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Your First Encounter with Shakespeare
I was seventeen when when Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet was released. I was a rural farm boy who knew a little — very little — about Shakespeare, had only read a few lines by him, nor had ever seen a complete play on TV, let alone a live performance.
I was blown away. My crush on Olivia Hussey is just beginning to ebb a bit, 47 years later. It was like an entire new world had been handed whole to me. For a seventeen-year-old, the drama of the last scene was overwhelming. “Come on, Juliet! Wake up, for heck’s sake!”
And the language. I didn’t understand a lot of it, but I knew what it meant. Gorgeous and rhythmic. In the scene where Romeo laments being banished from the city, he cries about being “banish-ed” (two syllables, not one). My reaction: “they sure said ‘banished’ different in late medieval Italy than they do here in southern Utah.”
It was only a lot later that I finally realized that the word needed two syllables in order to stay true to the poetic form. With exceptions, virtually all of Shakespeare is in ten-syllable lines (though lower-class characters don’t have to talk in poetic form). But like all great artists, Shakespeare used the form, but wasn’t a slave to it. If a line needed eleven syllables, he’d do it now and then; he’d violate the form if necessary, but the form still mattered.
Examples of the form:
“Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”
Or this from the balcony scene:
Romeo: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound.
. . .
But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid, since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it.
Cast it off.
It is my lady; O, it is my love!”
. . .
Juliet: “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse thy name!”
. . .
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
If that doesn’t get a moonstruck seventeen-year-old going, I don’t know what will.
So, how did you first encounter Shakespeare? Did it go well?
In the years since watching Zefferelli, I’ve seen many of the plays in performance. I’ve read all of them. I get pretty much equal enjoyment out of reading or seeing. Reading allows a more thoughtful understanding of the test; watching makes the text come alive.
All of which raises a second, perhaps unanswerable, question: is it Shakespeare the poet, or Shakespeare the dramatist that you find most appealing? Why? I admit that question — as C. S. Lewis said about grace and works — is like asking which blade of a pair of scissors is most important. But share your thoughts.
In my own mind, the poet wins the race by a nose. I could see myself never seeing another of the plays performed. I can never conceive of not reading the plays.
[I realize I haven’t even mentioned the sonnets, which stand in a category all their own].
Published in Culture, Literature
He was certainly very warm to us that day. It was my motley crew of a family, him and a companion (wife?) on the boat. I told him the story and he was delighted.
Question: A lot of people’s first experience with Shakespeare is with Romeo and Juliet as an early teenager, on the theory that young people could relate. Is this a good way to go?
Honestly, I didn’t like anything about being a teenager when I was a teenager, so it wasn’t much of a selling point for me. I probably would have liked Richard III, Macbeth or Hamlet.
On the other hand, it would be something if we could go to the inner city and say that the world’s greatest playwright wrote one of classics about a black man who was viciously undermined by a jealous white subordinate and having the kids take a stab at the Bard. I’ll take my chances that Shakespeare’s writing is strong enough that they’ll see there is more to play than that. (Or at least I’d rather be in a world where people took a shallow look at Shakespeare than no look at all.)
There is this.
I say MacBeth or Richard III. Hamlet, in my opinion, is best appreciated a bit later. MacBeth seems perfect for the teenage mind.
I once read a critic somewhere who said, “Hamlet is not really a very good play, but it is unquestionably a great play.” There’s something to that, I think. Macbeth would be good. A friend from college said she had Julius Caesar in high school, and I think I would have far more engaged with that than R&J.
My now 36 year old son’s sixth grade class did some scenes from Julius Caesar, in which he was able to give Marc Antony’s speech. He can still quote it to this day.
How’s that one worked out for you? I’ve had a few bosses who wouldn’t have known the subtleties of Shakespeare if you beat them over the head with him. [is that contradictory?]
Pretty much the same story here. We read (IIRC) Julius Caesar in 12th grade. I knew it was a classic, but the teacher never said why it was great, or why it was important to go through it. Years later, I developed an interest in learning more about The Bard, so I got all the Great Courses on Shakespeare. No exams, you can pause and go back over something, and – most important – you can go at your own pace and on your own schedule, AND in your format of choice.
I mostly get the CDs. because I listen at work. I do have some DVDs, and – oh! – if you aren’t scientifically inclined, get the DVDs of Robert Hazen’s broad overview of science. I got them for my kids, to supplement the science they got in school. Even though I have degrees in physics and nuclear engineering, they preferred Professor Bob helping them over Dad because they could shut Bob off when they wanted to . . .
tab, as a general rule nothing ever works out for me.
