist by his own petard." The only difference, it seems to me, is that one is more comprehensible.
Mind you, I'd probably still not be able to follow or make sense. I'm like that with poetic language. I can understand it, but I have to slowly read through it and digest every sentence, otherwise I rapidly lose track. I'm not sure I'd even be able to keep up with a Gilbert and Sullivan musical.
Ezra Pound famously suggested that anyone unwilling to put forth the effort to master the vocabulary needed to read Chaucer in the original should be banned from ever reading good literature again.
I can set Mr Pound at ease: I'll voluntarily refrain from reading "good literature," whatever that may be.
Actually, we can argue to at least some extent that "good literature" exists: the classics are those pieces which withstand the test of time. For whatever reason, generation after generation, they keep on finding an audience. And by that measure, there is no doubt that Shakespeare, Dickens etc. wrote great literature. I do not by any means disrespect their achievement ( I am well aware that Shakespeare, to a significant extent, invented modern English - there is a YUGE list of English words that first appear in his plays). Nothing to sniff at, but I confess, I'm simply too dumb to get it.
In my defense, English is not my first language.
It can certainly help to understand the cultural context. But I find I greatly enjoy such things as Persian miniatures or prehistoric cave art, without having any clue as to what any of it means - visual art has its own visual language. And the same goes for music: yes, we need performers to play it, but I just meant that one can potentially enjoy any music, from any culture, without any knowledge of the culture itself.
I saw this illustrated years ago. I was working night shift in a medical laboratory, and one of my colleagues was an African man, who had never heard classical music before, and I'm not sure he had ever even heard of it. I put on a CD of Baroque lute music. He was completely entranced, and immediately wanted to know where he could buy the CD!
My own experience has been similar: the first time I heard medieval music I found it hauntingly beautiful, and there is a good deal of folk music from all over the world that I enjoy, without understanding any of the lyrics or cultural context.
This is the power and also weakness of both visual art and music: its lack of specificity means anyone can potentially enjoy it, but it also means there are limits to what exactly can be expressed with it. "Political" art and music tend to fall flat; you can't really effectively express outrage at the plight of the proletariat (or whatever other such ideas) with a piece of music or a painting. Literature works far better for that (indeed, that was precisely what Dickens was doing).
Well, who knows, in thirty years, if I can still hold a pencil, perhaps I will finally learn not to misalign the eyes, or draw features too large or too small.
