In Other Words
Monday, August 20th, 2007
Via News on the Rialto we find an article about comic book versions of Shakespeare’s plays with updated simplified language:
Shakespeare’s plays are being rewritten as comic strips for pupils who find his poetry boring, it emerged today.
Thousands of teenagers are to study cartoon versions of famous plays such as Macbeth which reduce finely-crafted passages to snappy phrases.
The publishers hope the comics – illustrated by artists who have worked on the Spiderman series – will inspire disaffected readers with a love of the Bard’s plays.
No disrespect to Spiderman, but this won’t instill anyone with a love for anything, and certainly not the Bard’s plays. Shakespeare writes using the language of poetry, which means that every word choice is significant. The interplay, music, and structure of the language is fundamental in Shakespeare’s development of plot, character, and theme. You can’t just use your Spidey sense to paraphrase this stuff and call it Shakespeare.
The Shakespeare Geek demonstrates why.
I actually like the idea of comic book versions of Shakespeare plays, as long as they use the original language. You can even abbreviate the language in comic book form. But once you take away the language, you are no longer reading Shakespeare. It’s not even dumbed-down Shakespeare. You may as well just read something else.
For example, you may wish to read these comic books that deal with delicate problems for children. It seems that even Spiderman has a secret.
That’s what you get for messing with Shakespeare.