Review : Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Retold

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

Translating Shakespeare’s plays into modern text is big business.  Personally I’m not a fan, it reads like one of those documents where somebody went through and hit “thesaurus” on every other word.  You get the gist of the moving the plot forward, but you lose the poetry.

So what about the sonnets? The rules are much more strict.  Keep the number of lines, keep the rhyme pattern, keep the number of syllables, keep it iambic. And keep the same meaning.  Could you do it? Could you do it 154 times?

James Anthony can, and I admit I’m pleasantly surprised and impressed. In Shakespeare’s Sonnets Retold he’s admirably taken up the challenge, and the finished product has the potential to be quite useful, and entertaining along the way.

Modern readers don’t just need help figuring out what Hamlet, Romeo, and Juliet are saying.  The sonnets aren’t exactly the most readable, either.  From fairest creatures we desire increase? What?

How about, “We strive to procreate with gorgeous folk?”

Sure, maybe some readers still have to run to the glossary for “procreate,” but the author’s got to keep it family friendly (and keep it three syllables). But the chances of the modern reader “getting it” just went up a hundredfold. Especially when you get a feel for the rest of sonnet number one:

We strive to procreate with gorgeous folk
So that our beauty won’t capitulate.
We reach a ripe old age; but then we croak.
Our memories live through offspring we create.
But you’re in love with you and you alone,
So self consumed your face is all you see
Depriving us of children of your own
And hence you are your own worst enemy.
Now you are young and walking in your prime
Well set to raise a daughter or a son
But you’re content to piss away your time
And — silly fool! — your days will soon be done.
Take pity on your world or go awry
Have children now for one day you will die.

Many times I (and I’m sure many others) have summarized the procreation sonnets (ha! I didn’t even get the connection in the first line!) as, “Hey dummy, blah blah blah you’re young and your beautiful, but you’re not going to live forever, so how about you get cracking and have some beautiful kids?” I get that message loud and clear in Anthony’s translation. The words jump out at you – children, daughter, son, offspring…ripe old age, croak, piss away your time, days are done, one day you’ll die.

I think that’s where this book has value.  Do you feel intimidated by the sonnets? I do. I have several copies of the sonnets lying around the house, it’s the kind of gift people send me. But I wouldn’t say that I’m confident in my understanding of them. There’s a handful that I have studied. For the rest it’s more like, “I think I know what that means, but I’m not sure I could teach it to someone else. Sure sounds nice, though.” Anthony’s book is the first side by side modern translation I have, so it’ll be nice to have that, “Ohhhhh, that’s what that means!” moment of revelation from time to time.

Definitely a cool addition to the collection.

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated.  If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.

 

RIP Stan Lee

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

In tribute to Stan Lee I was really hoping the word Excelsior appeared somewhere in Shakespeare’s work, but I could not find it.

However, about a month ago I did ask which Shakespeare stories would have made good superhero stories, and got many responses.  So I thought I’d gather them all together in one place, so that it will come back up as a “Best Of” over the years and we can appreciate the man all over again.


Superhero ShakespeareLink to the original tweet.

Hamlet is mentioned twice, as the “brooding” “superhero of doubt”.

Troilus and Cressida is also mentioned twice since most of the characters are mythical heroes in the first place.

Coriolanus is mentioned three times, but since I said it the first time maybe I skewed the results.  “He’s Captain America for Rome.”

Surprisingly (to me), Titus Andronicus showed up three times as well, for being a “hyper-violent edgy 80s comic gorefest.”

Alongside Coriolanus in the “Wait, I didn’t read that one in high school!” category, Cymbeline and Pericles also received a vote 😉 Pericles actually got two.

In total twelve different plays were suggested, which goes to show that the potential for a superhero story is all in the mind of the reader.   Imagination is everything.

If anybody needs me I’ll be waiting patiently for the next Avengers movie, hoping for a Stan Lee cameo, so I can cheer my head off. Excelsior!

 

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated.  If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.

Surpassing My Expectations [ A Geeklet Story ]

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I’ve been waiting years for my kids to reach the point in school where we can actually talk about Shakespeare because it’s their homework. My oldest is now reading The Tempest.  So I get to have conversations like this:

Her:  “We did get to read in class today. So, that was fun.”

Me: “And did you get a chance to actually stand up and maybe put a little something into it? Or was everybody just heads down blah blah blah’ing their way through it with no changing their delivery at all?”

Her:  “I did my best.  But, I have a question.  There’s a word…abhor something? Abhorred?”

Me: “Abhorrent, maybe?”

