Old Works in a New World
By: Sydney Vollmer
My majority of experience with Shakespeare has come from my internship at the Archives and Rare Books Library at the University of Cincinnati. One of my projects for the year has been to create a website dedicated to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. Through this project, I have taken a look at Shakespeare in the global sense, as well as gotten a feel for what the future holds for Shakespeare. At the start of the school year, I had no idea how many people still study Shakespeare, or how he still impacts the world. This prompted me to wonder how Shakespeare has changed over the years: in scholarship, within the classroom, and how people experience his works today.
Shakespeare’s works have been around since the 1500s. Needless to say, centuries have come and gone with some changes. When Shakespeare started out, there was a large gap between economic classes—which meant a gap in education levels. Unless you were wealthy, you were not going to buy books—both because you couldn’t afford them, and because you probably couldn’t read. However, Shakespeare wanted to entertain the masses, rather than just the elites. Plays could be both read and performed, so even the illiterate could enjoy them. In my interview with Jeremy Dubin, an Artistic Associate at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, he notes that although Shakespeare is considered something for scholars now, “this was populist entertainment, and while nobles and royalty absolutely attended, they were sort of slumming it when they did. The vast majority of the audience was commoners, the largely illiterate masses. And for theses plays to be financial successes, they needed to be accessible and enjoyable to those masses” (Dubin). Eventually, Shakespeare’s works in print did become available to the masses.
As his name and works grew, the publication and bookselling industry did as well. More booksellers were working towards making books affordable. Therefore, the literacy rates rose. English scholar Andrew Murphy states in his article that “in 1839, Robert Tyas commenced issuing what he styled a ‘SHAKESPERE FOR THE PEOPLE’ in weekly numbers at just two pence each, with complete plays running to a total of between four and six numbers” (Murphy) [sic]. In 1864, a penny could buy you two plays. This was due to technological advancements in papermaking and printing (68). In the 20th century, not only were works being dispersed inexpensively, but scholars were taking a hard look at Shakespeare himself. They were examining different volumes to figure out if they were “authorial ‘foul’ papers or theatrical ‘prompt books’…An authorial manuscript was…likely to be rather vague on specifics, whereas a prompt book—which would be used to govern the text in performance—would need to be far more precise” (70). Of course, those were merely advancements in printing and discovery. Digital technologies have been advancing for years, and are continuing to do so. Murphy argues that the creation of computers has brought Shakespearean studies full-circle. In Shakespeare’s time, multiple adaptations were thrown around; you never knew with certainty which version was the real version. Later on, printers wanted to focus on a single version of the text. However, computers have brought back the idea of multiplicity (72). Any number of versions can be shared on any number of websites. There are so many outlets that it is yet again overwhelming to figure out which is the real Shakespeare.
With the invention of computers and the internet becoming necessities, the studies of Shakespearean scholars have been molded. Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells speaks about the changes that have come about and the difficulty he and some of his peers have had making the jump to a digital age. In school, Wells studied Shakespeare, and received his PhD from the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. Most recently, his position is as the Honorary President of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (65). When asked about new opportunities and challenges of scholarship today, he states, “I think we are all on a steep learning curve…And of course people of my generation do not always find it easy to develop the technical skills required by digitalization” (68). Although the learning curve is steep for him, he maintains that these advancements are quite necessary. There is this notion that technology equates to global sharing: “At the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust we are increasingly able to reach out to the global community through such digital means. I tweet, I write blogs, we have the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, bloggingshakespeare.com; we have sixtyminuteswithshakespeare.com. We do podcasts. We do what is called a ‘webinar’” (67). It isn’t just that people who know about Shakespeare are eager to share either. There are plenty of people from around the world that have reached out to Wells and expressed their gratitude for his knowledge and for him sharing it with them (68).
Whereas some scholars are having difficulties understanding technologies, students are having trouble understanding materials that aren’t related to technology. I was born in 1995. My mom got her first cellphone when I was seven. I got my first email address in grade school. I’ve had a Facebook account for six years. My generation and those after mine have, and will continue to, grow up with technology. That’s great, right? That means that we should be able to create these wonderful platforms of global, scholarly sharing, doesn’t it? Well…we’re facing a problem of new sorts. We don’t know how to be patient enough to sift through an old Shakespearean text, and that’s leading to a need for further adaptation in the classroom.
