Literature Entry Week 6

[jessekants]

For this entry I thought I might write a few words about a couple of different conversations I’ve had about Shakespeare over the last week or so. In the our discussion group the question was raised whether Shakespeare specifically left stage directions in or out of his plays or whether it was just something that has been lost or changed over time. I spoke to a friend of mine who said he didn’t like Shakespeare because of the language and he wished that the language could be changed as he believed it already had been to suit our more modern tongue. I then talked to my dad who is an actor and loves Shakespeare and has performed in many of his plays, whether this would defeat the purpose of studying or performing Shakespeare’s plays and if indeed his language had been adapted as my friend had said at sometime in the past. He agreed that it would defeat the purpose and he said that if it had been changed it would have been to make it more Shakespearian possibly because more original documents may have been found and instead of making it more adaptable to our modern ears it would be a purer and truer form of language to Shakespeare own time. This lends strength to the argument in my discussion about whether stage direction had been lost or left out intentionally which I now think is less likely because Shakespeare scholars are always looking for the most original and therefore pure material to work from. Just like how excited the Shakespeare expert became on the documentary
in class when they found an original portrait of Shakespeare.

My comment for this week is at http://rebeccabragg.livejournal.com/ on her week five entre.