Becoming Shakespeare: The Unlikely Afterlife That Turned a Provincial Playwright Into the Bard

Art Winslow on the book by Jack Lynch, in the Chicago Tribune:

In one of the more amusing sections of "Becoming Shakespeare," Jack Lynch's examination of the afterlife of William Shakespeare -- that is, how what we recognize as "Shakespearean" has acquired, over the centuries, its specific qualities and shape -- he juxtaposes versions of what should be the same line from "Hamlet."

"O that this too too solid flesh would melt," the Danish prince soliloquizes in "The Oxford Shakespeare"; "O, that this too too sallied flesh would melt," is how the "Norton Critical Edition" has it; "O that this too too sullied flesh would melt," is Hamlet's utterance in "The Pelican Shakespeare."

As Lynch points out, "This is one of Hamlet's most important speeches"; the answer to the question of which version is correct "presumably matters," and yet "there are hundreds of problems like this in every single play." It is as if the ambiguities of Shakespeare's wordplay carried on of their own accord, even after (and long before postmodernism) the death of the author.

More here.

Comments

[fred lapides]

Lynch is a good guy and has much to offer free on the net about language and grammar as well as his work in Shakespeare. But this book, or at least the review, seems aimed at Shakespeare for Dummies (or for those who knew nothing whatsoever about the subject)...nothing new here.

[JonJ]

Well, he may not be offering anything new to people well versed in Shakespeare (presumably most of the 3QD readers), but there are "dummies" where Shakespeare is concerned out there -- plenty of them. (And some might in fact read the review in the Chicago Tribune.) Old Will needs all the help he can get attracting new fans these days.

[Elatia Harris]

Fred, maybe you've got a better grip on Shakespeare than I do. For many educated people, to keep their Shakespeare clear and present in their lives is a massive commitment. A commitment that generally goes unmade, to the loss of everyone. While there is no reason not to just re-read Shakespeare if you feel it slipping away from you, or if you simply want to take an evening for it every now and then, I fear that this is not often done -- for the same reason that not many people read the Bible. And if you're not going to reread Shakespeare for pleasure, then it's better to read about him than to relegate him to that zone where foundational but seldom revisited items are cached -- isn't it?

How hard is it holding onto your Shakespeare? I know a classically trained and very successful actor who keeps the sonnets on her bedside table and reads them for an hour every night, because no matter how busy she becomes with projects that relate very, very distantly to Shakespeare, she feels she owes it to her art to keep him the biggest thing on the horizon, and daily intimacy is the only way to bring this about.

To keep Shakespeare in your life by reading a middle-brow book or even a "For Dummies" book may not be an outstandingly intelligent thing to do, but it's not a thing that real dummies do either. Shakespeare cannot have conceived of his work being meaningful and entertaining only to horribly intelligent people -- perhaps he did not know how vast he was, and what he would in death become -- and I think any approach to that world a reader feels up to taking is a valid one, totally undeserving of a sneer.

[DB]

An interesting argument, keeping Shakespeare "alive" in your life. As a Shakespeare actor myself, it's not something I think much about - I breathe him daily. I like your friend's idea - so long that it never becomes a chore. I hated Shakespeare as a student, and only came to love him after my "necessary reading" was long over.

In passing, I'd like to point your attention to a new book out from St. Martin's Press - THE MASTER OF VERONA. It has a neat little origin to the Capulet-Montague feud, based on a single line in the final Act of R&J.