Well, Olson goes on about Shakespeare quite a bit in *Call Me Ishmael*.
I hadn't thought of looking at his poetry in that light, though. (I
haven't looked at Silliman yet.) As far as Shakespeare books are
concerned, the one that I've read in recent years that really got me
humming was Michael D. Bristol's *Big-time Shakespeare*, covering an
awful lot of topics, from The Stationers Company to *The Sandman*,
Bakhtin to Branagh, early modern Christmas to *Calvin & Hobbes*.
What version of Shakes is this NEA going to disseminate? Mrs Grundy's? I
only ask because one's heard a lot about school board censorship etc in
the States. I'm a little sceptical about Shakes "generating" anything -
can't see much evidence of that in contemporary Britain, perhaps I'm
missing something. I dare say a few fundamentalist freaks have read
Shakespeare - *their* way. - Interesting that Creeley, at least during
his youth, couldn't get started (I'm broken-hearted) with Shakes at all,
at least according to his early correspondence with Olson. - Shakespeare
a Lutheran? I thought Purgatory was a no-no under the protestant
dispensation, and everyone is always going on about the Shakespeares'
Catholic connections.
Robin, no doubt, will clear this up.
mj
Alison Croggon wrote:
>Ron Silliman (http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/) has a most interesting
>meditation on the NEA program to bring Shakespeare to the American masses
>and its possibly unpredictable effects, given that two American writers
>deeply influenced by WS are Melville and Olson. Dang it, he's right...
>Though I hadn't made the Olson connection - Silliman's idea of soliloquy
>rather than "dramatic monologue" in Olson (maybe in a lot of modern poetry)
>seems particularly apt.
>
>"So much of Olson reads as tho it were written to be shouted out over a
>heath, or else to be whispered to an audience, a stage whisper capable of
>reaching hundreds of ears at once. It is not so much dramatic monolog tho
>Maximus is a persona as it is soliloquy. Olsonšs sense of how a sentence
>interacts with the line something I suspect an entire generation or two
>has internalized so deeply we donšt even recognize it has always struck me
>as coming right out of Shakespeare, far more than from Melville or Pound.
>This feel for the materiality of the relationship between the two is
>apparent, right there on the surface, in Olson, & through his influence it
>radiates outward. I can hear echoes in Creeley, in Duncan or Levertov, in
>OšHara & Whalen & even in Ginsberg. And it ripples again, just a little more
>faintly, through every one of us influenced by any of them.
>
>"So the idea of all these people reading, seeing, hearing Shakespeare is, I
>suspect, much more of a wild card than the NEAšs leaders may comprehend.
>Because where it wonšt lead is back to is either the homogenous retro-utopia
>of so many a Congressmanšs dream nor to the same ol š stuff the School of
>Quietude has been shoveling. Inseminating Shakespeare into the American
>literary landscape is far more apt to generate a bunch of wild men & wyrd
>sisters instead. As Olson himself most certainly was."
>
>I've been seeing a fair bit of WS lately (not only the stuff on my theatre
>blog, though I won't forget that Hamlet in the shop front, which was just
>wonderful...) Whenever I watch a good production - bad productions don't
>count - I come out so vitalised and stimulated. Oddly, only last week I
>watched the dvd of the RSC Macbeth Ron mentions, with Judi Dench and Ian
>McKellan. It also features one of my favourite actors, Bob Peck as Macduff.
>One of the darkest slants on Macbeth that you can imagine - Macduff comes
>out at the end having killed Macbeth, holding the daggers in the same way
>that Macbeth did from killing Duncan - and you realise that he's as crazy as
>Macbeth was. Now that's bleak; the world may seem to be righted, but you
>realise it isn't at all.
>
>Harold Bloom is erudite, of course, but I find him a bore on Shakespeare;
>well, I try to read him, but my attention peters out. Maybe it's too narrow
>a stream of water in all that rich delta of words. I like Kermode better;
>and Jan Kott is wonderful on WS in the mid-20C, and particularly its radical
>applications as a critique of power which was I think a big influence on the
>RSC. But now I'm really blithering.
>
>Interesting blog comments too - someone claims Shakespeare was a Lutheran,
>especially in Hamlet. Hmm. (Reminds me of the joke in Long Day's Journey
>into Night that Shakespeare was an Irish Catholic). Considering how Hamlet
>turns out, I wouldn't want WS as an advocate.
>
>Best
>
>A
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
>
>
>
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