A few weeks back there was a radio programme with a young black guy
talking who'd been in prison doing time for drug related stuff. There
was a course on acting available so he went along, reluctantly, and
discovered Shakespeare. The guy said he found language and thus power
over his life, that prison takes language away. He's an actor now and
leads his own small company.
What Shakespeare does, Roger, is give language: he was happened right
at the beginnings of modern capitalism and early modern English and
its like someone who has got into the linguistic bank before opening
and is throwing money out to all and sundry.
The big problem I have with much current British poetry is that it is
linguistically stingy.
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