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The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 11.2348  Monday, 18 December 2000

[1]     From:   Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
        Date:   Friday, 15 Dec 2000 08:11:13 -0800
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare

[2]     From:   Stephanie Hughes <hopkinshughes@earthlink.net>
        Date:   Friday, 15 Dec 2000 09:24:35 +0000
        Subj:   Re: SHK 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Sean Lawrence <seanlawrence@writeme.com>
Date:           Friday, 15 Dec 2000 08:11:13 -0800
Subject: 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare

David Lindley writes:

>Incidentally, I've always thought this 'stage versus page' controversy
>tends to be rather unproductive.  At least from 1623 Shakespeare was and
>is available as 'literature' as well as a 'script for performance' - and
>for two centuries the gap between the two was, for most of the plays,
>extreme.

I'm inclined to agree, but wonder whether the 'script for performance'
should also be understood, if not as literature, then at least as text.
The actor may give the script life, but even he or she first encounters
the script as a text to be read.

Cheers,
Seán

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From:           Stephanie Hughes <hopkinshughes@earthlink.net>
Date:           Friday, 15 Dec 2000 09:24:35 +0000
Subject: 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare
Comment:        Re: SHK 11.2343 Re: Literary vs. Theatrical Shakespeare

When I was eleven my parents took me to see Olivier's "Hamlet." I was
quite literally stunned by the experience. I had no idea that "the
movies" could do what this film did. I was transported into a world of
language so rich that it was like tasting champagne and caviar after a
life of oatmeal and apples. No amount of "post modern" quibbling over
Olivier's film can take the shine off that fall into love with
Shakespeare, poetry, language, film, and the passionate and endearing
Dane.

When I got home that night I ran to my parents' bookshelf where they had
an old leatherbound set of Shakespeare's plays, and set about to read
the play I had just seen. My delight was compounded a thousandfold to
discover that behind the production lay a story far more complex and
rich than what was revealed onscreen.

I feel that Shakespeare was, first, a man of the book and literature,
and that he encapsulated his passion in the medium of the day, the one
that would reach the furthest, those who could not read as well as the
few who could. Not only did he reach the most in his own time this way,
but he insured that his work would survive the ups and downs of literary
taste, for if a play works, if it makes an audience laugh and cry, it
will last, and so will its language and its message.  He certainly knew
that there would be very few performances of "Hamlet" in its entirety.
Why then did he write five hours of play? Because he wanted it read.

In other words, Shakespeare is both drama and literature.  The question
of which came first is one of chicken vs. egg.

Stephanie Hughes

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