{"id":1877,"date":"2021-03-23T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-23T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websites.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/?p=1877"},"modified":"2022-11-13T17:36:27","modified_gmt":"2022-11-13T17:36:27","slug":"surviving-shakespeare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/2021\/03\/23\/surviving-shakespeare\/","title":{"rendered":"Surviving Shakespeare"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Olivia Smith \/\/ Blog Director<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakespeare is intimidating. His plays are over four hundred years old, use archaic words and definitions, and can be filled to the brim with obscure references. Reading his plays is no small feat. Regardless of your opinion of him, as the most adapted author of all time, he\u2019s firmly cemented his place into the western literary canon. It can sometimes feel like the only way to be a self-respecting reader or student is to be able to engage in Shakespeare-driven conversations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here\u2019s the thing: we\u2019re rarely taught how to read Shakespeare, let alone enjoy it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re like me, your first introduction to Shakespeare was through a half-heartedly taught Romeo and Juliet <\/em>in ninth grade English. In the first two years at Emerson, Shakespeare came up in five of my classes, four of those times being to read The Tempest. <\/em>(Seriously, what is it with that play?) But it wasn\u2019t until I signed up for Shakespearean Tragedy on a whim that I dove into the deep world of Shakespeare. At one play a week for a full semester, I quickly learned how not only read Shakespeare, but to (sometimes) like his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you\u2019re thinking about taking Shakespearean Tragedy (offered every fall), its counterpart comedy class (likewise every spring), or are just tired of reading his dense iambic pentameter to no avail, here are some tips on how to survive Shakespeare. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Use Your Resources <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most adapted of Shakespeare’s plays<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the thing about reading centuries-old plays: spoilers don\u2019t matter. I\u2019ve found that by reading a summary or two before reading, I\u2019ll be able to absorb much more of the material. Use SparkNotes, Wikipedia, or even trusted YouTube videos to help you. Because let\u2019s be honest: sometimes Shakespeare\u2019s details are quickly revealed and make little sense (looking at you, pirates in Hamlet<\/em>). By using summaries or even more detailed scene synopses, it will be much easier to detect the nuance within the stories. Especially for his plays with over a dozen characters, this can help you cut through all of frivolous details. Of course, these resources are never a substitution for actually reading the plays. You also want to stick to objective resources, as you don\u2019t want them to influence your own reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get a Good Copy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With Shakespeare being firmly in the public domain, his name on the syllabus can sometimes be a sigh of relief for our college wallets. And while he\u2019s extremely accessible and free to read on the internet, good footnotes are an absolute game changer. Good footnotes can give you some much needed context for the things that often keep readers from fully understanding it. I can personally vouch for the Norton edition, and its frequent footnotes often kept me from total obliviousness. Of course, even renting Shakespeare anthologies can be very pricey, so you maybe shouldn\u2019t splurge if you only have a play or two to read. If you\u2019re taking a class on Shakespeare or intend to read many, a good edition is crucial. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watch, Don\u2019t Read<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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David Tennant played the titular prince in Hamlet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

While printed copies of the plays have been on the scene since shortly after Shakespeare\u2019s debut, they are no substitution for watching them. Hearing the dialogue, seeing the action, and feeling the emotion is crucial to fully understanding his work. While this approach can sometimes take longer than reading (full, unedited plays can go up to four hours), it will be time well spent when you come out of it better understanding it. Even just having faces to each of his characters can help keep the stories much straighter. I recommend reading along and annotating as you watch. At the very least, it will provide sometimes much needed caption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t matter which productions you watch, though some will be much better value and more enjoyable than others. You can sometimes find professionally filmed productions in places like the Globe Theater, though it depends on the play. You can also pay to watch high quality productions, though that\u2019s not a budget-friendly option (what I wouldn\u2019t give to see Tom Hiddleston in Coriolanus<\/em>). Worst comes to worst, there are usually community theater performances on YouTube. Just keep in mind that you\u2019re watching it to help you read, not the other way around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, don\u2019t be afraid to watch productions that bend the rules. You can watch performances that are gender bent or modernly placed or have queer readings. These performances can be sometimes even more enriching than the original material. It\u2019s just important to then acknowledge how not only these canonical changes affect the source material, but how they are reinforced by the source too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interpret it Your Way<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A 2017 adaptation saw Romeo and Juliet recast as Premier League rivals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to academic gatekeeping, Shakespeare\u2019s works is one of the greatest offenders. But here\u2019s the secret: there\u2019s no \u201cright\u201d way to read Shakespeare because there is no one interpretation. Sure, some interpretations have more weight than others, but that\u2019s all they are\u2014interpretations. There are hundreds of literary theories to apply to any of Shakespeare\u2019s plays, and if you can find evidence to support your claim, then it\u2019s a good one. Before Shakespeare\u2019s death, he didn\u2019t sit down and pen the only approved readings of his work, and even if he did, death of the author makes that irrelevant. My point is that when you talk about Shakespeare, for fun or academically, you are going to disagree with people. I think that the discourse surrounding Shakespeare is what makes him still relevant today. So use that to your advantage, and draw conclusions that make you want to continue reading. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Olivia Smith \/\/ Blog Director Shakespeare is intimidating. His plays are over four hundred years old, use archaic words and definitions, and can be filled to the brim with obscure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":1878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-about-reading","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1877"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2265,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1877\/revisions\/2265"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.emerson.edu\/undergraduate-students-publishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}