Hamlet is my play of choice for teaching middle/high schoolers. The depth of Hamlet is not in the revenge arc, but comparing and contrasting Hamlet with Fortinbras. Fortinbras is the man of action, Hamlet the man of navel gazing. As teens are apt to navel gaze there are valuable lessons to be learned from Hamlet. If I were to encapsulate the story of Hamlet into one teen friendly sentence it would be: It’s not always about how you feel moron.
There’s my first “experiences” with Shakespeare, which I don’t really count because I didn’t understand or appreciate a thing that was going on.
And then there’s me being blown away. It was English class, Sonnet 73 was a way to get us reading more carefully. I loved every word in that poem and put it to memory. Loved how carefully wrought the structure was, moving from one failed attempt to reconcile himself to death to another. The link I’ve provided goes to my thoughts on the poem, written years after I took the class. It stayed with me, alright.
In a week, my daughter will have her first live Shakespeare experience in Southern Utah with “Taming of the Shrew”. I’m very excited – I hope she is as well (and will be afterwards).
My parents took me to the Stratford festival to see Julius Caesar.
A good production of Julius Caesar is absolutely the best gateway drug for getting a boy interested in Shakespeare (and ancient Rome, for that matter).
Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!
(Romeo and Juliet is terminally stoopid. A three-day teen romance that results in six dead.)
The WaPo’s Alyssa Rosenberg said Romeo & Juliet productions/adaptations can basically be separated into those that think the lovers are romantic! and those that think the lovers are dumb!
In high school read Romeo & Juliet, Julius Caeser, Hamlet and Macbeth.
For the last 10-15 years I’ve seen one or two plays per year performed here: http://americanplayers.org/
I never liked it as romantic. I actually find it more moving if they are too hasty. There is something more compelling about the characters making bad choices than just suffering because of bad luck or plot machinations. It’s the big reason it took so long for me to get into.
I think it’s more compelling as a dark comedy.
“See folks, this is why you stay away from 14 year old girls!”
I think my first real encounter was with Julius Caesar in fifth grade, which one of our more ambitious teachers produced (it was surprisingly successful and led to other, better productions). I do have a hazy memory of watching this Duck Tales episode when I was six or seven and knowing that I they were referencing something grown-up knew about, but that I didn’t.
The real game-changer for me was Brannagh’s Henry V, which I must have watched when I was about 10.
Clearly, you’re not from the South, where “fire” is a two-syllable word.
If you’re anxious to introduce your kids to Shakespeare, here’s a story for you.
When Mel Gibson’s Hamlet was in theaters, my dad tricked my brother and his friend into seeing it. They asked what he was going to see. My dad made no reference to Shakespeare or poetry. Rather, he said it was a story that had ghosts, murder, swordplay, etc.
Five minutes into the film, my brother turned to him and asked, “What did you bring us to?” But by the end of the film they loved it.
I’m not sure if I saw that version of Hamlet or Brannagh’s Much Ado About Nothing first.
We have to remember that the audiences who went to see Shakespeare went to be entertained. The artistry is just a bonus.
I suffered from a similar crush, and I must say: the movie stands up even today. A real masterpiece.
My first real encounter with Shakespeare was in my freshman year at Regis High School in Denver — where a Jesuit novice named Ron Miller (who later became a close friend) devoted an entire quarter to leading us through Twelfth Night line by line. What a revelation!
Every summer we take our children to Stratford in Ontario. We try to see every single Shakespeare performance.
I can’t remember my first. I’ve got an English Lit degree and I’ve been a life long reader of Shakespeare. With Homer and Dante, Shakespeare is in the top three greatest writers of all time. His great plays are at the top of literature. Let me put in a good word for what I think is Shakespeare’s greatest play and the greatest play of all time, King Lear. If I were given three months to live, King Lear would be on my list as to my remaining things to re-read.
Brannagh’s Hamlet was good but I prefer Derek Jacobi’s Hamlet from the BBC production.
Yes, that it is seen as Romantic is a modern view. I don’t know if dumb is the right word, but a cautionary tale about sexuality is where Shakespeare was going with it. The literary critic Joseph Pierce has done some fine commentary on it. He basically calls Romeo a “cad” and through his lust causes Juliet’s, a rather young girl (13 or 14?), downfall.
Then, of course, there is the most unintentionally funny production of Hamlet.
By the way, those BBC productions of all of Shakespeare’s plays are on DVD and most of them are quite good.
Hmm. I’m not sure I got it all, but that did seem very strange. A German version of Hamlet as seen through people in the future in outerspace? Is that what that was?
It’s a completely serious German attempt at Hamlet. That is then suitably made fun of by the characters trapped in outer space. As someone who’s seen – and enjoyed – several renditions of Hamlet, I found it very funny.