Fresh off my PhD defense in June and facing the gloomy job market, I
decided to take the plunge, as it were, into the digital world and blog (better
late than never in conquering my technological demons) about Shakespeare and
Renaissance Literature more generally. I cannot promise that such exercise will
be free of tangents extolling the virtues of baseball, Bruce Springsteen, or my
manifold attempts to kick my addiction to Law and Order SVU (where have you
gone, B. D. Wong?). I am merely aiming to put to paper (to keyboard? To binary
code? I need to update my metaphors software) the literary musings that punctuate
my daily life. Some of it will include work in progress (or rather, the seeds
of work in progress), some if it will attempt anecdotal humour, and some it will
be classified as inevitable venting (I should preemptively address my
difficult relationship with Ben Jonson). I hope it will prove enjoyable to
whoever is out there.
“Shakespearean, by any other name”
Over the course of last year, two of my relatives used the word
“Shakespearean” in conversations with me, within contexts that had little to do
with Shakespeare or any of his plays. One, recounting an experience at a
Madonna concert, described her stage presence as Shakespearean, while the
other, trying to sell me on the merits of Battlestar Galactica, explained
that I was sure to enjoy the show since its characters often faced
Shakespearean dilemmas.
At the core, I believe that both comments were trying to pique my
interest by using an analogy that would connect with my passion for Shakespeare.
Yet, thinking about it more closely, I began wondering what each statement
implied for my interlocutors, beyond a baiting of my interest? What does a
“Shakespearean” stage presence or dilemma entail? To be frank, I am not the
biggest Madonna fan out there, though I have been known to randomly sing “Ring,
ring, ring, goes the telephone” because of its Wordsworthian undertones.
Likewise, I have yet to watch Battlestar Galactica. What proved most
interesting to me in considering these two exchanges was that, without being able
to clearly envision what each person had meant, I understood what they were
going for on a broader level; each used “Shakespearean” as an adjective inferring
some sort of gravitas. Madonna’s presence on stage suggests an array of
qualities (compelling, commanding, captivating) that can be connected, to an
extent, to a description of characterial quandaries in Battlestar as serious,
complex, thought-provoking, etc. For each person, this complex set of
impressions could be summed up as Shakespearean.
This is far from ground-breaking theorizing, but it did get me
thinking about the iconographic power of Shakespeare in its adjectival form. “Shakespearean”
can and does inflect a virtual cornucopia of terms and concepts, the
overwhelmingly majority of which relies on such association for enhancement or
validation. This process extends well-beyond musical or screenwriting ventures.
One routinely hears of Shakespearean motifs, poetry, diction, style, even of
scholars and critics (we happy few, we Shakespeareans!). This is actually a
popular trend in academia that can be tailored to most subject matters
(Oxfordian, Baconian, Dickensian, the seldom-known groups of critics interested
in former Buffalo Sabres’ coach, Lindy Ruff, the Ruffians, har, har...). Yet, I
believe the qualitative nature of “Shakespeare” stands apart from most in its sheer
longevity and malleability. To that effect, Michael Bristol’s claim in Big-Time
Shakespeare that Shakespeare retains “extraordinary currency in contemporary
culture” continues to resonate partly because the of the ease with which the grammatical
field of Shakespeare permeates modern discourse.
This
modularity extends beyond the meritorious. To someone with an aversion to
Shakespeare, the term “Shakespearean” might end up meaning very little. Conversely,
someone that has never read any of his works will think of the adjectives as channelling
a yellowed and antiquated relic.
Straddling
a four-century gap “Shakespearean” reach a level of personal opinion where acts
as somewhat of a glass prism, transforming incoming light into an array of colored
spectrum (wow, that’s enough science, I have a headache). This idea is
potentially self-sabotaging to a Shakespearean scholar (see what I did there)
whose book project focuses on the concept “Shakespearean melancholy,” but I
think the point stands that Shakespeare’s iconography resembles a double-edged
sword in this regard. It speaks to the challenge of introducing students to Shakespeare,
when the name continues to morph and be disseminated in everyday conversation,
culture, and technologies.
In
the end—and this is where my romantic view of literature swoops in—this messy
lexical situation attests to intrinsic value of works by Shakespeare, whatever
that word truly means. A few years ago, an undergrad student, having asked the
topic of my dissertation, had coyly remarked that it must have been difficult
to write on Shakespeare since everything had already been written. My reply had
been that my fascination with Shakespeare was rooted that the incredible
staying power of thirty-seven plays that survived countless technological
innovations, the rise of literary theory, and a veritable cultural explosion. Shakespearean,
by any other name, carries on in a multiplicity of incarnations, providing
perhaps the most interesting forum in which Madonna and a Cylon can interact.
RANDOM EXCITEMENT OF THE WEEK:
I’m very eager to hear Gail Kern Paster speak on Monday, as part of
an initiative from McGill University’s Institute for the Public Life of Arts
and Ideas (IPLAI). Her work has been instrumental to my own in many ways, and I
will do my best to resist my inner academic groupie when meeting her.
RANDOM SMOOSHY FACE OF THE WEEK:
I should quickly explain my personal etymology of “smooshy face”: a
smooshy face refers to an expression of mild annoyance, disappointment, or
anger at everyday occurrences. It was created and coined by Emily,[1]
and has been part of our relationship vernacular ever since.
My smooshy face of the week goes to the lack of light. Though I was
very grateful to gain an extra hour of sleep on time change day, I cannot but
think that such ephemeral bliss is of no avail against the increasingly dim
afternoons that November inevitably ushers in. I remember thinking, while working
away at my dissertation on Shakespearean melancholy, that grey November
afternoons were the hardest during which to read and write on sorrow, bleakness
and idleness. It also makes running harder (then again, I don’t need lack of
light to find running hard). When jogging in the dark at five o’clock, I cannot
help but think of the lines “by the clock, 'tis day, / And yet dark night
strangles the travelling lamp” in Macbeth. So, November, you get my very
first smooshy face!
RANDOM SHOUT OUT:
Emily[2]
and I watched Longtime Companion this week. I hadn’t seen it in over
fifteen years. It is a powerful, gut-wrenching film that is worth seeing if
only for Bruce Davison and Mark Lamos’ performances. It offers a brilliant
sketch of the advent of the AIDS epidemic throughout the American homosexual
communities of the 1980s. It’s a very moving story that simultaneously act as a
testament to the progress made in AIDS awareness and the search for a cure, but
also, of the disease’s prejudicial phantoms that still persist today It was
also very interesting to contemplate its treatment of the social and communal
ramifications of an epidemic disease (I could not help but think of Susan
Sontag’s seminal work on the subject while watching). There will be much more on
this topic in an upcoming blog, since I am very interested in Shakespeare’s
treatment and contagious diseases on the renaissance stage.
That’s it for now. I hope this first post was enjoyable. I will try
and post regularly and continue unpacking thoughts, rambles and general musings
that punctuate my views on Renaissance literature.
And the rest and silence… and the crunching of Doritos.
[1] DISCLAIMER: Emily is my wife, best friend, and the
single-most scintillating aspect of my life. She will make several appearances
in this blog, until she eventually gains more popularity, takes over its
publication, and goes on to host a syndicated talk-show with a monkey co-host.
[2]
See, she’s already back!
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