Year: 2005

How to Memorize Shakespeare

~ duane ~ 62 Comments

Six Word ShakespeareBeen told that you have to memorize Shakespeare? Been there, done that. Probably Romeo and Juliet, right? Balcony scene? You’re not alone. You probably resent the assignment. You’ve probably already tried it and aren’t doing too well, and are looking for ideas.

I’m with you. I think the whole concept of “Memorize Shakespeare, it’ll be good for you” might be the worst thing that teachers do when it comes to the subject. Because they do it all backwards. You have no context for the words, you’ve probably been told “don’t even think about watching the movie until after you read the script,” and you probably don’t really care in general. You’re just doing it because you’ve been told to do it, and you want to get it done as soon as possible.

I have an easy way to demonstrate how bad of an idea this really is. Let’s take a song that I like. Say, Astronomy Domine, by Pink Floyd. It helps if you’ve never heard it. Now, memorize it. Why? Because I said so. Because I’ve told you that it has value, and I’m the teacher, and I’m in a position to punish you if you fail. Do it on time, too, or else you fail.

Memorize Shakespeare, It's Totally Worth ItEven if you succeed, do you think you’ll ever like that song? Sure, maybe you could recognize it and even pull a few lines out of your memory, but would you know what the words mean? Would you care? Not likely. Very early on in your education I’m quite sure that they started watching for something called “reading comprehension,” which means that you can do more than just repeat the words, you can actually understand the meaning of what it is that you’re saying.

So why isn’t this true with Shakespeare? The way it is positioned — memorize first, understand second, appreciate last (if ever) is just totally backwards. The most important thing to you has to be just being able to mindlessly repeat the words so that you can pass the assignment. And you then promptly forget them after you get your passing grade.

How To Memorize Shakespeare

So having said all that, I can finally get to the tips. Some ideas for you, in no special order:

  • See if your teacher will let you memorize a passage of your choice. Many will, assuming that it is of an acceptable length. This gives you more freedom in finding a passage that is more comfortable for you. Some people find the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet just too sappy to take seriously. So maybe take something from the great sword fight that Romeo and Tybalt have in Act Three? Or even something from the Chorus at the very beginning. Juliet’s “Gallop apace, you fiery footed steeds…” bit is great, once you realize that she’s basically hanging out at the window saying “I wish it would hurry up and get dark so Romeo can get here.”
  • See the movie! How are you supposed to know what these words sound like if you don’t hear someone speak them? To memorize Shakespeare, remember he wrote plays not novels. His words were meant to be performed. If your teacher insists that you not do this, then ask if you can complete the assignment by copying down the words instead of reciting them. If you only memorize what the words look like on paper, no one can expect you to know what they’re supposed to sound like.
  • Get some context for the words, by any means necessary. Ask somebody who has read the play, if you can’t see the movie. You need to have some clue about what the words mean, otherwise I could just as well ask you to memorize “blue garbage cat does triangle five table hands title”… or any other string of random words. In the balcony scene, Romeo hides in the bushes and sees Juliet come out onto the balcony. He’s talking to himself, trying to find words to describe how beautiful she is, how she stands out against the night sky (that’s where all that “Juliet is the sun” stuff comes from). Juliet, meanwhile, is also talking to herself out loud, saying “Of all the men in the world, how come I had to fall in love with one of my family’s mortal enemies?”
  • Find the rhythm in what you’re memorizing, as if it were music. This is poetry, after all. As you read it, tap your hand along and try to get the appropriate dah DAH dah DAH dah DAH sound.  But SOFT what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS, it IS the EAST…
  • Try to group the lines into a logical set. Usually one “line” is not a complete sentence. Shakespeare did tend to be wordy. “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” is a complete sentence, but it is a question. So what’s the answer? “It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
  • “Practice” by keeping an ear open for other lines in the play that stuck in your head. It’s actually easier to memorize 20 individual lines scattered around the play than it is to memorize 20 in a row. Much of the difficulty in trying to memorize Shakespeare monologues is just plain lack of confidence. You get a block that says “I can’t do it” and thus you can’t. But once you realize that you’ve already memorized a bunch of lines without even trying, that mental block tends to go away.
  • Try to remember that these are indeed people talking to other people, trying to get their point across. Put some emotion into the words. That’s one of the reasons that I say to try finding a passage that you really like. When I was in high school and memorized the balcony scene, there were 4 boys and 4 girls in the class and we were paired up to recite it. And, of course, all of us were painfully shy over the whole prospect, since if we actually did it well, then we’d have to endure endless speculation that we must like each other (ewwwwwww). I remember deliberately doing it badly just to avoid that. So maybe try a scene where Romeo is angry (like after the death of Mercutio), or when Juliet actually stands up for herself.

