tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post1019513896842652656..comments2024-03-28T22:51:28.222+05:30Comments on The Middle Stage: Anjum Hasan and the Indian ShakespeareChandrahashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483080477755487202noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-20278807511930808382010-02-23T13:47:03.526+05:302010-02-23T13:47:03.526+05:30Quite a treasury about the bard! I always thought ...Quite a treasury about the bard! I always thought that once you got beyond the gulf of space and time that the language represents(the Cambridge texts were good enough for me)they are as racy as any blockbuster and the infinite sweetness ("sweet silent choirs") and plasticity( the passage in Macbeth starting "never shall sun that morrow see) of language. Ofcorse, it's idolatory if we allow him to become our fullstop.SM Ranahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556009179966236972noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-5467449412385165602008-07-03T13:27:00.000+05:302008-07-03T13:27:00.000+05:30Sumana and Aishwarya - I agree with the points you...Sumana and Aishwarya - I agree with the points you have made. But I also imagine that it is as hard for teachers in Indian colleges to stress the performative side of Shakespeare as it is the linguistic side. The words are the route into the action, and the words can be very hard to get across to students. I remember my own resistance to Shakespeare as an undergraduate when I say this.<BR/><BR/>Aishwarya, I'm not sure if the Gero essay is published in a book. But I will email it to you. You might also want to read Gero's essay "Art and the Human Experience", which begins with a quote from Hamlet. It is here:<BR/><BR/>http://mason.gmu.edu/~egero/Resources/CosmosRemarks.htmlChandrahashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07483080477755487202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-90849231095700114862008-07-01T05:43:00.000+05:302008-07-01T05:43:00.000+05:30I was very lucky to be taught Shakespeare in colle...I was very lucky to be taught Shakespeare in college by a teacher whose primary interest was drama. So there was a great deal of focus on how the plays would have <I>worked</I> historically, what one could do with them, etc. I think at the undergraduate level there <I>is</I> a tendency towards the "take notes - 'Shakespeare is the Greatest English Writer'" school of teaching though.<BR/><BR/>The excerpts from the Gero essay are wonderful - is there a particular collection I should look for?Aishwaryahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12871059152281065272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-35820147169291259062008-06-28T12:27:00.000+05:302008-06-28T12:27:00.000+05:30And have you noticed, Chandrahas, that very few pe...And have you noticed, Chandrahas, that very few people in India even use David Garrick as reference material in classroom teaching? We have "diminished" Shakespeare in scope by dragging him from the stage - which is where he moves with energy and freedom - to the metaphorical mouseprint and bound covers of a Macmillan text! Sumanasumana001https://www.blogger.com/profile/07145791768599143668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-39675923122562724472008-06-25T19:51:00.000+05:302008-06-25T19:51:00.000+05:30Aishwarya - I thank you for your very kind words.I...Aishwarya - I thank you for your very kind words.<BR/><BR/>I think I struggled to love Shakespeare even when I was in college in Delhi, which is why I feel now that the way we were taught to deal with him only emphasised the stuffed-tiger aspect of him. I think it was only after I began to work in words seriously myself that I began to see the genius of the Shakespearean line, and the colour, jaggedness and dexterity of his phrasing.<BR/><BR/>If I ever had to teach Shakespeare - the prospect is unlikely, which allows me to think about it freely - I think I would want to emphasise the oral and performative aspect of him, and get students to read reports by Shakespearean actors such as this one by Edward Gero (from an essay called "In Love With Shakespeare" which sadly I could not link to, as it's not online):<BR/><BR/>"I love to see students’ faces when asked what the iambic pentameter rhythm feels like, sounds like ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM ba DUM. ‘My God, a heartbeat!’ ‘Just so,’ I say. Shakespeare uses the most natural rhythm from the body. But he varies that rhythm, and in that variety he clues us into the qualities of thoughts and emotions that correspond to the literal sense of the line. In Henry V, he is militaristic: DUM DUM DUM da da DUM DUM DUM DUM DUM (‘Once more, unto the breech, dear friends, once more.’) Whereas in King Lear, he is agitated: DUM ba ba DUM ba ba DUM DUM ba DUM DUM (‘Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!’)<BR/><BR/>"Shakespeare imbeds these emotions in the secret language of rhythm. Rhythm, too, has meaning, primitive in nature, immediate. Unlocking the connection of rhythm to meaning in language challenges us to open our ears and our senses in a new way. We must allow language to work on us in ways beyond our comfortable, intellectual way. It rumbles in our chests like a heart beat; it howls and cries and moans and exalts in its sound. Like great jazz, it syncopates and shuffles; it rolls and has rim shots."<BR/><BR/>"The secret language of rhythm" - that is one of the most beguiling, rapturous things one takes away from Shakespeare and indeed from all of great literature.Chandrahashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07483080477755487202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-35726961407122223472008-06-25T01:03:00.000+05:302008-06-25T01:03:00.000+05:30Chandrahas - wonderful essay.My school textbook ha...Chandrahas - wonderful essay.<BR/>My school textbook had the Double, double toil and trouble bit from <I>Macbeth</I>, but for some reason it was left out of the course and I never found out what the CBSE wished us to learn from it.<BR/><BR/>I actually started out thinking Shakespeare was an overrated writer of melodrama (in my defense, <I>most</I> teenagers are insufferable) and I only really read and loved him when I was forced to in college.<BR/><BR/><I>This Bardolatry, perversely, has the effect of diminishing our enjoyment and appreciation of Shakespeare, because it defines, a priori, the terms of our engagement with him, instead of giving us the chance to apply our all faculties on Shakespeare’s enormously knotty and complicated language in an open field, as it were.</I><BR/>This is marvellously put!Aishwaryahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12871059152281065272noreply@blogger.com