Shakespeare oriented or no, educators around the world are having difficulty managing these shortened attention spans without digital renovations. Biology scholar Raymond Coleman has had quite a lot to say about the evolving classroom, and what that says about the future of students, teaching, and learning. Surprisingly, it’s all quite applicable to any college campus and discipline. Coleman focuses on the “trend in reduced attendance at lectures…owing to the enormous amount of readily accessible web-based course material” (1117). He says that “students can be divided into two fairly clear-cut categories, those who attend lectures regularly and the rest” (1117). He mentions that a student may have their pick at reasons for attending or not, including the class’ entertainment value, how much they like their professor, how much they learn from sitting there, etc. (1117). In the past, lectures were a primary way of disseminating information, but now the entire internet is at the tip of students’ fingers. We no longer have the patience to sit for an hour to someone droning on. We are “permanently attached to [our] mobile devices, like an essential umbilical cord, even during lectures, resulting in very limited eye-contact with the lecturer” (1117). The bright spot in this, Coleman points out, is that students occasionally use their technology for something productive and related to the course material, like when they take a point the professor mentions and query it (1117). He notes that in order to have a classroom worth teaching in, it must be equipped with “Wi-Fi, good projection and display, personal electrical outlets for laptops and smartphones and more comfortable and ergonomic seating arrangements to accommodate laptops and tablets” (1117). This is true in my personal experience. Every classroom has a variety of technology which ranges from Smart Boards, projectors, recorded lectures, outlets at the desks, and screens at the back of rooms for teachers to read their own PowerPoints. There is no arguing that less student are attending lectures, but Coleman’s idea to fix this is to create courses taught simultaneously by professors at multiple universities. Assuming professors don’t want to travel back-and-forth every week, this would be an online course. From what my peers say about online courses, they are generally seen as something that doesn’t take much effort, or can be blown-off entirely. This being the case, adding another professor isn’t going to make students take the course any more seriously, at least not at the under-graduate level.
Shakespeare professor of the University of Cincinnati, Mary Leech, has different beliefs on integrating technology in the classroom. Leech believes that using technology in teaching leads to students tuning out the material and doing something else. Once a Shakespeare student herself, she takes a much more traditional approach to teaching of the Bard. Usually, she uses “clips of films or plays, perhaps one full film viewing, and a variety of things such as the theatre design and anything else than comes up in class” (Leech). She states:
My reason for doing this is not just a lack of technological understanding. Recent trends in education, particularly the massive emphasis on testing, have reduced the amount of time teachers can spend teaching students how to closely read a text. It is easier to test plot points rather than themes, and so teachers spend a lot of time just getting students ready to answer questions on a test about who did what and what happened. (Leech)
According to Leech, there is a push for students to be tested on plot points, rather than areas of substance within a work. She says that, “By the time [she gets] students, they are able to discuss broad themes in the texts, but many do not know how to do a close reading” (Leech). This fact has her working more towards slowing students down and focusing on meaning rather than using technology.
Educators such as Joan Lange, Patrick Connolly, and Devin Lintzenich have a much different approach to teaching Shakespeare, which also focuses on close readings. They came up with a project that they believed would allow students to build connections to Shakespeare through their technology. In their paper, “Connecting Students with Shakespeare’s Poetry: Digital Creations of Close Reading,” they walk us through the project they designed for their high school English students. First things first—they had to take the adolescents out of their fast-paced attention spans. To do this, they worked on ‘close readings’ which require “the process of slowing down to encourage critical thinking” (44). For these close reading exercises, students had to pick apart Shakespeare’s texts line by line and convert these lines into modern-day speak. Their next task was to take a character and create a mock Facebook profile for him or her. The idea behind this was to get inside the head of the character—figure what music they liked, who their friends were, what movies they watch, etc. By doing this, the characters were no longer some far away chap from a dead man’s mind, but they were closer and more real (45).
Once the students got inside the heads of their characters, their task was to select one for a digital movie project. With that character in mind, they took 7-10 lines of the selected play and uploaded them to Animoto.com (a free, user-friendly video creation platform). Using this software, students were asked to type out the quote, putting all imagery in bold font, and follow it up with a self-selected image from a free-stock photo site. Then, they explained their use of the image and why they felt it was relevant to the text (47). When the projects were completed, they had a showcase, where they all sat and went through each presentation individually. If there were any bad results, they certainly weren’t reported. The educators stated that, “Many students who take a back seat in class shine in this project” (48). I’m sure this is true, because there are so many different learning styles that need to be catered to. However, when the other comments on the results are that students made “surprising new connections” and that’s in reference to a student choosing picture of “an atomic blast to reflect the widespread devastation of war to match the line ‘the noise of battle hurtled in the air’,” I start to become wary of the credibility of these educators’ statements (47).
