Dumbing Down of Shakespeare · Wed Jun 7, 22:18 by Eleri Straker
I’ve just read an article in the Daily Mail purporting to be dismayed by what they see as the “dumbing down” of the Bard. It speaks shocked tones of versions of the texts where the Bard’s immortal verse is put into modern slang. These books are apparently aimed at KS3 and GCSE. The newspaper welcomes comments from its readers and of course, the comments are all pretty damning of this ‘corruption’ of Shakespeare. There are comments from people who think that Shakespeare should only be taught in its original form and if it was good enough for them, it should be good enough for today’s kids. And if they can’t handle it then they should be taught things like spelling and punctuation…
To which my response is “Get a life!”
I love Shakespeare. I love the way he manipulates language and audiences. I love his sense of humour. I love his humanity. But it’s taken me years to really understand. How can we expect thirteen-year-olds to have the same passion for Shakespeare as someone like me has? They can’t. But I make sure that by the time they leave my classes, they have some inkling of what the greatest creative mind was about. And I do it by making it relevant to them today. Shakespeare is relevant, and insisting on talking about him in hushed tones and revering the beauty of his verse and going on and on about how he should be taught in the way that I was taught (around about the time that Noah was a teenager) is a sure way to turn kids off. He wrote for the masses for God’s sake! He wrote to entertain! To make money!
This is not to demean him by any means. I’ve said more than once how much I adore Will. But he was a jobbing writer and actor with a mean talent. To get youngsters to understand how great he was you have to make him comprehensible. I often translate as I go along, turning the ‘deathless’ verse into modern idiom. When Lady Macbeth says to her husband, “Infirm of purpose!” What is wrong with telling the kids that what she’s actually saying is, “You total wuss!” But when the kids want to make a point or insult each other in Bard-speak, they don’t say “You wuss,” they shout “Infirm of purpose!” Because they now understand what it means.
“Dumbing down” as the Mail calls it, is a way of opening the door. It’s a way in to students who might possibly, without the initial modernisation, miss out on knowing something truly wonderful.
Shakespeare’s audience was not made up solely of aristocrats, there were also the groundlings, standing on their crushed hazelnut shells and laughing along with Bottom and yelling abuse at Tybalt.
If getting today’s ‘groundlings’ to eventually appreciate the power of Shakespeare means offering them slang versions as a way in, I have no problem with it.
I suspect that Will wouldn’t either.