Break a leg!

Try not to let the experience of trying to memorize Shakespeare make you hate it for life. There’s some good stuff in there, if you listen for it. Twenty years after this homework assignment is over you’ll be so much happier recalling a line here and there that you understand and enjoy, than trying to remember a lengthy passage with no special meaning to you at all.
More Stories on Memorizing…

I’m a Shakespeare Developer!

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

Town seeks Shakespeare Developer — Stratford Star

I couldn’t pass up the headline. Being the geek I am I saw it and immediately my brain flooded with all my past ideas about computer programs that intermix the complete works of the Bard, and somebody actually wanting to pay for them.

Too good to be true. Turns out that they want construction people to bid on restoring and operating their American Shakespeare Theatre.

Reading Shakespeare = Playing Chess ?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

So I’ve been discussing Shakespeare quite a bit lately. I’m finally getting into a stride where I have a number of sources of good discussion to keep me going and not just lecture my coworkers. I also started playing SuDoku this week as well, which has gotten me thinking about chess and “game trees” (have I mentioned how much of a geek I am?)

chess pieces

What I thought of last night is just how similar “analyzing” Shakespeare is to a good game of chess. Mathematically speaking, the number of possible positions in a chess game is effectively infinite. Much like, say, the number of interpretations of Hamlet. The so-called “best” positions, though, are the ones that have been traveled the most and studied for years by the masters. They have come to be the best not because it’s been proven to be so (otherwise, there would never be any upsets in a chess game, it would be ‘solved’ as we say in computer speak). Part of chess is to listen to the experts all look at the same board and say, “Here is what I would do in this position, and why…” and “Past masters in this situation did the following.” The only definition of a “wrong” move is one that can be demonstrated to be wrong, aka one that loses the game for you. Even if all the masters say that the right move is knight to d4, and you opt instead to go Queen to b6, then you certainly have that option. But you’d better be in a position to prove why your move is better than the recommended one. It might seem impossible since there is such a vast body of knowledge already in place that tells you to do something else. But if you believe strongly enough that your move is correct, then go for it. You might be right. You might change the wisdom.

The parallels to thinking about Hamlet are just outstanding. Is Hamlet insane, or not? There’s no right answer – there’s just the answer that the “masters” have, for the most part, come to agree upon. If you feel that there is sufficient evidence for both options (or branches of the game tree), then it is up to you personally to decide which you feel is stronger. The same strategy can be applied throughout the whole play. Whenever there is a crucial question, you can say “What does popular opinion say?” and simply take it using the “Others know better than me” approach, or else you can peek under the covers and realize that there are actually many options at each of these points, and you can find a substantial bit of evidence for all of them. Then you get to decide which you like better.

Who knows, you might suddenly discover that an idea has come to you based entirely on how you’ve read the play thus far, and now you go from the other direction, you ask yourself, “My idea is X, what’s the popular opinion on that?” Not “is it right or wrong” but “what have other people thought about it?” And, again, you decide for yourself whether you buy it or not.

In chess, there is an “end game”. That is, the final sequence of moves where you have less and less choice about what is going to happen. If you’ve played well thus far, you will be on top during the end game and, hopefully, be victorious. If you have not, then you’ll suddenly discover that you made a mistake a dozen moves ago, and it’s been inevitable ever since. (This is almost exactly where that sudoku puzzle thing I mentioned resembles chess. You fill in a square that you think is right, but only 12 moves later do you realize it was a mistake, and you have to go all the way back). The interpretation of the play is the same way. If you hit your first crucial question and choose an interpretation, but then by the end of the game, you’re saying, “Wait, now, that doesn’t make sense….” then you have to consider going back and revising your answer.

The crucial difference, of course, is that a chess game must end, and there is a winner and a loser. Technically, I suppose, you could have winners and losers of Shakespeare interpretation if you staged all the various combinations and then looked to see which ones bombed at the box office :). But that’s pushing my metaphor a bit.

Just something to think about when you’re cruising through the plays looking for the “right” answer to some fundamental question. Chances are there’s no right answer any more than there is a “right” move in the middle of a grandmaster chess game. Is Hamlet insane or not? Does Gertrude know about the murder or not? What do *you* think?