Despite having different styles, both lean more towards a traditionalist view of Shakespeare, rather than a cultural materialistic one. Robert Eaglestone, author of Studying English: A Guide for Literature Students dedicates an entire chapter to the different views on how to teach Shakespeare. He distinguishes the two in saying that “a traditionalist view suggests that you might simply look at plot, character and themes” (76). The cultural materialist:
Might focus on how Shakespeare’s plays are used. Why do productions of his plays differ? What lies behind the differences in film versions of the plays? Others might explore the cultural power of Shakespeare… Why do so many novels…use Shakespearian quotations as titles? Other questions might focus on the editions themselves. Should editors modernize the spelling of the plays or leave it in the original? (76)
Using technology doesn’t seem to be making too much of a difference in the ideas being discussed in classroom. However, it has everything to do with how Shakespeare is regarded outside the classroom.
From what I have seen, it looks like a lot of how people learn Shakespeare has shifted to outside of the classroom. Obviously, there are still Shakespeare courses worldwide at every level of high school and above. However, the world is taking a more cultural materialistic approach. Just looking at the Shakespeare events worldwide, especially this year, I am amazed at the focus on adaptations rather than trying to replicate Shakespeare’s original works. A particularly interesting event, which merges technology and global engagement, is The Complete Walk put on by Shakespeare’s Globe. The event will feature:
37 specially-made 10 minute films will be screened along the iconic 2.5 mile stretch between Westminster Bridge and Tower Bridge. Each film explores one of Shakespeare’s plays and includes scenes shot in the locations Shakespeare imagined when he wrote them… These scenes will be combined with extracts from the BFI’s iconic early silent films and our Globe On Screen filmed stage productions (Shakespeare’s Globe).
Additionally, there are thousands of productions being put on worldwide.
In recent years, there has also been a shift in modernizing Shakespeare’s plays by adapting their speech to fit today’s colloquialisms, or using Shakespeare’s language to retell a modern story. Such titles include: YOLO Juliet (an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet written entirely in text-speak), The Two Gentleman of Lebowski (a retelling of The Big Lebowski as if Shakespeare had written it), and William Shakespeare’s Star Wars (the epic saga retold by Shakespeare). These writings have gone a long way to deviate from the original works, but they make them more relevant.
David Weinberger, philosopher and Co-Director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, speaks on such adaptations and their relations to past works. In his chapter, “Shakespeare as a Network,”—part of the book Shakespeare and Textual Studies—Weinberg draws connections from Hamlet to The Lion King and Strange Brew. His reason for doing this is:
Not necessarily because they shed light on Hamlet but because they may help us understand how cultures have taken up that work. For the same reason, someone somewhere will find value in following the links to all of the daily comic strips that have riffed on ‘To be or not to be’…it may reveal insights into how art is debased or how art shapes culture. (400)
What’s intriguing about his perspective is that he highlights the importance of anyone and everyone being able to add content to the larger umbrella of Shakespearean-themed works. His over-arching idea is that having access to such an open network online is allowing for the sharing and creation of works that, while not verbatim adaptations of Shakespeare, are part of how we see him in our world today (400-402).
Shakespeare’s works would not hold up in any capacity, modern adaptations or no, if the works were not substantive with a timeless quality. Marjorie Garber, a professor of English at Harvard University, provides some explanation of why his works are still relevant today:
I suggested that Shakespeare has shaped many of the categories and themes through which we have come to understand human life, human nature, and human culture…Shakespeare was an initiator of discursive practices—which is to say, a writer and thinker who changed the fundamental ways in which people write, read, and think… [His] double place in the cultural pantheon as both an initiator and great author means that we meet him coming and going. In his language, characters, and plots we ‘recognize’ cultural scenarios that may be traced to the effect of his works. (270)
Garber also suggests that Shakespeare has shaped many of our modern ideas, such as femininity, because his strong female roles were written to be performed by males originally (270). She says that, “timelessness and timeliness go hand in hand. The sense of, and reputation for, timelessness is produced by multiple timely moments, in which the event, or the play, or the character, or the quoted phrase or speech, coincides with the current moment and its concerns” (273). These elements of Shakespeare are what allow us to still enjoy his works as well as to adapt the works to enjoy them further.
Despite timelessness, Shakespeare has to be adapted to fit modern culture. Since his works were originally created as a source of entertainment, the scholarly ways of yesterday won’t work if we want Shakespeare to survive. People have noticed that, and some teachers have even adapted. Despite all of that, there is something about Shakespeare that always survives, even if it’s not in the classroom. Those who love Shakespeare, not limited to scholars, will find a way to adapt his works and make him relevant to an ever-changing world. There is no reason that Shakespeare won’t continue to thrive if people continue to let the Bard evolve along with the ever-changing world.
About the author:
Sydney Vollmer recently graduated from the University of Cincinnati where she received a degree in Marketing with a minor in English. She is the current Student Intern at the Archives and Rare Books Library. This site is her baby. Most of the blogs have been produced by her, under the guidance of Head Archivist, Kevin Grace. This essay is the product of an assignment for her English3000 course. She hopes you enjoy it, and the website.