Ha, Alison
that problem with getting a bad teacher of Shakespeare early on: I had
it too.
With Hamlet, which we were being forced to read footnote by footnote.
Luckily for me the (I would also say 'embarrassing) b&w [Freudian] film
of Hamlet of Olivier at least made me aware that it was language to be
spoken, acted, & that it moved when done so. Later I would read & agree
with the statement of a character in a rather ordinary novel, Fish
Flying Through Air, who said to his friend studying for an exam on Sh.:
'Shakespeare wrote plays, boy, to be acted on stage, by actors, with
balls, not to be read footnote by footnote by a bunch of intellectual
eunuchs.'
So I have enjoyed almost every version I have seen, even badly acted
ones. The other day, a bunch of grad students did a shortened version
of Twelfth Night, but ti still sang, & the songs were terrific as
usual...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 Canada
(780) 436 3320
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Hand and mind
and heart one
ground to walk on,
field to plough.
Robert Creeley
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