Her: “No, I’m pretty sure it was abhorred.  How many syllables is that?”

Me: “Sounds like two, but I’d have to look.”

Her: “That’s what I thought, because if it was three, then the line doesn’t come out right.”

…and it was at that point that I realized that while I’m just happy that she gets to read the words out loud, she went ahead and jumped to seeking out the iambic pentameter and trying to “respect the verse”.  Can you stand it? So proud I could burst at times like that.

She then went on to tell me that she was annoyed by how some lines started with a capital letter, reminding me that we’ve still got so much to talk about 🙂

For the curious, here’s the speech:

PROSPERO
This blue-eyed hag was hither brought with child
And here was left by the sailors. Thou, my slave,
As thou report’st thyself, wast then her servant;
And, for thou wast a spirit too delicate
To act her earthy and abhorr’d commands,
Refusing her grand hests, she did confine thee,
By help of her more potent ministers
And in her most unmitigable rage,
Into a cloven pine; within which rift
Imprison’d thou didst painfully remain
A dozen years; within which space she died
And left thee there; where thou didst vent thy groans
As fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island–
Save for the son that she did litter here,
A freckled whelp hag-born–not honour’d with
A human shape.

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated.  If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.

Sixteen Rude Mechanical Candles [ A Geeklet Story ]

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My daughter turned on the television this weekend and asked me, “What’s Sixteen Candles about?” because that’s what happened to be on.  That particular movie’s gotten a lot of hate lately as being out of touch with that whole thing called “consent,” but I wasn’t prepared to start that conversation spontaneously on a Sunday afternoon.

“That’s an old comedy from the 80’s that didn’t age very well, people don’t like it very much anymore,” I said.

“But what’s it *about*?”

“Well, there’s this girl who is having a very tough day because her parents are so off in their own world doing their own thing that they forget her sixteenth birthday.”

“That’s not good.”

“Exactly. And of course she’s in love with the most handsome guy in school, but he doesn’t care, because he’s dating the most popular girl in school. Meanwhile, the nerd of the school is totally in love with her and following her around all over the place.”

“Oh!” she said, “Like Midsummer Night’s Dream!”

“…” I replied.  “Not really like Midsummer Night’s Dream, no.  But I’m probably going to get a blog post out of the fact that you said that.”

“Is it weird that the first thing I thought of was Midsummer Night’s Dream?”

“I love that that’s the first thing you thought of.  That makes me very happy.”

The more I think about it I’m guessing she put Molly Ringwald into the Helena role?  Wants the one guy, but he’s got no interest because he’s already got a girlfriend, meanwhile this other creep is stalking her?  It’s not a bad match.  I just never put Lysander and Demetrius into the “jock” and “nerd” categories before. I love that my kids see Shakespeare even in places where I don’t.

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer prevention awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated.  If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.

What Do You Not Know?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

I’ve said it before and I’m sure I’ll say it again, one of my favorite things in life is when people come up to me and want to talk about Shakespeare. Especially those people who I don’t normally get to speak with, because makes for an extra bond with someone I would not otherwise have had.

But I don’t know everything, and I hope I don’t give the impression that I pretend to.  So very often what will happen is somebody will want to talk about something that I have no idea about, either because I’ve just never thought of it, or maybe because I haven’t even read the play they’re referencing.

You ever find yourself in that situation?  What do you do?

Personally I welcome it.  I’ll say without hesitation, “You know, honestly? I don’t know. I’m not familiar enough with that play. But it’s an excellent question, and now I want to find out the answer.”  And typically I’ll turn to you good folks and ask for you to education me, so that if the question ever comes up again, I’ll have thoughts on the subject.  A reason for me to learn more about my favorite subject?  Yes please! It’s one of the reasons I’m reminded that I really do love this stuff and I’m not kidding myself. Nobody makes me do that. I do that because I want to do that.

How about you? I figured out a long time ago that many of the people that read my site are much smarter than I am, and usually have the answers to my questions. How often do you run into the situation where somebody asks you a question about Shakespeare where you’ve got nothing?  Do you hem and haw and hedge and try to fill in the blank?  Or do you just come right out and say, “I have no idea”?

Assuming that this does happen sometimes (i.e. that you don’t know everything), do you care to fill in those gaps in your knowledge?  Or do you just walk away from the encounter without really giving it much thought?

This month’s posts are sponsored by No Shave November. To help raise cancer awareness, and some money along the way, all proceeds from this month’s advertising, merchandise and book sales are being donated.  If you’d like to support the site by supporting the cause, please consider visiting my personal fundraising page linked above, where you can make a direct donation.